What is Binladenism?
The latest issue of the New York Review of Books has a thoughtful review of recent books on Jihad and Binladenism by Max Rodenbeck. Some of the discussion draws a comparison between decontextualised calls for Jihad and the aimless anger of anarchist groups operating in Europe in the 1970s (such as the Red Brigade). Olivier Roy suggests that, despite the Islamic discourse adopted by bin Laden and others, their method and position is peculiarly western:
“The real genesis of Al Qaeda violence has more to do with a Western tradition of individual and pessimistic revolt for an elusive ideal world than with the Koranic conception of martyrdom”.
This seems to me to be a more useful approach to modern violence of this kind than recent attempts to identify the harmful ideology behind the attacks in London or Sharm el-Sheikh. In the UK, a lot of attention has recently been paid to the fiery clerics operating in Britain who are thought to have inspired the London bombers. This is relevant and useful, but at the end of the day, the violence is carried out not by those clerics, but by their hearers. Comparisons with 1970s anarchists, or even with their 19th century forebears in Russia, suggests that it is nihilism in search of the cause that is the constant in the most savage acts of this kind. Looking at Binladenism, it seems that nihilism is the essence and the pursuit of a caliphate is the accidence. Which leads to the conclusion that defeating the ideology of Binladenism will bring only temporary respite from acts like 9/11 and the London bombings.
(Incidentally, the New York Review of Books publishes some excellent articles on the Middle East, many of which are free on the website. This issue has an illuminating essay on the Ahmadinejad phenomenon in Iran by Christopher de Bellaigue, and a somewhat alarmist look at rising Iranian influence in Iraq by Peter Galbraith. Last month had an essay on the PA and Hamas by Robert Malley and Hussein Agha).
Categories: Political Islam, Terrorism.
I absolutely agree that ideology plays a more decorative than functional role for Jihadists, especially the footsoldiers. However, I think that narcissism is at least as important a psychological motivater as nihilism.
Whether brought up in the west or in a middle-class background in the Muslim world, what unites today’s jihadi terrorists is the acceptance of the individualist culture of the west, without the personal responsibility (which exists as an ideal, if not always in practice) for one’s actions that can make this individualism a force for progress. Unlike their parents, they are not part of a larger body, they are important in and of themselves. And, at the same time, lost in a system that has empowered them, but left them without the familiar social anchors.
What could be easier than exploiting this narcissism by convincing the alienated educated that terrorist acts will make them heroic defenders of the faith – a Leninist vanguard, if you will, that must suffer the ignorance of the masses in their own community as only a temporary obstacle to the enlightenment that their actions will bring.
Peter Galbraith seems to be acting as the main cheerleader for Kurdish independence and the break up of Iraq. This sudden conversion to the right of minorities to secede is in contrast to his hands on role as US Ambassador to Zagreb in the 1990s when US airpower was key to Operation Storm’s crushing of the secessionist Krajina Serbs.
Still, he’s very right about the dangers of Islamists pose to minority rights, and its naive to downplay them as ‘alarmist’ - or for that matter see the Islamists as some sort of vehicle for reform in the Middle East. They might be in favour of democracy, but only on their terms.