Religion, Violence and Terrorism: History, Ideology, and Globalization

2. Religion, Violence and Terrorism: History, Ideology, and Globalization James Wellman SIS 201. February 25, 2009 Associate Professor, Comparative Religion Program Jackson School of International Studies

3. Jessica Stern, “Terror in the Name of God” • “Writing this book has helped me to understand that religion is a kind of technology. It is terribly seductive in its ability to sooth and explain, but it is also dangerous. Converts such as the one I visited as a child (a Christian saint) make good people better, but they don’t necessarily make bad people good. They might even make bad people worse.” xxvii

4. Religion in the Modern World: Three Types of Relation to State Powers Religion has capacity to sustain states, legitimize their defense, creating forms of just war, preemptive war (crusades/jihad) (US Iraq War, Umayyad Empire) Religion has the capacity to mobilize and motivate small groups to resist states—that is act as non-state actors (secret cells) to undercut and even overthrow political oppression (Algeria, Iran) Occasionally, religion can mobilize and motivate nonviolent resistance in states (Gandhi’s India) or against states, Martin Luther King’s African American Christian liberation movement for American Civil Rights against the US government

5. My own Definition of Religion • Religion is a system of symbols, • composed of beliefs, • embodied in ritual practices, • developed in a communal setting, • often institutionally legitimated, • which negotiates and interacts with a power or force that is experienced as within and beyond the self and group; • this power or force is most often referred to as god/spirit or gods/spirits. • The symbolic and social boundaries of religion mobilize group identity; create conflict and, more rarely, violence within and between groups.

6. What are the sources of religion’s power? • Affective events/experience • Plausible, though non-verifiable truth claims and rewards

7. 1. Affective Events: Internal Combustion Engine of Religion • The powerful affective events and experiences of religion, embodied in ritual action and mystical practice, formulated through systems of belief and story. (Creates an engine that never runs out of fuel). • This nexus of experience and practice a core of religion’s internal combustion engine that fuels individual leaders and their groups—whether persecuted minorities or majorities.

8. 2. Truth Claims: Pistons in the Engine • Truth claims are the second piston of the religious engine • Claims to truth. What is the truth is based on, faith • Confidence is always the big issue for religion/ spiritual experience • Thus, leadership must nurture confidence, spiced with this worldly and other worldly rewards • Rewards are non-empirical but cannot be disconfirmed

9. What is the Source of Religious Violence?Worldview, Leadership and Context • Complex mixture of religious worldview, cultural context and religious leadership. • Religions are extraordinarily flexible and plastic, depending on context and leadership; isomorphic—shadowing/dancing with social systems • David Martin: “Religion and state are isomorphic.” • Religion often mimics power; partnering with it and at times resisting it. • Religion/state partnership, powerful aphrodisiac—both become greedy for power.

10. What is the Source of Religious Violence?Worldview • Religious Worldview that creates violence: • Religious worldview-cosmology has symbolic resources to create total religious world • Religious worldview can be this-worldly or other-worldly • The transcendental demand (hope) that the cosmic religious vision become embodied, politically/culturally

11. What is the Source of Religious Violence?Leadership • Religious Leadership • Most often led by young and aggressive male leadership that is educated with access to material resources; second level elites • Belief that they have become agents of the vision • Belief that the vision demands human initiative • Belief that the cosmic visions rationalizes the use of violence for a larger moral imperative; Soren Kierkegaard, “Teleological suspension of the ethical.”

12. What is the Source of Religious Violence?Cultural Context • Cultural Context that facilitates/shapes violence • Partnership between religious state and religion; suppression of any alternative forms of religion • Secular state with religious majority; minority other religions are suppressed • Secular state that enforces a majority religion; minority religions are suppressed, some religions become energized by persecution

13. Religion: From Tribe to State • Jared Diamond’s Gun, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies (Norton, 2005) • In bands and tribes (small human groups), no need for institutionalized religion • But in chiefdoms and states (groups over 50,000) division of labor takes over, specialization, institutionalized religions arrives—what’s its purpose?

14. Religion: From Tribe to State • Jared Diamond’s Gun, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies (Norton, 2005) • States are forms of kleptocracy: centers of powers that take from margins to sustain/enrich themselves • This needs justification, for Diamond, institutionalized religions do the work of legitimation

15. Religion: From Tribe to State • Jared Diamond’s Gun, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies (Norton, 2005) • Religion creates ritual, temples are built, and a hierarchy is sacralized to support the powers that be • Two benefits: • Religions provide a reason for a state populace not to kill those who are unrelated by kinship • Religious ideologies give people a reason to sacrifice themselves for the sake of the groups (tribes/bands don’t do sacrificial patriotism)

16. Religion, Terror and Public Policy • “Any policy that seeks to conquer Muslim societies in order, deliberately, to transform their culture is folly.” Robert Pape, Dying to Win, (Chicago 2005). • No suicide terrorism in Iraq in its history; • 03: 20; 04:50; 05:75; 06/07: hundreds? • Not ideology, but occupation

17. What is Suicide Terrorism? • Suicide • Egoistic • Altruistic

18. What is Suicide Terrorism? • Terrorism • Violence (verbal/physical) by organization, other than a national government to intimidate a target • Gain supporters/ coerce opponents • Demonstrative • Destructive • Suicidal

19. Cause of Suicide Terrorism? • Political Occupation: control of local government • Religious Difference: • Demonizing: Enemy • Ideology of us vs. them • Essentializes national identity

20. History of Suicide Terrorism: Rare • Jewish Zealots, 66 ce – 70 • Zealots was also known in Latin as sicarii, "daggermen“ • Killing collaborators • Killing Romans, • Inciting rebellion A drawing of Herod's Temple in Jerusalem

21. Ismaili Assassins: 12th Century • Northern Iran; Muslim order, Hashshashin • Offshoot of Shia order • Secret underground to destroy Abbasid Caliphate • Killing Sunni Muslim rulers; Nizam-ul-Mulk; attempts on Salidan; finally, decimated by invading Mongols • Terrorize and overcome ‘felt’ occupation • Intimidate and create fear • De-Throne a corrupt form of religion—collaborators or what they called, “impious usurpers.”

22. Statue of Saladin at the Damascus citadel • Northern Iran; Muslim order, Hashshashin • Shia order • Secret underground destroy Abbasid Caliphate • Killing Muslim rulers; Nizam-ul-Mulk; attempts on Salidan

23. Statue of Saladin at the Damascus citadel • Ṣaladan c. 1138 - March 4, 1193) was a Kurdish Muslim who was Sultan of Egypt and Syria. • He led the Islamic opposition to the Third Crusade. At the height of his power, the Ayyubid dynasty he founded ruled over Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Hejaz, and Yemen. • He led Muslim resistance to the European Crusaders and eventually recaptured part of Palestine from the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem. • He did not maim, kill or retaliate against those whom he defeated.

24. Japanese Kamikazi’s • 1944: Fearing occupation • 3,843 pilots • 375 US naval vessels • 12,300 American soldier die • Fear of occupation and attempting to intimidate the enemy

25. Japanese Kamikaze: Mitsubishi Zero about to hit the USS Missouri

26. Are these Group Members Deranged? • Economically deprived • Social deprived • Cognitively limited • Psychopathological • Costly but not crazy • Intense but not brainwashed • Social networks important

27. Aren’t Suicide Bombers Irrational/ Suicidal? • No specific type: • Most often educated • Married and single • Male and female • Isolated and socially integrated • Most don’t exhibit previous suicidal tendencies • One study found in ME: mostly highly educated, coming from better paying jobs

28. Suicide Bombing: Poverty? • Most countries associated with terrorism between 1980 and 2001: • Mid range GNP per capita: • Algeria, 111 • Egypt, 121 • Saudi Arabia, 139 • India, 162 • West Bank, 112 • Extreme poverty, over 200

29. Suicide Bombings: Islamists? • 315 attacks, between 1980 and 2003 • Islamists associated with half • Tamil Tigers, 76/315, Marxists and secular • Kurdish PKK, guided by secular Marxism

30. Suicide Attacks, Less Rare, more widespread • Less interested in individual motives/ideology • Conditions that create attacks • Strategic logic: aims and goals • Social logic: support by community • Individual logic: persons prepared to die for greater good

31. Attacks Succeed • Suicide car bombing by Hezbollah on US Marines barracks, Lebanon, Oct. 23, 1983; killing 241 Marines • US withdraws • 1985/6 Hezbollah attacks on Israel in Lebanon, partial withdrawal

33. Community Support for Bombers • Most Iraqi’s/ Palestinians/ Saudi Arabians support, believe in Osama Bin Laden and his cause

34. Endless supply of Bombers:Paradise Now (2005)

35. Suicide Bombings: Aim • Political coercion • Target states are primarily democratic; felt to be vulnerable to coercion • Different religion • Increases fear other will try to transform religion • Increases demonization, makes killing easier vs. civilians • Use religion to re-label suicide; overcome taboo against suicide • Creates zero-sum game, no compromise

37. 9/11 • Hijacked 4 planes • Two hit NY Twin Towers • One into the Pentagon • 4th crashes in Somerset County, PA • 2,985 deaths, including 19 hijackers • Hijackers: 15, Saudi Arabia; 2 UAE; 1 Egyptian; 1 Lebanese

38. 1998 Al-Qaeda fatwa • Plunders the resources of the Arabian Peninsula • Dictates policy to the rulers of those countries. • Supports abusive regimes in the Middle East • Has military bases upon the Arabian Peninsula, which violates the Muslim holy land • Creates disunion between Muslim states • Supports Israel, and tacitly maintains the occupation of Palestine

39. Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda

40. Ideology of Islamists • Protest movement against modernization; secularization; westernization • Salafism, Sunni movement; no follower of Iranian/Iraqi Shiism has become al-Qaeda bomber • Salafi: Qur’an, Sunna part of Hadith • Not monolithic; Wahhabism in Saudi Arabia, discourages violence

41. Ideology of Islamists • Egypt, Muslim Brotherhood, 1928, Salafi; distanced itself from its most famous leader, Sayyid Qutb (d. 1966) • Ayman al-Zawahiri, joined Muslim Brotherhood as youth, Egypt; he and bin Laden both dedicated to Qutb, revolution

42. Ideology of Islamists • Salafi and political occupation key factors that create suicide bombers • Salafi influenced nations, 233 million Salafi-oriented peoples, 48 al-Qaeda suicide terrorists, 1 bomber per 5 million Salafi • In non-Salafi, 205 Sunni Muslims, 18 al-Qaeda bombers, 1 per 12 million

43. Roots of Terrorism? • Not irrational; it has an object; it changes and learns from mistakes • Religious Ideology? Pape says no; I say, hm, Salafism is highly correlated with attacks • Nationalism? Occupation by “Infidels” necessary variable for suicide terrorism; is religion the sufficient cause?

44. Who is the Enemy: Terrorism and Public Policy • War on terrorism misses the context and main causes of terrorists • Terrorists don’t become anti-American because they are evil • Arab/ME nations before 2003, largely favorable toward US; toward open markets/democracy

45. Who is the Enemy: Terrorism and Public Policy • After 2003, US favorability rating plummeted; Why? Their evil? No, occupation of Iraq 2000 2003 Turkey 52 15 Morocco 77 27 Pakistan 23 13 Jordan ? 1

46. Felt or Real Occupation • World’s five largest Islamic populations w/out American military presence produced al- Qaeda suicide terrorists, 1 per 71 million • Fifty Five percent of al-Qaeda’s bombers (39/71) come from Persian Gulf region whose population is less than 30 million, but where US has had military troops since 1990

47. What causes the attacks • Al Qaeda never attacked Israel • Hamas never attacked US • Hezbollah only attacked US when stationed in Lebanon • These groups don’t coordinate attacks, they only attack when their territory is occupied or ‘felt’ to be occupied

48. Muslim Views on US Motives • Pakistan, Turkey, Morocco and Jordan: • Believe, overwhelming, US wants to control oil and support Israel • That US not in ME to stop terrorism or to promote democracy • US military, overwhelmingly, threatens their country…shadow of ‘crusader’ • Iraqi’s, Jan 05, 82 % near term US withdrawal

49. Scholarship, Religion and Public Policy • “Any policy that seeks to conquer Muslim societies in order, deliberately, to transform their culture is folly.” Robert Pape, Dying to Win, (Chicago 2005). • Another good book: • Bruce Lincoln’s Holy Terror, (Chicago, 2004).