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In the Name of God
Global Alliance against Terrorism
for a Just Peace
Collection of Papers Presented at
The International Conference on
Global Alliance against Terrorism for a Just Peace
(May 14 -15, 2011)
Islamic World Peace Forum
2012
IWPF; Global Alliance against Terrorism for a Just Peace, 2012, pp640.
ISBN: 978-964-04-5626-2
National Library of I.R. of Iran Control Number: 2825715
© 2012 IWPF
All rights reserved. This work may not be translated or copied in whole or in
part without the written permission of the publisher, except for brief excerpts in
connection with reviews or scholarly analysis.
The views expressed in this book are those of the authors, and do not necessarily
reflect the views of the IWPF.
www.peacetribune.com
www.iwpeace.com
Global Alliance against Terrorism for a Just Peace, Collection of Papers
Secretary of the Conference: Dr. Davoud Ameri
Editor: Dr. Nader Saed
Supervisors: Dr. S.R. Ameli, Dr. A. Kadkhodaee, Dr. E. Aminzade, Dr. S.F. Mosavi,
Dr. E. Mottaqi, Dr. F. Izadi, Dr. H. Hosseini, Dr. N. Saed, Dr. M.H. Mozaffari.
Publisher: IWPF
Publication Year: 2012
Price: 355000 Rials
ISBN: 978-964-04-5626-2
Contents
Part I: Terrorism; Conceptual and Theoretical Dimensions
Definition of Terrorism and Indictment of State Terrorists..........
Dr. James B. Thring
Terrorism, Perception, and Justice..................................................
Imam Mohammad al- Asi
Jihad and Terrorism: A War of the Words……………………….
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49
Moazzam Begg
Terrorism as a Basis for Islamophobia and Confrontation with
the Muslim World..............................................................................
Dr. Ebrahim Mottaqi
Terrorism: Definition, Causes, and Ways to Fight It.....................
Dr. Bahig Mullah Howeish
Nuclear Terrorism: Theory and Practice.......................................
Dr. Ali Daee
Terrorism: Preliminary Observations............................................
Abdul Rauf AlShayeb
The Perspectives of Islam on Just Peace........................................
65
73
79
93
97
Mohammad Salar
Terrorism: Its Origins and Theoretical Foundations..................... 101
Dr. Rouhollah Ghaderi
Terrorism: Vital Remarks................................................................ 119
Félix Angel Herrero Duran
Terrorism, Need for Unity in Definition.......................................... 123
Saber Nojoumi and Amin Valizadeh
Part II. Terrorism and International Community
The New World Order and Terrorism Implications...................... 135
Dr. Manuel Galiana Ros
Terrorism and Contemporary International Law.......................... 141
Dr. May Alkhansa
A Case History of State Terrorism: The Siddiqui Case............. 153
Dr. Victoria Catherine Brittain
The Great Lie: How the selective implementation and reporting
of incidents of terrorism perpetuate the Lie that Muslims are
mainly responsible for terrorism................................................... 167
Massoud Shadjareh
The Global War on Terror and the Prawn behind the Stone.... 179
Prof. Chandra Muzaffar
US-Israeli State Terrorism Threatens World Peace................... 197
Dr. Mohideen Abdul Kader
The Zionists, “War on Terror” in the Middle East
and the Reshaping of the Muslim World: Pakistan’s Unique
Case Study.......................................................................................
207
Zaid Zaman Hamid
East and West Share a Common World and Must Seek Common
Solutions to Common Problems.......................................................... 231
Dr. Nikolay Slatinski
Tackling Internalised Racism and the Terrorist Agenda of
Divide and Rule............................................................................. 249
Arzu Merali
Self-Defense in Response to Terrorism: Prohibitions and
Limits...........................................................................................
275
Dr. Nader Saed
Democratization and Freedom in the Middle East: Challenges
of Muslim Future.......................................................................... 293
Mirnes Kovac
Crime of Terror in the Case Law of the ICTY..........................
299
Dr. H. Najandimanesh and Z. E. Ghahfarokhi
Some Observations on Global Alliance against Terrorism for
a Just Peace...................................................................................
315
Dr. Cynthia Ann McKinney
Islamic Awakening and the Global Alliance for Peace and
Security..................................................................................... 319
Dr. Hassan Bashir
Interpretation of International Peace and Security According
to the Charter of the United Nations........................................... 323
Dr. S. Qhasem Zamani
Challenges Facing International Humanitarian Law in Fight
against Terrorism.......................................................................... 329
Dr. Pouria Askary
Function of International Dispute Settlement Systems from
Viewpoint of Peace: Weaknesses and Strengths......................... 349
Dr. S. Baqer Mirabbasi
Poverty and Injustice..................................................................... 357
Dr. S. Abdolmajid Mirdamadi
Human Dignity and Right to Peace.............................................. 367
Dr. Mohammad J. Saed
Part III: Media, Cultures and Just Peace
A Critical Approach to American Virtual Colonialism.............. 383
Prof. Saied Reza Ameli
Culture- Means of Mass Communication- Terrorism; an
up- to- date trilogy ........................................................................ 401
Dr. Stergios Katichoritis
Authoritarian Media and Terrorism –Al Jazeera as an
Example...................................................................................... 415
Abdul Hussein Sultan
Terrorism in Misusing Religion for Violence.............................. 427
Dr. Hans Ucko
Modernities, Networks, and Terrorism........................................ 439
Dr. David Hovhannisyan
Imperialism and Preventing the Media Activities against
Terrorism...................................................................................... 447
Mohammad Hassan Akhtari
Inter-Religious Dialogue and Global Peace................................. 453
Dr. Ignatios S. Stavropoulos
Media Terrorism as a Western Weapon....................................... 457
Hassan Abedini
Part IV: Just Peace as a Solution against Terrorism
Terrorism as a Result of fall of Spirituality ................................ 465
Mohammad Ali Taskhiri
Just Peace as the Solution of Terrorism......................................... 471
Prof. Syed Hussain Kamaluddin Akbar
Education of Just Peace for Prevention of Terrorism................ 485
Prof. Massimo De Santi
On “Just Peace” and Peace Education.......................................
493
Prof. Allicia Cabezudo
The State of Divine Justice in the Face of Terrorism................. 505
Prof. Ahmed Rasim Al- Nafees
The World Needs a Just Mechnism to Face International
Terrorism.......................................................................................
511
Sheikh Hasan Ali Al-Triki
Religious Tolerance: Some Observations in the Context of
Islam–West Encounter.................................................................. 515
Prof. Muhamad Suheyl Umar
Joining Forces Globally against Terrorism for the Just
Peace..............................................................................................
555
Dr. János Drábik
The Two-way Symmetrical Communication and a Just Peace:
A Critical Examination of United States Public Diplomacy.... 573
Dr. Foad Izadi
Exploring Non-violent Alternatives to Terrorism...................... 597
Dr. Paul Maillet
The Right to Peace: A Defense-Security Approach...................
Dr. Reza Kalhor
Culture of Peace and Facing Terrorism.....................................
Dr. Zouhair A. Almahmeed
609
613
Preface
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Preface
Terrorism is an inhumane act and a catastrophe for human society. Today
many of the Goverments claim to combat terrorism, yet what we see in
reality throughout the world is that the globe is afflicted with injustice,
violence, whereas the Creator of man has declared it a safe cradle and a
domicile for the thriving of talents and an evolutionary path leading to
him. On the other hand, we observe that all fair people gifted with divine
temperament, disagree with violence and terror. Now the question is why
all these opponents who are somehow recognized as combatants of
terrorism, haven‟t succeeded in bringing about peace and security for
themselves as well as the human race?
The answer to this question may also somehow clarify the various aspects
of terrorism.
The first problem in fighting terrorism is the lack of a precise and clear
definition. For example, one of the researchers on terrorism has compiled
and classified 109 definitions of terrorism.
The second problem is the lack of fairness about terrorism; that is, especially
in the international arena, “Terrorist” has become an easily accessible label
used by certain groups to suppress their opponents and we witness irritation
and arousal of the thoughts and ideas due to such attitudes.
The third challenge in fighting terrorism pertains to today‟s complexities.
In this age, we come across various and numerous methods and means of
terrorism. It is observed that terrorism is not just limited to physically
exterminating people and individuals but evidences also show that
terroristic attacks, in violent and physical modes, have attained a more
deadly characteristic and are also of more variety and quantity
categorized in the economical, cultural, mass media, personal media, and
informative fields and sometimes even the nations‟ entities are the targets
of terrorist attacks. With respect to aforesaid issues, it‟s clear that
combating terrorism is a difficult goal which demands global endeavor;
although governments and international organizations greatly combat this
phenomenon in an organized manner, the man of Twenty First Century
faces serious threat as a result of such violence and terror. This significant
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Against Terrorism for a Just Peace
issue has made civil coordination in the global battle inevitable and
indicates the need for an international alliance in addition to the methods
implemented earlier.
Naturally, among the preliminary requirements of fighting the scourge is
to specify the goal. The Conference on “Global Alliance against
Terrorism”, by inviting international elites who have proved their
endeavors against terrorism and active international NGOs, endeavored to
bring up the subject of „Just Peace‟ as a universal objective to mobilize
numerous groups to combat terrorism in the true sense.
The Conference tried, on the one hand, to offer a definition of terrorism
which is comprehensible to all through international elites‟ synergy, and
on the other hand endeavored to implement a fundamental and cultural
motion to the fight against terrorism through the elites.
This attitude, given the characteristics of the communication age in which
people are interconnected without political and geographical limitations and
every one can play an effective role anywhere in the international arena,
endeavored to increase the legal, cultural and political capacities of the
truthful and real battles against terrorism and accordingly offer a common
conceptual horizon for identifying and redefining terrorism away from the
incomprehensive views or the views biased in favor of political interests.
Peace; Hisorical Process
Human has made enormous endeavors to establish peace, however the
conditions and instability of the world is fast deteriorating. One of the
pathologies related to the structures of the peace processes in the world is
that justice is fading away in the international systems and at
contemporary discourses. The just peace is a discourse for meeting today
and future‟s challenges regarding the just peace for preventing and
countering terrorism. The International Conference on “Global Alliance
against Terrorism for a Just Peace”, held in Tehran in May, sought to
analyze the structure and frameworks of preventing and countering
terrorism. The Conference was organized by the Islamic World Peace
Forum and a number of NGOs.
Today, one of the fundamental challenges in achieving global peace and
justice is terrorism. Basically, to have a realistic viewpoint on peace and
Preface
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justice in the world, and to endeavor to realize it, we should necessarily
adopt a pathological approach to terrorism and we should obviate its
pathologies so as to provide a suitable ground for realization of peace in
the world. Accordingly, the Islamic World Peace Forum, endeavored to
adopt this subject for the future Conference on Tehran.
The alliance that we mean is not an alliance of the governments, but the
alliance of the elites, NGOs and the civil groups, because we believe that
governments, being preoccupied with various issues, are not much able to
come up with a commonly agreed conclusion and converge with each
other for a serious and honest fight against terrorism in the world. On the
other hand, we observe that the elites of the world have a good knowledge
of this and are well motivated to realize the just peace. We organize an
alliance to mobilize against global terrorism. Many people in the world
try to uphold the banner of fighting terrorism however this approach may
not yield favorable results if the very viewpoint if inaccurate. Our aim is
realization of peace and justice in the world. Therefore we believe that
these two subjects can be complement each other and can cover each
other in a fixed concept to reach the goal.
Many alliances have been established by the elites in the world in various
fields such as the environment, etc; however, they have not been able to
conduct extensive works without the support of governments.
The world didn‟t pay much attention to the environment till now, but the
elites‟ alliance and establishment of a global discourse has formed a
general demand which is still called for and it has taken effective
measures in protecting the environment today. If we can establish the
global elites‟ alliance for the field of terrorism and for realization of the
just peace, we will be able to establish a global discourse which will help
us take effective measures.
Common Understanding for Establishing Conceptual Alliance
Establishment of an alliance requires a common understanding. Today, a
common definition for terrorism and peace in the world does not exist.
Today, there is no specific definition and program to counteract terrorism
and one of the reasons why we insist on the participation of elites is that
they can help draw up a commonly accepted definition which is free from
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individual interests. Undoubtedly, we will be able to reach a general
understanding once we have this definition. Then, this unified conceptual
horizon will enable us to organize a common discourse. So, we need to
think over the common concept initially and then pay attention to the ones
who have common preoccupations in this field. Thus we will be able to
establish a common alliance for a common discourse.
Today there are fake discourses, unfortunately, held in the world about
peace in which they claim to be pacifists but they don‟t practice it; they
try to bring about a kind of alleviation and since this alleviation does not
involve justice for all humans or all parties to terrorism, their work is not
basically of the nature of peace and is just an instable alleviation. That
will facilitate the way for the activities of terrorists and invaders and will
limit the suppressed. Such alleviations may never guarantee peace and
there will always be unrest and upheaval in the related regions. In order to
think on peace, we should consider amending the affairs and this depends
on implementation of justice. Justice with deep roots will be stable and is
called „Just Peace‟. Despite all the needs of humans and the attempts
made in the international arena, and all the claims and propagandas in this
field, why can‟t we see any serious combating of terrorism in the true
sense? Are the societies unable to counter terrorism or isn‟t there a
serious and honest combat?
I believe the second case is true, that it seems the required capability both
in the governments and in the international organizations and institutions
and even in the civil groups to counter terrorism seriously and effectively
in the world and even the feasibility of realizing a just peace exist;
however, in order to bring this capability to the stage, there should be a
general will based on the common aim and understanding. One reason to
why the governments and international organizations have not been able
to take serious and effective measure to counter terrorism globally, is that
there are extensive conservative measures in this field. There isn‟t either a
common definition and sometimes countering terrorism stands against the
interests of certain powers. Thus, these powers cannot make serious
decisions against terrorism and therefore most international measures
taken globally yield no results. One of the reasons why we have an eye on
the elites is that we believe that the elites can solve the problem and they
can also help us establish the common definition and understanding of
Preface
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13
terrorism; they can provide discourses without special preoccupations
affecting the objective. They can try to mobilize all people and various
organizations to achieve this goal. Then, I believe this general
mobilization can be effective in conjunction with the effective measures
taken by international organizations.
We believe that Terrorism cannot be attributed to any religion and no
religion approves terrorism. Secondly, all religions emphasize the just
peace. Therefore, the aims of this Conference are in conformity and affinity
with the aims of divine religions. Therefore, we believe that the divine
religions and especially the elites and the scholars should play a significant
role in achieving a unique definition and a common understanding. We
intend to organize a civil conference; a conference where the NGOs and the
elites are to participate at. So, it‟d be better that the task is executed by
them and we should not underestimate this huge capacity. It‟s OK to
receive support from interested governments in this field however we
intend to emphasize on the active participation of civil institutions.
Just Peace: A Comprehensive Discourse
The idea of the Islamic World Peace Forum in establishing the global
fora, is the just peace and all the discourses organized at the Forum are
aimed at the prevalence of this concept. In order for the aforesaid idea to
have scientific basis, the Islamic World Peace Forum has made various
attempts and tries to provide the initial literature for this task. In the next
stage we tred and try to propagate this initial literature throughout the
world and together with the global elites turn this initial conference in a
common conference to an evolved discourse and organize joint
conferences amongst ourselves and various global centers.
Thus, the Just Peace Conference will gradually be developed. In this
respect, we endeavored to communicate effectively and organizationally
with a part of the elites of the world in the religious, scientific and civil
fields. Here are expressed some of such communications. Along with
dozens of effective measures that we take and follow up in the Forum, we
organized a conference in Tehran in which we spoke with a large number
of global elites about the initial concepts. Thence, we organized three
regional and international gatherings. First, we had a conference in
Vienna with the participation of 30 Iranian scholars and the elites from
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various scientific centers of the Europe. We also held a meeting in
cooperation with Jawaharlal Nehru and the India-Iran Friendship
Association in Delhi attended by more than 40 scholars from Southeast
Asia and the subcontinent focusing on the subject of peace.
They presented their views in this field. The third meeting was held in North
America in the Canadian city of Ottawa where we held discourses on the
subject of just peace in cooperation with the elites and scholars of that
country. We intend to hold other meetings to deal with this issue. We aim,
through all these various meetings and programs of the Forum, to offer and
furnish the idea of Just Peace with the participation of global elites and
receive their assistance to criticize, investigate and perfect this idea so that
the Conference will attain further scientific and cultural richness. Today the
Forum, by organizing this Conference, has effective relations with civil
groups worldwide and many academic scholars, authors and elites are
congruent ideologically in this regard. We endeavor, through their assistance,
to transform the idea of a just peace to a global common discourse.
The Final Declaration of the Conference
The final declaration of International Conference on Global Alliance
against Terrorism for a Just Peace referrered to the achievements of the
specialized panels of the conference in general. For example, in one of
these panels we discussed about the concept of terrorism and necessity of
clarifying it. You observe that some part of the declaration refers to
creating some kind of conception and view in this due. One of the other
issues investigated in the specialized panels was the ways of combating
terrorism and establishing “Just Peace”. The final declaration specially
emphasized that the ideas for combating terrorism should be according to
this issue. One of the issues, which was investigated in the conference and
referred to in the final declaration, was relying on the Just Peace
negotiation as an aim and strategy for the global movement to combat
terrorism and achieve a secure world.
Creating some stable relation between the world‟s scholars was the other
issue emphasized in the final declaration. In this due a committee of
enthusiastic scholars was suggested to be set up to preserve regular
contact with the scholars participated in the conference as well as contact
other scholars interested in this field in such a way that we could
Preface
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15
gradually achieve the objectives of conference. This suggestion was
welcomed by the participants of conference.
On the other hand, the final declaration emphasized that the conference‟s
achievements should not be limited to this level and they should be
announced to all those, who are active in the field of peace and combating
terrorism. So, one of the articles of this declaration mentions that the
issues investigated in the specialized panels and also the final declaration
should be notified to the other scholars, NGOs active in the field of peace,
and also some countries which support the peace.
The other prominent issue mentioned in the final declaration was that the
conference‟s participants decided to select the Islamic World Peace
Forum as the permanent secretariat of the International Conference on
Global Alliance against Terrorism for a Just Peace to conduct necessary
planning for continuing this movement.
Big objectives can be achieved by small steps. Global alliance is a very
big concept and on the other side holding this conference is a small step
to achieve that. We should not forget that the alliance to which we are
referring is intellectual. With all of its positive effects and widespread
coverage, International Conference on Global Alliance against Terrorism
for a Just Peace was an initial step that has no end and requires progress.
We are trying in this forum to get much closer to these objectives through
taking other steps and making continuous efforts. As I mentioned, it is
anticipated in the conference to set up a permanent committee of scholars
to develop relations and we hope that by establishing such units in the
world we will move gradually toward creating a comprehensive alliance
of the scholars who seek the Just Peace.
Many theoretical tasks have been accomplished in the world about the
issue of “Just War” but negotiation in terms of “Just Peace” has been paid
attention less and this approach of the Islamic World Peace Forum to
make establishing “Just Peace” a key objective to achieve a peaceful
world is of great value .
In the Islamic World Peace Forum we chose “Just Peace” as the main
issue of negotiation in the conference. When we mentioned this concept it
was not familiar even for many of our colleagues. But it was an informed
decision based on several investigations. This negotiation could
fortunately establish a norm in the world and reach the global intellectual
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fields.Of course, we do not claim that we have devised this concept and
put it into global negotiation for the first time in the world but the aspects
we have specified for the Just Peace are basically different from those of
the previous negotiations. We are referring to the theories in terms of
justice which guarantee global peace and security, respect different ideas
and are flexible according to the different cultures and civilizations. The
Just Peace we refer to is derived from the religious especially Islamic
principles and pays a lot of attention to the human‟s dignity and paves the
way for his elevation. Therefore, I strongly believe that the Just Peace
negotiation is able to open its way in the global field and reach a
dominant status. We will continue the follow-up measures and develop
this concept through planning, scientific and intellectual achievements,
holding different camps in the world, and cooperation with the world‟s
intellectuals. Of course, if it is required we will strengthen this concept‟s
theories more and more through cooperation with other scholars as well
as more study and investigation. We do not doubt that the International
Conference on Global Alliance against Terrorism for a Just Peace has
taken the initial steps and we are required to use more energy for
establishing a negotiation in the world which is based on the human‟s
nature and moral values.
Some 10 books published by the Islamic World Peace Forum and
distributed in the conference are some part of this forum‟s products in the
scientific and intellectual fields. The forum had also previously published
such books and this task will be surely continued, because we believe that
we should promote the literature of “Just Peace” negotiation. The
mentioned books had been prepared for the conference but our intellectual
products are not due to be limited to this level. We try to continue fulfilling
our duty in developing the Just Peace discourse and it‟s concepts through
taking larger steps and publishing books in the world‟s popular languages.
Secretary of the International Conference on
Global Alliance against Terrorism for a Just Peace
Definition of Terrorism and Indictiment of State Terrorists
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Part I
Terrorism; Conceptual and
Theoretical Dimensions
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Definition of Terrorism and Indictment of
State Terrorists
Dr. James B. Thring 
Abstract
Origin of recent Middle East terrorism is Zionists in Palestine. Defines
levels of terrorism; 1) Hopeless individuals, e.g. Palestinians. 2) Terror
groups with just cause, e.g. IRA. 3) State-sponsored terror, using
assassins, drones and substitute terror outfits, e.g. US-sponsored AlQa‘ida and MeK etc against Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya,
Sudan. 4) State terror, e.g. US carpet-bombing of Afghanistan and
Israeli massacre of Gazans. 5) Super-state terrorists, e.g. Zionists;
Kissinger, AIPAC, Wolfowitz, Rothschild, Perle, Rockefeller et al.,
driving USA to global state terrorism, attacking Friends of Palestine on
false premises, e.g. Iraq. Evaluates a nuclear-armed state that massacres
and maims without restraint or redress, as more terrifying than lone
suicide bombers. Discusses legal redress via national courts, the ICC
and ICJ, with cooperation of Non-Aligned Nations. Deduces that
totalitarian control of judiciary as well as governments, UN, world
banks and media holds little chance of success. Concludes that unless
this global stranglehold can be broken or reasoned with, the world may
react to unreasonable suffering, destruction and injustice, by
spontaneous revolution. Further scenarios of hope and disaster need
constructing and elaborating as a backdrop to planning the best way
towards Just Peace.
 Founder of the, Planning for Peace in 1983, the Ministry of Peace in 2002 and Legal
Action Against War in 2003 in attempts to build an effective antiwar lobby. He visited
the Holy Land several times from 1997 and compiled a paper on ‗Crimes Against the
Palestinians‘ with a view to prosecuting Netanyahu et al. and later produced ‗Strategies
for Palestine‘ to help extricate the nation from its on-going Nakbha. He was Secretary to
Professions for World Disarmament & Development (1983-6) and served on the
Committee of Engineers & Architects for Social Responsibility (1980-91).
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1. Introduction
‗Terrorism‘ in the Middle East originated in the last century with the
Zionists; Bn‘ai Brit, the Stern gang, Irgun, Hagannah and Mossad which
murdered UN chiefs like Count Bernadotte and Lord Moyne and tried to
murder many other statespeople critical of their aims and methods, from
Ernest Bevin to Mary Robinson.1
State terrorism is far more inhuman, in terms of people killed and
maimed, lives wrecked and infrastructure destroyed, than ‗terrorism‘ by
individuals or groups. Consider the devastation and tens of thousands
killed by the Israeli Defence Force in Lebanon, particularly the Sabra and
Chatilla camps, Quilya, Jenin and Gaza.2 Or George Bush‘s ‗Shock &
Awe‘ attack on Iraq killing over 100,000;3 or the homely labelled ‗carpet
bombing‘ of Afghanistan, killing untold thousands. An insidious variation
on state terror is the siege; the near total blockade of supplies of food,
water and energy, even building materials, as imposed on Gaza and Iraq
for over a decade. This terrifies the public despite the alleged target being
the ‗regime‘.
Covert state-sponsored terrorism, is morally worse still, as the great states
hide behind groups like Al-Qa‘ida, which remain targets even after they
have served their purpose.4 A subset of this category is the terror
organisation with its own motives such as the Mujahideen-e Khalq, which
is used by the US and Israel to terrorize populations for external political
gain. For example, the Iran Policy Committee in the USA called for the
MeK to be released from the ‗Terrorist List‘ as; ―Encouraging
diasaffection with the regime among the Iranian population would be
1. Mayhew, C & M. Adams (1975) Publish it Not: The Middle East Cover-up‘ Signal
Books, Oxford, UK
2. Thring, J (2010) ‗Crimes Against the Palestinians‘ monograph Ministry of Peace,
London.
3. Simons, G (2008) ‗They Destroyed a Country and Called it Freedom‘ Legacy Pub.,
Surrey TW9 2WA, UK.
4 . Gray, J (2003) ‗Al Qaeda and what it means to be modern‘ Faber & Faber, London.
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lever to which Tehran would be far more responsive because it would
threaten the regime‘s very survival.‖5
Official hypocrisy adds to the terror spread by the omnipotent states,
labelling independent leaders like Saddam Hussein and Muammar
Qaddafi as ‗Dictators‘ whilst dictating that they comply with their diktats
or face ‗all necessary means‘ to make them step down. Another version of
this hypocrisy is to attack those loyal to a government under the
‗Humanitarian Intervention‘ shroud, to pretend to ‗help‘ the rebels whilst
indiscriminately killing and maiming greater numbers of ordinary
citizens.
Finally, there is media twist-speak, miss-labelling ‗terrorists‘ as ‗victims,
and loyal defenders of a country as ‗nationalist belligerents‘, ‗killing their
own people‘. This is a form of terrorism because it can lead to false
imprisonment or false attack. It also spreads uncontrollably and once
established is hard to rectify.
The few individual terrorists, who kill themselves in the event, are
suicidal, having lost all hope of justice, using the only weapon available
to them against the super-state terrorists who have caused their
resignation from this world.
2. Who are the Super-state Terrorists?
The USA has evolved as a Terrorist State by its unprovoked or falsely
instigated attacks on such poor countries as Viet-Nam, Central America
and Afghanistan.
The more recent attacks, particularly on Middle East countries, have been
driven by the shadowy Neo-Cons such as Henry Kissinger, Paul
Wolfowitz, William Kristol and Richard Perle, who formed the Project
for a New American Century and wrote the ‗Full Spectrum Dominance‘
agenda under the anodyne title, ‗Rebuilding America‟s Defences‟ 6. This
5. Akins, J (2006) ‗Appeasing the Ayatollahs and Suppressing Democracy: US Policy
and the Iranian Opposition‘ Iran Policy Cttee, 1001 Pennsylvania Av. NW, Washington
DC 20004 (p.88)
6. Kristol, W et al. (2000) ‗Re-building America‘s Defences‘ Washington.
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was actually a plan for the US to take military control of the Persian Gulf.
The high priests of this group are largely Friends of Israel, zealous
members or supporters of AIPAC (American-Israel Political Action
Committees) or Zionists who have an agenda to make Israel the place in
which, after Armageddon, the Messiah will take his ‗chosen seat‘.7 In
other words Jerusalem will become the global capital. In the interim they
believe they have to destroy any support for the Palestinians, the legal
occupants of the Holy Land and their supporters, particularly Iraq8 and
possibly Iran.9 Their ‗public‘ strategy was set out in „The Clash of
Civilizations‟ i.e. the clash between Islam and Judeo-Christianity.10 This
is an artificial clash because the differences are largely political, i.e. they
scarcely exist except in the minds of religious zealots and can be resolved
by comprehension and discussion. But the Zionist Neo-Cons quickly
converted it to the ‗War on Terror‘, parroted by George Bush to justify
attacking any country or person who criticized or was not ―with‖ the US
in its unbridled attacks on such countries and individuals as the 7 listed in
his ‗Axis of Evil‘, namely; Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan
and Syria. None of these countries has attacked any other country, save
the US-fostered Iran-Iraq War and none have threatened the USA.
Unfortunately, the UN Security Council has been coerced into joining this
‗war‘ by American threats to states‘ representatives who do not support
US war aims. The starkest examples have been the US attacks on Iraq,
Afghanistan and now Libya, using ‗All necessary means‘, before
diplomatic efforts had been exhausted. All three countries were attacked
on false information, enhancing suspicions that the real motives were
illegal or immoral, such as destroying ‗threats to the Zionist entity‘ or
grabbing oil, gas and gold reserves, or both.
7. Mearsheimer, J & S. Walt (2007) The Israeli Lobby and US Foreign Policy‘ Penguin,
England
8. Piper, M. Collins (2005) ‗The High Priests of War‘ American Free Press, Washington
DC.
9. Thring, J (2006) ‗Peace with Iran‘ Ministry of Peace, London.
10. Huntingdon, S (19 ) ‗The Clash of Civilizations‘
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NATO (the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation) as a relic of World War
II, has been led gladly into these terror attacks because it is seeking a role
and its friends in the arms industry are ever pushing sales. With so many
member states it is overwhelmingly powerful as a war machine and what
it does appears to be ‗democratic‘. But are smaller nations bullied into
agreeing what it does by the arms dealers again?
Terror of a ‗softer‘ variety is also employed by global corporations, using
their financial muscle to persuade states and small companies to buy their
products or face trade sanctions or ‗disaster‘. The GM (Genetically
Modified) Food monopolists use the fear of farmers being exposed to
poor crop yields or failures from disease if they refuse to buy the seeds ad
infinitum.
The international banks also use financial terror to make countries accept
their practises or suffer excessive interest rates, rampant inflation and
recession or even war. It is suspected that the Rothschilds, for instance,
target those states which have refused to accept their banking presence.
Libya is the latest example where Rothschild‘s International Crisis
Centre, run by Zbignew Brezinski and George Soros, is believed to be
fuelling the unrest because Qaddafi threatened to take the whole of Africa
and the Middle East on to a gold currency which could effectively
insulate them from dollar dependency and its unstable future.11
A new version of state terror is unfolding behind the Arab Spring. The
Alliance of Youth Movement set up by Jared Cohen and Joe Liebman as
staunch Friends of Israel and National Endowment for Democracy, set up
by Gershman, another Zionist, deliberately aim to stir up youths and
people disgruntled with their lot, to rebel. Their rebellion is given the
popular cause of ‗democracy‘ to entice western sympathy. In the case of
Libya, which has one of the most democratic systems available where
every citizen can raise policy for discussion in the Peoples Congresses,
the media has turned the liberal government into the ‗terrorist‘ and the
rebel into the ‗democrat‘.12
11. Brown, E (2011) ‗All about Oil, All about Banking?‘ globalresearch.ca
12. Thring, J (2011) ‗Peace with Libya‘ Ministry of Peace, London.
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Similar groups in Washington sponsor terrorists, such as the Iran Policy
Committee chaired by James Akins, a member of the Council on Foreign
Relations, whose report „US Policy & the Iranian Opposition‟ 13 claims
that ―States like Iran that seek to …export terror abroad…are a threat to
the international community‖. Yet their final conclusion is to help the Me K by removing it from the US Terrorist List because; ―The best way to
empower the Iranian people is to support their organized resistance
movements, especially the M-e K‖. This is the US exporting terror
abroad. The MeK have even murdered their own people in the Kurdistan
Region.
Another group in Washington, the Save Darfur Coalition, created by the
American Jewish World Service, sponsors terrorism in Darfur with
hundreds of millions of dollars.14
It has been found guilty of
exaggerating the death toll as well as blaming Islamic Khartuom rather
than disparate migrants from surrounding poorer African countries.
Muammar Qaddafi suggested that the unrest was a western trick to grab
Sudan‘s oil. The recent move to split North from South Sudan suggests he
was right.
Finally the 400 oligarchs, fabulously wealthy families who control 80%
of the world‘s wealth can exert terrifying pressure on countries, some of
which have smaller GNP‘s than the families‘. These include primarily
the Rothschilds15, with the Rockefellers, Oppenheimers, Baruchs and
Schiffs close behind, for example. Details are hard to find for obvious
reasons but a good guide is membership of the CFR, the Bilderberg
Group and the IMF.
13. Akins, J et al. (2006) ‗Appeasing the Ayatollahs and Suppressing Democracy: US
Policy and the Iranian Opposition‘ (p.97), Washington DC 20004
14. Hoile, D (2005) ‗Darfur – the Road to Peace‘ (pp.274-7) European-Sudanese Public
Affairs Council.
15. Perry, R (2000) ‗The Fifth Man‘ Faber, London.
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3. What are their Motives?
Unlike suicide bombers, whose last desperate cries of hopelessness gain
them nothing material, the oligarchs‘ motives are extremely materialistic
and avaricious. Their schemes for financial aggrandisement, profit
maximization and domination or destruction of competition, cause
widespread social distress but with little damage to them or their
shareholders. Some of this may be acceptable in a well-policed and
judicially adroit world. But ‗policing‘ is labelled as ‗fascist‘ or
‗dictatorial‘, so the laws needed will apply to the law-abiding citizen, not
to those big enough to eschew the law. This gives them power over
politicians, the media, the lawmakers and the populace as well as the
economy.
It also gives them control over resources and land, which in turn, give
them control of mass consumption.
This absolute power breeds insouciance, disrespect for justice and
morality and a lack of sensitivity which of course permits them to cheat,
deceive, use dangerous materials and practises and even call on
governments to apply military aggression on opponents or angry mobs.
This is terrorism of a particularly lawless and inhuman variety.
Another driver of this form of terror is the extreme form of religious code
especially where criticism is disallowed. The most pernicious example is
Talmudic diktat, even exposure of which attracts a death sentence. It
usurps unique God-given prejudice16 for its Jewish subscribers.17 It thus
breeds arrogance towards the rest of humanity and a contempt for
international law, as recently expressed by Israeli Minister Zvipi Livni. It
even sanctions Biblical pre-emptive genocide against inhabitants of the
‗Promised Land‘, as witnessed befalling the Palestinians and creeping
through the Islamic world; Lebanon, Iraq and Afghanistan, resisting the
threats in order to support their brethren.
16. Pranaitis, Rev.I.B.(1985) ‗The Talmud Unmasked‘ Imperial Academy of Sciences.
17. Shahak, I. (1980) ‗Jewish History, Jewish Religion‘ Pluto Press, London
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4. What are their Methods?
An advantage taken by this religious group is to have what even nations
now indulge, a long term strategy. Fundamentally, this derives from the
Torah and Old Testament, which set out the notion that God‘s Chosen
People would inherit the Earth and have dominion over it. In the 19th
Century the Learned Elders of Zion set out Protocols for taking control of
humanity through manipulation of the mass media, banking, industry and
government.18 Many Jews claim this was a forgery. But it has largely
come to pass. Even by 1916, Henry Ford tried to warn against falling into
their trap in his seminal book The International Jew19. The more recent
strategy was outlined above in the guise of a strategy for the USA, the
Project for a New American Century which is essentially a Zionist plot to
march the US into wars for Israel.20 Islam and the rest of the world may
need to learn from this strategic planning if it is to survive.
A vital arm of this strategy is defamation of enemies of Zion using media
domination to portray the innocent as the terrorist and the war-mongers as
victims. The PLO was first in recent times to suffer from this twist of the
reality. Libya has been targeted twice now. Iraq and Afghanistan have
been decimated by it. Iran is being set up as the next innocent victim,
followed by Pakistan, Sudan and Malaysia.21 This malicious propaganda
leads to an alacrity to launch attacks on whole nations and terrorize into
submission those who are left.
The defamation of ‗non-compliant‘ leaders who try to seek justice for
their brothers in the Holy Land usually attracts the black label of
‗dictator‘ who ‗kills his own people‘. This was never more unjustly
applied than to Muammar Qaddafi, who not only retired as ‗Leader‘ of
the Al-Fateh Revolution in 1997 but specifically tried to devolve power to
18. Reed, D (1978) ‗The Controversy of Zion‘ Dolphin Press, Durban, S.A.
19. Ford, H. (1916) ‗The International Jew‘ reprinted by Ford Motor Co. from ‗The
Dearborn Independent‘
20. Ostrovski, V (1994) ‗The Other Side of Deception‘ Harper Collins, New York.
21. Hoile, D (2007) ‗Darfur; the Road to Peace‘ European-Sudanese Public Affairs
Council, London.
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the people on the lines set out in his ‗Green Book‘.22 So if anyone is
killing Libyans, it is likely to be the infiltrators, funded and encouraged
by Rothschild‘s International Crisis Centre, the Alliance of Youth
Movement and the National Endowment for Democracy described above.
It is now exacerbated by NATO whose forces are infamous for
indiscriminate killing and ‗collateral‘ damage. The ‗dictator‘ label,
however, still sets the stage for assassination of leaders such as Moyne,
Kennedy and bin Laden, or contrived judicial execution of those such as
Saddam, or the mysterious sudden death as in the cases of Arafat or
Milosovic.
False-flag terror, terror using enemy identities so that it gets the blame, is
a particularly insidious form of terrorism as it instils an innate fear that
the apparent attackers are more active than they actually are. The
evidence surrounding the attacks in the USA on September 11th 2001
points to a sophisticated series of operations that bin Laden could hardly
have orchestrated from a cave in the Tora Bora, such as the wiring of
Building 7 and probably the WTC towers for demolition, or the ‗failure‘
of the cameras round the Pentagon, or the no-show of two thirds of the
staff in the twin towers on the day, or the insurance of the towers for $2B
each by owner Larry Silberstein just a few months before, or the absence
of US defence aircraft.23
Similar doubts surround the bombing in London on 7th July 2005 which
coincided with a security services dummy operation at the same stations
on the same day and the fact that the alleged bombers were discovered not
to have been able to catch the train they were said to have caught because
it did not run.24
Sanctions are an even more widespread method of terrorizing a nation,
leading to internal struggles and recriminations against the leadership. In
Iraq they led to the deaths of around a million people, half of them
22. Al-Qaddafi, M (1975) ‗The Third Universal Theory‘ World Centre for Studies &
Research, Tripoli.
23. Tarpley, W. (2007) ‗9/11 Synthetic Terror Made in USA‘ Progressive Press,
California, 92252.
24. Kollerstrom, N (2009) ‗Terror on the Tube‘ Progressive Press, California.
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children under five: a truly terrifying strangle-hold as the regime had no
WMD to find inorder for the sanctions to be lifted. The word itself is a
euphemism for a medieval siege with much more terrifying resonance.
Finally, there is full scale war, the ultimate form of terror, which no
‗terrorist‘ can indulge in and which harms everyone, not necessarily the
leaders it is usually claims to be aimed at. The destruction of Iraq,
Afghanistan and Libya are again cases in point. The deployment of
unmanned drones has added a more terrifying dimension to war, as not
being able to see the enemy makes people perpetually on edge and in
genuine fear of their lives.
5. How to Arrest the Super-state Terrorists?
It is conceivable that coordinated global legal action, using InterPol or
national police forces or even citizens arrests under the Geneva
Conventions could begin to arrest the super-state terrorists like
Netanyahu, Bush, Blair, the Rothschilds or any of the other oligarchs
mentioned above and put them on trial with a view to incarceration to
prevent further bloodshed and suffering and discourage their malevolent
followers. But they are so powerful that they can bribe and cajole lawmakers to change the law. For example, in the UK it will shortly be
forbidden for magistrates to grant warrants to arrest state War Criminals
like Zvipi Livni or Netanyahu.
It would be necessary to form a United Non-Aligned Nations
Organisation to gather the strength and world-wide support to curtail the
oligarchs‘ activities. This was tried by Muammar Qaddafi in his vision of
a Great Mathaba which found favour in most African and Middle East
countries.25 It has not been realized, probably because the culprits can see
that it may spell the end of their hegemony.
25. Qaddafi, M (2000) ‗The Great Mathaba‘ Conference, Tripoli
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6. Charges
Stirring up public disorder is an offence in the UK, especially when it
leads to death and destruction. So this charge could be brought against
those behind the International Crisis Centre, the Alliance of Youth
Movement and the National Endowment for Democracy working in the
UK. If they can be proved to have deliberately incited rebellions in the
Arab world it may be possible to fit this charge into the offences in the
Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.
If the terrorist attacks committed by Mossad, the CIA and MI6 can be
brought to court with sufficient evidence and protection, the crimes are
heinous enough to warrant serious investigation, followed by trials and
appropriate prison sentences. It would also be reasonable to extract
compensation, as Libya was forced to pay for Lockerbie, even though the
case against Al Megrahi was flawed, as one judge exposed after the
trial.26
There have been many terror attacks against Libya and other countries
which need to be investigated. First should be into those who broke in to
Heathrow on the morning of the Lockerbie flight and may have placed the
unaccompanied bomb in a loading trolley. More serious would be action
against Mossad who used a false transmitter called Trojan in the Tripoli
HQ of Libyan Intelligence, giving out Israeli-generated signals that Libya
was plotting to attack various targets including the Berlin discotheque and
the airliner.27
The latest of their terror campaigns against Iran, apart from threats of
nuclear attack, was their insertion of Israel‘s Stuxnet virus into the
controls of the nuclear processing plant at Natanz. This could have
caused a nuclear accident capable of devastating a whole region and
would count as a crime against humanity. It has been suggested that the
same device may have contributed to the melt-down of the Fukushima
plant in Japan following the Tsunami.
26. Simons, G (2003) ‗Libya and the West, from Independence to Lockerbie‘ Centre for
Libyan Studies, Oxford, I B Taurus, London W2 4BU
27. Ostrovski, V (1994) op.cit.
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War Crimes against Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine and 19 other countries
since the World War II by the US and associates evince all the crimes of
indiscriminate killing, use of illegal weaponry such as dU, phosphorus,
dum-dum bullets and cluster bombs. They include mistreatment of
occupied populations and Prisoners of War, as at Quilya, Abu Ghraib and
Bagram. These will be investigated and brought to court via the UN when
China and Russia have enough weight to bar the USA from vetoing the
charges.
The long list of Crimes Against Humanity by the USA and allies, again in
Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine and many other countries, include massacre
of civilians, poisoning of water supplies, deprivation of rights to life,
interference in government and suppression of legitimate resistance.
These should also be investigated by the ICC, again when it is
independent enough. The fact that the major criminal parties, the US and
Israel in these offences, have not signed up to the ICC does not obviate
the purpose of prosecution, which is not only to try and arrest the
perpetrators and high command but to discourage others and most
importantly, to free the global community from the pervasive, terrifying
threat of such unjustified campaigns.
The most serious crime in international law, Genocide has also been
committed against these same peoples in Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan:
they have been targeted as a nation and as groups within those nations
with the deliberate intention of killing all or some members of those
groups. The Zionists have long held the objective of wiping the
Palestinians from their land despite the bloodshed to be expected.28 The
UN/US siege of Iraq caused at least 450,000 infants deaths according to
UNICEF, but when Mrs Albright was asked how she felt about the policy,
she notoriously replied; ―We think the price is worth it‖ and continued it
for a further seven years, thereby admitting ‗intent‘.29 It is also possible
to argue that the merciless hunting and killing of Taliban ‗insurgents‘ is
genocide of an ethnic or political group with intent to ‗wipe them out‘.
28. Simons, G (2006) ‗The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine‘
29. Simons, G (2006) ‗The Scourging of Iraq‘ Faber
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7. Likely Success
To achieve success it would be necessary to begin by taking action
against the criminal hierarchy in various national courts in countries
signed up to the Geneva Conventions. This began to show promise in the
UK when Daniel Machover obtained warrants for the rest of a number of
Israeli commanders such as Almog and even Zvipi Livni. It has now
being made impossible for such arrests to be called for by citizens without
approval of the Public Prosecutor. But it could be tried all over the world.
The chance of persuading the ICC to act is not so high, as the criminal
oligarchs seem to terrify judiciary as well as governments. One of its
judges confessed to the Minority Rights Group in London that until it had
indicted a few tin-pot dictators in places like the Rwanda and Yugoslavia
it would not take cases against the UK or USA. It has no police force and
depends on national forces to arrest and deliver suspects. It is also under
the final arbitration of the UN Security Council, despite being nominally
independent.
The International Court of Justice could issue judgments, as it has done
against Israel‘s illegal Apartheid Wall and squatters in Palestine. But it
seems reluctant to enforce its judgments and has no police to do so.
A UN Special Tribunal could call for arrest of suspects and issue
judgments which can be enforced, as shown by the trials of Milosovic and
other Serbian leaders. But the bias in these cases holds no hope for
justice when it comes to the criminals in the USA, the UK, Israel and the
rarefied world of the oligarchs.
8. The Implications
The unfortunate consequence of not being able to obtain justice against
the real terrorists in the top echelons of society is that the people become
disillusioned with law and order and begin to take physical action to call
attention to their plight, deprivation, repression and other complaints, as
witnessed across the Arab world at present. If and when these
insurrections spread to other parts of the Muslim community and then to
the whole developing world we will be overwhelmed by a Global
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Revolution. This will serve nobody‘s interests unless it is carefully
guided. It may even help the oligarchs who take opportunities to grab
land, infrastructure and other assets while they are cheap and unpoliced
during the chaos.
9. Future Scenarios
A set of scenarios is needed to characterize the future options. These
would heighten awareness of the global predicament and the consequence
if nothing or not enough is done to avoid a revolution or to arrest the
underlying causes. Doing nothing plays into the hands of the super-state
terrorists who will get away with murder and pillage on a global scale,
extrapolating from past performance. Scenarios also provide a positive
vision to aim for If the free world can unite against the hegemony and the
new leaders are not sabotaged in the process, there could be hope,
especially if the legal systems can be persuaded to arrest the culprits.
Another possibility is that the ‗SSTs‘ (super-state terrorists) will terrorize,
murder and pillage each other‘s estates as their greed and power drive
them to ever more avaricious goals. The media could help to graphically
portray what may happen but it is already largely syndicated to the
oligarchy. Notable exceptions are Presstv, China‘s CCTV and Russia‘s
RT, but they do not reach the minds of the majority in the west. The
internet could fill this gap.
Is there a Diplomatic route to resolving this predicament? Delegations of
the wise and influential to government committees and politicians, armed
with these scenarios and how they would damage the interests of even the
most powerful might help for a limited time. They need to be carefully
planned, expeditely executed and aimed at the appropriate people.
A more mature and historically inevitable way forward is to create a form
of Global democracy. The idea of a World Constitution & Parliament was
floated by Philip Isley in the 1980‘s and important representatives of over
100 countries signed the Constitution.30 But it was ambitious and needed
30. Isely, P et al. (1981) ‗Constitution for the Federation of Earth‘ World Constitution &
Parliament Assoc. Delaware.
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considerable effort to move it forward and appears to have died with him.
Even if and when eventually implemented it is likely to be commandeered
by the oligarchs.
9. Conclusion
Terrorism is a threat to peace. But it is the peace of the oligarchs which is
usually aimed at. And it is the terror deployed by the oligarchs, via
weapons of mass destruction, financial fraud, the defamation in the
media, legal muscle and political bribery that is most deadly, destructive
and dispiriting. This is what gives rise to individual suicide bombers. If
the oligarchs cannot be brought to justice owing to their very control over
the judiciary, governments, finance and the media the rest of the world
may resort first, to non-cooperation with the terrorist states and oligarchs,
using the same language they, in the Security Council, quote from
Chapters VI & VII of the UN Charter: If peaceful measures fail, is it fair
to move to revolutionary pressure (‗all necessary means‘) for
equilibrium? Preferably a negotiated settlement could be engineered. But
there is as yet no arbitration council competent to enforce it. Would a
World Constitution and Parliament help or would that, too, be hi-jacked
by the oligarchs? Probably, but it is surely a necessary step in human
evolution to a stable global community? Planning alternative courses
under a range of evaluated scenarios is an essential first step against such
a well-planned and ruthless hegemonic dictatorship of super-state
terrorists.
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Terrorism, Perception, and Jusice
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Terrorism, Perception, and Justice
Imam Mohammad al-„Asi 
Terrorism is a word used by state coalitions, by states, sub-state actors
and even individuals to rationalize acts of violence or to respond to acts of
violence. Each of these entities may have its own definition of the word
―terrorism‖. Many interests have undertaken their own wording of what
the word terrorism means.
The following is a sample of terrorism definitions.
Terrorism: 1. The use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce, esp.
for political purposes. 2. The state of fear and submission produced by
terrorism or terrorization. 3. A terroristic method of governing or of
resisting a government.1
Terrorism: Coercive and violent behavior undertaken to achieve or
promote a particular political objective or cause, often involving the
overthrow of established order. Terrorist activity is designed to induce
fear through its indiscriminate, arbitrary, and unpredictable acts of
violence, often against members of the population at large. It may be
‗official‘, as under Stalin, or ‗unofficial‘, as employed by various
opposition or underground movements. Such movements are usually
minority groups (such as the IRA) who feel there are no other means
available to them of achieving their objectives. Terrorism may be
confined to a specific territory or may have an international dimension,
manifest in hijackings and hostage-taking.2
Terrorism: Actions undertaken by governments, individuals, or groups
using violence or threats of violence for political purposes. International
 Imam of the Islamic venter in Washington.
1. Webster‘s Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language, Random
House, 1996. p. 1960.
2. The Cambridge Encyclopedia, Cambridge University Press, 1995, p. 1094.
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terrorism has included aircraft hijackings, political kidnappings,
assassinations, bombing, arson, sabotage, and the holding of hostages.
Most terrorism is practiced by groups representing extremist political
parties or positions. Typically, terrorism of the Left is aimed at promoting
revolution against the established order, and terrorism of the Right is used
to preserve and protect a privileged group or class.3
A somewhat longer definition of terrorism follows, and we thought it may
serve a transition
definition into the core material of this paper.
Terrorism: There is no universally accepted definition of terrorism. In the
United States, three official definitions exists. According to the U.S.
Defense Department: ―Terrorism is the calculated use of violence or the
threat of violence to inculcate fear, intended to coerce or intimidate
governments or societies as to the pursuit of goals that are generally
political, religious or ideological.‖ According to the [U.S.] State
Department: ―Terrorism is premeditated, politically motivated violence
perpetrated against non-combatant targets by sub-national groups or
clandestine agents, usually intended to influence an audience.‖ Finally,
according to the [U.S.] Justice Department: ―Terrorism is the unlawful
use of force or violence against persons or property to intimidate or
coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in
furtherance of political or social objectives.‖ None of these matches the
definition used by the British government in the Prevention of Terrorism
Act, 2000: ―The use or threat, for the purpose of advancing a political,
religious or ideological cause of action which involves serious violence
against any person or property, endangers the life of any person or creates
a serious risk to the health or safety of the public or section of the public.‖
The Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools
Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism (USA PATRIOT) Act,
2001, has two separate definitions of terrorism, both of them overlong and
complicated. Since terrorism is an international phenomenon, a globally
3. The American Political Dictionary, Jack C. Plano, Milton Greenberg, 8th Edition,
Harcourt Brace Jovanovich College Publishers, 1989, p. 512.
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accepted definition is essential. In the absence of it, the debate about the
relationship, if any, between terrorism and resistance to military or
colonial occupation remains unresolved. While the list of twenty-two
terrorist groups published by Washington in November 2001 included
Lebanon‘s Hizbullah, thus resulting in its assets being frozen in the U.S.,
Lebanon refused to follow America‘s lead, arguing that it distinguished
between those organizations that practiced terrorism and those that sought
to liberate their occupied countries or territories by all means
Another important factor in this case was whether a particular terrorist
faction had a global reach — an essential prerequisite used by America to
make its list of banned organizations. In the view of the Lebanese
government, Hizbullah lacked a global reach.
Not an ideology like fascism, capitalism, socialism, or Islamic
fundamentalism, terrorism is a method that is open for deployment not
only by individuals or groups, but also by governments. Indeed the term
entered political vocabulary two centuries ago as part of the ―Reign of
Terror‖ or just ―The Terror‖ (1793-94), unleashed by the government of
the Republic of France, established a year earlier by the French
revolutionaries, when some 12,000 people were executed as counterrevolutionaries. In the Middle East the most dramatic example of sate
terrorism was in Syria. To crush the Islamist-inspired insurrection in
Hama, in February 1982 the government deployed thousands of troops to
quell it. Before order was restored, between 5,000 and 10,000 people,
including 1,000 soldiers, lay dead, and a quarter of the historic old city
was razed. And the bombing of King David Hotel in Jerusalem by Irgun,
led by Menachem Begin, in April 1946, which killed ninety-six civilians,
including fifteen Jews, was the first massive terrorist political act of its
kind in the Middle East of recent times.4
What this writer has observed is that the acts of violence that are
committed by the majority non-state entities are correlated with an
absence of institutionalized and inclusive state sponsored justice. The
4. The Essential Middle East, Dilip Hiro, Carroll & Graf Publishers, New York, 2003, p.
518-19.
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world has many forms of political administrations, many governmental
ideological orientations, and many national-interest based regimes. These
ruling classes leave out of their decision making processes certain
components of their populations. This systemic and ongoing exclusion of
population segments from the decision making process breeds a sense of
alienation, discrimination, which sooner or later turn into economic
dispossession and political bitterness. Having no channels for redress
these marginalized segments of the population usually turn to acts of
violence to recapture their social standing as well as their selfdetermination.
On the other hand, we have governments and militaries that sit at the
pinnacle or power in their own countries. They have a ―system‖ running
for them. And many times they do not care whether that system is just and
equitable or not. This premeditated officialdom that is unconcerned with
its own citizens well-being and political participation but rather with its
money-making status quo begins to use violence and to rationalize the use
of violence to preserve that lucrative status-quo. That use of violence
reaches proportions of terror and terrorism.
Therefore, we have state terrorism, and we have plenty of it . But you
would not be able to easily ascertain this fact simply because the
mainstream media have decided to concentrate on terror from ―below‖
rather than terror from ―above‖. By that I mean that the use of force by
poor and dispossessed people who usually are left with no other choice
and which is usually justifiable are branded as outlaws and terrorists by
the mass media. In stark contrast to that, the state apparatus that has the
overwhelming concentration of weapons of death and destruction and
who, usually without justification, use that disproportionate force against
very vulnerable citizens go, by and large, unnoticed by the same mass
media.
The United Nations has never been able to define terrorism, though
several times the world organization has condemned it in the abstract or
specific acts of it. The explanation for this should not be sought in the
predisposition of diplomats for meticulous precision. They are forced to
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operate in that murky realm that mixes semantics with politics, and
politics has dominion. Diplomats on any given side of an issue are forced
to promote certain political agendas, and, to reiterate the well-known
saying: one man‘s terrorist is another man‘s freedom fighter. The anticolonial third world exempted guerrillas fighting for independence from
this denomination. The United Nations did recognize the legitimacy of
liberation movements fighting for independence, but that still leaves open
the question of how the fight was carried on. Washington either excused
infractions committed by those third world governments it supported, or
labeled them ―violations of human rights‖ rather than the more abusive
term, terrorism. A definition of terrorism has become critical since
Washington has become engaged in ―the war on terrorism.‖ The question
has become: just what is it that we are fighting against? The General
Assembly and the Security Council dutifully condemned the attacks of
September 11th, and this time the Security Council ordered the members
of the world organization to report on the actions they are taking to
combat terrorism. One hundred and seventeen responses were received,
and the chairperson of the Council‘s counter terrorism committee stated
that ―an extremely good start‖ had been made. However, human rights
groups warned of the dangers of a battle where there is no definition of
the enemy. Mary Robinson, the United Nations High Commissioner for
Human Rights, charged that what has been done in some countries is to
use the international duty to act against terrorism as an excuse to suppress
the legitimate expression of grievances and to justify the oppression of
minorities.5
Due to the disproportionate influence of the government of the United
States in world affairs and its incessant interference foreign policy the
word, the definition, and the concept of terrorism has been utilized to
pursue with deadly force and with terrorism itself those who it has
deemed terrorists and terror organizations. The attacks of September 11,
2001 breathed a new life into US policies against those it, unilaterally or
5. State Terrorism and the United States From Counterinsurgency to the War on
Terrorism, Frederick H. Gareau, Clarity Press Inc, Atlanta, 2004, pp 12-13.
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in conjunction with hyper-powers, defines as terrorists. In the weeks
immediately after 9/11 the US government went into an official equating
of terrorism with Islam — even though there is no policy statement that
puts such US actions into words. What came into vogue was a ―war on
terrorism‖. The geographical region of this ―war on terrorism‖ became the
Islamic East and its surrounding areas.
The Islamic East‘s immediate historical background: the zionist
occupation of Palestine, the 1948 war, the Suez Crisis of 1956, the Israeli
war of aggression in 1967, the 1973 war, the Camp David Accords, the
Israeli-zionist invasion of Lebanon (1982), the First Palestinian Intifadah,
the so-called Peacemaking and shuttle diplomacy of confidence building
between Arabs and Israelis in the late 1980's and throughout the 90's, the
Second Palestinian Intifadah – all of these now were to be offset by the
American administration‘s war on terrorism.
―The American people themselves have become victims of this American
government‘s war on terrorism. Six weeks after 9/11, Bush‘s Justice
Department wrote up a long memo with the subject line: ―Authority for
Use of Military Force to Combat Terrorist Activities Within the United
States.‖ The whole concept basically shreds the American Bill of Rights.6
6. Bill of Rights: The first ten amendments to the United States Constitution. Bills of
rights, sometimes called declarations of rights, are also found in all state constitutions.
They contain a listing of the rights a person enjoys that cannot be infringed upon by the
government. Many important rights, such as trial by jury and the guarantee of habeas
corpus, are stated in other parts of the United States Constitution. All bills of rights
contain provisions designed to protect the freedom of expression, the rights of property,
and the rights of persons accused of crime. No rights are absolute, however, and all are
subject to reasonable regulation through law. Bills of rights are restrictions on
government rather than on individuals or private groups. History teaches that unchecked
governmental powers can lead to the decay of freedom. A bill of rights provides the legal
mechanism through which the individual can challenge the oppressive acts of
governmental officials in courts of law. Without guarantees for individual freedom,
democracy would become meaningless and unworkable. Some state bills of rights
antedate the federal Bill of Rights. The federal Bill of Rights was added to the
Constitution as a condition for its ratification, on the insistence of people who feared a
strong central government. Although these rights were intended to restrain only the
national government, since 1925 the Supreme Court has gradually extended them as
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In short, ―legal and constitutional rules regulating law enforcement
activity are not applicable.‖ The [US] military could even ―attack civilian
targets, such as apartment buildings, offices, or ships where suspected
terrorists were thought to be.‖ And later, ―First Amendment speech and
press rights may also be subordinated to the overriding need to wage war
successfully.‖ All they‘ve got to do is say the word and they can put you
under surveillance without a warrant. To me, this smacks of an attack on
the foundations of democracy that plays right into the hands of terrorists.
It also sets a precedent for the kinds of tactics we went on to see at Abu
Ghraib, Guantanamo, and elsewhere.‖7
As is obvious, there is no universal or consensual definition for terrorism.
What can be said, though, is that the absence of justice spawns terrorism.
And the more pronounced the absence of justice is the more violent the
terrorist response becomes. In between the absence of justice buildup and
the terrorist reaction there is a time interval which is measured by
variables pertinent to each issue or case.
One important remark about the marketing of the terrorist label is the
element of power and predominance. The more a particular group or
regime has power and clout the more it is in control of public perception
pertaining to terrorism. If we were to strip the mass media of its power
connections and manipulations we would come to understand that the
magnitude of terrorism is proportionate to the power its perpetrator
possesses. Looked at from another angle, the fostering of injustice is
much more a responsibility of people in power than it is of people without
power. And injustice is the root cause of terrorism. Keeping that in mind,
we can scan the information and the propaganda about terrorism that
circulates in the public media almost everywhere and eventually wind up
perceiving of ―reactionary terrorists‖ as much more lethal than
―proactionary terrorists‖. Almost everyone who consumes the main
restraints upon state action through the due process clause of the Fourteenth
Amendment.
7. 63 Documents The Government Doesn‘t Want You to Read, Jesse Ventura with Dick
Russell, Skyhorse Publishing, 2011, p. 250.
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stream media‘s take on terrorism is convinced or just-about-convinced
that such groups as Hamas, Hizbullah, the Muslim Brotherhood are
terrorist organizations; not to mention other sub-state entities that stand
up for fairness, equity, and social justice around the world. It does not
occur to the average consumer of information in the main-stream media
that such state actors as the USA and Israel qualify as mega-terrorists in
today‘s world. The US is an incubator of personnel and a sponsor of
officials who are responsible for the very conditions that breed terrorism
and then these personnel put into practice the terrorism of the state.
We shall take one example that verifies the above – The School of the
Americas.
―The Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano has written about the School of
the Americas, now renamed the Western Hemisphere Institute for
Security Cooperation. He writes that in the United States, ―military
nurseries [have] been growing specialists in the violations of human
rights.‖8 It seems that if the United States was really interested in shutting
down terrorist training camps, it could start much closer to home in Fort
Benning, Georgia.
Yes, we live in an age of irony. There was the Stone Age, and now there
is the Age of Irony. The government says it is determined to close
terrorist camps, yet here in the United States the School of the Americas
has trained people who have engaged in terrorism, trained people who
then became organizers of death squads in Central America.
If you put up photos of the graduating classes of the School of the
Americas on the wall, you wold have a rogues‘ gallery of terrorism. I
think of the El Salvadoran death squad leader Roberto D‘Aubuisson; of
the graduates who took part in the massacre of 811 people in El Mozote
in December 1981; of the many generals and dictators who went through
the School of the Americas. In fact, some of the manuals used in the
8. Upside Down: A Primer for the Looking-Glass World, Eduardo Galeano, trans. Mark
Fried (New York: Picador USA, 2001, 195.
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School of the Americas give advice on how to carry out what amount to
terrorists acts.9
You know, the Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega went to the School
of the Americas and then became an employee of the CIA; but then
suddenly he becomes an enemy and a terrorist, so we go to war to capture
him. But we probably won‘t go to war to capture Kissinger anytime soon.
The United States has consistently opposed the creation of an
international war crimes tribunal because it could be used against people
in the U.S. government and military. They are very explicit about it. In
effect, the government is saying: ―Yes, we have people who have
committed war crimes, but an American by definition cannot commit a
war crime.
In fact, Kissinger wrote recently that the proposal to create an
international court is a bad idea.10 Well, naturally it‘s a bad idea, because
he would be one of the first people who would be up there on the witness
stand trying to explain his support for death squads and repressive
governments in Latin America, war crimes in Southeast Asia, and the
apartheid South African government.11
Don‘t believe what is said in the mainstream media about political
freedoms in the USA. By the year 2002, 71 demonstrators had served a
total of 40 years of jail time for protesting in front of the School of the
Americas.12
9. SOA Watch (www.soaw.org); Frida Berrigan, ―Beyond the School of the Americas:
U.S. Military Training Programs Here and Abroad,‖ Arms Trade Research Center,
World Policy Institute, May 2000; Dana Priest, ―U.S. Instructed Latins on Executions,
Torture; Manuals Used 1982-91, Pentagon Reveals,‖ Washington Post, 21 September
1996, AI; Tina Rosenberg, ―Another Hallowed Terror Ground,‖ New York Times
Magazine, 13 January 2002, 6: 26.
10. ―The Pitfalls of Universal Jurisdiction,‖, Henry A. Kissinger, Foreign Affairs 80, no.
4 (July/August 2001): 86.
11. Terrorism and War, Howard Zinn, Seven Stories Press, New York, 2002, pp 54-56.
12.State Terrorism and the United States From Counterinsurgency to the War on
Terrorism, Frederick H. Gareau, Clarity Press Inc, Atlant, 2004, p 22.
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Ten of the graduates of the school became the president/dictators of their
countries, 23 became ministers of defense.13
UN Report: The School of the Americas has graduated over 500 of the
worst human rights abusers in the hemisphere.14
From Latin American to the Islamic East, Washington has a record – a
bloody record – for equipping and financing regimes that deny justice to
their citizens and therefore beget terrorism at both ends of the spectrum:
the rulers and the ruled.
In 1957 Washington helped the Shah create SAVAK, the notorious
Iranian secret police.
The Ba‘thists came to power with the help of the CIA. The agency
provided lists of communists whom the party then hunted down, tortured,
and killed. Saddam Husein was referred to as ―Our S.O.B.‖
The U.S. approved 241 dual-use exports to Iraq, among the precision
machine tools to be used on SCUD missiles, computers for chemical
weapons production, and bacterial and fungus cultures.
The Reagan administration became a co-belligerent with Saddam later in
the Iran-Iraq war.
The US government looked the other way after providing to the Iraqi
Ba‗thi government weapons of mass destruction to be used against
Islamic Iran and the Kurds.
Washington has a long record of complicity in Israeli state terrorism. The
past seven decades have been an on-going Israeli policy of ethnic
cleansing of the Palestinian people. The purpose of the Deir Yasin
massacre was to strike terror into the surrounding Palestinian population
so that they would leave to make room for ‗returning Jewish immigrants!
And Washington fiddles its fingers!
Washington has a hand in the Israeli development of nuclear bombs.
Washington has been financing Israeli state and vigilante terrorism to the
tune of well over [the official] three billion US dollars a year.
13. Ibid, p 23.
14. Ibid. p 24.
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The Bush administration has openly declared that aggression is the
national policy of the United States; and Obama has become the caretaker
of that policy. The Bush administration projected unto world public
opinion a dangerous new world, and Obama has fueled that danger. The
US has been upgrading its war making capacity in a manner that is blind
to any principles of justice at home and abroad. No consideration has
been given to US negotiation of solutions, discontinuation of policies that
generate or increase the enemy‘s anger and hatred, or adoption of new
policies that would decrease their numbers and help prevent the creation
of new crops of terrorists.
We are conditioned by the barrage of public information, carefully
engineered by editors and columnists, to think of terrorism as ‗the weapon
of the weak‘. Very few of us have the mental courage to take the
definition of terrorism into the bully‘s turf. We are systematically
conditioned to think of retail terrorism, never to think of wholesale
terrorism.
We take this whole issue of terrorism and its definitions into the
imperialist and zionist terrain and accuse the racist and capitalist regimes
in Tel Aviv and Washington of being terrorist regimes. They, together,
are accountable – along with their client regimes in the Islamic East – for
inflicting terror and pursuing terrorist policies against populations in their
hundreds of millions from Africa to Asia and throughout the southern
hemisphere of the world. Is it not the absence of domestic justice and the
activation of imperialist and zionist terrorist policies that has cost the
people of ‗Iraq over one million ‗Iraqis dead, almost one million ‗Iraqi
widows, and around four million ‗Iraqi orphans. There is an estimated one
million ‗Iraqis who are internally displaced and over one million ‗Iraqis
who have fled their homeland – living as refugees, scattered around the
world. Is not ‗Iraq because of American policies a horror house of terror?
The math is easy when comparing ‗Iraq with the United States. Had the
same terror policies been applied to the United States we would have over
ten million dead Americans, almost ten million American widows, forty
million American orphans, around ten million Americans internally
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displaced, and over ten million Americans forced out of their own
country... Tell me! Had this magnitude of a tragedy happened in the
United States, would not the perpetrator of it be called a terrorist?
Afghanistan is yet another extensive and sweeping illustration of megaterrorism.
The zionist Israeli nation-state stands accused of systematic and
calculated terrorism against the Palestinian people. Over 300,000
Palestinians have been killed in the course of Israeli occupation of
Palestine. No family in Palestine has been spared the terror of Israeli
policies and designs.
After all this, a question lingers on; how shall the world community be
spared the ugly and the bloody bouts of terrorism?
The answer to that is simple. The antidote to terrorism is justice. But,
then, how do we bring about the necessary justice to rid our societies of
terrorism? There are many definitions of justice itself, and we relieve
ourselves here of counting and discussing these definitions. To put it in a
few words, justice or social justice can only be defined in an objective
way went it issues from the divine. A race‘s definition of justice is race
centered, doing injustice to the ―other‖ race(s). A national definition of
justice is nation focused, doing injustice to the ―other‖ nationality. An
ethnic definition of justice is ethnicity specific, doing injustice to those
who are not of that particular ethnic stock. A class definition of justice is
class obsessed, thus doing injustice to ―other‖ classes... etc...
So a definition of justice would have to come from outside the human
condition to be fair to all. And this can only mean that we will have to
look for this justice in the Divine Writ that has come to us from our
Maker and our Creator who is fair to all – regardless of race, ethnic
origin, nationality, gender, class, etc...
How longer do we humans have to suffer from injustice, crimes against
humanity, genocide, terrorism, and the oppression of materialist powers?
I say the following not because I am a guest in the Islamic Republic of
Iran. I say it because it is the truth. The Islamic Republic of Iran and its
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steadfast leadership has broken new grounds in giving the region and the
world a practical demonstration of what it means to be independent of
superpowers and terror-powers that have poisoned human relations. It
was not an easy step forward. The people in Islamic Iran have endured
wars – hot and cold – but have persevered. The tenets of justice have
taken root in this model for humanity. In the coming generation, the fruits
of this pioneering Islamic leadership will become available for all who
look forward to a world of harmony and mutual coexistence.
We do not say that the society in Iran is living in a utopia; no it is not. But
it has done its homework and if it persists it will be able to show the rest
of the world what social justice means. In this regard, the Islamic order in
Iran — with all its difficulties and challenges — is a generation or two
ahead of others.
Our presence here is a building block that aims to move this whole notion
of social justice forward. By breaking new perceptual grounds we will
have contributed our bit to a better tomorrow – a world that is free of
terrorism and a new world order that is living in peace by the imprimatur
of justice.
We honor the martyrs who gave their lives to make our presence here
possible. We salute the leadership of the Islamic Republic for its
selflessness and dedication throughout the past three decades of external
and internal challenges. And we greet the sponsors of this Conference
who took it upon themselves to convene such a Conference when the
world stands at a critical crossroad.
And may the peace and justice of heaven become the peace and justice of
earth.
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Jihad and Terrorism: A War of the Words
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Moazzam Begg 
―Do not oppress and do not be oppressed.
The Noble Quran
During my years of incarceration at Bagram and Guantánamo Bay, I was
interrogated well over 300 times. One of those interrogations, by the CIA,
in my third year of US captivity, I still recall with a sense of amusement.
The agent insisted on repeating the word 'terrorist' when referring to me.
Nothing new, I thought. Then, he used an Algebraic equation in a rather
puerile way in order to get me to cooperate. ―Your situation is X+Y=Z,‖
he said as he wrote out his findings. ―'X' is you, 'Y' is your noncooperation and 'Z' is terrorist – a terrorist who will stay here for a very
long time. After three years of this sort of thing, I was no longer
intimidated by the US military or the alphabet agencies. I replied by
telling him that Algebra was an Arabic word that clearly struck terror into
the hearts of people in the West – and the East for that matter (at least if
you were a teenager studying trigonometry). But I also told him Algebra
wasn't the only Arabic word that frightened the West, and he knew it.
There are hundreds of English words that have etymological roots in the
Arabic language. Most of them are taken for granted and attract little
 Moazzam Begg is one of nine British citizens who were held at Camp X-Ray,
Guantánamo Bay by the government of the United States of America.
Moazzam has authored numerous pieces that have appeared in major broadsheets around
the world – and regularly writes for the Guardian Comment is Free – and, has written an
award-winning book detailing life as a Muslim living in the UK and his further
experiences in Guantánamo. Enemy Combatant is the first book to be published by a
former Guantánamo Bay prisoner – which has been translated into several languages. He
is also featured in a number of award-winning documentary films including, Al-Jazeera's
Prisoner 345, Taking Liberties, Torturing Democracy, National Geographic's
Guantanamo's Secrets and Taxi to the Dark Side which received an academy award
(Oscar) in 2008. He is also a published poet and some of his poetry appears in the highly
acclaimed anthology, Poems from Guantanamo which was launched with Amnesty
International alongside poet laureate Andrew Motion.
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controversy when used by ordinary English-speaking people. For
example, "Arabic numerals" revolutionised and replaced cumbersome
Roman ones; the words alkali, chemistry, arsenal, cipher, admiral,
magazine, sherbet, syrup, tariff, zenith, algorithm and even checkmate are
but a few that hark back to an Islamic and Arabic past that helped civilise
the world . A few words were regarded with a simultaneous sense of
repulsion and admiration – of the exotic and mysterious, like assassin,
Saracen and harem‟.1 But there is an Arabic word used in the English
language today that provokes more confusion, suspicion, hostility and
fear than all others: jihad. And the time has come for Muslims to reclaim
it.
The word jihad comes from the root verb jahada which linguistically
means "to struggle". The Arabic lexicon describes jihad as 'making the
utmost effort to attain something beloved or to save oneself from
something disliked.' It is from this literal interpretation that many
Muslims – and non-Muslims – erroneously limit the concept of jihad
solely to internal, spiritual struggle. Whilst recognising the importance of
the spiritual jihad – the jihad of the nafs (self) – there is a critical danger
in applying literal interpretations to words that have widely accepted
meanings according to the consensus (ijma)of Islamic teachings and
jurisprudence (shar‟i meanings). This approach does little to address the
very real problems that issue from deliberate mistranslations and
misconstructions of Arabic words and concepts - against which Islam is
not immune.2
The five daily prayers in Islam are referred to in their singular form as
salaah. There is no dispute in this matter and anyone attempting to restrict
the practice of prayer to the linguistic definition, which simply means
1. Al-Mawrid: A Modern English-Arabic Dictionary (1992) by Munir al-Ba‗albeki
2. There is a common misconception espoused by many Muslims today that Islam means
peace. It does not. Islam means 'submission'. Salaam means 'peace'. Also, according to
the post-prayer supplication Muslims say daily, Allah is peace: 'Oh Allah! You are peace
and peace comes from you …' Sahih Muslim. When greeting each other Muslims say,
'as-salaamu alaikum' (peace be upon you) and not ‗Islam alaikum‘ (submission be upon
you)
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'connection', would be guilty of heresy. Likewise, a similar
reinterpretation of the Islamic obligation of zakaah – a tax Muslims are
required to pay that assists the poor, beggars, tax-collectors, orphans,
travellers, recent converts to Islam, prisoners and even the mujahideen –
to its linguistic meaning, "purification", would also be entirely rejected.
Those who engage in jihad are called mujahideen and those killed doing
it are called shuhadaa (martyrs) who have obtained a rank unparalleled in
the hierarchy of the Hereafter.3 It would seem absurd for people who
interpret jihad as "the daily struggle of life" to call themselves
"mujahideen" in life and "martyrs" subsequently in death [by natural
causes].
The Concise Oxford Dictionary describes jihad as a 'religious war of
Muslims against unbelievers; campaigns for or against a doctrine.' Indeed
jihad is commonly described in the West as 'holy war.' But holy war in
Arabic would be Harb al-Muqadassah and this phrase is simply not found
in the Quran or the Sunnah (the Prophetic way of life) which are the best
(and only, from an Islamic perspective) sources to understanding the
concept of jihad – or any other Islamic teachings – even if the cumulative
evidence does point clearly to the concept of jihad as primarily one of
physical struggle and warfare.
Jihad and Qitaal (fighting) are mentioned collectively over one hundred
times in the Quran. Both appear often with the words fee sabeel lillah (in
the path of Allah). The subject of jihad is addressed in great detail
throughout the Quran; some very large chapters deal almost exclusively
with the topic. All the authentic books of ahaadith (Prophetic sayings and
actions) contain hundreds of chapters under the title of jihad. This is also
true regarding hundreds of general books of fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence)
as well as those written exclusively about jihad. The chapters in these
books refer to the issues surrounding the physical jihad: virtues,
exhortations, preparation, rules of engagement, war booty, supplications
upon meeting the enemy, burial rites for martyrs and immense rewards in
3. The Noble Quran, Surah al-Baqarah (1:54) And say not of those who are killed in the
Way of Allâh, ―They are dead.‖ Nay, they are living, but you perceive (it) not.
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the metaphysical world. All of this is in contrast to any peripheral
discussion of the jihad of the nafs (self) which some have argued
erroneously is the greater jihad.4 And, although there are many reports of
women like Safiyyah bint Abdul-Muttalib, Nusaybah bint Ka'b, and
Khawla bint Azwar directly fighting in battles – apart from their normal
accompaniment of the men and nursing the wounded during battle – the
jihad prescribed for women and the elderly was the Hajj (obligatory
pilgrimage to Makkah)5
Islamic scholars have classified jihad into many categories, but they can
generally be summed up into four: (1) Jihad of the nafs (self), (2) jihad
against the shaytan (devil) [desires], (3) jihad against unbelievers and
hypocrites and (4) jihad against oppressors and evil-doers. Thus, limiting
jihad to any singular interpretation would be incorrect. The best approach
is in recognising that the varying levels complement rather than contradict
one another. Even the physical jihad can be waged by the heart and
tongue,6 as well as through wealth and actions. The hadith of the
Messenger: 'The mujahid is the one who strives against his own soul,'
does not negate or contradict other ahadith [plural of Hadith] that mention
jihad as 'the peak of the matter'7or as a deed that is unmatched in reward.8
4. Al-Bayhaqi relates when the Prophet returned from the battle of Badr he said: 'We
have returned from the lesser jihad to the greater jihad'. However, this hadith is a da‘eef
(weak) according to al-Iraaqee. Ibn Hajar says in 'Kashf al-Khafaa' that this is not a
saying of the Prophet but rather a tab‗iee (from a later generation). Ibn Taymiyyah says:
"this hadith has no source and nobody in the field of Islamic knowledge has narrated it"
[al-Furqan]. See also Manaar as-Subl by Ibn al-Qayyimal-Jawziyyah.
5. Narrated by 'Aisha: 'I said, ―O Allah's Apostle! We consider Jihad as the best deed.‖
The Prophet said, ―The best jihad (for women) is Hajj Mabrur. ‗ Sahih al-Bukhari.
6. The Prophet said: 'The best jihad is to say a word of truth in front of an oppressive
ruler.' Ahmed and Ibn Maajah. Also, 'The master of martyrs is Hamza bin AbdulMuttalib, and, a man who stood up to an oppressive ruler where he ordered him and
forbade him so he (the ruler) killed him.' Sunan Abu Dawood.
7. The topmost issue is Islam and its [central] pillar is the prayer and the peak of the
matter is jihad in the way of Allah‗ reported by Ahmed and Tirmidhi.
8. When asked by someone as to who was the best of people, the Messenger replied: 'A
believer who performs jihad with his life and wealth.' Sahih Al-Bukhari. Also in alBukhari, when asked by someone to describe a deed equal to jihad in merit the Prophet
replied: 'I do not find such a deed.'
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Jihad was even described by the Messenger of Allah as 'monasticism'
(abandonment of worldly affairs) – the ultimate jihad of the self: 'Every
nation has its monasticism and the monasticism of this nation is jihad.'9
However, the Quran also describes both jihad and qitaal as a transaction
for which the ultimate prize is achieved by paying the ultimate price:
Indeed Allah has purchased from the believers their lives and their
wealth in return for Paradise. They fight in the Way of Allah, they
kill and are killed…10
And:
O you who believe! Shall I guide you to a commerce that will save you
from a grievous torment? That you believe in Allah and His
Messenger and you perform jihad in the way of Allah with your
wealth and your lives…11
According to the consensus of the Islamic schools of thought
(mathaahib), jihad (with wealth and in person, in the military sense)
becomes an individual obligation, like prayer and fasting, on Muslim men
and women when their land is occupied by foreign enemies or when an
invasion is imminent. That obligation extends to neighbouring Muslim
peoples until the enemy has been expelled. If the whole body of believers
abandon it, they are in a state of major sin; if enough of them do it to
complete the task, they are absolved.12 Jihad using wealth is also
obligatory in securing the release of Muslim prisoners. Imam Malik said:
'If a Muslim is held as a prisoner of war…it is obligatory on others to
secure his release, even if it requires all the Muslims wealth.'13 Some
scholars even argue that had jihad been emphatically prohibited in Islam,
it would become permissible by necessity when Muslims lands are
invaded, in the way that pork becomes permissible for the Muslim if there
is nothing else to eat.
9. Al-Mu‘jam by At-Tabaraani
10. The Noble Quran, Surah at-Tawbah (9:111)
11. The Noble Quran, Surah as-Saff, (61:10-11)
12. Kitabul Jihad by Imam Hasan al-Banna
13. Tafseer al-Qurtubi
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The order permitting the nascent community of believers who had
migrated to Madinah after facing persecution in their native Makkah
came shortly after the fledgling Islamic state had been established and
primarily so that the beleaguered Muslims could act in their own defence:
To those against whom war is made, permission is given (to defend
themselves), because they are wronged - and verily, Allah is Most
Powerful to give them victory - (they are) those who have been
expelled from their homes in defiance of right - (for no cause) except
that they say, “Our Lord is Allah....”14
Later, as the community grew and the threats to it as well, dire warnings
were issued for Muslims who abandon jihad: If you do not march forth
Allah will chastise you grievously and will replace you with another
people, while you will be in no way able to harm Him. Allah has
power over everything15 and in the Prophetic hadith: 'A nation does not
abandon jihad except that it is humiliated.' 16 The Quran lays out an
unbridgeable difference between those who remain behind without a valid
excuse and those who continually engage in jihad: Not equal are those
believers who sit (at home) and are not hurt, and those who strive and
fight in the cause of God with their goods and their persons. Allah
has granted a grade higher to those who strive and fight with their
goods and persons than to those who sit (at home). Unto all (in faith)
has Allah promised good: but for those who strive and fight has He
distinguished above those who sit (at home) by a special reward.17
Historically speaking though, whenever the Quran calls for aiding the
oppressed, as in the following verse: And what is wrong with you that
you fight not in the Cause of Allah, and for those weak, ill-treated
and oppressed among men, women, and children, whose cry is: “Our
Lord! Rescue us from this town whose people are oppressors; and
raise for us from You one who will protect, and raise for us from You
14. The Noble Quran, Surah al-Hajj (22:39-40)
15. The Noble Quran, Surah at-Tawbah (9:38)
16 . Al-Mu‘jam by At-Tabaraani.
17. The Noble Quran, Surah an-Nisaa (4:95)
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one who will help”18 people have always obliged. Over time, that
response has dwindled, but Prophet Muhammad said: 'There will not
cease to be a group from my people, fighting upon the truth manifest over
those who fight them…'19
Although in the West jihad is often seen as 'terrorism' it is correct to
describe it as 'tourism'. The Prophet Muhammad ' said: 'The tourism of
my nation is jihad.'20 This is one reason why many Muslims from
thousands of miles away travelled to places as far and wide as Palestine,
Chechnya, Kashmir, Iraq and Afghanistan.
During the 1980s, the word 'mujahideen' became almost exclusively
associated in the West with the fighters of Afghanistan resisting the
Soviet Union's occupation of their land. This name was ennobled
throughout Europe and America and, the rallying cry, under the banner of
jihad, was endorsed by fataawa (religious edicts) from Islamic scholars as
well as Western leaders and politicians.21 Even Hollywood waded in,
lionizing 'the glorious mujahideen' with a dose of Sylvester Stallone in
Rambo 3. A fact conveniently brushed aside today is that Afghan and
Arab mujahideen units were brought over to the UK during the 1980s and
given training by SAS (Special Air Services) commandos in the
picturesque mountains of Snowdonia‗s National Park and the Scottish
Highlands. Testimony from the instructors tells of how they found these
mujahideen, often mountain-men themselves, so easy to teach. In fact, it
was due to the British supplied 'Blowpipe' anti-aircraft missile system that
the face of the war in Afghanistan changed. But not in the way which was
intended.
18. The Noble Quran, Surah an-Nisaa (4:75)
19. Sunan Abu Dawood
21. In his magisterial discourse on jihad during the soviet occupation, Defence of the
Muslim Lands, the charismatic scholar, Sheikh Abdullah Azzam resurrected the famous
13th century fatwa of Ibn Taymiyyah which states: 'As for the aggressive enemy who
destroys life and religion, nothing is more incumbent [upon the believer] after faith than
his repulsion.' Al-Fatawaa al-Kubraa, Ibn Taymiyyah.
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The Mi 24 soviet helicopter gunship, nicknamed 'the Devil‗s Chariot',
with its terrifying arsenal of mini-guns and rockets, wrought havoc upon
the lightly defended mud-brick villages of the Afghans. They had very
few anti-aircraft capabilities and that is why the British supplied them
with 'Blowpipe' – which turned out to be highly ineffective. It is at this
point that the US began sending clandestine supplies of heat-seeking
Stinger anti-aircraft missiles which produced a kill-rate of 7:10. This
became the catalyst in changing the face and direction of the war, the
jihad, in Afghanistan.22
Of course, there was widespread international support for the Afghan,
Arab and Muslim resistance fighters back then and they were not referred
to derogatively as 'jihadists' (instead of mujahideen) who practiced
'jihadism' (instead of jihad) and 'Islamism' (instead of Islam). However, it
can be argued that the mujahideen were not, as a practice, carrying out
strikes against civilian targets in the West either.
In the early days of Islam – and even before that – duels of strength would
be fought between champion warriors of opposing forces in single
combat. This was part of the test of manhood (rajoolah) encompassing
individual skill and courage. The Messenger of Allah and his companions
were renowned for their ferocity and steadfastness in battle against the
enemy as much as they were for their mercy and magnanimity towards
the vanquished. In one of the most celebrated duels ever recorded in
Islamic history, during the Battle of the Trench, Ali, the Prophet's cousin,
accepted the challenge to fight Amr 'the greatest warrior in Arabia'. After
a long, harrowing duel between the two fighters, Ali managed to subdue
his opponent. However, just as the final death-blow approached Amr spat
in Ali's face. What Ali did next has resounded throughout Muslim history
– both Shi‗ite and Sunni – as the quintessential example of selflessness,
even if it is seldom practiced today. Ali rose calmly from Amr's chest,
wiped his face, and said. ―Know, O Amr, I only kill in the way of Allah
22. See The Bear Trap: The Defeat of a Superpower by Mohammed Yousaf and Charlie
Wilson‘s War: The Extraordinary Story of How the Wildest Man in Congress and a
Rogue CIA Agent Changed the History of Our Times by George Crile
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and not for any private motive. Since you spat in my face, my killing you
now may be from a desire for personal vengeance. So I spare your life.23
There is no rajoolah or honour in killing unarmed civilians.
One of the most revered personages in the Muslim world – after the
Prophet Mohammed – is Salahuddin (Saladin) Al-Ayubi. Liberating
Jerusalem and the Holy Land from the crusaders has earned him the
respect and love of all Muslims. Even in these days of great trauma and
turmoil, it is not unusual to hear Imams of mosques pray for the
emergence of a modern Salahuddin. But it is the admiration the West has
extended him that has truly set Salahuddin apart. His largesse towards his
enemies is the stuff of legend and his chivalry was simply exemplary. His
qualities of humility, piety, bravery, honour, integrity and generosity are
what most Muslims still aspire to. His recapture of Jerusalem in 1187 was
comparatively tame to the wanton bloodlust perpetrated by the crusaders
in 1099. He even pardoned many of those who fought against him as well
as freeing a huge number of captives, giving rights of free passage and
worship to civilians.
And yet, some non-Muslims who have been objective enough to
challenge Western misconceptions of Islam have fallen into the trap of
denial. In his impressive book about the life of Salahuddin, the historian
Geoffrey Hindley writes astonishingly:
'In the twenty first century, this term jihad has powerful resonance in the
Islamic world. Although the word is not found in the Quran, it was in use
from a very early date.'24
Such flagrant errors only enhance the notion that there is insufficient
desire and erudition in the West to really understand Islam.25
In the wake of the attacks on September 11 the US administration
attempted to launch its 'war on terror' under the name of Operation
Infinite Justice. However, the ill-advised Bush junior, referring to this
23. The Sword of Allah: Khalid bin Al-Waleed: His Life and Campaigns by LieutenantGeneral A.I. Akram
24. Saladin: Hero of Islam by Geoffrey Hindley
25. The word jihad is mentioned either directly or referred to as a concept 164 times in
the Quran.
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crusade soon realized how offensive it might sound to potential Muslim
allies that the USA was now establishing itself on a par with the Divine.
The rewording that followed was equally inapt. Operation Enduring
Freedom demonstrated clearly how the Bush administration believed
freedom was not a right that all human beings have from birth till death.
Rather, it was something to be endured – at least if you happened to be a
captive of US forces. It was more like Operation Ending Your
Freedom‗for us and the thousands more who were later detained around
the world. It began with a desire for justice, mutated into a wanton act of
revenge and is now a war against a faith and the resources its people are
gifted (or cursed) with.
Muslims have learned the meaning of Bush's and Obama's American
justice in Guantánamo, Bagram, Abu Ghuraib and the multitude of secret
detention sites dotted around the world. The process of extraordinary
rendition [kidnap, false imprisonment, torture]; religious, racial and
sexual abuse; cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment are all designed to
terrorise victims and have produced false confessions to justify more
occupation of Muslim land. It is terrorism of the very worst kind,
especially since it is carried out in the name of virtue. Inside the detention
camps of Guantánamo – where the iguana is protected by law under the
Endangered Species Act – 'the detained men have no human or legal
rights. Everything afforded to them is a privilege', including toilet paper.
Outside each of the camps there is plaque that reads Honor Bound to
Defend Freedom. The stark irony lies in there being about as much
honour in this as there is freedom.
There was little honour too in the strikes against civilians which claimed
2,976 lives in the US, 191 in Spain and 52 in the UK. But at least we
know these numbers because each individual counts. In stark contrast,
thousands of tonnes of tomahawk missiles, hellfire rockets, cluster
bombs, smart bombs, phosphorus bombs, vacuum bombs, 1500lb daisycutters and billions of rounds fired from machine guns and assault rifles
have killed more people in Iraq and Afghanistan than anyone knows for
sure. Estimates put the numbers at anything from 100,000 to 2 million.
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The reason why there are no reliable figures in either country is because
no one counts. Neither the killers, nor those killed. They are worth much
less than collateral damage. They are not even numbers. They are
nothing. If what happened on in the USA on September 11 – or anywhere
else – is described correctly as terrorism‗ due to the deliberate taking of
innocent life, then what do we call this?
The word terrorism 'entered the English language in the late nineteenth
century after the French revolution and the ensuing Reign of Terror' (or
the [Great] Terror) gave birth to French democracy.26 However, since the
notion of terrorism was first applied to a state rather than to an individuals
or groups, it has been almost impossible to arrive at a single definition.
Hence, there are over a hundred of them. The only common factor agreed
upon is the inclusion of violence – or the threat of violence – to reach an
objective. The Concise Oxford Dictionary describes the terrorist as 'one
who favours or uses terror-inspiring methods of governing or of coercing
government or community.'
It is not surprising that more recent definitions of terrorism, such as the
one found in the American Heritage Dictionary, omit the inclusion of
governments as potential candidates: The unlawful use or threatened use
of force or violence by a person or an organized group against people or
property with the intention of intimidating or coercing societies or
governments, often for ideological or political reasons.
It is not surprising too that Muslims have become angry and have even
responded with actions rejected by Islam to unleash their outrage.
However, if resisting the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan was jihad, if
26. The Encyclopaedia Britannica describes terrorism as: The systematic use of violence
to create a general climate of fear in a population and thereby to bring about a particular
political objective. It [terrorism] has been used throughout history by political
organizations of both the left and the right, by nationalist and ethnic groups, and by
revolutionaries. Although usually thought of as a means of destabilizing or overthrowing
existing political institutions, terror also has been employed by governments against their
own people to suppress dissent; examples include the reigns of certain Roman emperors,
the French Revolution (see Reign of Terror), Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union under
Stalin, and Argentina during the "dirty war" of the 1970s.
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the repelling the massacres by the Serbs in Bosnia was jihad, then how
can resisting the current occupation of these Muslims lands be anything
else? Was jihad simply a tool that could be used and discarded according
to interests? Clearly, some governments – past and present – acting to
promote-self interest have not shied away from declaring their aims.27
The problem is that very few people care to distinguish between people
who fight – or are willing to fight28 –.
On 28 June, 1940, Nazi forces occupied the British Channel islands; the
enemy was knocking at Britain's southern door. Whilst the bulk of British
soldiers were engaged in operations around Europe, North Africa and the
Far East, over 1.5 million men joined the Home Guard or Dad's Army as
it affectionately became known. The contingency plan against a
successful German occupation of Britain included the re-training of these
men in guerrilla tactics. That training began in Osterley Park, London,
where communist veterans of the Spanish civil war taught British
volunteers how to make Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs), Molotov
cocktails, hand-grenades and how to sabotage and terrorise potential Nazi
occupiers. The success of this training spread and several more camps
were opened.29 Of course, the Nazis were defeated on their own soil but,
they would have been in for a surprise had they landed in Britain. The
Nazis would no doubt have been welcomed by the far-right in Britain – as
they had been in many other countries – and would have labelled any
27. We have no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are
eternal and perpetual, and those interests it is our duty to follow.‗ Lord Palmerston,
remarks in the House of Commons defending his foreign policy, March 1, 1848.—
Hansard‘s Parliamentary Debates.
28. 28Counter-terrorism legislation passed since 2000 in the UK has criminalised
engaging in, preparing to engage in, glorifying, supporting or simply researching jihad.
Muslims have faced the full brunt of the law in this regard. Despite the apparent
duplicity involved, one can invading forces abroad and those who choose to bring their
fight to unarmed civilians who have little to do with it (and in many cases oppose the
war too). To add, recent history shows how terrorism‗ has been closer to home than
previously acknowledged – and it was sanctioned by the British government as a
legitimate means of self-defence.
29. See The Home Guard by David Carroll
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British resistance as terrorists‗ as they had the relatively small percentage
of French who resisted the occupation. The irony lies in the fact that little
is celebrated – especially in the US and UK – about the French
contribution to the allied effort in World War II today, except the French
résistance.
Admittedly, there is sometimes a fine line between resistance and
terrorism, and we often can‗t tell the difference – or make distinctions
based not on principle but on how the language has been defined for us.
The Arabic word irhaab is today used to describe terrorism. However, the
usage of this word has altogether dissimilar roots and applications to its
European counterpart. The Quran states: And prepare against them [the
enemy] whatever you are able from power and from steeds of war
[weapons and stratagems] in order to strike terror into the hearts of
the enemy of Allah and your enemy…‗30 Although the striking of
terror‗ referred to in this verse is sometimes incorrectly used by some
Muslims to justify terrorism, it is clear according to both classical and
contemporary Quranic exegesis that the reference is to an army preparing
for battle. But even armies – Muslim or not – are not mobilised,
supposedly, to threaten and terrorise civilian populations.
Another Quranic verse sometimes misappropriated in the same way is:
And if they transgress against you then transgress against them the
way they transgress against you…31 to justify indiscriminate acts of
violence against civilians as a justifiable retaliatory tactic of war, going
beyond the 'collateral damage' argument. But the same verse ends with:
And fear Allah and know that Allah is with those who fear him
making it clear that however brutal the enemy may be, Muslims are still
required to do that which is conducive to fearing their Creator. The Quran
states also: And fight in the Way of Allah those who fight you, but
30. The Noble Quran: al-Anfaal (8:60)
31. The Noble Quran: al-Baqarah (1:194). An-Nahl (16:26) mentions: And if you
punish, then punish them with the like of that with which you were afflicted [by
their hands]. This derives from the Islamic principles of Qisaas (the Law of Equality)
and requires further comment.
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transgress not the limits. Truly, Allah likes not the transgressors.32
Indiscriminate slaughter and rapine are not practices sanctioned by Islam.
During the war – or jihad – in Bosnia in the 1990s, thousands of Muslim
women were systematically raped by Serbian soldiers under the
leadership of indicted war criminals Slobodan Milosovic, Radovan
Karadic, and Ratko Mladic. In addition to this, hundreds of thousands of
Bosnians were brutally killed and ethnically cleansed from their own
homes. Subsequently, thousands of Muslims from around the world once
again volunteered under the banner of jihad to come to the rescue of their
beleaguered coreligionists. However, Islam forbids Muslims from
reciprocating in kind regardless of the crimes perpetrated by the enemies
of Muslims. Muslims would never contemplate setting up rape-camps for
captured Serbian women – or any other women.
It was after encountering the body of a non-Muslim woman killed in
battle that the Prophet said: She is not one who would have fought.‗ He
then said to one of companions: Catch up with Khalid [Ibn al-Waleed, the
hardly be surprised at a government doing all it can to prevent people
harming its interests within its own borders– including its military – and
abroad, even if those interests are based around illegal, immoral and
unwinnable wars.
Foremost Muslim general] and tell him not to kill women, children and
prisoners. 33 The Messenger was even more specific later, exhorting his
soldiers not to target women, children, old people, clergy and unarmed
villagers. He also emphatically forbade the use of fire to kill, mutilation
of corpses, cutting down vegetation unnecessarily or torturing captured
prisoners.
At the battle of Uhud Abu Dujana, one of the foremost companions of the
Prophet was entrusted with the honour of fighting with the Prophet‗s
sword after promising to use it with it bravery. In the thick of the battle
Abu Dujana encountered a woman of the enemy who was exhorting her
army to kill Muslims. But the ferocious Abu Dujana held back his hand
32. The Noble Quran: at-Taubah (9:36)
33. Sunan Abu Dawood and Ahmed
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saying, I respect the Prophet's sword too much to use it on a woman.‗34
The woman was in fact Hind bint Utbah (the wife of Abu Sufyan who
was leading the Quraish army against the Muslims) and, at that point, an
avowed enemy of Islam.
Although jihad does seek to terrify those who are engaged in oppression,
abuse and violation of the sanctity of Muslims (and those under their
protection), ordinary, decent human beings should not have to fear it,
even when their own governments have committed crimes in their names.
The purpose of jihad is to protect – not oppress. Being just to the enemy
might be the hardest jihad of the nafs but it is still incumbent upon
Muslims. This notion couldn‗t be clearer than in the Quranic verse: O you
who believe! Stand out firmly for Allah as just witnesses and let not
the enmity and hatred of others make you avoid justice. Be just: that
is nearer to piety, and fear Allah.35 In conclusion, jihad is an
inseparable component of Islam which embodies the very highest
principles of faith, morality and rules of wartime engagement. It is the
belief of Muslims that 'jihad is an „ibaadah (act of worship) that will
continue until the Final Day.'36 But as it is waged, in all its forms,
Muslims must neither allow their oppressors to overcome them nor to
become their teachers in the process. In doing so, the concept of jihad in
Islam can be reclaimed once again by the Muslims.
34. Seerat Ibn Hisham Vol. 2
35. The Noble Quran: al-Ma‗idah (5:7)
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Terrorism as a Basis of Islamophobia and Confrontation with …
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Terrorism as a Basis for Islamophobia and
Confrontation with the Muslim World
Dr. Ebrahim Mottaqi 
The Western countries need special discourse to confront Islamic world.
In general, any kind of geopolitical, ideological or strategic confrontation
needs to be based on a discourse. Following the Cold War, equating Islam
with terrorism has marred reputation of Muslims in the United States and
Europe. Realities on the ground prove that confrontation is the main
purpose of that approach. This has been just a first step in political and
strategic behavior of the West.
Theorists have emphasized that to oppose political units war of credits
should precede war of armies. This is the same as psychological warfare
which represents organized efforts to mar credibility of the main players
of the Islamic world. Existing evidence shows that terrorism is a symbol
of political and security discourse.
American neocons have, in parallel with European counterparts, turned
terrorism into a new discourse which can be considered equal to Islamist
groups. This approach has taken shape following the fall of the Soviet
Union and has been then taken to European countries. Rightist groups in
the West take a relatively uniform approach to Islamist groups and their
main goal is to discredit Islam at international level. Theosophical debates
aim to translate political and media concepts into social actions and
hostile strategic conduct. Therefore, equating Muslims to terrorism can be
an organized effort to minimize social protests against Western
politicians.
 Professor of International Relation at the University of Tehran.
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1. Depicting the Muslim world as the main enemy of the West
The first step in confrontation with the Muslim world is to make it appear
the main enemy. Various aspects of this process are evidence in Western
media and the press. If Western citizens and elites are aware of a new
enemy, they are sure to consider it as a security threat and blame all
negative events on it. A poll conducted after explosions in Oklahoma City
showed that negative attitude toward Muslims was rapidly soaring in the
United States. This was a result of the strategy adopted by the Western
media, press and strategists to making new enemies. At a time of
widespread political, social and economic crises, this will be a good step
to simplify problems.
Western media name Islamic groups and countries as the main source of
animosity. Muslims are thus unacceptable persons and sources of security
threats. Repetition of this model and inactivity of the Muslim world in the
face of an organized warfare launched by the Western media has further
exacerbated the situation. Obama‘s executive order in January 2010 was
an example of making the Muslim world look like an enemy.
2. Conflicting approaches to terrorism
Several efforts have been made to get countries agreement on a clear
definition of terrorism and its symbols. Different approaches to terrorism,
however, have prevented this. A report in 1989 indicated that problems
with defining terrorism were in place after relative détente between east
and West. Similar efforts were made following 9/11 with no avail.
Conflicting approaches to terrorism include the following:
A. Legendary approach to terrorism
This kind of approach has been taken by countries which were historically
influential, but which have lost that influence. Depending on legends may
cause panic among officials who fight terrorism, but cannot draw support
from people in whose name legendary acts of terrorism are committed.
Legendary terrorism which revolves around a golden time in the past or a
future utopia can overthrow the existing order with violence. However,
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unlike Communion or rules of diplomacy it cannot introduce replacement
rituals after violent takeover.
Western countries are trying to make the world believe that Islamism is a
nostalgic reaction to the Western world which has been continuously
strengthening its foothold since the 16th century. The most important
forces of legendary terrorism include eschatology and millenarianism. In
other words, they think about emancipation, social change and violence as
means of starting a new age.
Some Western strategic analysts put much emphasis on communication
aspects of globalization in explaining terrorism and linking it to the
Muslim world. They have reached the conclusion that contemporary
terrorism is not only the result, but part of the globalization movement.
Unlike some theories of international relations, such violent reactions are
an answer to interventionist role of mainly Western cultural currents.
B. Crisis of meaning and terrorism
Postmodern approaches maintain that social and cultural components are
the sole sources of meaning in the Third World and cause radicalization
of spiritual groups. The former US Secretary of State William Rogers,
however, announced in his address to the United Nations in 1972 that
terrorist acts were totally unacceptable attacks on the international system
which should be condemned throughout the world.
The crisis of meaning is a result of most-modernism and poststructuralism which has its roots in cultural and identity models. To draw
a clear line between terrorism and anti-terrorism is a special task for
modern states. Schultz, a former American secretary of state, announced
in 1985 that when ―they‖ reached an agreement on ―their‖ definition of
terrorism, the distinction between terrorism and anti-terrorism would be
evident. He said the United States understood the difference between
terrorism and freedom fighting and have no difficulty in differentiating
them.
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3. The Muslim world and terrorism in the US approach
The United States has put restricting the political Islam on top of the
political agenda of its intelligence agencies. Neoconservatives have
played a prominent role in political developments of the United States.
Although such plans as the Greater Middle East, promotion of democracy
and military action against Afghanistan and Iraq were temporarily
supported by other countries, unilateral approach taken by the American
statesmen and disregard for international regulations both in political and
military terms, increased the need for redefinition of the US national
strategy.
The approach taken by radical groups under the Republican presidents
(2001-09) proves that confrontation with Islam as source of terrorism has
increased and that trend has also continued under President Obama.
Although the United States and big powers form a single front against
Islam, this does not mean that cooperation with other powers is default
option of US efforts. The current situation proves that the United States is
no longer able to achieve its political and economic goals without
assistance from other big powers.
The United States‘ inefficiency in fighting terrorist groups has
encouraged them to cooperate with such terrorist tendencies as Al-Qaeda
and Taliban. They are now trying to sow discord in the Muslim world. To
understand the viewpoints of rightist Christians toward the Islamist
ideology, one should divide their reactions to before and after 9/11. In
fact, September 11, 2001, marked a watershed in their approach to Islam.
Rightwing Christians have been among the most important opponents of
social rights for the African Americans in 1960s. They even assassinated
Martin Luther King in the name of religion and Christianity. Following
9/11, the tone of their books and articles changed and emphasis was put
on two points. Firstly, Islam is violent in nature and this has been proven
on September 11. Secondly, and more importantly, the God introduced by
Islam is different from the God of Christians and Jews. They try to pitch
Islam against other religions, including Christianity and Judaism. They
have leveled charges against Muslim figures, especially Prophet
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Mohammad (PBUH). They published a book entitled ―Unveiling Islam‖
in 2002, which sold more than one hundred thousand copies. Its authors
claim that Islam has no relation to other religions and Muslim leaders
consider followers of Moses and Jesus Christ as sons of Satan, not
followers of a different faith. This is symbol of Islamism and attribution
of all kind of violence to Muslims. They maintain that violent jihad and
armed conflict is ―indispensable part‖ of Islam claiming that terrorists
causing 9/11 were not just a radical group to have used Quran for their
political ends. They had deep understanding of Quran and following its
teachings on jihad.
Such an approach shows that the West considers Islamism and political
Islam as embodiment of terrorism while, on the other hand, providing
grounds for confrontation with Islamic institutions.
4. The model of interaction with Muslim world against terrorism
At a time that Islamic world is plagued with terrorism, the question is
whether multilateral cooperation against terrorism is necessary or even
possible? What role each political and international group will have to
play to create regional and international balance? To answer these
questions, we need to analyze the West‘s understanding of Islamism.
Evidence shows that Islamism has been portrayed upside-down in the
Western world and many rightist American groups are trying to provide a
single definition of Islamism. This will amount to an effort for
polarization of international politics along the lines of ―terrorism‖ and
―democracy.‖ Under such conditions, Western countries only highlight
military and political measures taken by combatant groups and present
them as Islam.
Graham Fuller, a political scientist in Rand Institute and former deputy
director of the National Intelligence Council has written an article entitled
―A World without Islam,‖ in which he asks ―How would a world without
Islam look like?‖ Then he answers that the world would have reached the
same spot that it has reached now. His reaction to measures of
conservative groups indicates that the West is up to an unfair image of
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Islam and is trying to introduce terrorism as the symbol of Islamism while
introducing Islam as a main support for terrorism.
Fuller is, in fact, addressing a group which considers Islam as the root
cause of all problems. He then depicts a situation in which Islam is
absent. Under those presumptive conditions, the same events would have
happened and even 9/11 attacks would be inevitable. Fuller maintains that
even if Islamist groups did not exist, other political and ideological
groups would have committed similar acts of terrorism.
Fuller condemns the views of some neoconservative experts that
introduce Islam as the root cause of all conflicts. They try to introduce a
new phenomenon they call ―Islamic fascism‖ as sworn enemy of the West
which is providing grounds for a third world war. Therefore, all kinds of
confrontation between the United States and Islamist groups will take
place within framework of political and cultural concepts and literature.
This will amount to an ideological conflict. In other words, although
Islam can be easily blamed as the culprit, past and present conflicts do not
make way for blaming any religious faith. Some analysts have slammed
Fuller‘s article and have likened it to a fiction story.
Richard Haass, President of the Council on Foreign Relations, also
maintains that the main problem facing the modern world is not revival of
Islamic, but an upsurge in terrorist activities. Haass means that Islamism
in our time can reproduce various aspects of the culture of peace,
cooperation and partnership. Meanwhile, terrorism has quite different
roots from Islamism and the West should review its behavioral model.
Thus, though political circles in the United States avoid any
differentiation between Islam and terrorism by using such designations as
―Islamic terrorism,‖ others are trying to encourage correct understanding
of Islam and minimize current tensions which arise from pure
misunderstandings.
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Conclusion
Islamism is resurgence of new normative approaches by certain groups
that are trying to rebuild their forgotten identities and conceptual
frameworks. It aims to promote cooperation in various areas of the
Islamic society to help it regain its true identity and give birth to the
Islamic ummah. The approach taken to Islamists by conservative political
groups in the West is quite to the opposite of the former approach. As a
result, there is conflict between conceptual and normative frameworks of
the West and Islam. On the other hand, there are various signifiers in the
Muslim world which can prevent the birth of an outright Islamic
discourse. Under such circumstances, organized groups in Western
countries have tried to oppose ideological approaches of the Muslim
world by producing new concepts and norms.
To achieve this goal, they have produced discourses which are based on
false conceptual frameworks. According to this approach, Islam is equal
to terrorism, on the one hand, while on the other hand, they try to
marginalize all Islamic processes. This will radicalize normative concepts
of terrorism as a symbol of a new discourse with modern approaches in
international relations.
Western countries have tried to create concepts and link them to some
social and international symbols in order to reproduce conflicts. Under
such circumstances, the Western politics stands for concepts which are
social in nature, while on the other hand, helping to differentiate the
Western countries from the rest of the world on the basis of their
ideological policies.
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Resources
1. Rapoport, Darid (1984) Fear and Trembling: Terrorism Tree Religious
Traditions, American political Science Review, No.38 , Vol.3.
2. Whine, Michael (1999) A New Medium Far Communication , Command and
Control by Extremists , in: www.ict.org.il
3. Shultz, George (1980) Transnational Terrorism: a chronology of Events 1968
– 1979 , Greenwood: Westport .
4. Georges – Abeyie, Daniel (1983) Perspectives in Terrorism , Wilmington:
Dej , scholarly Resources.
5. US National strategy for public Diplomacy and strategic communication ,
June 2007.
6. Cimino, Richard (2004) New Boundaries – Evangelicals and Islam After
9/11 , in: www.religionwatch.com.
7. Oldfield, Duan (2002) Making Sense Of a world Trans formed, A paper
Presented to the Annual Meeting of the American political Science Association ,
Boston Massachusetts , August 29 J September.
8. Boyer, Paul (2003) when U.S. foreign policy Meets Biblical prophecy ,
AlterNet.
9. Ba – yunus, Ilyas and M. Moin Siddigui (1998) A Report O Muslim
population in the United states of America , Center for American Muslim
Research and In formation.
10. J Leach, Ellory (2003) New Coalition on Conservatism , Chicago: Chicago
State University press.
11. the National Security Strategy of the United States , 2002.
12. Fuller, Graham ( 2008) A world without Islam , Foreign Policy , Jan – Feb.
13. Ghazali, Abdus (2008) Imagine A world without Islam , Jan , 17 , in:
www.Countercurrents.org.
Religion & Ethics Newsweekly (2009) in: www.pbc.org
Terrorism: Definition, Causes, and Ways to Fight It
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Terrorism: Definition, Causes, and
Ways to Fight It
Dr. M. Bahig Mullah Howeish

Definition
Terrorism is all violence committed by a state or an organization against
the innocent in order to achieve the objectives of propagandist, political,
or military goals at the expense of another party. Terrorism is foremost a
form of negative thinking and abnormal, aberrant, and pathologic
behavior. It is attributed to a narrowness in perspective and a limitation of
intelligence, and reflects weakness of problem-solving intellectual
faculties.
The criminal acts of terrorists are undertaken under the pretext of
defending their ideological ideas. These criminal acts induce a kind of
mass terror, and include the attacks done by some political regimes or the
great powers. They do not distinguish between innocent and non-innocent
and attack indiscriminately, including the siege of cities and their means
of communication and the prevention of supplies of food, medicine and
fuel for civilian purposes. These are terrorist actions regardless of the
perpetrators excuses and justifications.
Armed actions that violate international law and undermine human rights
are included in the classification of terrorist actions, and therefore the
perpetrators and instigators of them must be subjected to justice in
competent national or international courts.
Moreover, their defiance against the rules and principles of ethics,
society, and politics is not a new phenomenon. It can sometimes be a
natural result of powers being affected by their power and dominion, by
 Representative of Europeans Muslims at the United Nations, Quarn translator
into Spanish.
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their ego, and by their confident arrogance of their knowledge and
abilities. This ethical and egotistical crisis often leads to tyranny and
double standards when dealing with problems and social and political
crises. This duplication turns into a common behavior and even becomes
a strategy for the tyrannical, who generalize ―I‖ for anything positive and
―the other‖ for anything negative.
Based on the above we can conclude that the phenomenon of violence
and acts of terrorism is a kind of a return to slavery, in the sense that those
who practice terrorism abandon values and ethical norms. In their
dealings, the ―other‖ is considered to have no option but to obey them and
work under the dictates of the "I" given. "I" is considered the master and
the "other" is the targeted object that should obey.
Causes of violence and terrorism
The growing phenomenon of terrorism is inversely proportional to the
level of enjoyment of rights, the administration of justice, and ruling by
social and political ethics. Terrorism deprives the "other" of his rights and
of justice in the name of protecting him and lowering his social, political
and ethical responsibilities. The act surpasses the limits of humanity.
Terrorism results in a cycle of violence and revenge.
Terrorism is a form of deviant infidel thinking, acted out in sick and
twisted behaviors that are outside of rational thought. It is expected that
the reactions of terrorist are impulsive, extremist ,wild, extravagant, and
unbridled. But the equation of action and reaction simply balance, as
increased frequency and ferocity of terrorist operations are directly related
to the frequency and ferocity of immoral political power, the violation of
law, and the use of double standards in dealing with people.
The study of the phenomenon of terrorism requires an analysis of its
various factors and facets (multifactorial and multifaceted analysis). One
of the factors is static thought, whether in its ideological or its religious
form. This happens, for example, with the extreme application of
capitalism, which believes that the worker is subject to the will of the
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aristocracy. The logical reaction of this was that the working class reacted
with violent movements in a struggle to recover their rights and freedoms.
Moreover, the tyrant dictator depends mostly on the ethics and behavior
commensurate with the situation, rather than relying on morals, values, or
principles, because the intent is to control and reduce the rights of others
to a minimum to prevent things from getting out of hand. That is why we
find that he picks rules according to what he deems appropriate to dealing
with the circumstances, regardless of truth or justice. This in turn pushes
the citizens to rebel against the "king" and the rules of his system, even
when that system is called ―legal‖. They fight to recover their usurped
rights and freedoms. They may appeal to the tyrant‘s reason and common
sense, but if he refuses the angry and oppressed people will choose
violence and commit acts of revenge, even going as far as terrorist
actions.
Here presents itself the role of civil society organizations, which can preempt the genesis of terrorist groups by working to stop the injustice,
oppression and persecution practiced by the tyrant as a kind of prevention
when crime looms on the immediate horizon.
Ideological terrorism is a form of institutional tyranny with authoritarian
thought or regressive autistic thought that is completely isolated from its
surrounding and uses its own language and logic. But authoritarianism
and autism in their social and political forms makes a deep gap between
the ruler and the ruled and leads to a lack of trust between them. With the
lack of trust, each party tends to take hostile, irritating positions to assess
the emotions of different social groups. This leads to social blocs within
the same society, which are pushed into making larger social clusters,
and which organize themselves according to the form and strength
commensurate with their position in the system, and using the same
weapon as that of the system.
Religious terrorism and coercively forced secularism are two sides of the
same coin; both are characterized by poverty of thought and a decline in
adherence to moral values, both strain to control and manipulate the
emotions of the masses, both used the method of having two levels of
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truth, and both depend on the philosophies of altruism and exclusivism. It
is not required to fight against secularism because we do not have the
right to force anyone to leave what he believes. But we do have the right
to protect ourselves from the burden of forced secular, as this is a
violation of human rights and freedoms. The practice of forced secularism
is only the practice resorted to by an ideology that is past its time.
Secularism is a kind of cult, just as in communism Stalinism became the
religion of the state, with the slogan "Religion is the opium of the
masses".
There is also an ―Oedipus Empire‖ or imperialism which colonial powers
are still dreaming of. They believe that rights are awarded on two levels.
They aim to extend their political and economic dominance and make
colonial culture into the national culture, using legalized criminal tactics.
Collectively, they make up the fertile soil in which international terrorism
grows, terrorism that comes to extend beyond geographical or political
borders. This is what happened in Somalia – world fleets looted Somali
fisheries without any scruples, defying commitments and laws about the
standards of fishing. The greed of the fleets even went to the extent of
preventing Somalis from fishing in certain areas. This led to the return to
the phenomenon of maritime piracy and by extension the ability of
commercial ships from different nationalities to cross the sea.
In conclusion we must point out that the voluntary isolation of academics
and intellectuals from what is happening around them in the street has
contributed indirectly to the inflation of injustice and has become like
cancerous tumor that creates tension between groups, which later turn to
terrorism.
How to fight terrorism
We know that technological superiority does not necessarily mean ethical
and political superiority. We also know that the secular powers are no
guarantor of peace. Since they have lost their ability to fight injustice and
terrorism, we must recruit ourselves for the task. Thus, the International
Conference on Global Alliance Against Terrorism for Just Peace was¨
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held on May 14 to 15, 2011 in Tehran. It advises us to consider the
following:
- That morality and moral behavior are renewable forms of energy that
can be recovered and returned to social life.
- That normal international relations should be based on the dictates of
human intelligence and not on the dictates of fear, terror, or distrust.
- That the interaction and sharing between religion, culture and education
lead to recovery from psychological and behavioral illness and orient the
individual and community towards a system of values. Religion, culture,
education represents the three sides of the triangle that surround the
problem of terrorism.
- The objective is to restore wellness to the relationship between the "I"
and "other" so that we can get to an understanding, moderate, and just ―I‖
and develop a ―we‖ that is distinct yet mutually reinforcing.
- Sincere dialogue and dialectics stimulate the human intelligence, deepen
mutual understanding, and push the man to understand, face, and resolve
life's problems.
- Peace can never be achieved as long as there is injustice and arrogance.
We are invited to humanize the relationship between the parties of crisis,
and this requires us to:
- Embrace the philosophy of hope not that of despair
- Promote a culture of mutual respect between religious followers
- Reconcile the values and culture of the current world in order to find a
solid base for cultural groups to be placed horizontally and equally to
others, rather than in a hierarchy
- Build a world saturated with faith and common values and universal
values, rather than the current world we live in that denies values and
ideals under the guise of personal freedom.
- Urge rulers to rule with political elegance rather than political repression
and tyranny
- Fight against terrorism with all our capabilities and address its roots.
Urging terrorists to change their ways because the path of truth and
freedom is not paved by the shedding of innocent blood. We must strive
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to treat their deviant behavior as a learned behavior derived from tradition
or learning, and therefore the treatment must be proper education.
- Any initiative undertaken should not swim in the theoretical horizon of
the problem, but move in the practical horizon. We must act based on our
aspirations, not only on what is possible.
Nuclear Terrorism: Theory and Practice
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Dr. Ali Daee 
Abstract
Nuclear terrorism is among terrorist operations which has been emerged
in discussions about international security and universal peace during
past decade as the nuclear activities and establishments in the world
have been increased, the Soviet was dissolved and also the organized
terrorist groups tended to have nuclear bomb. The concern of
international society is intensified in the light of the threat that the
effects of probable use of nuclear weapon in terrorist operation can
cross the borders and cover great group of people and places. Anyway,
the 2005 UN Convention about suppression of nuclear terrorism is the
result of these concerns and indicating the seriousness of the condition
of security environment.
The present article explicate the conceptual and real domain of nuclear
terrorism danger by conceptually investigating and analyzing the issue.
Key Words: Terrorism, Nuclear Terrorism, International Law, 2005
Convention, International Security.
Introduction
Nuclear terrorism is the use of nuclear bomb, radioactive materials or
nuclear explosive materials or the threat of using them by people or
groups beyond the control of government to create terror and do terrorist
operations or to threat to use it against nuclear establishments. Beside this
definition, one can define governmental nuclear terrorism which is the
support or use of non-governmental agents by governmental agents in
performing nuclear terrorist acts. Nevertheless, nuclear terrorism is a term
which covers many of various probable scenarios and different
consequences of them.
 PhD in public International Law, University of Allame Tabatabaee.
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Of course, it should be mentioned that, with regard to nuclear terrorism,
there is a concern that the issue becomes a plea before universal great
powers which may misuse it to prevent other countries‘ measures from
achieving peaceful nuclear science. In fact, showing the threat bigger than
it actually is also entails conformity of other big powers with America
and in this case, these powers can easily create obstacles for other
independent countries, such as Islamic Republic of Iran, in achieving this
technology in an unjust manner by posing such issues; an approach which
will be called negative approach for combating nuclear terrorism.
The question is that with what aims and strategies do big powers which
have the greatest amount of nuclear capacities, power plants and
establishments in the world and more importantly are protected against
any dangers with the most complicated technologies, truly pose such
issues as nuclear terrorism? Is it not that posing of such issues (although
no one denies the just combat with these threats) is more for justification
of big powers‘ acts to prevent other countries from achieving peaceful
nuclear technologies. Anyway, there is no doubt that combating
phenomenon of nuclear terrorism (in case of existence of objective and
documented reasons for that) is in favor of all countries and universal
society. Countries and international organizations are required to actively
adopt necessary mechanisms. But these measures are effective in case that
they are taken in an equal manner and in this way political orientations do
not overcome legal relations and nuclear rights of all countries are
respected in the same way. So, proposing new issues such as nuclear
terrorism with purposes other than maintaining international security and
using it unjustly as a pressure lever against countries which intend to use
nuclear energy peacefully, will not be useful in combating terrorism in all
its form.
Besides probable political misuses and defects of this phenomenon, one
cannot and should not totally ignore the threat resulted from nuclear
terrorism. May be it is due to this reason that American efforts in
harmonizing other compliant of international law in international
criminalization of this phenomenon and establishment of legal framework
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to combat nuclear terrorism have been successful; in so far as several
binding and non-binding international document have been rendered in
this regard. All of these efforts constitute the universal approach toward
combating terrorism. In this article, by reviewing the approach of nuclear
powers in combating nuclear terrorism and linking it to peaceful nuclear
technology, it is intended to investigate whether the negative approach of
these powers can be effective in combating this phenomenon or not?
Showing Nuclear Terrorism Danger Bigger than It Actually Is
After September 11 attacks, the United States considered the situation
suitable to review the efficiency of nuclear suppression and nonproliferation of nuclear weapons again. Based on this review, the United
States adopted a policy well-known as preventive attack. From the
beginning, scenario of nuclear terrorism is also engaged in addition to
September 11 event, in such a way that one month after this event
―George Tenet‖, the former manager of Central Intelligence Agency
(CIA), informed George Bush that reporters of the organization noted that
Al-Qaeda has transferred to Washington 10-kiloton nuclear bomb which
it had stolen from Russia.
This warning made ―Dick Cheney‖ together with some other federal
employees to move to an unknown place so that in case the bomb
exploded in Washington, the American government can continue its
work. (1) Of course, later it was said that the news was not true but the
issue had its mental effect.
The American government according to its strategy in combating nuclear
terrorism and by using all its political capacities and its influence in
United Nations and International Atomic Energy Agency, in its first step
wants countries‘ intensive and serious supervision on their nuclear
establishments and material production. United States also wants severe
security measures by countries for preventing terrorist groups from
achieving the technology and stealing nuclear materials and attacking the
power plants. In fact, United States which considers itself the leader in
combating terrorism including nuclear terrorism, obliged itself to plan
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targeted programs for combating achieving of terrorist groups to nuclear
materials and equipments. (2)
One of the main concerns of American nuclear experts is the security
problems in some of nuclear sites of countries which became independent
of former Soviet; America considers them as a serious threat for universal
society. After years of condensed negotiations with Russia and gaining its
agreement and protection and providing budget for raising security
coefficient of these sites, America allocated some special plans to combat
this threat in such a way that it is said this country spends 1 milliard
dollars yearly on this ground.(3) After September 11, America also has
adopted severe security measures around its nuclear power plants.(4)
Within the international arena, in addition to controlling the International
Atomic Energy Agency, it has also stressed on the following issues in the
course of its policies for combating nuclear terrorism:
a) helping the countries in assessing their protective system and
cooperating with other countries in tracking smuggling of nuclear
materials and equipments.
b) emphasizing on the fact that the Agency and its reinforced system of
inspection have pivotal role in preserving international security.
c) helping the International Atomic Energy Agency to establish
Information Bank about smuggling of nuclear materials and equipments
in accordance to its aims and strategies.
d) providing some costs of International Atomic Energy Agency for
combating nuclear terrorism.
Besides the above mentioned measures, America also follows a
fundamental strategy with the justification of combating nuclear
terrorism; a strategy which is known as ―a universe with three No‖. ―No‖
to existence of nuclear materials and equipments which are not under the
control of government; ―No‖ to achieving of non-nuclear countries to
atomic weapons; and ―No‖ to achieving of non-nuclear countries to
peaceful nuclear technology. In this strategy there is no distinction
between peaceful and non-peaceful nuclear technology. Based on this
assumption, the less nuclear states exists, the less nuclear terrorism
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danger will be and this issue will strengthen the security of America.(5)
This American strategy implies the revision of article 4 of 1968 NPT
Convention on Prevention of Production and Proliferation of Nuclear
Weapons which grants its member states the right to achieve peaceful
nuclear technology in return for not producing nuclear weapons.
It is not easily possible to revise or change the nuclear rights of NPT
member states and in return for overlooking this right an exchange should
be given. From the viewpoint of American strategists, they will give
countries which do not have this technology and join the American policy
on this ground cheap nuclear fuel and atomic reactor in order to help them
in providing their atomic energy and America itself undertakes to manage
fuel residue. It‘s interesting to know that ―Mohamed El-Baradei‖, the
former general director of International Atomic Energy Agency, along
this policy of America wanted the internationalization of fissionable
materials and prohibition of enrichment activities and reproduction in all
countries outside this framework.(6) Apparently, this proposal is not
practical but it‘s an affirmation of necessity of preventing from
nuclearization of new countries contrary to article 4 of NPT. From the
viewpoint of American government and the Agency, the speed growth of
new countries requesting the achievement of peaceful nuclear technology
increases the problems resulting from inspection and verification and the
Agency will lose its control over it.
According to United States Foreign Minister in ―Foreign Policy‖
newsletter: ―...we seek to strengthen each of the elements of
comprehensive non-proliferation system: preventing from proliferation of
nuclear weapons, promoting disarming and accelerating the peaceful use
of atomic energy. We adds a new element to these three elements:
preventing from nuclear terrorism. The most effective way of decreasing
nuclear terrorism threat is to make sure that nuclear materials which can
be used in weapon production are protected from being stolen or seized. It
is for this reason that United States has suggested a proposal based on
which it will establish security of nuclear materials which are at risk in a
period of four years; a plan approved by United Nations Security Council.
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... we will seek reinforcement of ―Suppliers Group‘s‖ limitations with
regard to transferring reproduction and enrichment technology. We will
also promote multilateral arrangements of supplying nuclear fuel and
consumed fuel in such a way that countries which seek to peacefully use
nuclear energy or its expansion can follow their non-military nuclear
projects without spending heavy expenses and without having the
problems of establishing centers for enrichment and reproduction.‖(7)
It is not surprising that other nuclear powers also defend the policy of
America; because this policy means to keep monopoly of nuclear club in
nuclear energy market and maintain their long term profits in this domain.
In this regard, America, by causing western countries to join it, uses
economic tools, sanction and political isolation against opposed
governments with this policy including our own country which is trying
to put end to such monopoly.
The other axis of this policy is to encounter black market of selling
nuclear equipments. Based on this, America by using all its military,
economic and political capacities and by strengthening the control system
of exports, unilaterally and multilaterally by internal criminalizing and
establishing security about these measures encounters and destroys
networks of nuclear equipments smuggling including ―Abdul Qadeer
Khan‖ network, the father of atomic weapons in Pakistan. It is based on
this policy that America in a project named ―Proliferation Security
Initiative‖ (PSI)(8) gathers 95 countries to inspect consignments of ships
suspected of transporting nuclear equipments by limiting freedom of
seafaring in open sea. Along with these measures, United Nations
Security Council and General Assembly continue to internationally
criminalize these measures. In this regard, issuing of 1540 resolution of
the Council and ratification of the Convention on Combating Nuclear
Terrorist Acts are important.
On this basis, in the discussion of combating terrorism and specially
nuclear terrorism, United States as a caretaker of the discussion, cause
Russia to become cooperative with its policies in international arena and
Russia in its turn has taken some measures on this ground including
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purifying and making safe some nuclear reactors in satellite countries of
former Soviet. Meanwhile, one should not forget that the American
strategy of ―a universe with three No‖ are in favor of Russia‘s profits
from different security, economic and political aspects particularly that
Russia has been the first country which was faced with real nuclear
terrorist threat of Chechen separatists, the issue which will be discussed
further in next part.
Except for measures and position of Russia, America and its western
confederates in this regard which follow American policies, the positions
of developing countries are also important. There is no doubt and
disagreement about the fact that nuclear terrorist danger is a universal
challenge and requires universal joint effort; but what there is doubt and
dispute about is the institutionalized structure of this struggle and the
mechanism of financing for that which has been the concern and dispute
of developing country. Among the three ―No‖ of America, two of them
are accepted by these countries and one of them is not. These countries
agree with strengthening of control and supervision of nuclear
establishments and materials. Combating nuclear weapons‘ production is
also a conventional covenant; but preventing from achieving peaceful
nuclear technology is a non-deprivable right which cannot be disregarded
and the sectional advantages of America in this regard are not desirable.
The positions of these countries including Islamic Republic of Iran are
shortly presented below:
 nuclear terrorism is a universal threat and combating that should be
universal.
 B) combating nuclear terrorism should not resulted in limitation of the
Agency‘s acts in various domains specially peaceful use of nuclear
energy.
 C) emphasizing on the fact that combating nuclear terrorism should
not create any problem in peaceful use of nuclear energy.
 D) combating nuclear terrorism should be within the framework of
United Nations and in the direction of universal combating with nuclear
terrorism.
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The positions of western countries which support United States measures
in combating nuclear terrorism are as follows:
A) the danger of nuclear terrorism does not only threaten countries which
posses nuclear materials and establishments; it is a universal threat.
B) to combat nuclear terrorism, nuclear security should be increased, so
the Agency can increase nuclear security of the members within the
framework of technical cooperation.
C) asking all nuclear countries to reinforce their protective measures to
prevent from nuclear stealing.
D) cooperating with other organizations such as International Police and
World Customs Organization to prevent from smuggling of nuclear
materials and equipments.
E) considering the close relation of nuclear terrorism and general policies
of non-proliferation of nuclear weapons and the necessity of its
strengthening.
As can be seen, the most important dispute between western countries
with nuclear technology and developing countries on one hand is the
negative approach of America with regard to achievement of other
countries to peaceful nuclear technology and on the other hand is the
institutionalized mechanism of combating terrorism. The latter issue was
settled by approving the Convention on Combating Nuclear Terrorist Acts
and making it binding, but the first dispute still remains in force.
the Reality of Nuclear Terrorism
Although before the terrorist attacks of September 11, the existing
assumption of universal society about powers of non-governmental
groups in security challenges only limited to planting bombs in trains or
exploding in some public and governmental places, this event showed that
non-governmental agents have new power for performing terrorist attacks
across the world. Despite the fact that terrorist organizations do not still
access to modern armaments and genocide weapons, western information
services have warned that it is not unexpected that terrorists access to
nuclear weapons in near future, because on one hand, estimations show
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that the saved enriched Uranium around the world is enough for
production of thousands of nuclear weapons, and on the other hand, based
on some reports some terrorist networks including Al-Qaeda explicitly
showed their tendency for having nuclear weapons and even Osama BinLaden, the leader of Al-Qaeda intended to buy nuclear materials from
Sudan in 1993. To prove this issue, Americans often refer to confession
of one of Al-Qaeda member in a court in New York. But the only concern
is not Al-Qaeda, the contemporary international society also faces with
challenges and threats of other non-governmental agents which affect
international security. Their concern is due to the fact that although such
groups do not have any relation with Al-Qaeda, they can be affected by
its hostility and aggression. But the question is that what factors do cause
a terrorist group to resort to nuclear terrorism? The answer to this
question can help us better understand the reality of nuclear terrorist
danger. It should be mentioned that resorting to nuclear terrorism requires
intentional decision-making by an organization which tends to such
resort. In making such decision, two elements are very important. First,
assessing the issue that to what extent resorting to nuclear terrorism will
be effective in promoting the goals of that organization. Second, assessing
technical power of the group in resorting to it.
Nuclear terrorism is favored by those groups which seek manifest
consequences with strong mental effects; these groups want to show their
power without considering its consequences. With regard to selecting the
type of nuclear terrorism, the power of the group in having access to
nuclear materials and equipments, technical ability, or freedom in
accessing to radioactive and nuclear materials, or freedom in targeting
establishments in this regard are determinative. Thus, in making decision
about resorting to nuclear terrorism balance should exist between tools
and goals. On this basis, a terrorist group which wants to resort to nuclear
terrorism should define its strategy and tactics of its resort by considering
the goals and tools at its hand; it should define whether its intention of
resorting to nuclear terrorism is massacre of people of targeted country or
not? Whether it seeks violent destruction or it seeks mental effect? And
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whether it has necessary tools for choosing each of the mentioned
strategies or not. It should be noted that in making such decision, the
leader of group plays a fundamental role but it‘s not end of the process
because there exist some problems and obstacles about each of the above
cases which can resulted in neutralization and thwarting of the operation.
One should not forget that in some cases, crossing the red lines can
resulted in making some decisions by targeted government which cause
the extinction or deadly damages of terrorist group. Thus, deciding to
resort to nuclear terrorism is not a simple decision; there are complicated
factors in making such decision the arrangement of which complicates
decision-making in this regard. So, any terrorist group will not seek
nuclear terrorism.
Having reached to this point, one should see whether there has been any
group which could make such decision or not? American introduces AlQaeda as the center of nuclear terrorist threat; but other terrorist groups
also have backgrounds like that, even though their operations have not
been as extensive as the Al-Qaeda operations. In fact, the first group
which decided and performed its decision about resorting to nuclear
terrorism is Chechen Separatists. The first operation of this group was in
1995. In this event, Chechen Separatists planted a handmade bomb
consisting of Dynamite and Caesium-137 in ―Ismailovski‖ park in
Moscow, but due to any reason they changed their mind and informed the
reporters about place of the bomb.
Although this event is the most well-known event in relation to nuclear
terrorism, this group are very skilful in planning nuclear terrorist
operations and its activities does not limited to above mentioned event.
The Chechen Separatist group started to plan nuclear terrorism in 1992
with ―Dodaf‖ as the leader of group. The plan included stealing of an
atomic submarine from Russia Pacific Ocean armada. They wanted to
plant bomb in atomic reactor of the submarine and one of its atomic
rockets and asked the Russian government to pull back its forces from
Chechen in return for releasing of the submarine. Of course, when the
plan was disclosed, the Russian officials prevented from its enforcement.
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It‘s interesting to know that ―Islam Khasokhaoof‖, the chief of Chechen
Separatist General Staff, once had been the commander‘s deputy of the
former Russian Pacific Ocean atomic armada; of course it is said that this
plan resulted in the death of ―Dodaf‖. Moreover, the agents of this group
stole some radioactive materials from Gruzini nuclear residue site in 2000
and some radioactive steel from ―Vladivostok‖ atomic power plant in
2001.(9)
Another example is ―Aum Shinrikyo‖ Japanese group. This group which
is a radical group was established in 1987. The group absorbed many
chemists, biologic experts and etc. against Japanese government and
established an arsenal of chemical factors. Using chemical materials in
terrorist acts was the method of this group. One of its acts was terrorist
attack to Tokyo central subway station in 1995. Nevertheless, the joint
researches of American and Japanese governments showed that this group
has five-hectare factory of producing chemical weapons in Tokyo but it
has not been successful in enriching Uranium.(10) The above mentioned
examples indicate that despite the existing problems about resorting to
nuclear terrorism, there are non-governmental agents which can be
successful in deciding to resort to nuclear terrorism.
Conclusion
If we accept that there are groups which can resort to nuclear terrorism
and the danger of nuclear terrorism is a real threat and also accept that the
junction point of system of non-proliferation and combating terrorism is
the reason for preventing non-governmental agents from achieving
nuclear weapon, material and equipments; it‘s true that the
comprehensiveness of Nuclear Weapon Non-Proliferation Treaty is
effective in preventing from nuclear terrorism but this issue should not be
interpreted in such a way that deprive countries from achieving peaceful
nuclear energy. In the discussion of combating nuclear terrorism and nonproliferation system, it should be mentioned that combating terrorist
groups and preventing from achieving of non-governmental agents to that
is necessary; but using it as an excuse and politicizing it in Treaty and
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International Atomic Energy Agency with regard to countries which their
political orientation does not conform with approach of world nuclear
powers can make non-nuclear countries doubtful of the reliable process of
non-proliferation system.
Combating nuclear terrorism by preventing non-governmental agents
from achieving nuclear weapons, radioactive materials and the primitive
tools of producing these material have other techniques. Having a look on
the issue of controlling armament (non-proliferation) and the essential
subject mentioned in the discussion of combating terrorism, one can
understand that this goal can be achieved by another ways, one of the
most effective of which is complete elimination of nuclear weapons
specially tactical nuclear weapons and their eradication, an important goal
emphasized in article 6 of ―NPT‖. Realizing this issue on one hand
requires honesty, raising real political understanding and consciousness of
nuclear powers about the issue, and avoiding instrumental use of it, and
on the other hand requires universal trust for strengthening nonproliferation system. It is obvious that the dual and politicizing behavior
of nuclear powers and adopting negative approach by them will not be
useful for this system and the goal of eradicating nuclear terrorism.
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Resources
1. Graham Alison, ―Nuclear Terrorism‖ , New York: Times Books, (2004) p.1.
2. Chris Brown, ―Global Terror and the International Community‖, in:
Christopher Andersen (ed.), understanding Global Terror, Polity Press, 2007, pp.
57- 59.
3. Charles D. Ferguson and William C. Potter, ―The four Faces of Nuclear
Terrorism”, California: Monterey Institute of International Studies,( 2004),
p.159.
4. Ibid, p. 218.
5. Graham Alison, op .cit, p.141.
6. Mohamed Alberadei, ― Towards a Safer World‖, The Economist, 16 October
2003.
7. Hillary Rodham Clinton, ―The Next Steps on Nonproliferation‖, Foreign
Policy, November 28, 2009. Available at:
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2009/10/28/the_next_steps_on_nonprolif
eration?page=full
8. US Government Document, U.S. Department of State, Proliferation Security
Initiative, 31 May 2003.
9. Simon Saradzhyan, ―Russia: Grasping Reality of Nuclear Terror‖, BCSIA
Discussion Paper 2003-02, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard
University, March 2003, available at:
http://bcsia.ksg.harvard.edu/publication.cfm?program=ISP&ctype=paper&item_
id=374.
10. Staff of the Senate Government Affairs Permanent Subcommittee on
Investigation, Global Proliferation of Weapon of Mass Destruction: A Case
Study on the Aum Shinrikyo, Sec III, 31 October 1995, available at:
http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/1995_rpt/aum/index.html.
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Terrorism: Preliminary Observations
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Abdul Rauf Al Shayeb 
It is my pleasure to participate in this conference, though my joy is
incomplete due to circumstances that have prevented me from coming to
Tehran to participate in person. However, I preferred not to be cut off
from this conference completely, so I sent word offering my modest
contribution. I am with you in spirit though circumstances have prevented
me from being with you in person.
I do not think that any subject of a conference can be more important and
prestigious than the issue of fighting terrorism. Especially in the Arab
world, which faces the dominance of global arrogance, of the United
States, of the Zionists occupying Israel, and all those, from the West to
the East, who follow in their footsteps and who have no higher aim than
to infringe on vulnerable peoples, steal their wealth, shed their blood, and
erase their history and their heritage.
There is no better evidence of this than what the people of Bahrain are
witnessing: organized terrorism carried out by militias of Al-Khalifa‘s,
the oppressor of our people in Bahrain. This regime is supported by the
occupying Saudi forces invading our land in violation of our sovereignty
and dignity, after having received the green light to carry out the orders of
their masters the Americans and the Zionists, the enemies of the people
and the Great Satan.
I won‘t, in these brief moments, describe what is terrorism, which has
been manipulated by the arrogant States in an attempt to terrorize the
people‘s understanding of this concept. But I will refer to examples of the
concept of terrorism. I refer you to the reality experienced by our people
and which these days of terror has imposed by force of arms and bullets
in Bahrain.
 Secretary General and Leader of Bahrain Freedom (the Khalas) Movement, and the
President of the Pupular Committee for Martyrs and Torturen Victims.
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Gentlemen, that terrorism in our Bahrain is exercised by the Authority
and the Peninsula Shield Forces, an infringement of Muslims, an attack
on their homes, and an encroachment on their wives and children. Our
honor is being abused by these barbaric armies who expropriate
everything and renege on every principle and value. Terrorism is
illustrated by their use of force against unarmed people, who have no fault
but that they are demanding their legitimate rights just like the rest of the
Arab people. Terrorism in all its forms has been practiced against us,
starting from ideological terrorism when the demands of our movement
were twisted and presented as sectarianism. Terrorism continued as
religious terrorism when troops attacked houses of God, demolished more
than fifty mosques and places of prayer, burned the Holy Quran, and
infringed on Shiite mosques, convoys, and guesthouses. I can find no
more clear illustration of terrorism than the actions of these invading
forces and military aggressors, who for their victory attack with all kinds
of weapons, unarmed and peaceful people who hold nothing but flags and
flowers.
Dear attendees, the concept of terrorism has been discussed and debated
in academic circles, till it is almost lost in the maze of politics and
politicians. Coming up with an agreed-upon definition is a difficult task,
but harder than that is to stand up against terrorism and support its
victims. The face of real power is not he who can convince the world of
his concept of terrorism, but he who can face it, defuse it, eradicate it.
How can terrorism be removed from countries that are used to feeding on
it? We must be practical – you can‘t give what you don‘t have. The
dictatorial terrorist United states will not one day bring forth leaders of
peace and democracy. Do not expect the crow to sing the song of a
nightingale. The pot only exudes that which is inside of it. When the
globalist masons intermarry with the Wahhabis, terrorism is their natural
offspring. Terrorism is now being legalized by the U.S. Congress,
implemented into the policies of the White House and the Pentagon, and
set as a goal by the Mossad.
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Dear brothers, I am standing here with my hands outstretched, begging
you to support the oppressed and to support the termination of all forms
of terrorism and genocide inflicted on our people in Bahrain. The terror
inflicted Al-Khalaifa regime has exceeded all reasonable and logical
limits. We must mobilize all our energies to fight for our people and their
rights. The regime did not leave any crime uncommitted. They are doing
what they can stop the advance of vulnerable peoples towards freedom,
independence, and dignity. But the idea that they can stop this advance is
only an illusion, held in the heads of the ruling tribal families in the
region. The ruling tribal families felt isolated so they tried to expand their
circle of the Gulf Council of Cooperation (GCC). They intended it to be
an Arab council of only the countries that are governed by families and
tribes. They wanted to expand the circle to Jordan and Morocco, the
furthest country of the Arab League, because only these two countries are
ruled by tribes and families. However, they failed at making this alliance
against free peoples who are seeking freedom and independence.
Look at how these dictators collude with each other. They engage in
public terrorism against the peoples of the region, who are not allowed to
ally and cooperate for independence. If the people tried to cooperate they
would be accused of conspiracy and treason. The rulers ignore the fact
that they are conspiring against their own people, allowing U.S. bases in
their countries, and walking guided by the Zionists whose presence they
normalize. They forget that they give to their own people nothing but
shame and death, murder and destruction.
We have to stand together today and say no to terrorism in all its forms:
ideological, political, religious, cultural, security, and military, whether
conducted by individuals, peoples, or governments. We aspire that this
conference will come out with new recommendations to add to previous
conferences held in this matter and new ways to eradicate the sources of
terrorism and reinstall peace in the region and the world. What the
Libyan, the Bahraini, and Yemeni people are subjected to, from killings
to torture to detention, should not be repeated in the rest of the world. We
must strive to rid these people of their authoritarian governments, who
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have used their authority to go against their people. Otherwise these
scenes will be repeated in other countries.
Bahrain, Libya and Yemen are today the doors of change for the Arab and
Islamic world. If the revolutionary movements of these peoples fall, the
region will fall into the swamp of terrorism from head to toe. Current
governments of these countries are establishing the bases of oppression
and aggression against people of the entire region. Their pace of
establishing alliances for this purpose has become too fast. Our only hope
is that we get out of this conference powerful recommendations of how to
oppose with the alliances in power and stop the scheme, backed by U.S.,
to stifle freedom, who knows that there is no place for America and Israel
in the region if the peoples in it were liberated and independent.
In conclusion, I hope that we will all be guided to serve the vulnerable,
fight against terrorism and terrorists, and stop the expansion of
ideological and physical roots of terrorism where it initiates.
The Perspectives of Islam on Just Peace
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Mohammad Salar 
One of the goals of sublime mission of the prophets and messengers of
God is fighting injustice and cruelty, establishing and consolidating peace
and creating justice in the world. The life of the Prophet Mohammad
(PBUH) and the Islamic Great leaders are based on creating an Islamic
utopia where monotheism, peace, purity and brotherhood would be ruling
that land. The Holy Prophet of Islam mentioned the philosophy of his
prophecy as a mission of moral. If the ethics are not dominant in the
society, creation of justice will be impossible. If we institutionalize ethics,
the result of human morality would be justice. If ethics were created in
the community; thereby peace, nonviolence, brotherhood, friendship and
human relations will be established.
Basically the three secrets of the spread of Islam and also the fast and
strong tendency toward the religion of Islam were the ethics, honorable
behavior and the interaction of the holy Prophet (PBUH).
As the Holy Quran says: [3.159] ―Thus it is due to mercy from Allah that
you deal with them gently, and had you been rough, hard hearted, they
would certainly have dispersed from around you.‖
The date of introducing Islam indicates the fact that the Prophet of Islam
as the harbinger of precious monotheism, peace and justice was able to
bring together the ignorant and scattered Arab community and establish
peace and brotherhood based on monotheism and deism in that shattered
society.
The Holy Quran describes peace, intimacy and happiness as the source of
good and welfare and as the Holy Quran says: [4.128] ―Peace and
reconciliation is the best practice for humans.‖
 The president of the Executive committee of the Conference.
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Berceuse of this, the Holy Quran in several instances calls for the creation
of peace, security, unity, friendship and peaceful life and says: [2.208] ―O
you who believe! Enter into submission
one and all and do not follow the footsteps of Satan; surely he is your
open enemy.‖
The enemies of Islam accuse this great and divine religion and its
followers of creating violence, however, these false propagandas against
the life-giving religion of Islam are in the case, when we can clearly see
that Islam, even in the arena of defense and war has also recommended
non-violence and human behavior.
If we refer to the date of Islam and have a look on the instructions of the
Prophet of Islam (PBUH) as a commander in chief in the war or wars and
his holiness Ali (AS) and other infallible Imams (PBUT), the Prophet
(PBUH) points to some important reminders which were to criticize the
cutting of trees, showing good behavior towards the elderly, children and
women, not contaminating the drinking water of the enemy by poison and
not contaminating the environment. These are all indicating that wherever
Islam pursues the issue of defense, the use of violence has been
prevented, and has recommended the use of war in the framework of
purely military areas. In the life of the Prophet (PBUH) force and
coercion were never used or recommended in accepting Islam religion, to
the point that the Holy Prophet even rejected the suggestion of some of
his followers regarding their children›s obligation to accept Islam, while
he was referring to this verse, [2.256] ―There is no compulsion in
religion.‖
Mahatma Gandhi, the late Indian independence leader said: «There is no
compulsion in Islam. Personal life of Mohammad (PBUH) is a prominent
sign and obvious example that the philosophy of force and coercion in
religion is rejected.»
Unfortunately some of the enemies of Islam inadmissibility attribute
accusations against the Prophet, and they also accuse Islam of violence;
although we are also to be blamed about it, since we have not been able
to introduce the life and the way of our great and beloved prophet to non-
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Muslim people very well, as his life and ways have been full of love,
kindness, mercy and compassion; so we should apologize before the
Prophet, however, the mentioning of this point is essential that the sacred
religion of Islam in the inevitable wars has respected and preserved
human dignity, human values and has had emphasis on these. Imam Ali
(AS) recites a narration from the Prophet (PBUH) that when he sent him
to Yemen, he recommended that he should not start a war with anyone
until he has not invited him to Islam, and if God guides one person
through him, he will receive the goodness and the worth of the world. So
we can see that inviting and dialog in Islam are prior to war. Islam
commands that if we have a treaty with the enemy, then we should be
loyal to that alliance, as long as the enemy has not breached the treaty.
Prophet (PBUH) and Ali (AS) were very much faithful to this principle.
Islam has prohibited the mutilation of the enemies (i.e. cutting ears and
nose and other body parts), and the Holy Prophet (PBUH) always advised
those Muslims who were going to jihad to refrain from these kinds of
inhuman behaviors. In this way, Islam has banned such inhuman acts
during and after wars. Islam has recommended humane treatment towards
the prisoners of war, and has provided some ways for their release. So the
basic strategy of Islam is to preserve peace and security, and upholding
social justice and the prohibition of the use of force. This is when the
greatest crimes of history is done towards Muslims and oppressed people
of the third world countries by those who claim to have the leading
slogans of peace, security and democracy. Examples of such behaviors
can be seen in many countries, such as Bosnia and Herzegovina, the
occupied territories of Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Bahrain,
and ....
Jews, Christians and Muslims were living together in peace and tolerance
in the time when Spain was ruled by Muslims. Even today millions of
Christians and a small number of Jews, Zoroastrians, Buddhists and
Hindus are living together in the range of Morocco to Malaysia, under the
ruling of Muslims. They are not only having a good life with tolerance
and tolerance, rather many of them in their countries are considered the
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richest groups, such as the Copts in Egypt or Chinese Buddhists in
Malaysia. These groups have never been subjected to «ethnic
purification;» while considering the horrendous crimes of Nazis in
Germany, the Muslims and Jews in Spain after the 1942 or the Tatars in
tsarist Russia and today the Muslims in Bosnia have been subjected to
ethnic purification.
A lot of people talk about the Muslim world in a way that, as if it is the
Muslim world that has docked its warships in the Gulf of Mexico and is
threatening the United States of America, but as we can see, it is the
United States‘ ship is deployed in the Persian Golf and has the control
over the economic resources of Muslim people in the region. Holding the
«The international conference on Global Alliance against Terrorism for a
Just Peace,‖ while there is a wave of Islamic awakening in the Middle
East and North Africa, and the cluttering of the equations of American
and European colonialists and their henchmen, will be an extremely
valuable opportunity for the World Summit to expose the ugly face of
state terrorism and achieving peace, and searching for appropriate
approaches to deal with terrorism. We can very well conclude that Islam
is a religion of peace and tranquility and always in Islam peace has been
preferred than war and killing. Moreover, we can conclude that militarism
and battle in order to impose public policy and culture is unacceptable
and baseless in Islamic view.
Terorism: Its Origins and Theoretical Foundations
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Terrorism: Its Origins and Theoretical
Foundations
Dr. Rouhollah Ghaderi 
1. INTRODUCTION
Up to now many studies about the origins of terrorism and how to deal
with it has been done. But often, emotions, fanaticism and attitudes
instead of wisdom and logic of these studies have been the ruling. Today,
religious- political biases are created stronger motivations for terrorism.
Jenkins shows that political and social processes and bureaucratic needs
and media structures how have shaped the concept of terrorism. This has
important consequences: Some groups become evil and satanic, while
some others receive free tickets for performing similar actions.1 Gary
Bernstein believes that with using intelligence gathering and military
force can not be stopped terrorism. The best way to combating terrorism
is that the world thirst for freedom be watered;2 West dual approach to
terrorism shows aspects of discrimination on how to combating common
violence in the global arena that unfortunately alone has taken aspect of
strategic and security - military. American statesmen and majority of its
Medias has long spoken of terrorism and not the causes of it; In other
words, their way of fighting terrorism more focuses on "Effect" and not
"Causes" of terrorism.
A common mistake is that we only refer one root cause of terrorism.
From this perspective, Politicians and Policy-makers should be able to put
 Assistant professor of Imam Hussein (AS) Comprehensive University.
1. See Philip Jenkins. Images of Terror: what we can and can‘t know about terrorism.
(New York: Aldine de Gruyter, 2003).
2. Gary Bernstein and Ralph Pezzullo.Jawbreaker – The Attack on Bin Laden and AlQaeda: A Personal account by the CIA‘s Key Field Commander. (United States: Crown
Press, 2005).
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in place opposite side and from that position look at the world and to
judge about it. But In general terrorism usually occurs in conditions that
power and wealth is distributed unfair and discriminatory. In such an
atmosphere and space, one side enjoys more of the political, economic or
social power and the other side to compensate for its weakness - and
perhaps sense of discrimination- resorts to the tactic of terrorism and
aggression. This phenomenon is quite noticeable in authoritarian
countries.
In general all studies have been done about terrorism, Shows a close link
between terrorism and inequality. Whatever inequality and discrimination
be more in various fields including political, social, cultural, religious,
economic, racial, and ethnic and etc, Risk of acts of violence including
the assassination is greater. Ted Robert Gurr get the economic roots of
terrorism comes to the conclusion that Poverty alone can not account of
the roots of terrorism. His studies show that terrorism anywhere can be
exposed, but its occurrence in developing countries than rich countries or
poor. Accordingly we can say that countries are experiencing rapid
modernization, are seen more terrorism. Economic Changes in
circumstances bring into existences that are suitable for the occurrence of
instability and the emergence of various movements, especially militia
and extreme ideological movements. Active members of terrorist groups
generally are poor and uneducated young people; therefore formed
inequalities in a country can be a good field for violent political
movements and terrorism form the special shape.3
For Laqueur one of major cause of spread of terrorism is the national
deprivation and social injustice.4 Laqueur believes that objective and
subjective factors and also psychological, emotional as well as aggression
factors could be the emergence and growth of terrorism.5
3. Ted Robert Gurr.Economic Factors in Addressing the Causes of Terrorism.(The Club
de Madrid.2005).p 19
4. Laqueur.The Age of Terrorism.(New York: Little Brown & Company,1987).p73
5. Ibid.pp235-6
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Many other researchers believe that the phenomenon of international
terrorism result from oppression of legitimate and liberation movements.6
See examples of these researchers are anti-colonial liberation movements
for decades 50 and 60 A.D following the emergence of public protest.7
Following the protests different groups and organizations were created to
overthrow their government. Many of theories believe that group's
tendency toward terrorism is a time that other routes do not exist for a
change, including economic struggle, peaceful protests, wants and
demands of public and war based on accepted criteria. This criterion
associated with "ratio ultima" (last resort) in theory of just war. So the
picture that they draw people there are oppressed that have no other way.
To any legitimate political action are given, Have to try all possible,
everywhere have failed to have finally reached where no path other than
resorting to demon of terrorism. Or should be Terrorist or not to work.
Therefore, many researchers believe that the phenomenon of international
terrorism caused by oppression of liberation and legitimate movements.8
Professor Antonio Cassese - famous Italian jurist - the four major causes
for the new terrorism on such counts: A) existence of highly authoritarian
governments and a deep economic inequalities in their community; B) the
growing gap in the international centers of power and thus increase the
poles of benefits that had characterized the Cold War. The centers of
supporting rebel groups in other countries that had the roots or politicalreligious or ideological common interests, and used them as a tool to
impose their policies. C) inability of the international community
including the United Nations I providing an appropriate response to
requests of nations to reduce discriminations and economic, social,
political inequalities in international level and lack of preventive
mechanisms to avoid of economic and social conflicts explosion in
National and transnational levels; D) expand of utopian ideology and also
6. Abraham H.Miller.Terrorism and Hostage Negotiation.(Colorado:Westreview
Press,1980).p1
7. Laqueur. op.cit. pp22-23
8. Abraham H.Milner.Terrorism and Hostage Negotiation.(Colorado,Westreview
Press,1980).P1
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human rights doctrine.9 For Cassese, International Society legitimizes
some of terrorism motives and causes, but condemns ways to realize these
aspirations and goals are used.10 Actually lack of achieve the goals of the
UN Charter, including "respect for human rights and fundamental
freedoms" and intangible progression the economic, political and social
conditions, has created sense of frustration, suffering, despair and misery
in many countries among the nations. Although these factors may don't be
causes of terrorism, but provide "favorable mental conditions or state that
direct or indirect result in to commit such [terrorist] violence".11
Accordingly, discrimination, inequality, lack of development, intolerance
and the lack of culture the tolerance towards minority groups, the most
important factors in the emergence of terrorist groups are considered.
Generally, terrorism is born when the people with resorting to legal
means available to achieve its goals are frustrated. In this case, people
disillusioned legal system, are driven the methods violence. It should be
noted that in international terrorism, provocation and financing these
people from foreign governments also provokes the emergence of terrorist
groups. In such a situation clearly comprehensive respect of universal
human rights, including civil and political rights and economic, social and
cultural rights, not only can prevent the emergence of violent groups but
also eliminate "existence cause" of terrorist groups from within and
without.
But really where are roots of the rebellious and uncontrollable anger and
what is catalyst of political, economic, social, cultural and civic conflicts
and also violence and aggression? Is Terrorism a phenomenon of
endogenous or exogenous? In other words, whether terrorism is effect of
internal or external roots or both? Answer to these questions and such
questions will be possible only if the concept of terrorism definite and
9. Antonio Cassese.Terrorism,Politics and Low.(Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press,1989).pp3-4
10. Ibid.
11. Soundy Prepared by the U.N Secretariat in Accordance with the 6th Committee at its
1314 meeting (27Sep. 1972), Cited in M.Cherif Bassiouni(Ed). International Terrorism
and Political Crimes. (Illinois: Charles C.Thomos Publishers, 1975).PP 5-7.
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explanted accurately and comprehensively in accordance with reality.
Accordingly the following analysis of the terrorism concept studies, will
be studied some important theories of terrorism, including neo-liberalism,
historical sociology, critical theory, post modernism, constructivism,
frustration-aggression and rational choice theory and then provide
conclusion of the article.
2. TERRORISM CONCEPT STUDIES
Terrorism theoretical the most ambiguous and practically the most
complex phenomena is that humans have been faced with it and strongly
to suffer from conceptual, epistemological and methodological crisis. So
far no single and exact definition of terrorism yet offered in academic and
political circles of the world to be basis for joint and coordinated action of
governments and international organizations. This is because
unfortunately still there is no single global understand and perception of
terrorism. Indeed in the same way junkman has noted as the authors "ink
on paper" for providing conception and instances of terrorism as the same
amount of terrorists have poured "blood of their victims" in the earth.
Perhaps one reason so far of any terrorist group haven't considered itself
as "terrorism", because "terrorist" further is a political label to discredit
and destroy the opposition. On the other hand seems to be one of the
reasons why so far no single and exact definition of terrorism yet offered,
because to explain caused a pledge and countries don't want to be placed
under any obligation and responsibility beyond their national interests and
security against terrorism. Therefore because of lack of intersubjective
consensus, even now the international community doesn't offer a
universal and acceptable definition because each actor definition of this
concept results from its security interests. Hence in light of such
ontological and epistemological dilemma that " One man's terrorist is
another man's freedom fighter".12 Accordingly, some governments due to
12. Christine Chinlund.‖Who Should Wear the Terrorist Label?‖ Boston Globe, 8
Sept.2003,
at
A15.
Available
at:
www.boston.com/news/
globe/
editional_opinion/editionals/articles/2003/09/08 who-should-wear-the-terrorist-label/.
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their worry about national security are unwilling to cooperate against
international terrorism. They feared lest themselves become the victim
and target of terrorist attacks.
Of course, in the lexical meaning of terrorism, there is less difference.
terrorism etymologically result from the Latin root "terror" or the Greek
root "Tras" that means fear and actions of the individual or group and is
referred to that way of creating fear, panic and force to reach the goal.
Terrorism is followed up with aggression to collect or small target
population, the larger society face up to fear and passivity to achieve their
goals. So key Criterion in terrorism is to be "terrible" and "Violencecentric" and also don't to be similar the target (victim) and goal of
terrorists. "To kill these to fear those", this is a philosophy of terrorism.
With several victims died, some large amount terrified hostages alive can
be achieved. Robert E. Goodvin believes that terrorism means the
strategic use of terror. This means terrorism is a strategic feature and is
intended to create terror.13 Chomsky believes that if the only common
feature among the proposed definitions of terrorism to kill civilians with
political goals, no country like the United States has been committing
terrorist acts. He seems to have formed this custom and practice within
the political discourse that will allow promoting the idea that terror will
be considered weapons of the weak against the powerful. However, must
not forget the powerful war against terror, which leads to killing more
civilians from, is terrorism examples. In fact, a regular war against terror
with more advanced and destructive weapons takes victim more than war
of terrorist irregular.14 For Chomsky terrorism is a powerful weapon and
if you know the weak weapons, have said the wrong word.15
Now some officials are trying to label of terrorism to all opponents, thus
benefiting from the false label "terrorist" is very common. John Murphy
believes that some governments simply any excuse to exercise his
13. For more information See: Robert E. Goodvin.What‘s Wrong With
Terrorism?.(Polity, UK, 2006).
14. Noam Chomsky. Hegemony or Survival: America‘s Global Quest for Global
Dominance. (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2003). p189
15. Ibid.
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opponents turns terrorist label.16 In fact, hegemonic power to act upon the
concept of terrorism / terrorists as a political label to discredit opponents
and especially the ongoing challenges in the way of continuing their
domination and hegemony. Discreditization process of anti-hegemony
(opponents of hegemony) caused the marginalization of the opposition
and can not provide any ideological justification.17 According to Jenkins
"Labeling terrorism" by the hegemonic and dominate powers has became
a political tool. His opinion at the international level, terrorism is a label
that the strong uses against the weak.18
Nevertheless, although the definition of terrorism due to conflict of
ontological and epistemological knowledge between the government and
different perceptions from national interests and security, this matter has
made it difficult, but it can be proposed as a definition of terrorism Such
can be defined(Ghaderi's proposed definition): ‖Terrorism means acts of
violence and frightening (due to its sudden and surprise) and yet
consciously and organized with generally political purposes and
ideological - and even economic, socio - cultural and etc - individually or
collectively, and with every possible means (Because the end justifies the
means!), Against the civilian population and the innocent victims of terror
that often terror victims (random selection or targeted of the civilians is
one of the features and criteria for terrorism), are not the main aim and
purpose‖. Putt exactly, correct product the terrorist process is not material
and somatic attack towards victim (target), but is psychological impact,
influence and behavior change the goal entity. accordingly the terrorist
victims who may be a person, group, or even places of religious, cultural,
economic, political and Etc., must carefully (not non-distinctive and
blind) be selected up to guarantee a maximum psychological impact on
the goal. These are obtained with choose the victims who have symbolic
importance for the goal entity. So terrorism is logical and rational choice
16. John F.Murphy.‖Defining Terrorism: awayout of Quagmire". Israel Year book on
Human Rights. Vol, 19.N, 11.1989. p13
17. Philip Jenkins. Images of Terror: what we can and can‘t know about terrorism. New
York: Aldine de Gruyter, 2003.p4
18. Ibid.p22
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of fatal (destructive) force for to achieve a special (political) purpose
meaning obedience of goal entity and of the terrorists will and demand.
Some of the indicators and examples of terrorism are: Bombing, Killing
Random, Hostage Taking, Kidnapping, Piracy (maritime security
weakening), air piracy (endangering air safety and aviation), Hijacking
and so on that accepted them as a terrorist crime between majorities of
governments. Therefore, any acts of violence can not be called terror,
although it can be considered a crime.
3. TERRORISM THEORIES
It should be noted that there is no theory in international politics that can
claim to have access to the truth. Because In such case, theorist values can
be hiding behind beyond of its views. Theories of International Relations
studied and analyzed International Politics from different views and
outlook. Hence, each just explains a part of reality. And this is very
simplistic and miserliness that want resorting to one theory and only one
theory to understand all facts and developments in the international
system - particularly the complex and ambiguous issue of terrorism.
Because according to Robert Cox –theorist of critical theory in IR―Theory is always for some one and some purpose‖. However, a good
theory should be away from the internal contradictions and link between a
large number of themes and not just a specific subject area, and above all
that though any theory is not free of value, but it should efforts to judge
regarding fundamental beliefs and values fairly. Accordingly the
following studied some of the important theories of international
relations, to analyze the roots of terrorism, violence and aggression.
A. Neo-liberalism Theory
It seems obvious link the economic and political benefits signify the close
connection between neoliberalism and what is called the battle against
terrorism. Neo-liberalism Means business and regulatory common set of
rules in the world after the establishment of the World Trade Organization
(WTO). International Monetary Fund (IMF) serve as an example of two
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features the obvious insecurity and injustice in the international financial
system. Although the Fund is one of the largest complexes the staff of
professional economists, but it has been charge of all these policies
imposed on Southern countries that rather than detract from its
vulnerability, it has increased. Obvious example also has been mentions
of the Fund toward opening the gates on the capital markets without
attention to effective regulatory framework.19 While the unequal trade
relations between North and South reduce current income of the South,
what increase the revenue gap in long-term is political- legal unfair
structure the ownership of ne-oliberalism. This effect can be obvious in
the so-called "intellectual property" that is tough to defend in over time
and place in the neo-liberal world order. The most important opportunity
that has provided contemporary neoliberal order, to create strong
incentives for collective movement among the southern nations that
formation of new terrorism and Al-Qaeda can be largely the product of
these processes.
Doubtlessly, poverty affects over international terrorism and result in
appearance and growth of terrorism. Countries with a high percentage of
poor population more expose to growing terrorist groups. Poor countries
are victims of international terrorist groups' actions under the pretext of
Shelter. Recruitment the terrorists in such countries due to an increasing
dissatisfaction from poverty. International terrorist groups that often have
considerable financial resources can be as confident resource for poor
people. On the other hand individual live in the poor communities in due
to extreme poverty and dissatisfaction of the status quo more readiness to
attract such groups. Therefore, the most important strategy against
terrorism is eliminating poverty and unemployment in these countries and
in particular increases the Capacity-building among governments to
prevent of the terrorist groups recruitment and their growth.
19. Peter Evans.‖Neoliberalism as a Political Opportunity: Constraint and Innovation in
Contemporary Development Strategy‖. In Kevin Gallagher (Ed) Putting Development
First: The Importance of Policy Space in the WTO and IFIs. (London: Zed Books,
2005).
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Thus, increasing poverty, resources crisis and unfavorable conditions in
developing countries that are occurred due to continuous exploitation of
the developed countries, have been cause further spread of poverty and
hunger in this countries. These factors make it by itself that this individual
to combat exploiters to resort terrorist actions. So from this perspective,
the origin of terrorism is poverty and hunger and the world countries
should to deal with this problem should focus their main attention to the
eradication of poverty. Hence poverty as one of the main origins of
terrorism that stems from the unfair distribution of power and Wealth
between countries of the north and south areas, is considered. Important
and noticeable point is that poverty is not as the only main factor to
account for violence but this problem can do a combination of poverty,
injustice and the petition in the present world. Peace and security only
with counter-terrorism [as the effect] is not possible but also should
poverty [as the cause] further be considered.
B. Historical Sociology Theory
In summary we can say, the main features of historical sociology, the
interest to this point is how we suppose the structure indisputably (and
naturally) , are the product of a complex set of social processes. Such that
the formation of the new terrorism also was product of domestic, regional
and historic transregional complex process especially after Cold War, the
first half of 1990. Separate investigation and analysis regarding history
cultures and its sociology, indicates that human has a variety of feelings,
that its orientation determines by the process and quality of human life.
And this process either individual or collective creates reflections that
result in aggression. So from the perspective of historical sociology, the
origins of terrorism should further will be analyzed in history of
communities.
C. Critical Theory
Critical theory that can properly considers as "theory of dominant denial"
- under the influence of Karl Marx- proposes this hypothesis that the aim
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of understanding the world, to transform it. Knowledge should be change
tool. Richard Ashley admits Cox argument that maintaining the
established order requires domination relations20. Ashley Favored theme
is current facilities for the development of anti-hegemony forces within
and against the dominant order that is capable of leading to greater
independence of action. Accordingly, critical theorists seek to knowledge
for a political objective: Liberation of humanity from oppressive structures
of the world politics and the world economy that is controlled by
hegemonic powers in particular America capitalism. They want to unveil
from dominance face of the north on the south, thus is following the
overthrow of the social and economic current system. Critical theorists
are very political. The purposes are exactly the same purposes of the new
terrorism in order to system change that is followed by "Sayed Qutb"
opinions and ideas. Therefore, critical theory seeks emancipation the
human of the oppression structures in world politics and global economy
that is controlled by hegemonic powers....21
R. Cox about the internal contradictions in the existing international order
refers to the social movements that can create effective challenges against
inequitable world order. These according to Stephen Gill, is counterhegemonic forces that challenge dominant political and institutional
arrangements. The challenge requires shaping set of alternative values,
concepts, and considerations for anti-hegemony. Counter-hegemonic
forces entirely have not clear nature and may be progressive or not.22
20. Richard Ashley, K.‖Three Modes of Economism‖.International Studies Quarterly.
Vol, 27.No, 4. 1983. p477
21. Robert Jackson and George Sorensen. Introduction to International Relations. (New
York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997).
22. J. Steam and L. Pettiford.Internatioal Relations: Perspectives and Themes.(London:
Longman, 2001).p117
- S. Gill.‖Epistemology, Onthology, and the Italian School". In S. Gill. Historical
Materialism and International Relations.(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1993).p43
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D. Postmodernism Theory
Emergence of Postmodernism phenomenon result from the intersection of
political and epistemological developments. The developments of the
mid-1960s, gradually has found more coherent form and in the 1970s
A.D., resulted the emergence post-structuralism (Postmodernism
philosophical arm)." Jacques Derrida" - post-modern philosopher –
considers terrorism as sign of a kind of failure in current order in
modernism defensive mechanism that were designed to protect the
system, but used against itself. For Habermas, intolerance of religious fundamentalism of modern era – is kind of defensive reaction against
modernism and in defense of traditional methods of life – such that
Postmodernism also has risen against modernity. He understands violence
of terrorism that results from fundamentalism, like the pathological form
of communication that result from suspicion and lead to communication
failure. Thus, reforming the structure and type of communication can
overcome the problems due to terrorism. Thus terrorists like Al-Qaeda
that can be considered as by product globalization, don't be relevant to
nature of Islam but it is reaction (response) to the mistakes of modernity.
From this perspective, Ashley and Walker's emphasis is on the plurality
and diversity, "giving voice" to "marginals" and their own words,"
Exiles"23.
E. Constructivism Theory
Constructivism theory with emphasis on identity and discourse in
international relations rooted in "problem of knowledge sociology",
which was introduced in 1970s by Peter Berger and Thomas Lakeman.
From this perspective, the reality is made and polished of society. "Thus
Since terrorism is a political-social Construction; conceptualization about
it results from collective to establish connection and language and is
designer of a bridge of the common sense. From this perspective, the
actual function the definition of terrorism is "de-legitimize» the other
23. R Ashley and R.B.J. Walker." Speaking the Language of Exile: Dissident Thought in
International Studies". International Studies Quarterly 34, 3.p3.1990.
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identity. These common meanings can - according to constructivism create common ideas that based on it; patterns of friendship and hostility
construct special discourses. Within this discourse is that discourse of or
"with us" or "against us" specifies semantic boundaries between terrorist
and anti-terrorist. Thus, terror is social - political action for revival the
marginalized discourse and in other words brings defeated discourse
along to text. Current terminologies the terrorism is related to ethnic,
national, or religious minorities that feel is not heard theirs sounds. Worse
that they have been suppressed, have been marginalized, and have been
humiliated, the people according to Frantz Fanon, are "Wretch of the
Earth".24
Terrorists somehow resort to social construction the reality with tools of
their knowledge. Terrorists seeking the restoration of identity that have
been transformed due to social interaction. Relationship between identity
and terrorism is a mutual relationship. Norms, values and attitudes is all
as a social construction and in the context of ontology and discourse
define terrorist action. So the whole concept of terrorism is
Intersubjective theme and is affected by ontological and epistemological
dimensions.
Perhaps, and probably terrorism at one time only was a political problem,
but today has become a religious - political and or identity problem. In
other words, we see new terrorism with religious doctrines. For example,
Osama Bin Laden's famous fatwa against the United States call that says
"to kill the Americans and their allies - the military and civilians - is the
duty of every Muslim individual that can to be done in each country and
with every possible means. This individual Muslim action summarizes to
release Holy Mosque (Mecca) and withdrawal from all Islamic
countries.25
24. Frantz Fanon. The Wretched of the Earth. (New York: Grove Press, 1963).P 117.
25. Robert A. Pape. "The Strategic logic of suicide terrorism". American political
science review. Vol, 19. No, 3. (August 2003). p 343
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F. Frustration – aggression Theory
One of the most important factors in creating violence and aggression is
frustration and failure. This theory in 1939 was raised by Dollard.
According to this theory, aggression is obvious at the time (when) that the
man face with frustration, to lose the credibility and reputation, failure
and so on. In logic of Frustration – aggression whether Frustration results
in aggression or not, depends on mutual impact the four component sets:
A) the importance of purpose under the exclusion (for example, right to
self-determination and emancipation of occupation; B) The intensity of
exclusion experience (for example, military occupation, repression,
imprisonment, unemployment, the marginalization); C) frequency of
exclusion experience (for example, police harassment, targeted killings,
humiliated conflict at checkpoints) ; D) prediction the punishment
(penalty) to attack the sources of exclusion perceived26. According to
Daollrd, always frustration leads to the kind of violence27. Dollard utters
failed person attacks to any thing or the man that consider him as cause of
frustration and failure.
Accordingly, choosing terrorism is not ever to achieve illegitimate
dominance, but sometimes results from despair and desperation: "the
helpless people easily to get attract the terrorist organizations". Social
inequalities and lack of social justice based on the theory of frustrationaggression can Leads weakness party to conflict that ever and necessarily
is not associated with rational behavior. Therefore efforts the international
community to establishing social justice and eliminating poverty and
inequality of societies can prevent from terrorist actions that out of
necessity to do. Accordingly, governments that deprive a group from
Right to Self-Determination are responsible for violent acts performed by
them.
26. J.L.W.Dood, Dollard, N.E.Miller, O.H.Mowrer and R.R.Sears.Frustration and
Aggression. (Newhaven: Yale University Press, 1939).
27. Ibid. p 8
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G. Rational Choice Theory
The most important presupposition in rational choice theory is that many
important forms of political actions result from deliberate choices to
achieve to hypothetical purposes.28 In rational choice theory, every
individual has choice accessories (ie rational capacity, time and being
isolated of feelings). Guiding principle in rational choice theory is that
human behavior is targeted, measured and consciously. Terrorists and
leaders of terrorist groups not only act rationally in practice, but
sometimes also resort to useful and un-useful evaluation of the terrorist
act.29 Therefore, as explained Alex Schmidt, attacking innocent and
defenseless human beings is a kind conscious political strategy to
persuade or dissuade the people who are not among the victims30.
Therefore, terrorist attacks focus on the civilians because they are
valuable tool for transferring terrorists' message to goal and to reach their
demands.
Always terrorists are not looking for to obtain maximum profits and
benefits and privileges and too ambitious goals. Thus one of the terrorist
strategic orientations (and also suicide terrorism) is timing, suspend or
delay the campaign that often be performed by strategic decisions the
leaders of terrorist organizations. This suspensions probably accomplishes
with this justifies that much attacks and following up the maximum
benefits could result in reversed consequence and prevent them from
obtaining mandatory purposes, for example, efforts to obtain full or
partial concessions from the government aimed at political goals the
terrorists. Terrorists understand these issue that the following goals to get
out of the logistical ability and their facilities may result in unpleasant
consequences for them. For example, terrorists never threaten macro
interests and the government existence security. Because they know that
their ability in terms of manpower, technology, military power and
28. Margraves Heap and et al. The theory of Choice: a critical Guide. (Oxford: Basil
Blackwell, 1992). PP 3-26 and 93-130
29. Pape. op.cit.
30. David Rapport. The politics of Atrocity. (New York: John Jas press, 1977). p 47
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economic ability, especially in democratic national governments, ability
and their political support is not as targeted government and thus are
realized if governments feel that macro interests and their existence
security be under threat of terrorists, resort to comprehensive action
against terrorists that in this case terrorists will lose. Therefore, the
terrorists based on the logic of "strategic defense, tactical offense" to
organize their terrorist actions. In fact, terrorists often are not looking for
maximum purpose but in the specific time seek determined purposes and
declared before. Because they know governments for small targets, have
not recourse to big operations and as a result will not willing to pay the
cost of these operations. And for small terrorist actions resort to small
actions that mainly terrorists are winner. Especially the suicide issue here
is very effective. Because killing and terrorizing civilians by terrorists,
damage to the credibility of governments in citizens safety fields and
especially when terror is suicide. Because for the citizens and public
opinion, the incidence of a terrorist incident is a problem and punishes the
agents is other issue. This means that the government has failed to solve
the problem of terrorism. Thus, governments have to surrender oneself to
small and minimum demands the terrorists. Terrorists understand the
mechanisms of playing and as a result try to determine possibility of
achieving the objective in the real conditions. This does not mean that
terrorists are never looking for maximum purposes, But depending on
their teachings, beliefs (religion), universal values, beliefs and especially
their ideologies, are following ideals that further relate to theoretical
rationality31 and method of their theoretical understanding regarding their
teachings.
However, terrorists depending on theoretical rationality ie with inspiration
from its opinionative, mythological, ideological sources and... Select
maximum long-term purposes. But the path toward these purposes, based
on active rationality and rational prediction analyses the possibility of
achieving interests and short-term purposes. In Rationality strategic are
31. Basically, when speak of the terrorism cultural and opinionative- religious roots, is
related to the field of theoretical rationality.
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considered rational calculations of others in choosing their purposes and
actions. In general, what is the name of the new terrorism is well known,
is that their attacks is irrational ie don't consider rational calculations of
cost – benefit. But what is terrorism, coupled with old and new is a kind
of rationality, but has changed nature of rationality - material pure
rationality and spiritual pure rationality and or quantum combined
rationality.
CONCLUSION
Basically, the phenomenon of terrorism as old as history and government
politics among humanity. Terrorism is a tactic historically weak enjoys
for frightening stronger and strong for frightening weaker. But today a
phenomenon of terrorism has taken new shape and is becoming a
dominant theory in our life among governments and nations. The reality
is that terrorism often is reaction to broadening economic structures,
political preferences, cultural attitudes and style life governing the West.
In such circumstances the way that power and wealth distribution is
completely unfair, entities that fewer enjoy of these components in the
world resort to tactic of terrorism for compensate of their weaknesses.
What terrorist activities oven kept warm, is tangible discrimination and
double standards in the international community than some cultures that
to assemble field and ground of growth and proliferation of historic
complexes and beliefs of terrorist and even deviation of public opinion
toward protection from terrorist activists. From this point of view,"
terrorism is resultant the accumulation of historic repressed complexes
and beliefs". Therefore, failures, economic pressure, domination, insulting
a society taboos cause complexes that this complexes in expediency
situations has become aggression, violence and terror. From this view of
point, terrorism is product of oppressed anger and inability vis-à-vis
tyranny and dominant.
Yet, no theory could not and can not to be acceptable as model of
explanative and descriptive for species of violence. Probably diversity of
violent behaviors is intrinsic barrier to provide a general theory.
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Certainly, disaster conditions and unfavorable the current international
community is the result of oppression and injustice and the powerful
greed. In such current international system, "Ethics is an illusion and Law
as such ie the powerful consensus". It also accepted that terrorists nightlong don't become terrorist. No one is not born terrorist and aggression
and violence is a social construction. Terrorism is a by product of our
own function. Understanding of terrorism can not be studied except
structure and system the Ruling the world.
However, "Terrorist is Terrorist" and same guilty, outcast and
insufferable. And because it is one of the most serious and most
dangerous manifestations of threat to international peace and security, is
condemned at all its forms and manifestations, on the side of anyone,
anywhere and for any purpose. And that is why and always believed that
"the End - though legitimate and holly -don't justifies the Means".
Therefore, nothing justifies terrorism. This means that separating
terrorism to good terrorist and bad terrorist is biggest damage and
Achilles' heel for combat against terrorism phenomenon. Unfortunately,
politics is so complicated that one country can in sync combat against
terrorism and at the same time effort in support of it.
Terrorism: Vital Remarks
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Félix Ángel Herrero Duran 
Here are the questions I answer it:
1- Terrorism is inherently bad, has two variants, the state of insanity or
madness caused by despair, this occurs mainly at the individual and often
the response to another terrorist. And terrorism organized groups or
states, is the most vicious and sophisticated, and it is not only the direct
cause of death, blood and tears but also is the source of terrorism of the
desperate.
2- By sheer logic would have to ask who gets the benefits, and the answer
is clear, the multinational weapons, the predators of the global wealth, the
new slave of the corporations.
3- the colonialist countries are the Evil Empire, despite its apparent
democratic forms, are in the hands of lobbyists linked to Zionism and the
big global trusts, their governments do not do it to their people but to their
employers and They use state terrorism to create confusion and terror end
up with governments that truly defend human dignity.
4- easy question to answer, the countries of the Evil Empire manufactured
weapons, create wars to sell their production (eg Saddam Hussein's
aggression in the Islamic Republic of Iran), if there were no wars
productions would not be necessary and death his powerful industries
would collapse. Why do wars happen often in countries with mineral
wealth? They already pay the credits to buy weapons with its mineral
wealth, and this is a formula over the plunder to submitting the tyrants of
the Evil Empire to the free peoples of the planet.
5- The war of aggression is one of the most ruthless terrorist formulas,
interestingly most of the wars have been sponsored by lobbyists need for
the arms industry to output a production that otherwise would not sell.
 the President of Spanish Federation of Islamic Religious Entities.
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The weapons are bought to kill another against the will of the same and
the trade should be more forbidden the drug trade. Islamophobia and
xenophobia in the countries of the Evil Empire used to prepare public
opinion in these countries, properly manipulated by the media to applaud
the attack on Libya or any other country, and then also claim that the
costs of the war pay the Libyan people, ie the families of the victims of
these weapons. The United States gave the green light to Saddam
Hussein to invade Kuwait and Kuwait had to pay the expenses gringos his
release, before they had paid Saddam and the weapons that invaded
Kuwait.
6- It is simply the implementation or use of new technologies in the field
of terrorism.
7- Unfortunately the UN was born flawed, is in the hands of the powerful
and arrogant, the Security Council is ineffective and partial, to buy the
votes of the corrupt in poor countries (poor because of the Evil Empire
steal their riches ) is mixed or interest imposed by the courts. O reformed
UN or this will be increasingly futile.
8 - Just Peace, difficult to achieve while the human being is free from the
bondage of Satan, many millions of people work for Just Peace, but
others work for the exploitation of men, many men have fallen into the
path of martyrdom preparing the coming of Imam Mehdi, we will
continue that way over our consciousness, our intelligence, our words and
our written to convince people that the Just Peace will come, the Imam
Mehdi will bring power and kneel before the arrogant. The arrogance of
the powerful countries of the Evil Empire know they have their days, their
time has passed, the Almighty will put an end to their arrogance, will
substitute other people, I do not trust the leaders of powerful countries, I
trust in the Almighty.
9 - in fact people do not think that the greatest terrorist threat are the
armies of the Evil Empire and its weapons of mass destruction.
10 - Allah (swt) has made man and woman and thinking beings capable of
reason, we must help mankind to find happiness in the way of good
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speech and writing are used to promote the culture, if give words and
writings of peace by promoting a Culture of Peace.
11 - Peace with Justice is only done while do not be oppressed and
oppressors Paz.
12 - It is a form of terrorism among other things serves to justify the
terrorist attacks in Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen and Libya, also
serves to the people of the country in the hands of the Evil Empire can not
see that humanitarian aid performed with long-range missiles with
unmanned combat aircraft and missiles and cluster housing depleted
uranium.
13 - State Terrorism occurs when the state falls into the hands of a group
that uses it for their own benefit at the expense of people's interests, states
act in the hands of terrorists within its borders both com or outwards, not
make discrimination between victims, following the premise of English
Churchill "England has no friends has interest," the State today Is the
quintessential terrorist Zionist Entity of Israel, with impunity thanks to
their control over the government of the United States of North America
practiced all forms of terrorism. 14 - Because of the sacrifice of many
thinkers of different ideologies, but united by the pursuit of justice, the
world still holds the barbarism to which the Evil Empire would like to
bring the peoples of the world.
15 - The power to change the religious leaders over the conscience is very
strong, but there are false leaders and false prophets, they serve neither
the man nor his Creator, they are infiltrators from the Evil Empire, are
those with try to destroy the earth seed, we do not serve religious leaders
who live in palaces, luxury and softness are false leaders are frauds
aupados to charges that are the most moving human-like puppets. The day
religions and schools of thought are true leaders this is the day that
marked the decline of Mal irreversibly.
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Terrorism, Need for Unity in Definition
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Saber Nojoumi *, Amin Valizadeh **
Abstract
Acts of terrorism in the early decade of the 21st century, taking place
under any motive and excuse, have shaped a new outlook of the
Western world to the phenomenon of terrorism. This new approach
developed an evolution in the definition of terrorism at the world level
which, prior to being in accordance with the main cause of the crime,
derived from political aims. Among different outcomes of this new
perspective was that terrorism was generalized to all acts of violence.
The new discourse of the West on terrorism, prior to being attached to
the nature and identity of this phenomenon, is hidden in political and
security targets of the West in its outlook to the power to control the
world, especially in the aftermath of the collapse of the former Soviet
Union.
Despite the fact that today all countries univocally condemn terrorism,
the concept of terrorism and its constituting elements are not known.
Records show that the international community has so far made great
efforts to define terrorism but has not yet reached a consensus in this
regard. Terrorist incidents in recent years prepared the ground so that
terrorism was placed on top of international issues. In order to
confront such an ominous phenomenon, first boundaries of terrorism
should be identified so that legal reactions could be adopted against it.
Keywords: Terrorism, international law, legal concept
* M.A. graduate in International Law, Allameh Tabatabaei University
** M.A. student in International Law
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Introduction
Several terrorist attacks which occurred in the closing decades of the 20th
century, underlined the need for a global and comprehensive fight against
terrorism in the beginning of the third millennium. The UN Security
Council took advantage of the situation for adopting general antiterrorism regulations and issued several resolutions, including Resolution
1368 (12 September 2001) in which it identified international terrorism as
an element threatening peace and world security and explicitly referred to
the right to defend oneself against such attempts and Resolution1373 (28
September 2001) in which it obliged countries to carry out or refrain from
implementing certain measures. The 9/11 incident -- occurred under
whatever excuses -- resulted in the shaping of a special outlook of the
Western world to terrorism phenomenon. But, after a while and subsiding
primary sensitivities, exercising legal and political approach towards
terrorism was further emphasized by lawyers and experts. The war logic
that was adopted by the United State and its allies in the aftermath of 9/11
incident (under the pretext of legal defense) was brought under criticism
and its results, instead of reducing terrorism, unfortunately caused further
escalation of violence and increase in terrorist acts throughout the world.
This new outlook brought about changes in the definition of terrorism
worldwide that prior to being in conformity with the original crime it was
originated from political targets. One of the outcomes of this new outlook
was that terrorism was promulgated to any type of violent act. The new
Western discourse on terrorism prior to having any relation with the
nature of this phenomenon was connected to political and security targets
of the West in its approach towards power for controlling the world,
especially in the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Terrorism either domestic or international has been spread throughout the
world and become one of the most complicated and difficult tasks and
challenges the world is confronting in the beginning of the 21st century.
So far many questions, including its definition, have remained
unanswered. Today no generally accepted definition could be offered in
the international law for terrorism and the present definition could only
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embody limited cases. In civil law, like international law, there is no
consensus about definition of terrorism due to the prevailing political
disputes among countries which has naturally affected this subject matter.
In fact, each country views the issue from the angle of its own interests
and would interfere its own priorities in this regard. This factor
(adherence of terrorism from political interests) has resulted in developing
lack of consensus over building a comprehensive agreement. Another
point is that terrorism is basically a political concept and gaining
importance the world over, especially in the aftermath of 9/11 incidents,
is the most important reason for its political nature.
Need to define terrorism
―Terrorism is an easy and impossible concept and in fact the widespread
wave of campaign against terrorism and multiplicity of its usage in
political literature and international law would make less people
concerned about the sound meaning of this term.‖ 1
Discussions about definition of terrorism have more become an art rather
than a scientific and academic topic. With regard to lack of a general
definition for terrorism, the mass media for description of its performance
use such terms as ―rebels‖ or ―guerrillas‖. However, developing an
applicable definition of terrorism would help us to better understand the
term and best instruments to fight with it. Definition of terrorism would
also help those who are exposed to such an accusation and in fact put an
instrument at their disposal to defend themselves.2
Some experts in the field of terrorism such as Walter Laqueur are dubious
about debates over the subject as they argue whether unending
discussions over terrorism would end up to a fruitful conclusion. Walter
Laqueur believes, ―Even if a comprehensive definition which would
embody all important aspects of terrorism would be achieved, it would be
1.Seyed Qassem Zamanai, ―Status of International Standards of Human Rights in
Fighting Terrorism‖, Legal Researches, Vol. 8, 4th year, 2005, p. 43.
2. HH.Acooper," Terrorism: the Problems of Definition," the American Behavioral
Scientist , Feb 2001; Vol 44,Iss. 6, pp. 387-388.
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rejected by some due to ideological reasons.‖ 3 In the absence of a
comprehensive definition for terrorism, this concept would be equal with
any type of violence that the analyst optionally chooses and finally this
would be political considerations that determine how a stance of terrorism
should be quoted.
As a reality, terrorists would continue their operations due to lack of
consensus over definition of terrorism and absence of punishment by the
governments or agencies of international organizations.4 Terrorism is not
the only concept for which there is no definition in international law, for
example the term ethnics which has plenty of applications in international
documents of human rights lacks a definition which would be acceptable
to all from international point of view. But, this does not mean that no
definition would be reached or at least described.
Possibly it might be opined that a complete definition of this
phenomenon, if it exists at all, would at least encounter the issue of
inclusion (embracing all cases) and also contraction or that any definition
of terrorism would be characteristic of a specific region. 5 However, it
should be admitted that ―terrorism for hundreds of years has created
major problems and although an end could not be put to it, it could be
understood, managed and finally resolved.‖6
Development of a definition would encourage terrorists to be motivated
and pay attention to ethical points and thus decide to change their
approach (such as guerrilla wars) in order to realize their goals and
thereby confine the scope of international terrorism. 7
3. Walter Laqueur، the Age of Terrorism,( Little Browll and company, Boston 1987),
pp. 149-150.
4. Kshitij Prabha, Terrorism: An instrument of Foreign Policy, (South Asian Publisher
New Dehli, 2000), p.13.
5. Caleb Corr, "Terrorism: why the Definition must be Broad," World Policy Journal,
spring 2007, 1, p.48.
6. Dennis J. Sandole, Terrorism and Conflict Resolution: Theory and Practice,
(Georgemason University, Aukland, 2006), p. 84.
7. Alex P. Schmid ٫‖Terrorism: The Difinitional Problem"٫ Case Western Reserve
Journal Of International Law٫ Vol.36٫ 2/3, 2004 , pp. 379-380.
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Therefore, with regard to the above-mentioned points it could be said that
although fight with such an ominous phenomenon is possible even in the
absence of a comprehensive definition, and the international community
is currently carrying out its campaign against terrorism under such
circumstances (lack of a comprehensive definition). But, obviously in the
case of consensus over a specific definition it could be hoped for an
overall and comprehensive encounter with this phenomenon and its legal
regime could be considered all-embracing with a general definition.
Approaches in definition of terrorism
The question in this section is about those involved in defining terrorism.
In response to this question first the ―conceptual definition‖ should be
separated from ―administrative concept‖ as those involved in the two
areas are different from each other. In the conceptual concept lawyers,
politicians, sociologists, historians and specialists are active whereas in
the second group, that is to say in administrative concept, official
government institutions, international organizations and different agencies
take part. Clearly, definitions of the second group would not be
sophisticated as much as the definitions of the first group since they have
been compiled to confront a group which opposes their interests. In
international organizations it is further noticed that official views of the
governments in defining terrorism which is under the influence of their
political approaches and interests, gain more power in comparison with
academic definitions by researchers.
As for the disagreement among researchers, it should be said that it is
normal as each definition could reflect interests of the person who is
offering that definition. In politics, ―terms‖ are not neutral and are
important. Given that terms often convey legitimacy or condemnation of
something and are used as instruments to mobilize public opinion8, the
term terrorism in organizational definitions usually has the same
application. In response to the first question, who are involved in defining
8. Alex. p Schmid, op.cit. p. 385
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terrorism, reference should be made to the following individuals and
institutions: national parliaments, the executive, the judiciary, regional
organizations and the United Nations on the one hand and academics,
victims, audience and media on the other hand.
The term terrorism, in the course of its shaping since 18th century, has
been constantly faced with widespread changes in its semantic
orientation; sometimes it has been used in positive concepts and
sometimes for creating fear and hatred. Therefore, terrorism could be
referred to as an ―essentially contested concept‖. The meaning of
contested is clear but what about ―concept‖? ―Concept is the orientation
of a term and is indicative of efforts for confining term in a stable
meaning, confining it for referring to the events and incidents in the
outside world.‖9 A concept is a ―word‖ which has meaning orientations
and is used for making reference to specific events. The issue of
transferring a term into a concept takes place in a process of conversion
and transformation and the factor ―intention‖ would enter the scene at this
point. The relation between the intention, the term and the concept
resembles a triangle. With the help of an intellectual process, an intention
would change a term into a concept and would make the concept of a
term ―communicable‖.
A definition is basically an equation, a new and unknown concept, which
is explained with the help of combination of at least two terms. But, if
only one element of the multidimensional aspects would be available, in
that case a ―synonym‖ or translation of a term should be discussed and
not a definition.10 For example, defining terrorism in ―what terrorists are
involved with‖ is a blatant description of the term itself (self-definition)
or interpretation of terrorism which is translation of a term rather than its
definition. In the definition of terrorism as a multidimensional term, in
addition to full recognition of the concept, it should be differentiated from
other similar concepts. In fact, relations of terrorism with some other
9. Ibid.,
10. Alex.P. Schmid, op.cit, pp. 400-401.
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concepts such as liberation struggles have caused several problems on the
way of reaching a consensus in defining terrorism.
Characteristics of a proper definition
In reaching a comprehensive agreement on and a proper definition of
terrorism the following points should be taken into consideration:
1-Discussing terrorism and its response demands deliberations of each
specific period; for example terrorists of the 19th century could not be
compared with terrorists of the present time. Therefore, paying attention
to the era and time is one of the most important factors in a proper
definition.11
2-Preventing emotional orientations in defining terrorism: following
emotions would result in calling an enemy a terrorist and a friend freedom
fighter. Unfortunately, most of studies about terrorism and liberation
uprisings have less moved towards rationalism and more towards looking
at terrorism from an emotional angle.12
3- Terrorism could be carried out both by government and nongovernmental agencies. Therefore, excluding each class of the payers
could inflict major harm on the definition. Making reference to state
terrorism is among major reasons for opposition of the West to a
comprehensive definition of terrorism.
4- Moral condemnation of terrorism is less confronted with a problem
among different characteristics that are mentioned in the definition of
terrorism. The difference between an instance of bomb explosion in a
primary school and for example a liberation movement is clearly
understandable; while the latter might entail some support the former is
totally condemned.13
11. Dennis J.D. Sandole, op. cit, p.1-5.
12. Ibid , p. 94.
13. Benjamin R. Barver, op. cit, p.55.
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5- A proper definition should firstly cover all operations that might be
identified as terrorism and should have all serious connects with
humanitarian legal issues.14
6- A proper definition should be compatible with legal justice and should
have international performance guarantees.
7- Given that terrorism is a multi-dimensional definition certainly any
simple definition would be insufficient and incomprehensive. According
to Walter Laqueur ―terrorism is a dangerous concept for simplification
and generalization‖.15
8- In the study of terrorism paying attention to the following points is of
great importance: terrorism is a complicated and verified phenomenon
and in its study one should not be entrapped in extreme generalization. In
the study of terrorism, history should be rationally used as an analytic
tool. Finally, ―terrorism is an example of human interaction which has
been misled and, therefore, for its study and recognition, proper human
conditions should be employed, concepts such as reality and psychology.‖
Conclusion
It should be admitted that a one-sided thorough definition of a
phenomenon which has been turned into one of the most important
security challenges of many countries today, could be highly abstractive.
In this way, following a specific order and accompanying of policy
scholars, lawyers, governmental experts and even sociologists,
economists, and psychologists is also needed. No doubt, for a
concentration on terrorism, first a definition should be presented in order
to fully clarify its nature. But, for different reasons not only countries
have failed to reach a common definition of terrorism also the United
Nations is facing the same problem. Scholars and experts from different
14. Bruce Broonhall," State Actors in International Definition of Terrorism From a
Human Rights Perspective", Case Western Reserve Journal of in International Law,
2004, p.p.421-422.
15. Walter Laqueur, op .cit, p. 9.
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countries have tried to offer definitions to bring public opinion closer for
confronting this phenomenon. However, such definitions are accepted by
some while are rejected by some others. Among major reasons for
disagreement in this regard, variety of instances, targets and motives
could be cited as examples.
The United Nations has repeatedly tried to offer common definitions for
terrorism that could be accepted by all countries but has failed as interests
of the big powers lies in that concepts such as ―liberation movements‖
should be turned into terrorism. But, some other countries are supporting
those movements and are calling for their support.
Currently, in numerous resolutions and announcements of the Security
Council and General Assembly and in international conventions on fight
against terrorism, this phenomenon has been considered a ―threat to
international peace and security‖ and in contradiction with targets of the
UN Charter. In the International Court of Justice, although no reference
has been made to terrorism in the articles of association of the Court, but
with regard to Resolution E of the Rome Conference and Article 123 of
the articles of association which has predicted a revision in it and also
with regard to developments in the aftermath of 9/11, it is possible that in
a near future all would be witness to the inclusion of terrorism in crimes
under the jurisdiction of the Court.
Although after the elapse of seventy years since the emergence of the
topic of terrorism at international level and compilation of dozens of
conventions, protocols, resolutions, announcements and statements in this
respect, still there is no definite expression on the concept of terrorism.
But, anti-terrorism conventions (either global or regional) have prepared
strong backgrounds for taking measures against terrorism. However,
while it could be admitted that so far the international law has failed to
reach an internationally accepted definition of terrorism, with the
consensus that has been developed among governments in expressing
their disgust of the phenomenon and in announcing their readiness for a
serious fight against terrorism, the issue of condemning various shapes of
terrorism has gained more popularity. It seems that in a near future the
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United Nations would be capable of preparing a comprehensive document
in the field of terrorism in such a way that it could be accepted by all
members of the international community.
The New World Order and Terrorism Implications
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Part II
Terrorism
And International Community
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The New World Order and Terrorism
Implications
Manuel Galiana Ros 
TERRORISM AND FREEDOM
The New World Order´s (NOW) goal is the establishment of a world
government by law, this is legalising a situation that ―de facto‖ exists, in
most countries in this planet.
This NWO preaches and has been busy imposing regulations that must
result in a globalization, the way they want it, totally against the laws of
Nature:
A) Freedom for goods and merchandises to circulate without restrictions.
This in theory wonderful purpose, being ultimately handled and
implemented by the large multinationals, basically constitutes a kind of
commercial terrorism. First of all, it will be the large corporations who
will determine which low prices have to be paid to the producing
countries of food and raw materials, in the third world mainly, being also
able to impose if so they want silent sanctions against these countries not
willing to follow their decrees.
B) Freedom for people moving out of their countries of origin (mainly
from poor countries) based on the theoretical need of cheap labor in more
developed countries. This is a system that could perhaps work in an
unlimited world, with unlimited resources, but we are already starting to
experience in Europe mainly, due to the present and foreseeable even
worse economic situation that the immigrant collectives will be facing in
the short term a situation where most of them will have to return to their
counties of origin.
 Member of Cultural Council to the Ministry of Education, Spain.
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It has to be mentioned that the alibi proposed by the ―System‖ in order to
have access to this cheap labor is mainly that these poor people are
fleeing from wars or poverty. The truth is that wars are most times caused
and/or manipulated by western interests and that special interest should be
put in avoiding these to happen. The poverty in many third world counties
is also caused due to the high level of corruption of their local oligarchies,
guided by the ―Money Masters‖ of this world in this effort. We can
consider both above situations as a kind of terrorism.
C) Another kind of terrorism is that one being imposed from United
Nations organizations in order to impose throughout the world immoral
and anti natural values such as:
The well known ideology of ―gender‖ as an euphemistic way to describe
―sex‖. The politically correct speech being delivered worldwide is that the
difference between a man and a woman is simply cultural, there is
nothing natural about it. Consequently any human being is free to
determine their sex, regardless of the one Nature has provided. A logical
promotion of anti natural Homo- Bi- and Transexual values is being
extended till the last corner of the planet.
The idea of the ―traditional‖ family is so far being ―tolerated‖, but there is
a strong drive towards boosting the existence of monoparental families
(most just with a mother) and the totally anti Divine plan homosexual
―marriages‖, including the right to adopt children for these by nature non
fertile couples.
Radical feminism through the corresponding lobbies, financed in a
generous way by the ―System‖ are being instrumental through totally
controlled mass media in order to promote all the above and also the
following:
The right for women to carry out abbortions (in case of those of minor
age, even without their parents´ consent or knowledge. The ―nasciturus‖
is contemplated by UN legislation as a mere appendix of a woman who
can in consequence get rid of it without any responsibility. This
programme is almost fully installed in most western countries and the UN
organization for children care UNESCO is in charge of promoting
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legislation changes in third world countries if they want to receiving some
funding for other purpose.
OTHER WAYS TO PROMOTE TERRORISM IN MORE
THAN ONE DIRECTION
The fact that the following corporations: FOX NEWS, TIMES
WARNER, DISNEY, SONY, BERTELSMANN, VIACOM and
GENERAL ELECTRIC, control in a direct or indirect way more than
85% of the information that is published worldwide must be considered as
a clear act of cultural terrorism.
Alternative versions of events happening internationally can only be
followed through Internet of by means of small alternative media. The
mainstream media will follow an editorial line strictly following the
directives most likely issued by a joint committee linking all above seven
groups.
In this chapter against cultural rights of people we can also mention that
in some countries in Europe, some people are in jail due to the horrible
crime of publishing, writing or even selling books. I want to mention the
case in Barcelona (Spain) of Pedro Varela, owner of a book shop and
publisher who is in jail since last November 2010, for selling and editing
books that are not included in any list of ―forbidden books‖. A judge
sentence, seen by many experts in law as ―anticonstitutional‖ has been
applied on the victim. Another four Spaniards are awaiting sentence based
on the same crime.
The main charges against these people are these of being clearly ―antiSemitic‖. This is the official terminology used in a deceptive way by the
legislation of many western countries. I mean deceptive, because they
make use of the term Semitic, actually meaning Jewish. The well known
arrogance of that ethnia comes to the point where they want to identify
semitic with jewish, when everybody knows that over 95% of semitics are
arabs.
In any case, in the West, you have the freedom to ridiculize the moslim
Prophet and to perform plays in theatre and movies about Jesus, like
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CORPUS CHRISTI to be made public by September showing him and his
apostles as homosexuals, but if one dares confronting the new RELIGION
and try to make public arguments and/or evidences which will confront
some of the truths as told by the winners in World War II, then you will
end up in jail. All necessary efforts must be made in order to reverse this
situation and that ideas can be freely expressed so that people may reach
their own judgement about any given case.
Financial and monetary terrorism is the term to be applied to the present
situation. If the total amount of ―digital money‖ existing in all banks,
down to the last tax haven were consolidated, we could see a grand total
of ―theoretical‖ funds (because over 90% of these have not been even
printed ever) that could buy about 19 times all products and services on
earth.
Perhaps the time is not too far out when all the indebted countries of this
world, after some totally necessary ―political changes‖ that may be
pushed by their respective populations, may officially ask who would be
the ultimate recipients if the moneys due would be returned (condition
impossible to fulfil as it would mean undergoing conditions that most
people is not going to accept)
State terrorism is the chapter with which I will close the present article,
which has been drawn in order to complement ―traditional terrorism”
For those people aware of the last state of the art regarding advances in
audio visual electronic devices and systems, besides the full control on
banking operations existing, it is quite clear that an organisation like AL
QUAEDA, formed, trained and financed by the CIA in the 80´in order to
get the Russians out of Afganistan, cannot if their creators do not have the
will, become independent and still less act against the country and
interests of their founders. In consequence a well informed person must
assume that most AL QUAEDA´s actions are totally guided (perhaps one
could think that some minority groups of foundamentalists trying to do
their own tasks are also believed to be the same)
The 11 S in New York is very clearly the most significant example of
disinformation with the purpose of criminalisig Islam, following a long
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ago well defined route of action in order to eventually promote a Third
World War. The easiest way to jump over any ―theory of conspiration‖
would be to let the American Associations of Architects and Pilots
explain with in detail videos, what a demolition is actually like and also
which would be the chances for people with a training of days or weeks to
conduct the kind or aeronautical spins we all could witness.
Something similar can be applied to the events of the 11 March 2004 in
Madrid and the 7 June in London, always with the purpose to criminalise
Islam in order to justify a total war against terror. This terror is necessary
for the continuity of the military complex in the west and the protection of
their benefits.
Due to the logical space restrictions in the book to be published, I will end
up my article here. Many more details can be found in my last book
published in Spain THE NEW WORLD ORDER .
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Terrorism and Contemporary International Law
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Terrorism and Contemporary International
Law
Dr. May Al Khansa 
Introduction
All types of terrorism that intersect with the system of international
interests, economic development, and freedom of the market (criteria
defining the new international system) have created objections to the link
between the emergence of violence in all its forms and applications, and
the strict, coercive, and unfair regulations imposed by them on the other
countries of the world.
The justification for operations of state terrorism, selective attitudes,
looting of people‘s resources, economic dominance, military action, and
the imposition of economic blockades – all this is justified by allegations
that they will bring peace, human rights, and democracy. The United
States has carefully silenced opposing opinions and disseminated only its
own definition of terrorism. It has made sure to prevent any commitment
to a specific legal definition of terrorism created by unified global public
opinion and by international institutions and organizations; instead, they
prefer – the United States – to keep the definition open to different
options and explanations.
It was necessary for the United States, in order to implement its plan in
the Middle East, to put a non-Arab element between the Arab countries as
its starting point for any military action in the region. This was the reason
for their recognition of the Zionist entity and their alliance with (Israel).
Since then the United States has worked to strengthen Israel by all and
any means. And for (Israel) to be able to take a strong stand in the face of
the Arab countries as a whole, it must be shown as an economic, political,
and military power. So it was that the United States provided all the
 The President of the Beirut- based International Coalition against Impunity (HOKOK),
Member of Gaza Supportes Union, PhD in International Law.
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required support for Israel to enjoy recognition and become a force not to
be reckoned with. For this purpose, there has been U.S. support of Israel
in global institutions that ignore the aggression on Palestinian territories
and the killings and displacements, starvation and genocide.
State Practice and the International Order
The United States continues a policy of persuasion, threats, and
intimidation in order to create an international coalition that allows them
to monopolize the right to self-defense and the fight against terrorism.
The attack of September 11 provided the U.S. with a good opportunity to
reshuffle their cards; it was time to settle all accounts with opponents of
their approach to capitalism and globalization. The map of the fight
against terrorism that was prepared by the United States could not be
expected to be limited to only one or two targets, and does not accept any
restrictions or specifications, but includes all who take exception to the
American way.
In such an atmosphere, and within the backdrop of widespread
accusations and questioning of the concept of liberation movements and
national struggles, including the recent questioning of the Lebanese
resistance, it seems that there is a formula whose strands are still being
woven, based on the assumption that alternatives to capitalist thought
don‘t exist, and that the global system of capitalism will continue to
strengthen its positions in a decisive way without competitors or
concerns. Their tasks of the time are centered around how to grab all the
cards of the political game and put them in the hands of the U.S.
administration and its strong arm of globalization, in order to give it the
legal right and international cover to impose its hegemony and its
definition of terrorism, despite the recognition of many of the arbitrary
crimes committed by the U.S. administration. This motivates the
escalation of the struggle and energizes the masses to deter the threat
posed on humanity by the arbitrary and selective policies that prioritize
the interests of capitalism. Here emerged the heroic Palestinian resistance,
which has continued to resist since then. Entering its sixth year, the
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Palestinian uprising is still at the height of its power. With every criminal
act done by Zionist enemy forces and attacks carried out on our children,
elders, and women, hands rise and voices shout for the victory of the
Palestinian resistance.
But where is international law in all of these massacres and atrocities?
Where are the international institutions that are meant to deal with
establishing global peace and creating a better world of kindness, love
and nonviolence?
In what follows, we will see some of the statements of international law
and some of the acts of global institutions that are supposed to be there to
protect the vulnerable and to help the oppressed. Of course, in principle,
no law endorses violence and fighting. But is there an applicable law that
punishes acts of violence, especially in a unipolar world of patronage?
The United States was at the center of several attempts aimed at the
definition of the phenomena of political violence, and the distinction
between terrorism and legitimate resistance to occupation. The first
decision issued by the General Assembly of the United Nations
concerning the treatment of terrorism (Resolution Number 3034, Date:
18/12/1972) was clearly on the side of confirming the legitimacy of
struggle for national liberation and on distinguishing between this and the
problem of international terrorism. The resolution, which was endorsed
by 76 countries and opposed by 35 countries, with 17 states declining to
vote, stated:
"The General Assembly, deeply perturbed over acts of international
terrorism which are occurring with increasing frequency and which take a
toll of innocent human lives,
Recognizing the importance of international cooperation in devising
measures effectively to prevent their occurrence and of studying their
underlying causes with a view to finding just and peaceful solutions as
quickly as possible,
Recalling the Declaration on Principles of International Law concerning
Friendly Relations and Cooperation among States in accordance with the
Charter of the United Nations,
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...Reaffirms the inalienable right to self-determination and independence
of all peoples under colonial and racist regimes and other forms of alien
domination and upholds the legitimacy of their struggle, in particular the
struggle of national liberation movements, in accordance with the
purposes and principles of the Charter and the relevant resolutions of the
organs of the United Nations;
Condemns the continuation of repressive and terrorist acts by colonial,
racist, and alien regimes in denying peoples their legitimate right to selfdetermination and independence...
Invites States to take all appropriate measures at the national level with a
view to the speedy and final elimination of the problem, bearing in mind
the provisions of paragraph 3 above...‖
And the General Assembly of the United Nations once again in
14/12/1974, at meeting number 2319, reiterated the legitimacy of people‘s
struggle for liberation by all available means, including armed struggle,
from colonial and foreign domination and alien subjugation.
The General Assembly strongly condemned all governments that do not
recognize such rights of peoples under occupation and in particular the
people of South Africa and the Palestinian people. International law
clearly allows the right of powerless peoples to practice armed struggle in
their path to liberation and independence. A resolution of the General
Assembly of the United Nations on 14/12/1974 had a major impact in the
recognition of the right of resistance and armed struggle in defense of
freedom and independence, and has turned into an international, legal,
and public duty of rights for peoples under occupation. The resolution
stated: "Any attempt to suppress the struggle against colonial and alien
domination and racist regimes is incompatible with the Charter of the
United Nations, the Declaration on Principles of International Law
concerning Friendly Relations and Co-operation among States in
accordance with the Charter of the United Nations, and the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights..."
At a conference for the development of humanitarian law, held in Geneva
in 1976, two protocols were acknowledged that considered that wars of
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liberation are international wars. It said in Article I of Protocol I that wars
of national liberation are legitimate and fair, and all international laws
apply to them. National liberation movements have an international
character, as they are conducted by countries that are still in the making.
Examples of laws that legalize resistance to occupation are many,
innumerable in fact. However, injustice remains a reality; Zionist forces
continue to violate laws and international agreements. Why not disregard
all agreements and legal contracts, since they are backed by the only
power in the world? The United States has, since the establishment of the
state of (Israel), provided them with moral, material, political and military
support, and is no longer bothered by escalating reactions to its continued
support of (Israel), though its actions are contrary to logic and
inconsistent with the idea of democracy that is flaunted by the United
States and presented as a weak excuse to intervene in the affairs of the
Arab world and to justify the invasion of some of its countries.
The Security Council Resolutions
Regardless of what the Security Council represents as systems, laws and
decisions that take the character of justice and equity, their actions are, in
fact, completely different and take the character of oppression and
injustice, as is the case of Palestine and Iraq on one side and Israel on the
other. Decisions are obligatory on the first and not binding on the second.
Take Israel and South Africa, two racist regimes; the first system is no
longer described as a racist regime by decision of the Security Council,
the second is no longer a racist regime because of the demise of the
system; yet this is not called, as some would like to call it, selective
attention or double standards. The truth is that the Security Council of the
United Nations is an International Zionist Security Council, and therefore
there is no so-called double standard, there is only one standard that
measures all things according to the vision of the Zionist Israelis. This
standard is what created the State of Israel and maintains its survival and
continuity.
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Let‘s ask these questions: How many countries were concerned about the
fate of the Jews? What is the need for the existence of a state for the Jews,
since Judaism is a religion and not an ethnicity, and even if it is, how does
this give them the legitimacy to establish a state? There are Kurds,
Armenians, Albanians of Kosovo and many others who are already on
their own land! Why doesn‘t the Security Council make nations for
them?! Instead, it condones their extermination and repression, especially
if they are Muslims, such as in Bosnia, Kosovo, and Chechnya, or
enemies to an ally of the Jews as in the case of the Kurds of Turkey.
When it comes to Iraq, however, the Kurds in the north have become a
matter of humanitarian concern to the Security Council. What is the
interest of the nations of the world and the Security Council in the
establishment of a Jewish state when the regimes in most countries are
secular, even in most Arab and Islamic states; if not for the Security
Council being purely Zionist. But how did the Jews achieve this?
The answer is very simple. They are able to ensure a majority for the
issue of any decision they want to pass by working behind the scenes and
exercising persuasion and intimidation, both economical and political, on
the members of the Security Council. In addition there exists the right of
veto by the permanent members, including three states in favor of Israel
because of being economically controlled, when only one is enough to
disable any decision that does not serve the interests of Zionism. As for
the two other countries, Russia and China, we cannot hope for any good
from them, as they are often going along with America for the sake of
political appeasement, they have a poor track record when it comes to
human rights in China, or the persecution of their neighbors and or ethnic
and religious minorities in Russia, not to speak of the multi-faceted
economic temptation. If one of these two countries thought to use the veto
on any decision that serves the State of Israel, it would be labeled as antiSemitic and Nazi, and the World Zionist media machine would start
humming; hence these things become settled in advance. This policy was
recently revealed to the public, when America threatened the vulnerable
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state of Colombia by imposing an economic boycott because it voted in
favor of an international protection force for Palestinians.
In the following, I will give only examples of the decisions that were
opposed or vetoed by the United States in order to support Israel and
protect it from punishment.
1) A draft resolution submitted by India, Indonesia, Panama, Peru, Sudan,
Yugoslavia and Guinea declaring regret at the (Israeli) occupation of
Arab lands. (July 26, 1973)
2) A decision presented by Pakistan, Panama, Tanzania and Romania
providing for the right of the Palestinian people to exercise selfdetermination and the establishment of a free state in Palestine in
accordance with the Charter of the United Nations, and the need for the
(Israeli) withdrawal from the territories they have occupied since June
1967. (January 25, 1976)
3) A draft resolution providing for the involvement of the PLO in
discussions with the same rights as the Member States of the United
Nations. (April 30, 1980)
4) A draft resolution imposing sanctions on (Israel) for the annexation of
the Golan Heights of Syria. (January 20, 1982)
5) Arab draft resolution condemning the attack on the Al-Aqsa Mosque.
(April 20, 1982)
6) A draft resolution condemning oppressive (Israeli) practices against the
Palestinians in the occupied territories. (September 13, 1985)
7) A draft resolution calling on (Israel) to withdraw its forces from
Lebanon. (January 1986)
8) A draft law condemning (Israeli) violations of the sanctity of Al-Aqsa
Mosque and rejecting (Israel‘s) claim of Jerusalem as its capital. (January
1986)
9) A decision condemning (Israel‘s) kidnapping of a Libyan passenger
plane. (February 7, 1986)
10) A decision condemning (Israel) for using the iron fist policy towards
the Palestinian Intifada in the occupied territories in the wake of expelling
8 Palestinians. (April 15, 1988)
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11) Statement rejecting (Israel‘s) practices in the occupied Palestinian
territories and inviting (Israel) to abide by the Geneva Convention on the
rights of civilians in time of war. (February 1, 1989)
12) A draft resolution submitted by the non-aligned countries to send an
international commission to the occupied Arab territories with the goal of
fact-finding about (Israeli) repressive practices against the Palestinian
people. (June 1, 1990)
All of these decisions were not enough for the world to know that Israel is
an aggressor state, receiving support from the unjust superpower. The
United States continues to support its ally Israel in its violence and
killings, destruction and displacement.Not only does the U.S. support
(Israel) in the Security Council, but it also pursues a harsh policy towards
all those who condemns (Israel) and its terrorist acts. It has therefore
issued countless resolutions to impose sanctions on these countries; we
will mention some of them below:
1.80% of the members of Congress approved a bill to deprive the Soviet
Union of the rights of "most-favored," but only in the case of the abolition
of taxes on the migration of Soviet Jews to (Israel). (1973)
2.The United States decided to stop its contribution to the budget of the
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) because it stopped (Israel‘s)
membership.
3.The United States threatened to withdraw from the Inter-Parliamentary
Union if the union issued a decision considering Zionism as a form of
racism. (1984)
4.The United States insisted on deleting the paragraph on the need to
convene an international conference for peace in the Middle East, and
postponed the vote for the sixth time. (1990)
5.The U.S. administration announced that Moscow will get a billion
dollar loan after allowing the migration of 360 thousand Soviet Zionists to
(Israel). (1990)
As well as the U.S.‘s infinite support for (Israel), it contributes to
marginalizing the Arabs and ignoring their demands for freedom and
stability, to ensure that its ally will enjoy security and protection.
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Disregarding the desperate attempts of the Arabs to save the Palestinians
from the terrorist Sharon and his massacres, and imposing normalized
relations with (Israel) on some Arab states, these countries went along
with the will of great power for fear of the penalties that may be imposed
in case of rejection.
a.The political agenda of the Republican Party opposes establishing a
national homeland for the Palestinians.
b.The U.S. State Department announced that the United States does not
agree with declaring an independent Palestinian state.
c.The U.S. President, during a meeting with the leaders of the ZionistAmerican community, stated that the United States is still refusing to
make any contacts with the PLO. (1979)
d.The U.S. Senate decided to stop U.S. military aid to Jordan unless
Jordan recognized (Israel) and committed itself to undertake direct
negotiations with them. (1991)
e.Former U.S. President Clinton threatened to reconsider U.S. relations
with the Palestinians if they made a one-sided declaration of a Palestinian
state.(2000)
Humanitarian Agencies in the United Nations
What do these organizations call for? They call for human rights,
women‘s freedom, birth control, children's rights, and other freedoms and
rights. Calling for these rights and freedoms often takes political form.
Look at the countries accused of violating these rights and freedoms, it is
the Arab-Islamic countries first, Muslim and non-Arab countries second,
and communist countries third, and for any other countries they are only
talk and no action. What are they expecting? Look at social life in the
West, which allows these freedoms and rights, and you'll find that the
answer is as follows:
Freedom of thought has resulted in idolatry, atheism and the worship and
consecration of physical things. Women are liberated so they gave up
their traditional role of motherhood and raising their children; this has led
to all kinds of immorality, pornography, prostitution, and women are
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treated as pieces of meat, vulnerable to predators. Children are liberated
so they disrespect parents and teachers, rebel at puberty, leave their
families, and care only to satisfy their own instincts and desires. From the
above we can conclude that this claim of protecting rights and freedoms is
actually rebellion against human nature and norms, and against the
spiritual and moral values provided by the monotheistic religions as a way
of life. It aims to destroy the family, which is the cornerstone of building
societies, deprive the father of his leadership role, leading to the
dismantling of relations between family members and the loss of shared
visions for survival and continuity, and to increase illegal birth - children
of adultery - the mankind‘s greatest evil before God. As for us, we are on
our way to face these Zionist claims with the efforts of our thinkers,
experts, and specialists in the fields of emancipation, liberation, and
economic and cultural, reform. And we achieve this soon, unless God
calls us to rest in peace first.
The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund
The mission of this organization is to provide advice on the so-called
economic reform programs, and then provide loans and takes guarantees
for repayment. But does this institution care about the fate of the funds
provided, and does it follow the implementation of corrective programs?
What is the nature of these programs?
In fact, most of the money goes into the pockets of influential people in
government positions and as expenditures for government agencies.
Follow-ups are only done when the indebted countries are in economic
crisis or are unable to pay interest because of debt.
The fund then comes up with new proposals such as raising taxes, fees,
and prices on everything so that they can collect the debt payments. The
result: higher prices, fees and taxes; the victim is first and foremost the
burdened citizen. A new debt is added as a way out of the economic crisis
and is rescheduled again with the old debt. Then a new crisis happens as a
result of the continuous flow of national capital from consumer and nonproductive societies to the outside, as well as theft and embezzlement, and
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then new debt, and so on and so forth. The national debt inflates to
astronomical numbers - people cannot even pay the annual interest.
Political decisions are therefore confiscated or rather bought, as were
bought the decisions of the Soviet Union in the Gulf War and after.
(Gorbachev) and his group embezzled a total of four billion dollars as the
price for the destruction of the Soviet Union, a destruction wrought so
that the Jews could run the world exclusively through their new global
system. After removing his rival from the Kremlin through force of arms,
Russian President (Yeltsin) completed the sale, stealing throughout his
years of ruling a total of seven billion dollars in aid money from the
International Monetary Fund.
When it was discovered by the Russians, (Yeltsin) was just around the
corner from being prosecuted. But events in Dagestan started out of
nowhere and fake bombings in Moscow occurred, which did not result in
any victims. These led to an unjustified war launched to eradicate
terrorism in Chechnya. The Russian people were distracted, and forgot
about (Yeltsin‘s) embezzlement, who presented his resignation and
publicly conditioned his successor (Putin), to not prosecute him when he
took power. Who enabled (Yeltsin)? And how did the unknown (Putin)
become president of Russia?
Jewish billionaire (Soros) declared that the man responsible is the other
Jewish billionaire (Berezovsky), who provided funding for the Islamist
rebels in Dagestan. After the start of the invasion of Chechnya, funding
was stopped, and thus the Chechen Muslims were the victims of a plot by
(Yeltsin, Berezovsky, and Putin).The managers of the International
Monetary Fund and World Bank are people who are bought and sold. Or,
rather, they are people who haven‘t had enough of the injustice
happening to the Palestinian people, they are on the move in the politics
and economies of the West. Each generation builds on what was started
by the last and adds modifications to it, thereby hastening the
implementation of their satanic plan. The most recent thing that they
invented as a chapter in this long book, is the idea of globalization, which
is nothing more than a diabolical revelation to spread the satanic doctrine
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and impose it on the peoples of the world as a prelude to plundering their
wealth and using them as slaves.
Yes, globalization was established to end all that is originally Arab, all
that is good and resisting. The people who take aid from the U.S. are
imprisoned to its repressive policies that always take the side of Israel.
Any country that wants to get a loan, donation, or aid from the
International Monetary Fund is made to obey the orders of the big powers
and as a result ignore the daily crimes of (Israel) against the struggling
Palestinian people. Yes, the only condition to get international aid is to
accept Israel, and smile at or ignore its crimes. In the midst of this small,
materialistic world, there is hope for a better tomorrow. We should never
lose hope nor surrender to oppression and injustice. Israel will be
eliminated; there is no question about that. On this, what remains to be
said is that the only international institution that is capable of putting a
limit to Israel and its outrageous violations to international law, is the
International Criminal Court (ICC).
If Israel has succeeded in preventing the arrival of the international
investigating committee more than once, as it is scared that the truth of
the war crimes that it has committed against Palestinian families will be
revealed, this doesn‘t necessarily mean that Israel can whitewash its
history and reputation in front of the world and public opinion.
If the UN has failed in protecting Palestinian rights, this doesn‘t mean
that the Palestinians are going to give up easily.
Israel‘s violations are many and the evidence is there, but is there any one
to listen? Is there any one to see? The whole world has covered their eyes
and ears and decided not to see or hear, but in the end the truth will
prevail, and no matter after how long, the Palestinian people will go back
to their precious beloved land and Israel will come to an end.
A Case History of State Terrorism: The Siddiqui Case
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A Case History of State Terrorism:
The Siddiqui Case
Dr. Victoria Catherine Brittain 
Abstract
This Article analyzes the State terrorism- a case study of Dr Aafia
Siddiqui – an iconic victim of the ―war on terror‖.
This US-educated Pakistani woman‘s story illustrates many aspects of
the war on terror waged by the US and its allies, and is a reminder of
how much Muslim women have also suffered in this ten years – not
only on behalf of their husbands, brothers and fathers, but also in their
individual capacity.
The paper will discuss the facts I have researched over a long period
of the kidnapping of this woman and her children in Pakistan; the
denials over years by two states – the US and Pakistan – of any role in
her disappearance; the systematic use of the western media to
demonise Dr Siddiqui as a significant Al Qaeda operative bent on
terrorist acts in the US; her reappearance after five years in bizarre
circumstances in Afghanistan; her trial in the US for attempted murder
of US soldiers, which gave her an 86 year sentence for a crime where
no forensic evidence linked her to any murder attempt; the ruthless
treatment of her very small children as part of the attempt to destroy
her.
Dr Siddiqui‘s family‘s untiring attempts to get her released from US
custody lead into a more general discussion of the heroism of so many
families who have sought justice in the new lawlessness that has ruled
 A former associate foreign editor of the Guardian. Her books include Hidden Lives,
Hidden Deaths and Death of Dignity. She was co-author with Moazzem Begg of Enemy
Combatant, a British Muslim‘s Journey to Guantanamo and Back, and two plays about
Guantanamo familes. These three books are also published in Arabic. She has spent
much of her working life in Asia, Africa and the Middle East.
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the world since 2001. The paper is inspired by my work for nearly ten
years with families who have lost their husbands, brothers, sons,
fathers to US prisons, and are directly involved in using legal efforts,
media, mass meetings and forging imaginative links with all those
who will try to help their fight for justice.
Key Word: siddiqui, Terrorism, Pakistan, Afghanistan, US.
In 2003 an MIT-educated expert in children‘s learning patterns, Dr Aafia
Siddiqui, disappeared with her three children in Pakistan. Was she, as the
Americans said, an Al Qaeda operative who in 2008 emerged after five
years undercover, carrying a handbag full of chemicals and plans for
major terror attacks in the US, and then attempted to shoot US soldiers?
Or was she, as her family, and most people in Pakistan have always
maintained, seized by Pakistani agents for reasons unknown? Now new
evidence of the kidnapping of Dr Siddiqui prises open part of one of the
most shocking of the myriad individual stories of injustice in the war on
terror. It also underlines the recklessness and perfidy of a key United
States‘ partner in the war on terror, which carries its own threat of
explosion.
Dr Siddiqui was sentenced in a New York court last year to 86 years for
attempted murder of US soldiers in Afghanistan. Her mysterious five-year
disappearance before that, her reappearance in Afghanistan in 2008, her
subsequent trial in the US, and the confusion surrounding all these events,
have made Dr Siddiqui‘s a symbolic case in much of the Muslim world.
Now a senior law enforcement officer has claimed to have been involved
personally on the day she was seized, with her three children, by Pakistani
police agents in Karachi in March 2003 and handed over to the Pakistani
intelligence agency, the ISI.
The FBI put out a ―wanted for questioning‖ alert for Dr Siddiqui just
before she disappeared. She was later high on the US wanted list, with the
US claiming that she was living undercover as an Al Qaeda agent. She
was a "clear and present danger to the US", the then- U.S. Attorney
General John Ashcroft said in 2004. For all these years the Pakistani
government repeatedly denied holding her, and after her arrest in
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Afghanistan in 2008 spent $2 million on US lawyers for her trial. After
her conviction, the Pakistani Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani,
committed himself to work for her return from a US prison. Dr Siddiqui
had become, ―the daughter of the nation‖ and the centre of a popular
cause he could not afford to ignore.
The new evidence, on a secretly recorded audio tape, is a potential
earthquake in the chronically unstable political situation in Pakistan,
where rage against the US runs deep and wide, especially as civilian
casualties mount with the use of drone aircraft. Already the case of Aafia
Siddiqui has periodically brought tens of thousands of people out on the
streets in the last two and a half years in protest at what has been done to
her by the United States‘ military and legal systems since she reemerged,
in US custody and seriously wounded, in 2008. The Pakistani media have
always claimed that the ISI was responsible for her disappearance and
that the Americans were involved too. The tape reopens the whole
question, not just of Dr Siddiqui, but of the corroding effect of the US
alliance with Pakistan‘s military and intelligence elite in a war on terror
which has had so many Pakistani victims. The ISI has run its own
agendas, hand in glove with various US officials at various periods, ever
since the war against the Soviets in Afghanistan, and then becoming
godfathers of various Afghan factions tearing that country apart. There
are plenty of astute Pakistani journalists with the language skills to use
this tape to the utmost to embarrass their own security services and the
government.
For the US too there are questions to answer about the extensive cover-up
of what happened to Dr Siddiqui and her three children - two of whom are
US citizens, and appear to have spent five traumatized years separated
from their mother and from each other, in various prisons. It is scarcely
credible that high officials in the Bush and Obama administrations over
the years were unaware of what their troublesome allies in Pakistan had
done with her and her children.
On April 21 2003, a ―senior U.S. law enforcement official‖ told Lisa
Myers of NBC Nightly News that Siddiqui was in Pakistani custody. The
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same source retracted the statement the next day without explanation. ―At
the time,‖ Myers told Harpers Magazine, ―we thought there was a
possibility perhaps he‘d spoken out of turn.‖ According to the Associated
Press, ―[t]wo federal law enforcement officials, speaking on condition of
anonymity, initially said 31-yearold Aafia Siddiqui recently was taken
into custody by Pakistani authorities.‖ But later, ―the U.S. officials
amended their earlier statements, saying new information from the
Pakistani government made it ‗doubtful‘ she was in custody.‖
An FBI spokesperson also formally denied that the agency had any
knowledge of Dr. Siddiqui‘s whereabouts, stating that the FBI was not
aware that she was in any nation‘s custody.
Dr Siddiqui‘s mother was visited by an unknown man a few hours after
her disappearance and warned to keep her mouth shut if she ever wanted
to see her daughter and grandchildren again. In 2003, in a closed hearing
when the FBI had subpoenaed some documents from Dr Siddiqui‘s sister,
an FBI official confirmed to her family that she was alive and well, but
would answer no questions on her whereabouts.
The new audio evidence was secretly taped in a social situation last year;
children can be heard in the background. It was given, unsolicited, to one
of the many lawyers involved in Dr Siddiqui‘s case in the US. The source,
whose identity has been protected, told lawyers at the International Justice
Network that he had made the tape after a social evening when he had
heard shocking things about Pakistani counter terrorism, about the
fabrication of evidence, and about Dr Siddiqui‘s disappearance, discussed
casually by a senior official. He felt outraged and returned for a second
evening with a recorder and got some of the previous discussion repeated.
―If it can help anyone I had to do it,‖ he said to the IJN Executive
Director Tina Foster who has represented Dr Siddiqui‘s family since
January 2010. IJN are experienced hands in war on terror cases.
They represent a number of prisoners in Bagram air base prison in
Afghanistan, some of them rendered from Abu Ghraib, Dubai and
Thailand by the CIA, as well as several disappeared people in Pakistan.)
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The witness is a Pakistani/American and he has been extensively
interviewed by IJN‘s lawyers who tell me they are entirely confident of
the tape‘s authenticity, the source‘s account and thus the identity of the
prime subject. IJN‘s source says he was introduced by a mutual friend
whose home he was visiting, to a man he identified to lawyers at
International Justice Network as Imran Shaukat, the Superintendent of
Police for Sindh province.
A full report, and the four hour tape, in Urdu, Punjabi and English, is
being released by the International Justice Network in the United States at
6am EDT Monday, and can be accessed here and, here with the
permission of the witness. Portions of the tape concerning Dr Siddiqui
were made available to this reporter and were independently translated for
this article. As of midnight Sunday, EDT, this excerpt can be listened to
here.
Mr Shaukat (who is voice 2 on the tape) says, ―I am stationed in Karachi.
I head the counter terrorism department for Sindh province.‖ In the key
passage in the tape for the Siddiqui case he is asked by: Voice 1 (who is
the witness) ‖Did you arrest her?‖
V 2. ―Yes, I arrested her. She wore glasses and a veil….. When she was
caught she was travelling to Islamabad….She was hobnobbing with
clerics. …..
V 1 ― So what happened after the arrest. Did ISI ask for her custody?‖
V 2 ―Yes, we gave her to ISI‖ V 1 ―ISI or something else?‖
V 2 ―ISI, so we gave her to them.‖
Mr Shaukat also describes her as ―stick thin‖ and ―a psycho‖, and,
elsewhere as ―not a handler, a minor facilitator‖ – presumably for Al
Qaeda - and he mentions a connection to Osama Bin Laden. Asked then
why couldn‘t she help them get Bin Laden, he replies, ―Well, they are not
fools. They wouldn‘t inform her of their forwarding address.‖ And he
says too about the children, ―we took them with us. They were American
nationals, children are American nationals, they were all born there.‖
There is some discussion on the tape about the return of her daughter,
Maryam. (Two unidentified voices are also heard.)
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V1: Oh, another thing. They found her daughter yesterday.
V2: She‘s home already.
V1: Yes, she‘s home. She speaks English only. She was in the prison. She
is seven or eight years old. And she only speaks English.
UM1: Eight years old?
V1: Yeah. Children were in prison and they spoke to them in American
English.
UM1: Is she home?
V1: Yeah. They got her home.
V2: They were actually, I.
V1: Really?
V2: It‘s five or six months.
UM2: Is she in Karachi?
V1: She got home today, yesterday.
V2: Well, it goes back to before I came here.
V1: I read the news just yesterday, today. Maybe, in the night.
V2: It‘s two or three-months old.
All that has been reported in the public domain to date is that Maryam
was returned a day or two before the recording. But, according to the
childrens‘ lawyer, Tina Foster, Mr Shaukat‘s description is consistent
with how Maryam was repatriated to Pakistan.
Elsewhere in the tape Imran Shaukat talks about how the Pakistani police
and ISI work to ―disappear‖ or to use people they have taken into
custody. According to Amina Masood Janjua at Defence for Human
Rights, there are currently about 500 people who have disappeared in
Pakistan as part of the ―war on terror‖ – this does not include Sindhi and
Balochi separatists. Part of the audio describes the doctoring or
manufacturing of documents, creating false identities, using body
doubles, with reference to various terrorist attacks, including Mumbai.
―This is a game of double dealing, direct them right and exit left,‖ Mr
Shaukat says at one point.
Such details are an explanation of the extraordinary litany of
contradictory stories about Dr Siddiqui, including curious reported
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sightings by family members, that were launched into the public domain
over the five years after her disappearance. In this John Le Carre world of
ruthless manipulation of the vulnerable it is impossible to know how, or
whether, she could have been used in counter terrorism‘s goal at the time
of finding Osama Bin Laden and other Al Qaeda leaders in Pakistan.
From other sources it has been established that Dr Siddiqui was separated
from her children for the five years of her ordeal, and that the two older
children, born in 1996 and 1998, were not together, but in separate
prisons, and that the third child, Suleman who was six months old on the
day of the disappearance, probably died then.
For nearly eight years now, manufactured confusion has surrounded the
disappearance and the subsequent whereabouts of Dr Siddiqui and her
three children.
The confusion only deepened with the second section of the story, which
was her mysterious reappearance in 2008 in Afghanistan, and the bizarre
circumstances of her being seriously wounded by two shots to the
stomach by a US soldier. John Kiriakou, a retired CIA officer with
extensive background in Al Qaeda- related work told ABC News, ―I don‘t
think we‘ve captured anybody as important and as well connected as she
since 2003. We knew that she had been planning, or at least involved in
the planning of, a wide variety of different operations.‖ Such statements
set the tone for the Western media on her return under arrest to the US.
Her subsequent trial in New York, ending with the 86 year sentence, is
the third section, when, extraordinarily, Al Qaeda and terrorism were not
made part of the case against her which was narrowly focussed on the
alleged attempted murder incident.
Dr Siddiqui‘s background was an unexceptional one of a highly educated
young woman from a privileged, professional family, some of them
settled in the US and most of them educated in the West. She spent a
decade studying at universities in Texas, and at MIT - where she
graduated in biology summa cum laude - and at Brandeis, where she took
a PHD in cognitive neuroscience. She specialized in the science of how
children learn, and in addition had a class teaching dyslexic children.
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Besides her academic work she lived a busy life in the Muslim
community in Boston, attending cake sales and auctions to raise money
for Muslim refugees in the Bosnian war. She was married to a doctor
from Pakistan in a classic arranged ceremony conducted by phone. The
couple had two children. Life in Boston soured when her marriage began
to break down.
There are reports from her professors in Boston that they saw her with
bruises on her face. And her husband, Dr Amjad Khan, told Harpers
Magazine reporter Petra Bartosiewicz in 2008 that his wife had once had
to go to hospital after he threw a bottle at her. There are photographs of
her with a deep cut across her face. She returned home to Pakistan in late
2001. In a brief reconciliation back in the US a few months later she
became pregnant with her third child. On August 15, 2002, after an
incident in which witnesses claim that Dr Khan pushed him, Dr.
Siddiqui‘s father collapsed and died of a heart attack. A few days later,
while Dr. Siddiqui was still pregnant with their youngest child, Suleman,
Amjad Khan separated from her and immediately married again. Dr Khan
gave custody of the children to Dr Siddiqui on condition they received an
Exclusively Islamic education Dr Khan came under FBI suspicion in May
2002 for various items purchased by him on the internet when the couple
were living in Boston. He said they were for big game hunting, and he
was not arrested, but both he and his wife had come under suspicion.
In March, 2003, a global alert went out with both of them wanted for
questioning by the FBI. A few weeks after Aafia Siddiqui disappeared,
her husband had a four-hour interview with US and Pakistani agents, and
US suspicions of Dr Khan were dropped.
About two months later Dr Khan travelled to Saudi Arabia for some time.
Dr Khan told Harpers Magazine – ―The Intelligence factory – how
America makes its enemies disappear‖, by CounterPunch contributor
Petra Bartosiewicz - that his ―contacts in the agencies‖ informed him then
that Siddiqui had gone underground. He went on to say that he had no
idea where his children were —a claim he would later contradict. He also
told Harpers that he and his driver saw Siddiqui in a taxi in Karachi in
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2005. But they did not follow her. After her arrest in 2008 Mr Khan told a
reporter from the Pakistani daily News that he thought his former wife
was an ―extremist‖ and that of course she had been on the run. After Ms
Bartosiewicz left Pakistan, she had an email from Dr Khan saying that he
had received ―confidential good news‖ from the ISI that Mariam and
Suleman were ―alive and well‖ with their aunt Fowzia. (In fact at that
point one was in prison and the other was dead.)
Dr Siddiqui‘s disappearance in March 2003 came amid a feverish whirl of
arrests and disappearances in Pakistan, including Khaled Sheikh
Mohammad, who has claimed to have been the master mind of 9/11, and
many other Al Qaeda related attacks, and has been named as the killer of
US journalist Daniel Pearl in 2002. Khaled Sheikh Mohammad was
important enough to the Americans to be water-boarded 183 times.
Shortly after Dr Siddiqui‘s disappearance, Khaled Sheikh Mohammad‘s
nephew, Ammar Baluchi, was arrested in connection with 9/11. The two
men were taken to Guantanamo Bay, then to various CIA-run secret
prisons known as ―black sites‖ for torture, before being returned to
Guantanamo Bay.
US officials then had Dr Siddiqui on an Al Qaeda ―wanted‖ list and
linked her to Baluchi, claiming he was her second husband. Her family,
and other sources in Pakistan have denied the marriage, but it remains
probably the most repeated detail about her and the one that has given her
an indelible image as a terrorist. This was not the only lurid story about
her – she was also alleged in a UN report to have been a courier of blood
diamonds from Liberia for Al Qaeda with a sighting reported there in
June, 2001. Her lawyer, Elaine Sharp stated that Dr Siddiqui had been in
Boston at that time and she could prove it. That story died away, but the
further damage to her reputation was done.
For five years nothing sure was in the public domain about what
happened to her and the children, though the rumours grew, turning her
into a tragic martyr for many, or a poster for Al Qaeda ruthlessness for
others . Several former detainees at the Bagram prison in Afghanistan
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claimed to have seen her there, while US officials quoted in Wilileaks
denied she had been.
A senior Pakistani journalist, Najeed Ahmed, followed the story for five
years and reported witness testimony of someone who claimed to have
been part of the arresting team, which he said was a joint operation with
the FBI. (Mr Ahmed made a public statement about his research in 2009,
but died the next day, reportedly of a heart attack.)
In mid-July 2008 Pakistanti lawyers filed a habeas corpus for Dr Siddiqui
in Islamabad. And within days, in Act 2 of the drama, Aafia Siddiqui
reappeared, in Ghazni, in Afghanistan, allegedly carrying in her handbag
chemicals, instructions for making biological weapons, and plans for
terrorist strikes with mass casualties in the US. She was then involved in a
shooting incident in a police station in Ghazni in which she was badly
wounded by a US soldier. It is uncontested that she was seated behind a
curtain in a small room, where, according to the US soldiers, one of them
put down his gun and she came from behind the curtain, seized it and
attempted to shoot. She says she merely looked round the curtain. None
of the soldiers or FBI personnel present was hurt, but she was hospitalized
with two shots in her abdomen and brought under arrest to the US.
Act 3 was her trial in New York for attempted murder of soldiers and FBI
agents with an M4 rifle, picked up from the floor near a US soldier. There
were no charges of terrorism or Al Qaeda links. Dr Siddiqui had a tangle
of high-flying legal teams, several of whom were not on good terms. Her
first court appointed lawyer, Liz Fink, a famous New York political
lawyer, withdrew, and the second team appointed by the court, was
headed by Dawn Cardi, an expert in matrimonial and family law. The
lawyers funded by the Pakistani government were led by Linda Moreno,
an attorney with successful experiences in two high profile war on terror
related cases, those of Professor Sami Al-Arian and Ghassan Elashi, and
who is a Guantanamo Bay defence lawyer with security clearance. Ms
Moreno is also known for earlier political work as one of the lawyers for
the American Indian Movement leader Leonard Peltier. Her team
included Charles Swift, formerly a military defender of Guantanamo
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detainees who made a reputation as a critic of the Military Commission
system, and Elaine Sharp. Even the narrow grounds of the case on the
shooting was full of curiosities and contradictions: there was no physical
evidence on the gun of Dr Siddiqui having held it, no bullet casings from
it or holes in the walls of the small room where it took place, except from
the other gun which wounded her. Defence counsel made two visits to
Afghanistan to get the forensic evidence, which could, and should, have
got the whole case dismissed. Linda Moreno described the defence
forensic case as ―very compelling, with no physical evidence whatsoever
that she ever touched the gun….no DNA, no fingerprints, no bullets
recovered, no bullet holes.‖ The military and FBI witnesses, Ms Moreno
said, contradicted each other, and under cross-examination even
contradicted their own earlier stories. She went on to say that ―the
government wanted to scare the jury with stories of her alleged terrorist
past, and steered away from the actual case.‖
One key piece of evidence was not in the trial and only emerged from
Wikileaks, which revealed a Defense Department report that was not
released by the military, so was unavailable as evidence in Dr Siddiqui‘s
defence. The incident report does not say Dr Siddiqui fired the gun she is
alleged to have snatched and fired, merely that she "pointed" it. ―Six
American soldiers took the stand – powerful testimony for a jury. I
argued, what happened at the front, stays at the front. The Wikileaks
document would have added to my argument about the dubious
credibility of the soldiers,‖ Ms Moreno told me.
Dr Siddiqui‘s relations with her lawyers were impossibly difficult and she
tried repeatedly to fire them. Most never saw her except in court. Linda
Moreno told me, ―She was clearly damaged – extraordinarily frail, very
tiny. It broke my heart when Aafia did not trust anyone, me, the other
lawyers……although I could understand it. She reminded me of
American/Indian resisters I worked with way back……. her resistance
was clearly to the legal process and she saw all the attorneys as part of
that process.‖ Against the lawyers‘ strongest advice, Dr Siddiqui spoke in
court herself. She said that she had been tortured, and rendered to the US,
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and that her children were also tortured in ―the secret prison‖. The
government never rebutted these allegations. But she lost the jury, who
looked openly sceptical. ―Sadly, she came over as sometimes arrogant
and capricious, and sometimes rambling‖ according to Ms Moreno.
Another observer said, ―She was very articulate, intelligent, well-spoken,
and people mistook that for well functioning.‖
With so much confected fear and prejudice against her going back years,
a media that did not hold back in its characterization of her as Al Qaeda
Mommy, and the impact of six soldiers testifying against her, a New York
jury‘s guilty verdict was probably a foregone conclusion. But Judge
Berman‘s sentence that would put her away for life, was not. Ms Moreno
described the event, ―in my 30 years of trials I have never seen anything
like what happened on sentencing day – the judge walked into court and
handed out preprinted power point presentations on how he had come to
decide on 86 years…….‖
Two veteran lawyers not connected with this case, but with extensive
experience in other cases related to the war on terror, described the
sentence, respectively, as ―extraordinary‖, ―ridiculous….. outrageous‖,
and one described the case as ―absolutely full of holes.‖ An appeal is
planned.
Meanwhile part of the story of the missing five years is in the heads of
two of her three children - the two older ones who are US citizens. When
they emerged – separately - in Pakistan, they were reunited with Dr
Siddiqui‘s mother, and her sister , Fowzia, who is a Harvard-trained child
psychiatrist and neurologist, in Karachi. They have never told their
stories, but even the little that is known hints at the horror this family has
lived through.
The older one, Ahmed, then aged 12, told his aunt that he only met his
mother the day after she was picked up in Ghazni, and that he did not
recognize her after five years apart. Fuzzy film footage of them together
being questioned in a press conference the day after his mother was found
has long circulated on the internet. This was the morning before the
shooting incident.
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Ahmed remembers nothing about what happened to him next, only that he
was visited by a US consular official in Afghanistan who told him that he
was a US citizen. The official also told him that his brother, Suleman, was
dead. Ahmed remembers being taken out of the taxi where he was with
His mother and siblings five years before, and remembers, before he lost
consciousness, seeing the baby, six month old Suleman, lying in the road
and bleeding. Ahmed, told his aunt that he had been called Ali, and
several other different names, while he was in custody, and that when he
was told his name now was Ahmed, he knew that meant he was going to
be moved again. She initially reported that he was suffering from PTSD
and that he needed extensive psychological help.
His sister Maryam, reappeared nearly two years later, in April 2010. She
spoke perfect English with an American accent and no Urdu. She was
simply dropped off outside the family home in Karachi with a note on a
string around her neck. At some stage the Afghan Prime Minister Hamid
Karzai was contacted by the family for help in getting both children back.
There are very powerful vested interests that have worked to prevent Dr
Siddiqui from ever giving an account that would be believed of what
happened to her. The same interests are still at work trying to prevent the
two children from ever becoming witnesses in this backstory of the war
on terror. Late last year a kidnap attempt was made on the children,
despite the family home being guarded by armed Pakistani police 24
hours a day. Two men, carrying firearms and holding big sacks, were
found behind the door of the children‘s bedroom by their grandmother.
The men ran off when she screamed, and were driven away by a waiting
car nearby, before the police guards to the house could catch them.
The release of the tape gives a lever to Pakistani public opinion and
Pakistani opposition politicians such as Imran Khan, who have long
supported the family, towards forcing an end to this sinister ordeal, with
the return home of Dr Siddiqui.
Whether Dr Siddiqui will ever be able to tell the full story of what
happened to her over five years is another question. It is hard to imagine
making anything close a recovery from such multiple personal and family
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traumas, in which she was isolated from every solid link with her past
identity. Did the ISI use her, or her identity?
on errands to Al Qaeda? ―A minor facilitator‖, as the tape calls her? The
contradictions in her own reported words, such as allegedly telling FBI
agents while she was in a military hospital shot through the stomach and
in restraints, that she was indeed married to the notorious Khaled Sheikh
Mohammad‘s nephew Baluchi, are manifold, but not any guide to the
truth.
In her initial weeks in a US prison in Brooklyn she exhibited deeply
disturbed behaviour such as saying she was saving her food for her
children. Her mental state has since deteriorated and is very
unpredictable, according to lawyers. She is now incarcerated in solitary
confinement in the Carswell Federal Medical Centre at Fort Worth,
Texas, the only US prison medical facility for women. She has no contact
with the outside world. Three of the four prison psychiatrists who
interviewed her for the court said they believed she was ―malingering‖
and that her mental illness was faked. But, given the record of some
doctors‘ contribution to government work in the war on terror, it is hard
to find this persuasive in the face of the known facts of her separation
from her children in traumatic circumstances, her long isolation, and the
documented brutal procedures of the ISI in many other cases.
In the US none of the lawyers, doctors, politicians and intelligence agents
who devised and participated in the horrors done to so many individuals
as part of the war on terror, have paid any price in public for it. But in this
case there is the force of public opinion in Pakistan which will demand
nothing less than public trials of those responsible for ordering Dr
Siddiqui‘s kidnapping, as well as those who carried it out, and were part
of the vast charade that has been played with her over those years.
The Great Lie: How the Selective Implementation and Reporting of …
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The Great Lie: How the Selective
Implementation and Reporting of Incidents of
Terrorism Perpetuate the Lie that Muslims
are Mainly Responsible for Terrorism
Massoud Shadjareh 
Introduction
The Greek tragic dramatist Aeschylus famously said, ‗In war, truth is the
first casualty‘. It is a line which we have repeatedly heard and one which
is uttered at some point in every war. It is no different when it comes to
the ‗war on terror‘. One of the greatest myths circulated and promoted by
those pursuing this open-ended and borderless war is that the greatest
threat to the liberal democracies of the world comes from Islamist
terrorism. Such propaganda is peddled out day in – day out by the mass
media and given legitimacy by political leaders who exploit every
opportunity to foster a climate of fear in which Muslims and Islam are
demonised as the ‗great threat‘. Even a cursory examination of the
statistics surrounding the commission and attempted commission of
terrorism acts in Europe and elsewhere over the past few years clearly
suggest that this is not the case and that Muslims are responsible for a tiny
percentage of all such acts.
The Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels is reported to have said that:
―If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually
come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the
State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military
consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to
use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of
the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.‖
 Manager and Chairman of the Islamic Human Rights Commission (IHRC) in London.
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In reality, the greatest threat to the entire world today is not Islam or
Islamist terrorism or Muslims but the Truth.
The Great Lie
The idea that ‗Not all Muslims are terrorists but all terrorists are Muslims‘
is axiomatic in some circles but is not factual at all. In January 2010,
researchers at Duke University and the University of North Carolina at
Chapel Hill, released a report entitled ‗Anti-Terror Lessons of MuslimAmericans‘, which concluded that the terrorist threat posed by radicalized
Muslim- Americans has been exaggerated. A closer look at the statistics
reveals why.
A report by the FBI in 2005 provides a chronological list of all terrorist
attacks committed on U.S. soil from the year 1980 until 2005.1
According to this data, there were more Jewish acts of terrorism within
the United States than Islamic (7% vs 6%). These radical Jews
committed acts of terrorism in the name of their religion. These were not
terrorists who happened to be Jews; rather, they were extremist Jews who
committed acts of terrorism based on their religious passions, just like AlQaeda.
1. Federal Bureau of Investigation, 1 ‗Terrorism 2002 – 2005‘
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Yet notice the disparity in media coverage between the two. It would
indeed be very interesting to construct a corresponding pie chart that
depicted the level of media coverage of each group. If a terrorist attack
does not fit the ―Islam is the greatest threat to our existence‖ narrative, it
rarely receives any media attention, thereby re-enforcing the stereotype
that all terrorists are Muslims. The average American would be hard
pressed to recall the name of any Latino terrorist despite most acts of
terrorism for this period of time being perpetrated by members of this
category.
The global policy think-tank, The RAND Corporation, recently came to a
similar conclusion in its report, ‗Would be Warriors, Incidents of Jihadist
Terrorist Radicalization in the United States since September 11, 2001‘ 2.
The report found that ―[Of the] 83 terrorist attacks in the United States
between 9/11 and the end of 2009, only three…were clearly connected
with the jihadist cause‖, a meagrely 3.6% of attacks. Fifty of the 83
terrorist attacks were committed by environmental extremists and animal
rights fanatics, ―which account for most of the violence.‖ Furthermore,
the report found that not a single U.S. civilian has been killed by a result
of Islamist terrorism since 9/11. However, fourteen soldiers have been
killed, thirteen of those during the Fort Hood Shooting.
The reality is that statistically Muslims are amongst the least likely to
carry out a terrorist attack on the United States.
The same can be said for Muslims in Europe where statistics for terrorism
trends across the continent are published every year by Europol.
Under the heading, ‗Number of failed, foiled and successfully executed
attacks per member state and affiliation‘, the following statistics are
available. In 2006, out of 498 such attacks, one was considered an
Islamist attack, the vast majority of attacks being committed by separatist
groups in Spain and France3. In 2007, there were 583 such attacks, four of
2. RAND Corporation, ‗Would be Warriors, Incidents of Jihadist Terrorist
Radicalization in the United States since September 11, 2001‘ (2010)
3. EU Terrorism Situation and Trend Report TE-SAT 2007
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which were considered Islamist in nature.4 In 2008, out of 515 such
attacks, a single attack was committed by Islamists.5 In 2009, the number
of terrorist attacks in Europe almost halved to 294, with again, a solitary
act being attributed to Islamist terrorism.6 The figure further fell last year
to 249 with three such attacks being considered to be Islamist in nature.7
In total, out of 2139 terrorist attacks committed in Europe in the five year
period from 2006 to 2011, only 10 were attributed to Islamist terrorism, a
meagre 0.4%. The vast majority of such acts were committed by
separatists in France and Spain who accounted for over 80% of terrorism
committed in Europe in the same period.
If this is the reality of the terrorism threat today, the question then arises
as to how the perception that Muslims are mainly responsible for
terrorism is allowed to fester unchallenged. When one examines the
situation more closely, it becomes apparent that there are a number of
factors which lead to this perception including, but not limited to, rhetoric
of political leaders, disproportionate and hysterical coverage of Muslim
incidents by the mass media, and historical animosity towards Islam.
Another factor which I will scrutinise further, with particular emphasis on
the UK, is the selective implementation of anti-terrorism laws, so as to
give the impression that a real and grave threat is posed to us by Islamist
terrorism above all else.
Defining Terrorism
Any study of the topic of terrorism, or indeed any topic, should always
begin with examining how it is defined under the legislation.
Under the Terrorism Act 2000, terrorism is defined as:
―For the purpose of advancing a political, religious or ideological cause‖,
the use or threat of action ―designed to influence a government or to
intimidate the public or a section of the public‖ which involves any
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violence against any person or serious damage to property, endangers the
life of any person, or ―creates a serious risk to the health or safety of the
public or a section of the public, or is designed seriously to interfere with
or seriously to disrupt an electronic system.‖
A very convoluted and confusing definition which many will struggle to
understand. So let us break it down and note a few key points.
Firstly, the definition is not limited to life-threatening actions, acts of
violence, or serious damage to property. It also includes actions which
create a serious risk to the health or safety of the public or which are
designed to seriously disrupt an electronic system. This latter aspect is so
broad that it could potentially include any action which could result in the
malfunctioning of a microwave, or more realistically a fax machine.
Secondly, the definition does not just cover actions but also the threat of
action. Therefore, one can be a terrorist without actually committing one
of the above acts; a threat of such action is sufficient.
Thirdly, the purpose of the action is not restricted to attempting to
intimidate civilians but also to try and influence government. However,
the government one is trying to influence need not be the British
government. It can be any government anywhere in the world. There is no
requirement that the government should be the government of a
democratic country. It applies equally to tyrants and despots, where
dissidence is outlawed.
Finally, there needs to be a motive – the action must be for the purpose of
advancing a political, religious or ideological cause.
So what has this definition meant in practice?
As a result of this shockingly broad definition of the crime of ‗terrorism‘,
almost all acts of political opposition to dictatorial regimes anywhere in
the world have been criminalised, even where the actions are non-violent,
such as a mass faxing campaign which could result in the jamming of a
government fax machine. It is for this reason that for over a decade,
political dissidents from Egypt, Libya, Algeria, Tunisia and elsewhere
have been arrested, detained and subjected to punitive measures in the
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UK, merely for opposing the regimes in their countries and trying to
overthrow them.
It is precisely due to such vagueness that the authorities can choose to
selectively implement the legislation according to the political agenda of
the government rather than in a just and equitable manner.
Proscription of Organisations Concerned in Terrorism
One of the greatest powers given to the Secretary of State is to proscribe
an organisation she believes is ―concerned in terrorism‖8. The effect of
proscription is to completely ostracize an organisation and its members.
Once proscribed, it becomes a criminal offence to invite support for that
organisation, arrange meetings to further its political activities, address
meetings to encourage support for the organisation, and invite others to
provide money and support to further the political activities of the
organisation. Proscription occurs without a case being proved in court.
The organisation does not get to defend itself against the proscription. It
can only appeal against proscription after the fact.9 Thus the Home
Secretary can in effect criminalise the members and supporters of an
organisation without even having to prove any wrongdoing on their part.
When the Act was first passed on 19 February 2001, there were 14
proscribed organisations listed under Schedule 2 of the Act. All 14 were
Republican or Loyalist groups operating in Northern Ireland who were
already proscribed under the Prevention of Terrorism Act. On 28
February 2001, the then Home Secretary Jack Straw submitted a further
21 foreign groups for proscription. Four additional groups were
proscribed in November 2002. A further 15 foreign groups were
proscribed on 14 October 2005. Another 8 organisations have since been
proscribed. Out of these 48 groups, 34 are ‗Islamic‘ / ‗Muslim‘ groups,
the vast majority of which have never threatened the UK nor pose a threat
to UK but are engaged in conflicts or in struggles against repressive
regimes abroad such as in Libya, Egypt and Uzbekistan. In light of recent
8. The Terrorism Act 2000, Section 3
9 .The Terrorism Act 2000, Sections 4 - 7
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Western intervention in Libya to overthrow Colonel Gaddafi, the irony of
the proscription of such groups for their opposition to Gaddafi is clear for
all to see. Two of the organisations on the list have been proscribed for
the offence of ‗glorifying terrorism‘.
The application of the law seems to be heavily influenced by political
considerations. Not a single Hindu or Zionist extremist group has ever
been proscribed, despite much evidence of their involvement in terrorism.
Even Zionist terrorist organisations, such as Kach and Kahane Chai, have
not been proscribed, despite being banned in the US, and in Israel itself.
On the other hand, organisations such as the Libyan Islamic Fighting
Group (LIFG), Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ)and Islamic Movement of
Uzbekistan (IMU)whose sole objectives are to remove the tyrannical
rulers who govern their countries, are proscribed, despite posing no threat
to civilian populations in their own countries or elsewhere. Indeed, on 24
October 2005, ten days after proscribing LIFG, then Home Secretary
Charles Clarke gave evidence to the Joint Committee on Human Rights in
which he defended the scope of the definition on the basis that "there is
nowhere in the world today where violence can be justified as a means of
bringing about political change."10
In other cases, organisations opposed to the Iranian government, such as
the People‘s Mojahedeen Organisation of Iran (PMOI), have been
proscribed but due to a higher political agenda, have avoided the
consequences of such proscription allowing them to not only fundraise
and recruit members but to also propagandise and successfully campaign
for their own de-proscription. Following a ruling in its favour by the
Proscribed Organisations Appeals Commission on 30 November 200711,
the organisation was legalized in the UK on 24 June 2008. On 26 January
10. Joint Committee on Human Rights, Counter Terrorism Policy and Human Rights:
Terrorism Bill and related matters, third Report of Session 2005-06, 5 December 2005,
at paragraph 12.
11. Lord Alton of Liverpool & Ors (In the matter of the People‘s Mojahedeen
Organisation of Iran) v Secretary of State for the Home Department, PC/02/2006, 30
November 2007.
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2009, the EU Council of Ministers also agreed to remove the PMOI from
the EU terror list.
Even while it was proscribed, the PMOI operated with much freedom and
with little hindrance within the UK with its membership including 16
members of parliament and 19 peers. It produced and published a freely
available newspaper ‗Mojahed‘ in the UK as well as operating a TV
station, ‗Iran NTV‘, in London. Both of these were regularly used to
fundraise for the MKO and advertise bank accounts based in the UK. On
7 July 2005, the very day London was attacked by terrorists, a meeting of
parliamentarians and lawyers was held in the House of Lords to announce
the formation of a group of British lawyers to challenge the proscription
of the PMOI.
During a period when many Muslims were being arrested and prosecuted
on allegations of fundraising for resistance groups in Palestine, Chechnya
and Afghanistan, the MKO, a then proscribed terrorist organisation
openly held a bank account and fundraised with the support of members
of the Houses of Parliament.
Selective Implementation
Section 41 of the Terrorism Act 2000 allows the police to arrest someone
without warrant on suspicion of being a terrorist as defined under section
40. There is no requirement for the police to give the grounds for their
suspicion.
Home Office statistics12 show that from 11 September 2001 until 30
September 2010, a total of 1851 people were arrested under the Terrorism
Act 2000. Only 261 of these were charged under anti-terrorism legislation
with a mere 127 convictions, less than 7% of those initially arrested. The
vast majority of offences for which people were convicted were
12. Operation of police powers under the Terrorism Act 2000 and subsequent legislation:
Arrests, outcomes and stop & searches, Great Britain 2009/10, Home Office Statistical
Bulletin 18/10; Operation of police powers under the Terrorism Act 2000 and
subsequent legislation: Arrests, outcomes and stop & searches, Quarterly update to
September 2010, Great Britain
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possession of an article useful for terrorism, membership of a proscribed
organisation, or fundraising for terrorism. Almost all (92%) convicted
terrorism prisoners identified themselves as Muslims.
These figures raise a number of concerns. Firstly, the police arrest powers
under terrorism legislation are being abused in order to arrest individuals
where there is no reasonable cause. Secondly, a large number of
individuals who would describe themselves as belonging to religions
other than Islam are not being prosecuted under terrorism legislation, if
they are even been prosecuted at all. This, coupled with the extremely low
media coverage given to such cases, completely skews the statistics in
relation to the religious affiliation of those convicted, thereby allowing
the perception that all terrorists are Muslims to continue to fester
unchallenged. A few examples follow.
On 7 July 2007, the second anniversary of the London bombings, police
found two home-made bombs in the Manchester home of Gregory
Whittam. Whittam was said to spend hours browsing websites which
demonstrated how to make bombs, and was deemed to have an obsession
with explosives. Whittam was never charged under the Terrorism Act and
instead given a two-year community supervision order. On 14 January
2011, Whittam was again arrested after a raid on his home in which
police found several chemical liquids capable of making explosives.
Again, Whittam was not detained under the Terrorism Act but under the
Explosive Substance Act 1883, and has been bailed until July this year. It
is unlikely that Whittam would have received such leniency had he
identified himself as a Muslim.
In 2007, Robert Cottage and David Jackson, two former members of the
Far Right party, the BNP, appeared in court after police discovered in
their homes the largest cache of firearms and chemical explosives ever
found in the West Midlands region. The two men also possessed a rocketlauncher, a nuclear biological suit, documents outlining plans to blow up
mosques and Islamic centres throughout Britain, notes about a possible
attempted assassination of Tony Blair (then prime minister), and notes
about an impending civil war against immigrants in Britain. Cottage
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believed that if there wasn't "blood on the streets", the country would be
"lost". He received a two-and-a-half-year sentence for his crimes. His codefendant, David Jackson, walked free.
In that same year, Neil MacGregor, a racist former soldier threatened to
bomb Glasgow Central Mosque and behead a Muslim every day.
MacGregor claimed that he became angry after watching the beheading of
a British hostage in Iraq. MacGregor‘s audacity was that he made the
threats by phone and email to Strathckyde Police. Despite the severity of
the offence, MacGregor was only originally placed on probation for three
years for the offence after being brought before a Sheriff Court. It was
only after he breached the terms of his probation by disappearing to
London after one year that he was jailed for 12 months in April 2011.
Again, had MacGregor been a Muslim radicalized by watching videos
from Iraq, he would have been dealt with very differently by the
authorities and would likely to have been prosecuted under terrorism
legislation in the High Court and sentenced to a 15-20 year prison
sentence upon conviction.
In February 2010, Far-Right fascist Darren Tinklin, was convicted for
three years for making explosives in his home, including a pipe bomb. He
was not convicted of terrorism.
There are some members of Far-Right groups however who have received
heavier sentences having been convicted of terrorism. Nevertheless, due
to the almost total lack of media coverage given to such individuals, the
perception remains that Muslims are the greatest threat to the civilian
population. In June 2008, Martyn Gilleard was jailed for 11 years for
terrorism offences and 5 years following the discovery of child
pornography at his flat. Gilleard had stashed four home-made explosive
devices, as well as bullets, swords, axes and knives in his flat, as he
wanted to ―save Britain‖ from ―multi-racial peril.‖ He also had printed off
instructions on how to make a bomb and how to kill someone with
poison, which were found alongside much Nazi memorabilia.
In January 2010, a BNP member Terrance Gavan was sentenced to 11
years after police discovered 54 improvised bombs, including nail bombs,
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as well as 12 firearms in his home. He was reported to have a strong
hostility towards immigrants and planned to target an address he had seen
on a television programme that he believed was linked to the 7 July bomb
attacks.
Markedly absent from all of these cases were the ingredients usually
found following the arrest or conviction of a Muslim terrorist – mass
hysteria, calls for public unity and Britishness, praise for the police and
security services, roundtable conferences to discuss the problem of
extremism, experts queuing up to commentate on the terror threat.
Nobody hardly batted an eyelid because nobody really knew and if they
did know, they didn‘t really care.
Despite many of those convicted of offences, which could be prosecuted
under terrorism if the prosecution willed it, belonging to fascist parties
such as the BNP, no attempt is made to proscribe it. In addition to the
above record, John Laidlaw, who says he was a BNP member (the BNP
deny this), threatened to "kill all black people" before going on a shooting
spree at Finsbury Park tube station. He shot two people, missed a third
target, and hit a white woman - apparently by accident. Tony Lecomber,
group development officer for the BNP, has convictions for handling
explosives and for an assault on a Jewish teacher. This was when he was
the party's Propaganda Director, back in its pre-'modernising' era. Former
BNP member David Copeland was, of course, the infamous nail bomber
who killed three people and injured 139 with a series of bombings around
London. Ex-BNP activist Mark Bulman tried to firebomb his local
mosque, and daubed swastikas on local businesses he thought were
'ethnic'. Stephen Bailey, a Lincoln BNP member, is a convicted arsonist.
BNP member Terry Collins was jailed after conducting a reign of racist
terror and arson against his neighbours. His confederate, fellow BNP
member Allen Boyce, taught Collins bomb-making instructions. The
former leader of the BNP, the deceased John Tyndall, had numerous
convictions including one for organising paramilitaries. The list goes on
and on. This does not include the records of those members convicted of
rape, racially aggravated assault, threats, harassment and incitement. Yet,
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the BNP is considered a legitimate political party and has its leader Nick
Griffin invited to share a platform with other mainstream political leaders
on the BBC flagship show, Questiontime. Contrast this with the
proscription of two Muslim groups for ‗glorifying terrorism‘ despite none
of their members holding convictions of the type BNP members have.
Conclusion
Far from constituting the greatest threat to the civilian population in the
world today, Muslims statistically have been found to be the least
involved in acts of terrorism. The majority of terrorist attacks committed
in Europe comes from separatist elements in France and Spain and in the
US, from the Latino community. It is crucial that civil activists, lawyers,
and policy makers carefully study the actual statistics and question why
governments and the media stubbornly insist on perpetuating the myth
that Muslims are primarily responsible for terrorism in the world today.
One such reason has been explained in this paper – the issue of selective
selective implementation of anti-terror legislation and selective reporting
of incidents of terrorism. There are many others, all of which contribute
towards the practical manifestation of Goebbel‘s ‗big-lie‘ theory today.
The Global War onTerror and the Prawn behind the Stone
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The Global War on Terror and the Prawn
behind the Stone
Prof. Chandra Muzaffar 
‗Udang sebalik batu‘ or ‗the prawn behind the stone‘ is a well-known
saying in the Malay language that alludes to concealed, ulterior motives
behind a person‘s word or deed.
The Global War on Terror (GWT) is the stone that conceals a huge
prawn, the Washington-led drive for global hegemony.
I shall attempt to reveal the prawn by first analyzing the actions and
manipulations of Washington and its allies since the launch of the GWT. I
shall then look at the episode that led to the GWT itself, namely, 9-11.
This will be followed by a peep at the thinking that preceded 9-11 which
will help to shed more light on the ulterior motives behind the GWT.
After that ---after exposing the prawn--- I shall argue that the drive for
global hegemony has failed. Numerous instances of failure will be
enumerated. I shall conclude on an optimistic note: that a non-hegemonic
world is emerging on the horizon.
 The President of the International Movement for a Just World (JUST). And also the
Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Malaysia Foundation. He is the Professor of
Global Studies at the Science University of Malaysia in Penang.
He has published more than 20 books on civilizational dialogue, international politics,
religion, human rights and Malaysian society. Among Chandra‘s publications are A Plea
for Empathy (2010), Exploring Religion in Our Time and Muslims Today: Changes
Within; Challenges Without (2011).
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Actions and Manipulations
Afghanistan, Central Asia and Pakistan
As soon as the Washington elite and its allies launched the GWT, it
became obvious to discerning observers that there were hidden motives
behind it. A US led military coalition ousted the Taliban from its perch of
power in Afghanistan in October 2001 because it protected Osama bin
Laden, the alleged mastermind behind the terror attacks in New York and
Washington on 11 September 2001. With Afghanistan under its control,
the US extended its tentacles into the Central Asian republics for two
cleverly concealed reasons.
The first is linked to energy. The US elite ---acting partly in response to
the demands of the oil barons--- is determined to gain control over the
rich oil and gas resources of Central Asia. Writing soon after the invasion
of Afghanistan, a political analyst noted that, ― The most coveted resource
on earth is the giant oil-field in the Caspian Sea region, that competes in
scale with the riches of Saudi Arabia. In 2010 it is expected to yield 2.3
billion barrels of crude oil per day, in addition to 4850 billion cubic feet
of natural gas per year.‖(1) The analyst was convinced that, ―The United
States was determined to a) take possession of it b) eliminate all potential
competitors c) safeguard the area politically and militarily and d) clear a
way from the oil-fields to the open sea.‖(2) In fact, in early June 2002, the
US engineered an agreement between Pakistan, Afghanistan and the
Central Asian republic of Turkmenistan which would allow for the
―construction of a 1.9 billion pipeline from the Turkmen natural gas fields
at Daulatabad through to the south-western Pakistani port of
Gawadar.‖(3) A parallel oil pipeline was also envisaged at that time. The
construction of the pipeline was supposed to start in 2006 but has been
delayed mainly because the southern part of Afghanistan through which
the pipeline is expected to run is still under de facto Taliban control.
There has also been some talk in oil and political circles that the US is
contemplating building a pipeline from Azerbaijan through Afghanistan
ending up in either India or Pakistan.
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The second reason is connected to Washington‘s perpetual quest for
military supremacy.
Within months of the invasion of Afghanistan, the US established military
bases in three of the Central Asian republics, namely Tajikistan,
Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. Of course, its strongest military presence is
in Afghanistan itself, under the banner of the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization (NATO). Whenever the US sets up military bases, the
economic factor ---in this instance, securing control over oil and gas--- is
an important consideration. Often, geopolitical interests also figure
prominently. Through its military presence in Central Asia, the US has
sent a strong signal to Russia which in the name of the demised Soviet
Union had exercised suzerainty over the Central Asian republics. The US
has now expanded its military power right into Russia‘s backyard. It is
also a message to China. By flexing its military muscles in the region, the
US is in fact telling China which shares borders with a couple of the
Central Asian republics that it is in a position to curb its (China‘s)
growing economic and political influence in Asia. (4).
Enhancing its strength in Afghanistan and Central Asia is not the GWT‘s
only mission.
The GWT has also helped the US to tighten its grip over Afghanistan‘s
neighbor, Pakistan. The Afghan-Pakistan border zone is apparently the
home of terrorists associated with Al-Qaeda, the clandestine organization
which Osama heads. By assisting Pakistan to combat terrorists, the US
has sought to exercise greater political control over the world‘s only
Muslim nuclear weapons state. The US‘s post 9-11 relationship with
Pakistan is also an attempt to dissuade the latter from getting closer to its
historical ally, China.
The Middle East
However, neither Pakistan, nor Afghanistan nor the Central Asian
republics are the real reason for the GWT. It is Washington‘s desire to
exercise total hegemony over the Middle East that is the driving force
behind the GWT. The invasion and occupation of Iraq in March 2003 was
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supposed to be the lynchpin in this drive. Iraq not only possesses the
second largest oil reserves in the Middle East which in turn is the world‘s
most important oil exporter but a lot of its oil wealth --- 47 out of 71
discovered oilfields --- remain untapped.(5) Besides, Iraqi oil is just
below the surface and therefore relatively low in terms of cost of
production, and is of high quality as well. At a time when global oil
production has peaked and the global demand for oil is increasing at a
rapid rate, one can understand why Iraqi oil with all its advantages has
become such a magnet, tempting the world‘s sole superpower to embark
upon an unjust and immoral war.
With the Tigris and Euphrates flowing through the land, Iraq also has a
huge reservoir of water in a region where the scarcity of this commodity
could lead to serious hydroconflicts in the future.(6). Iraqi water, apart
from Iraqi oil, could be one of the reasons why the US- led conquest of
Iraq was such an important trophy for the US‘s intimate ally, Israel. For
Israel, and for Zionists in the US and Europe, the conquest of Iraq also
meant the elimination of Saddam Hussein, one of their most determined
adversaries---- an adversary who commanded the economic wealth and
the scientific and military potential to challenge Israel‘s regional
hegemony. (7)
One of the baseless allegations directed at Saddam to justify his
overthrow was that he would make his non-existent weapons of mass
destruction available to terrorist groups bent on attacking the US. This
allegation about aiding and abetting terrorist groups has been used against
a number of political actors in the Middle East by both Washington and
Tel Aviv since 9-11. It was to crush the Hizbullah ‗terrorists‘ that Israel
launched its 34 day aggression against the people of Lebanon in the
middle of 2006. Washington and London gave full support to Israel, as
part of the GWT. Needless to say, for Washington, London and Tel Aviv,
any group that resists their hegemony over the Middle East and is
determined to protect the people‘s freedom and independence, is a
terrorist organization.
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Another political actor that has been labeled a conduit for terror is Syria.
Because it is committed to the protection of its sovereignty and
independence, Syria has been subjected to increased pressure from the US
and Israel in the wake of the GWT. The Islamic Republic of Iran which
will also not yield to US hegemony or Israeli dominance is projected as
yet another sponsor of terrorism in the mainstream Western media. There
is another reason why Iran is being targeted. Washington and Tel Aviv
want Iran to stop its nuclear research because they fear that it could lead
to the manufacture of nuclear weapons. Though the International Atomic
Energy Agency (IAEA) has verified through numerous inspections that
Iran‘s nuclear research program is for civilian use, the US and Israel --both nuclear weapons states--- insist that Iran should be denied a right
exercised by dozens of other states.(8) Here again, Washington has
stretched its notion of a GWT to protect what it perceives as Israel‘s
security. Controlling Iran may have yet another motive. Iran is after all
one of the world‘s major oil exporters.
For Israel, the GWT serves yet another purpose. It provides a convenient
rationalization for its own war against Palestinian freedom fighters. Ever
since its establishment as a state in 1948 with the help of the Western
powers, Israel regards any use of force against it by Palestinians and other
Arabs as an act of terror. Very few Israelis are prepared to acknowledge
that since Israel was created through the usurpation and annexation of
Palestinian land and the expulsion and elimination of the Palestinian
people, the dispossessed have a right to resist Israeli subjugation by
whatever means available. For many Israelis, Palestinian freedom
fighters, especially from the resistance movement, Hamas, are just
terrorists, pure and simple. This is why when 9-11 happened, the Israeli
leadership saw that catastrophic carnage as an opportunity to draw the
whole world to its side in its battle against so-called ‗terrorist groups‘. (9)
From our analysis so far, it is clear that the GWT is designed to further
the agenda of the US and its allies. Apart from oil and geopolitics, it is
also meant to serve the interests of Israel and Zionist groups elsewhere.
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These goals are often intertwined. Some of the same goals will re-appear
as we look at the GWT in other parts of the world.
The Horn of Africa
Since the beginning of the GWT, the US and the West in general have
escalated their rhetoric against the Sudanese government for its alleged
‗genocide‘ in Darfur. While it is true that a quarter million people may
have died in that part of Sudan in inter-tribal warfare, and the government
is not free of blame, it would be wrong to accuse Khartoum of
deliberately wiping out its own people. The conflict is rooted in a struggle
over grazing rights and access to water between subsistence farmers and
nomadic herders, aggravated by years of drought and famine. It is not, as
the Western media has made it out to be, a straightforward conflict
between Arab militias sponsored by the Khartoum government and
Africans. As the Black Commentator of October 27 2004 put it, ―All
parties involved in the Darfur conflict--- whether they are referred to as
‗Arab‘ or as ‗African‘ are equally indigenous and equally Black. All are
Muslim and all are local.‖ (10)
The centres of power in the West and their media have systematically
distorted the situation in Darfur and presented a certain segment of the
population as victims of State terror in order to justify eventual Western
military intervention in that region. Darfur, it is believed, has huge oil
reserves and ―large deposits of natural gas. In addition, it has one of the
three largest deposits of high-purity uranium in the world, along with the
fourth largest deposit of copper.‖(11) It is also important to remember
that Sudan is geographically the biggest country in Africa and
strategically located on the Horn of Africa. It borders seven other African
states.
Most of all, the Sudanese government refuses to submit to US hegemony
and pursues an independent foreign policy which has sometimes collided
with US interests in the African continent.(12) Sudan for instance has
close ties with China. China is actively involved in Sudan‘s oil industry
and in other economic enterprises. Washington wants to curb growing
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Chinese influence in the continent especially in those countries with
tremendous economic wealth and potential.
Instead of examining the Darfur situation in depth and developing some
understanding of how the US is trying to achieve its hegemonic agenda in
Sudan, a whole spectrum of groups and individuals in the US have been
drawn into the ‗Save Darfur‘ campaign.
Hollywood celebrities, media personalities and top politicians are all part
of it. The push for the campaign is coming from prominent Zionist
organizations and right-wing evangelical Christian groups in the States.
The way in which the media has been reporting on Darfur, complete with
dramatic images of dying children and dead mothers, has undoubtedly
played a significant role in the mobilization of American public opinion
against the Khartoum government.
Somalia is the other state on the Horn of Africa that is on the US radar
screen. After its 1993 debacle in Somalia, Washington has chosen to
intervene this time through a US friendly state in the region. On 24
December 2006, the Bush Administration got the Ethiopian government
to mount an invasion of Somalia. The excuse concocted by the invaders
was that the government in power in Somalia, the Union of Islamic
Courts (UIC) had terrorist links and was sheltering al- Qaeda suspects and
bases in the country.
It should be noted at this juncture that the UIC which had come to power
in June 2006 after ousting a bunch of effete, corrupt leaders, brought a
degree of law and order to most of Somalia--- something Somalia that had
not seen for more than 15 years. Using Islam as a rallying point, it
managed to unite the warring clans that have been the Achilles heel of
Somali politics for so long. The UIC also began to implement effective
measures against corruption and abuse of power.
What irked Washington however was the UIC‘s determination to protect
Somali independence and sovereignty. Washington saw it as a threat to its
interests. Located on the Horn, Somalia, like Sudan, is strategic. The
Horn provides access to the Red Sea and is a vital link to the Indian
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Ocean. It explains why the US has an aircraft carrier in the region and a
military base in Djibouti.
There is also the question of oil. A 1991 World Bank study of the
petroleum potential of eight African states ―puts Somalia (and Sudan) at
the top of the list of prospective commercial oil producers.‖(13). This is
one of the main reasons why since the end of the cold war, the US has
been trying hard to gain control of Somalia. As we have seen, it has now
employed al-Qaeda and the GWT to secure a foothold.
Southeast Asia
From the Horn of Africa we move to Southeast Asia which has a central
role in Washington‘s grand strategy for global hegemony. As soon as the
GWT commenced, policy makers and planners in Washington were
talking of re-establishing a military presence in the Philippines to help the
Arroyo government combat Muslim terrorists in the southern part of the
country.(14) The renewed terrorist activities of a renegade group, the Abu
Sayyaf, provided the excuse for the dispatch of a small contingent of US
military advisers and soldiers to the Philippines.
But the real reasons behind the US attempt to strengthen its military
presence in Southeast Asia are more complex. Southeast Asia is where
the Straits of Malacca is. It is one of the world‘s most important sea-lanes.
Half of the world‘s oil and one-third of its trade pass through the
Straits.(15). Even US military personnel from its Pacific Command have
to go through the Straits en route to the Middle East. For a nation seeking
global hegemony, control over such a vital sea-lane--- and indeed control
over all vital sea-lanes --- is critical.
Besides, ―Southeast Asia, with its over 570 million people and a
combined nominal GDP of $880 billion, has outrun other traditional
partners as one of the US‘ largest trading partners and investment
destinations. It also has the world‘s largest reserves of tin, copper, gold,
and other resources such as rubber, hemp, and timber; new oil and gas
reserves are still being explored and their true potential is yet
unknown.‖(16). It is not surprising therefore that Washington wants
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Southeast Asia --- a region with which it already enjoys close ties--- to
remain firmly on its side.
There is an additional reason why the US is determined to ensure that this
scenario does not change, come what may. It is its fear of China.
Southeast Asia is China‘s immediate neighbor. Apart from geography,
there are deep historical and cultural ties between China and Southeast
Asia. Trade, investments, and interactions in the fields of education,
technology and tourism are more extensive and intensive than ever
before. For the US, ―of the major and emerging powers, China has the
greatest potential to compete militarily with the United States…‖(17).
This is why the US is seeking to surround China ― with the full range of
its military infrastructure--- bases, weapons, pre-positioned equipment,
undersea warfare capabilities, persistent surveillance, training sites, and
all other capacities that would allow the US to take control of the region
and rapidly deploy in case the need arises.‖ (18).
US strategic manoeuvres in other parts of Asia also reveal its obsession
with the containment of China. It is pushing hard for the re-arming of
Japan as a way of counteracting China‘s potential military strength. At the
same time, the US is reinforcing its military relationship with India --partly through Israel--- and has promised India that it will help the latter
to become a world power, presumably to take on China. (19).
There is no denying that the US will go all out to ensure that no nation or
group of nations will ever be able to challenge its military supremacy. We
shall elaborate upon this later. The GWT, there is no need to emphasize,
is part of the US strategy to achieve global hegemony through control
over critical resources such as oil and crucial routes and regions. It is also
designed to secure Israel‘s interests in the Middle East.
If the GWT is so important to the pursuit of Washington‘s global agenda,
shouldn‘t we look more closely at that one episode which triggered off
the GWT? What exactly happened on 9-11?
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The 9-11 Episode
The official version of 9-11 is that on 11 September 2001, Muslim
hijackers had used airplanes to attack the World Trade Center (WTC) in
New York and the Pentagon in Washington D.C, killing a total of almost
three thousand women and men. Within weeks of the tragic episode,
analysts and journalists in the US and Europe began to raise questions
about the official version of how events unfolded on that fateful day.
There were calls for a truly independent inquiry into 9-11 from
organizations and individuals in various parts of the world, including the
US. These calls have gone unheeded.
The critics of the official version ask why were the airplanes that hit the
WTC not intercepted, especially since there was evidence that they had
been hijacked? Did the WTC Towers collapse due to the impact of the
airplanes and the heat it produced, or was the collapse caused by
explosives placed throughout the building as some experts have argued?
Was it really an aircraft that struck the Pentagon or was the building hit
by a missile? What explains President George Bush‘s bizarre behavior
when the attacks occurred? Did US officials have advance information
about 9-11? (20)
There are so many unanswered questions about 9-11 that there is now a
movement in the US which is seeking to establish the truth about that
episode. Was 9-11 deliberately orchestrated by perhaps the CIA or a
group within it, the US military and the Mossad, the Israeli intelligence
service, to provide the legitimacy and the justification for a global war on
terror that would witness the invasion of oil rich, strategic Muslim
countries as part of the US‘s diabolical plan for global hegemony? One
should not be surprised that the US, or other states for that matter,
whether big or small, sometimes orchestrate events or incidents in pursuit
of their clandestine agendas. In 1962 for instance US Defense Chiefs
hatched a plot that comprised a series ― of pretexts which would provide
justification for US military intervention in Cuba.‖(21) Fortunately, the
plot known as ‗Operation Northwoods‘ was rejected by then President,
John F. Kennedy. However, in 1964, another US President, Lyndon B.
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Johnson, was complicit in the blatant fabrication of the ‗Gulf of Tonkin‘
incident that was used as the justification for the carpet- bombing of
Vietnam in the sixties at the height of the Vietnam War.
It is because of this backdrop that the Austrian political philosopher, Hans
Kochler, has been trying to persuade Muslim governments and others to
demand that the US Administration tell the truth and nothing but the
whole truth about 9-11.(22) Can we expect the Administration to do this
when the truth may expose its sordid role in one of the most concealed
and camouflaged episodes in history?
The Roots of the GWT
That 9-11 is part of the drive for global hegemony is borne out by some of
the ideas that were articulated by some influential groups and individuals
in the years preceding the episode. We regard these ideas as the roots of
the GWT which, as we have seen, is the strategy that the Bush
Administration has adopted in pursuit of global hegemony.
As soon as the Soviet Union disintegrated in 1991, then Defense
Secretary, Dick Cheney, got his Deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, to produce a
document that would be the basis of US‘s post cold war military planning.
That document, the 1992 Defense Planning Guide, states, ―our first
objective is to prevent the re-emergence of a new rival, either on the
territory of the former Soviet Union or elsewhere, that poses a threat on
the order of that formerly posed by the Soviet Union… Our strategy must
now re-focus on precluding the emergence of any future potential global
competitor.‖ (23)
Though George Bush Senior‘s defeat in the 1992 Presidential election
prevented Cheney, Wolfowitz and their friends from implementing the
Defense Planning Guide, the new President, Bill Clinton, was also
determined to perpetuate US military superiority. His military forays into
Iraq, Afghanistan and Sudan were meant to prove the point. It was his
Secretary of State, Madeline Albright, who once asked her Chief of Staff,
Colin Powell, ― What‘s the point of having this superb military that
you‘re always talking about if we can‘t use it?‖(24).
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These bellicose pronouncements and actions were not enough to convince
the hardliners that Clinton was willing to harness US military prowess to
the hilt. Even if he was, there was the other problem of convincing the
American public that the US should flex its military muscles in foreign
countries. One of those hardliners, former National Security Advisor
Zbigniew Brzezinski, was of the view that consensus on foreign policy
issues will be difficult to achieve ―except in the circumstance of a truly
massive and widely perceived direct external threat‖(25). Brzezinski had
also noted that the American public had ― supported America‘s
engagement in World War 11 largely because of the shock effect of the
Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.‖(26). Three years later, in 2000, Cheney,
Wolfowitz, and some other hardliners, known as the neo-conservatives
(neo-cons), advanced a similar argument that the process of transforming
the thinking of the people on the US‘s external military role was ― likely
to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event--- like a
new Pearl Harbor.‖(27).
It is this line of reasoning that contributes to the doubts and suspicions
surrounding the 9-11 attacks. Was 9-11 the new Pearl Harbor? Was it that
‗catastrophic and catalyzing event‘ that was deliberately manufactured to
facilitate the GWT? If the doubts and suspicions have increased it is
because the neo-cons had coalesced around George Bush Junior before
his election to the Presidency in early 2001, and had allegedly convinced
him that Washington should seek global hegemony through its military
supremacy. The neo-cons laid out this mission in the document quoted
above entitled ‗Rebuilding America‘s Defenses: Strategy, Forces and
Resources for a New Century‘ as part of their Project for the New
American Century. It was published in 2000. In it the neo-cons say that,
―At present, the United States faces no global rival. America‘s grand
strategy should be to preserve and expand this advantageous position as
far into the future as possible…‖(28). Two leading neo-con ideologues,
Robert Kagan and William Kristol were even more forthright. In their
words, ―A strong America capable of projecting force quickly and with
devastating effect to important regions of the world would make it less
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likely that challengers to regional stability would attempt to alter the
status quo to their favor…. In Europe, in Asia and in the Middle East, the
message we should be sending to potential foes is: Don‘t ever think about
it.‖(29)
It is significant that the thinking of the neo-cons was absorbed into the
Bush Administration‘s official National Security Strategy released in
September 2002.(30) The document justifies a new aggressive US foreign
policy that includes pre-emptive strikes against perceived enemies. It
espouses US domination of the world through expansion of its global
military power.
In a nutshell, the desire to seek global hegemony through military might
expressed itself immediately after the end of the cold war and the collapse
of the Soviet Union. However, it received renewed emphasis only with
the ascendancy of Bush Junior. The GWT, as we have observed a number
of times, is the instrument that Washington and its allies employ in their
quest for global hegemony. In a sense, the GWT conceals the US‘s
pursuit of military hegemony. It diverts attention from global hegemony
itself.
Dying Prawn
But the US helmed endeavor to impose global hegemony is provoking
resistance everywhere. If we began with our first category of states--Afghanistan, the Central Asian republics and Pakistan---this is obvious. In
Afghanistan, immediately after the invasion of October 2001, it appeared
for a while that the US and its NATO partners had everything under
control. Now the Taliban and other resistance groups are striking back.
They have regained lost territory and are killing NATO troops. This is
what happens very often when a guerrilla movement is pitted against a
technologically superior, militarily advanced force. The guerillas may
suffer losses; they withdraw; after a while, they regroup and then they
attack again. Most of the time, guerilla movement's triumph in the end--especially when they are fighting against foreign occupation of their land.
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In the Central Asian republics too, the US is not having an easy time. In
July 2005, ―Uzbekistan ordered US troops to leave and to close their base.
Kyrgyzstan has since called for a review of the basing agreement with the
US and now charges ―market rent‖ for the US‘ continued use of the base,
up from $3 million to $200 million a year.
Azerbaijan refused to station US troops.‖(31) Both these Central Asian
republics, together with Kazakhstan and Tajikistan, are members of the
Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), a regional grouping initiated
by China and Russia in 2001. It now includes Mongolia, Pakistan, India
and Iran as observers. Called the ― NATO of the East‖ by some analysts,
the SCO is perceived in some circles as a military counter-balance to the
US in the region.(32). It conducted a widely publicized large-scale joint
military exercise in August 2007.
The situation in Pakistan is somewhat different. While President
Musharraf is a US ally, a significant segment of the populace is totally
opposed to US hegemony. In fact, antihegemonic sentiments have
become stronger in the wake of the GWT which, as we have seen, has
impacted directly upon the nation.
Resistance to hegemony is even stronger in the Middle East. In the course
of the last 5 years, tens of thousands of Iraqis have died defending the
sovereignty and independence of their country. It is true that a number of
the dead are victims of the Sunni-Shiite violence generated largely by the
US-led occupation of Iraq just as senseless, mindless acts of terror that
target innocent civilians have also claimed countless lives. The Iraqi
resistance has also gone through the ebbs and flows that are germane to
any struggle for liberation. Nonetheless, both armed and non-armed
resistance to occupation—the latter is given very little publicity in the
mainstream Western media--- remains strong.
The majority of the Lebanese people are also against hegemony --- the
hegemony of Israel, the US and certain other Western powers. As the
conduit of that resistance, the Hizbullah not only defended the territorial
integrity of Lebanon against Israeli aggression in July-August 2006 but
also proved that it was capable of rendering the much lauded Israeli air
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force impotent and ineffective. Today, Hizbullah led resistance has
expanded beyond the Shiites, numerically the largest group in Lebanon,
to embrace segments of the Sunni and Christian communities.
Syria continues to resist US-Israeli hegemony. So does Iran. The
governments in both these countries, as we have observed, are determined
to protect the independence and sovereignty of their nations against
overwhelming odds. It is a determination that is shared by the Syrian and
Iranian people.
However, more than the resistance of Hizbullah and Iran, the most
remarkable resistance to hegemony in the whole of the Middle East is the
resistance of the Palestinian people.
In spite of everything --- expulsions, assassinations, embargoes, sanctions
and indeed, ethnic cleansing---the Palestinians have refused to yield to
Israeli occupation and subjugation even though they know it is backed by
the world‘s strongest military power and its Western allies. Palestinian
resistance has been the greatest stumbling block to the Israeli, US and
Western dream of establishing total hegemony over the oil and strategic
routes of the Middle East. Since control and dominance over the Middle
East is sine qua non for global hegemony, the Palestinians--- more than
any other people on earth --- have thwarted the triumph of US helmed
global hegemony.(33)
From the Middle East to the Horn of Africa. Sudan is another nation that
has been staunch and steady in its resistance to US and Western
hegemony. A sizeable section of the Somali citizenry is also not prepared
to surrender to US hegemony embodied in the military presence of its
surrogate, Ethiopia. The violence that engulfs Somalia at this point in
time --- a million have fled its capital Mogadishu---is a direct or indirect
consequence of the Ethiopian invasion of December 2006.
There is also subtle resistance to the US quest for hegemony in Southeast
Asia. Though the US military has easy access to ports in the region and
some Southeast Asian countries even host US military installations, no
state is prepared to allow the US to set up a military base on its territory.
More important, both Malaysia and Indonesia have been consistent in
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their opposition to any attempt by the US to exercise control over the
Straits of Malacca. However, little Singapore, the third littoral state as far
as the Straits is concerned, is prepared to accommodate US interests but it
carries much less weight than its two neighbors on this and other major
regional issues. All Southeast States are also not willing to undertake any
measure or embark upon any scheme that will antagonize China.
In fact, all of them, to a greater or lesser degree, value their close
relationship with their huge northern neighbor. This attitude towards
China has been a source of frustration to the US which as we have seen is
seeking ways and means of curbing China‘s rise as a new Asian and
global power.
We have shown that in all the four regions that we have studied there is
resistance to US hegemony. This is why we have concluded that the
prawn --- the quest for global hegemony--- is not doing well. In fact, if we
went beyond the scope of this essay and examined in depth certain other
developments, such as China‘s economic ascendancy, Russia‘s military
re-assertion, the rejection of the Washington Consensus by a number of
Latin American states, the concerted opposition to US hegemony from an
important segment of global civil society, and the growing chorus of
critical voices in the US itself questioning aspects of US foreign policy,
we would be convinced that the prawn is actually dying!
There is no doubt at all that the death of the prawn would augur well for
the world. When the Washington elite and its allies realize that their
attempt to exercise global hegemony is a failure and that it is better for
the US to be a republic rather than an empire, there will be less anger and
antagonism towards the US from other nations and peoples. Hopefully, it
will lead to greater understanding and respect for one another within the
human family.
Within such an atmosphere it will be easier to work towards a world
where justice and equality signify the relationship between nations and
peoples.
Yes, a world where there is justice and equality for all human beings is
possible ---- if there is no prawn behind the stone.
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Endnotes
1) See Uri Avnery ‗The Great Game‘ Internet Posting 9 February 2002.
2) Ibid.
3) See Peter Symonds, ‗New US empire is no accident‘ Bangkok Post 16 June
2002.
4) See ‗The War on Terrorism and Hegemonic Power‘ in my Muslims Dialogue
Terror ( Petaling Jaya, Malaysia: International Movement for a Just World,
2003).
5) See Chapter 4, ‗ Asia, Oil and Hegemony‘ in my Hegemony: Justice; Peace
(Shah Alam, Malaysia: Arah Publications, 2008) forthcoming.
6) Larbi Bouguerra Water Under Threat ( London and New York: Zed Books/
Alliance of Independent Publishers, 2006).
7) See Muslims Dialogue Terror op.cit especially chapters 12 and 13.
8) See Hegemony: Justice; Peace op.cit chapter 6.
9) James Petras The Power of Israel in the United States (United States: Clarity
Press, 2006).
10) Quoted in Sara Flounders ‗The U.S Role In Darfur, Sudan Oil Reserves
Rivaling
Those of Saudi Arabia?‘ JUST Commentary August 2006. p.10
11) Ibid. p.10
12) Glenn Ford ‗A Tale of Two Genocides, Congo and Darfur‘ JUST
Commentary
October 2007.
13) See my ‗Somalia: The US Intervenes Again‘ JUST Commentary January
2007.
14) The US operated the Clark air base and the Subic naval base in the
Philippines
until 1992. These bases were forced to close as a consequence of an earlier
popular uprising against the Marcos regime. For a discussion on this in the
context of democracy and terrorism see my ‗Hegemony, Terrorism and War – Is
Democracy the Antidote?‘ Widener Law Review X111(2), 2007. ( Delaware,
USA: Widener University School of Law, 2007).
15) Herbert Docena ‗At the Door of All the East‘ The Philippines in United
States
Military Strategy Report ( Bangkok: Focus on the Global South, November
2007) p.29.
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16) Ibid. pp 28-9.
17) Ibid. p.34.
18) Ibid. p.37.
19) See my ‗Containing China: A Flawed Agenda‘ in Asia-Pacific Geopolitics
Hegemony vs Human Security J.A. Camilleri et.al (editors) ( United Kingdom:
Edward Elgar, 2007).
20) For an insightful analysis see David Ray Griffin The New Pearl Harbor
(Gloucestershire, Britain: Arris Books, 2004).
21) Ibid. pp 101-2.
22) Professor Hans Kochler made this point at the Roundtable on ‗The Global
War on
Terror‘ organized by the International Progress Organization (IPO) with the
cooperation of the Center for Policy Research and International Studies (
CenPRIS), Universiti Sains Malaysia,( USM) in USM on 13-14 December 2007.
23) ‗At the Door of All the East‘ op.cit p.10.
24) Ibid. p.12.
25) The New Pearl Harbor op.cit. p.96.
26) Ibid. p. 96.
27). ‗Rebuilding America‘s Defenses: Strategy, Forces and Resources for a New
Century‘ www.newamericancentury.org p.51.
28) ‗At the Door of All the East‘ op.cit. p.12.
29) See ‗Introduction: National Interest and Global Responsibility‘ in Present
Dangers Robert Kagan and William Kristol (editors) (San Francisco,
California: Encounter Books, 2000) p.16.
30) ‗The National Security Strategy of the United States of America‘ Report (
Washington D.C. : White House, September 2002)
31) ‗At the Door of All the East‘ op.cit. p.104.
32) Ibid. p.104.
33). See my ‗Resisting Hegemony; Raising Dignity‘ in Asking,we walk The
South as
new Political Imaginary Book One Corrine Kumar (editor) ( Bangalore, India:
Streelekha Publications, 2007
US-Israeli State Terrorism Threatens World Peace
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US-Israeli State Terrorism Threatens
World Peace
Dr. Mohideen Abdul Kader 
Two nuclear powers, Israel and the United States, with a long history of
engaging in terrorism, aggression and violation of international law pose
the greatest danger to world peace.
In June last year, Israeli commandos stormed the Mavi Marmara carrying
aid to Gaza and killed nine unarmed passengers and wounded dozens of
others. The whole world except the US criticised this Israeli piracy in
international waters. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan
described it as state terrorism and said: ―We are not going to remain silent
in the face of this inhumane state terrorism.‖
This month, while Israel and the West celebrate the 63rd anniversary of its
founding the Palestinians will be commemorating the 63rd anniversary of
their Nakba (Catastrophe). Israel was founded through violence,
terrorism and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian inhabitants. For example,
on April 9, 1948, Menachem Begin‘s terrorists attacked Deir Yassin, a
village of 700 people, killing 254 mostly old men, women and children
and wounding 300 others. Of this atrocity Begin commented: ―Deir
Yassin massacre was not only necessary, but without it the state of Israel
could not have emerged.‖ Begin and the other terrorist Yitzhak Shamir
were rewarded for their terrorist activities by becoming prime ministers of
independent Israel.
 He studied law in London and has been in legal practice since 1970. He is now the
Vice President of the Consumers Association of Penang and Legal Advisor to Third
World Network, and a Board Member of Citizens International and a Council member of
the Friends of the Earth, Malaysia.
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Ever since it's founding, Israel has adopted terrorism as state policy. It has
assassinated Palestinian leaders, abducted parliamentarians, demolished
homes and carried out ethnic cleansing in East Jerusalem. It has
indiscriminately killed women and children. A United Nations official,
Prof Richard Falk, recently confirmed that Israeli forces killed 1335
children in direct military operations and arbitrary shootings.
Under the Dahiya doctrine, Israeli forces also target civilians and nonmilitary infrastructure. During Operation Cast Lead in Gaza in 2009, they
killed 1400 persons, mostly civilians including women and children.
Hospitals and schools were bombed or rocketed. 15000 homes were
damaged. They intentionally destroyed farmlands with tank bulldozers,
wrecking 17% of it and leaving 30% unusable. The Goldstone Report
concluded that Palestinian civilians and their non-military infrastructure
in Gaza were not collateral damage; they were intentionally and
deliberately targeted for destruction.
Israel‘s nuclear arsenal and its readiness to use it as well as its
belligerence towards its neighbours constitute a serious threat to world
peace. Israel has over 200 nuclear weapons with sophisticated delivery
systems including long range missiles, submarines and aircraft. Under its
Sampson Option, Israel is prepared to launch a massive nuclear attack
against ‗enemy‘ nations if it considers its existence threatened. Israeli
leaders have been repeatedly threatening Iran saying it constitutes an
existential threat. After his 2009 meetings with Netanyahu, President
Barak Obama threatened to attack Iran if it did not ‗come clean about‘
and curb its nuclear programme.
Iran is not the only Israeli nuclear target. Even Russia is included because
of its technical assistance to Iran for its nuclear programme. Martin Van
Creveld, a professor of military history at the Hebrew University in
Jerusalem, told David Hirst of The Observer in 2003: "Most European
capitals are targets for our air force. Let me quote General Moshe Dayan:
"Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother. ... We have the
capability to take the world down with us. And I can assure you that that
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will happen before Israel goes under." It is this mindset of Israeli leaders
and many Israelis that can lead to a nuclear conflagration.
In the US terrorism is institutionalised in its Central Intelligence Agency
(CIA) and embodied in its military doctrine of ‗rapid dominance‘. CIA is
the arm of the US government for bringing about regime change. In its
covert activities the CIA carries out murders, sabotage of economic and
social infrastructure, sponsors terrorist proxies, propagates black
propaganda and finances groups opposed to the regime.
In the 1980s, CIA financed and trained the Contras to destabilise
Nicaragua which had replaced a cruel dictator with a radical independent
nationalist government. It planted mines in civilian harbours and sunk
civilian ships in an attempt to overthrow the Sandinista government. A
Human Rights Watch report found that the Contras were guilty of
targeting health care clinics and health care workers for assassination;
kidnapping civilians; torturing and executing civilians, including children,
who were captured in combat; raping women; indiscriminately attacking
civilians and civilian homes; seizing civilian property; and burning
civilian houses in captured towns.
According to a former CIA analyst David Mac Michael, the object of the
CIA terrorist programme in Nicaragua was to use the proxy army to
―provoke cross-border attacks by Nicaraguan forces and thus serve to
demonstrate Nicaragua‘s aggressive nature‖, to pressure the Nicaraguan
Government to ―clamp down on civil liberties within Nicaragua itself,
arresting its opponents, demonstrating its allegedly inherent totalitarian
nature and thus increase domestic dissent within the country‖, and to
undermine the shattered economy.
The same strategy is being applied by the CIA for bringing about regime
change in Iran. It is working with Mossad to assassinate Iranian scientists.
It is supporting terrorist groups like the Pakistan-based Jundullah to carry
out sabotage and murder inside Iran. It is instigating sectarian conflicts
and carrying out subversive activities to destabilise the Iranian regime. In
2009 Congress approved funding $120 million for anti-regime
broadcasting into Iran and $60-75 million to support violent underground
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movements. A report in Le Monde Diplomatique revealed that millions of
U.S. dollars are covertly administered to NGO human rights activists in
Iran. These revelations have been confirmed by former U.S.
Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns.
The US has no respect for international law and the UN Charter. In the
case brought by Nicaragua against the US in the International Court of
Justice, the Court decided:
The US by training, arming, equipping, financing, and supplying the
contra forces or otherwise encouraging, supporting and aiding military
and paramilitary activities against Nicaragua has acted against the
Republic of Nicaragua in breach of its obligations under customary
international law not to intervene in the affairs of another state.
The US government dismissed the Court decision as an irrelevant
pronouncement by a ―hostile forum‖. In the same year it vetoed a UN
Security Council resolution calling on all states to observe international
law. A resolution to the same effect was adopted by the General
Assembly in 1987 with only the US and Israel voting against it. On the
US‘s arrogant contempt for international law, Prof Chomsky commented:
―The guiding principle, it appears, is that the US is a lawless state and this
is right and just, whatever the world may think, whatever international
institutions may declare...A corollary is the doctrine that no state has the
right to defend itself from US attack.‖
The rapid dominance theory used by the US military relies on aerial
bombardment and weapons of mass destruction. It does not distinguish
between civilians and soldiers. Its goal is ―to rain terror from the skies on
civilians and their infrastructure, thereby forcing capitulation of their
political/military leadership.‖ The earliest example was the dropping of
atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
In 2003 the US launched its illegal war on Iraq which devastated the
country and reduced what was once the most developed Arab country into
a bread basket case. The ‗Shock and Awe‘ attack destroyed hospitals,
schools, water supply infrastructure and other social amenities.
Researchers at Johns Hopkins University estimated that 601,000 violent
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Iraqi deaths were attributable to the U.S.-led invasion as of July 2006
which has increased to over 1 million by 2011. The whole social fabric of
Iraqi society has been fractured with sectarian conflicts almost daily
leading to the killing of thousands of innocent civilians. More than 5
million people have become refugees or internally displaced persons.
In Afghanistan, U.S troops have been routinely killing civilians. In
December 2009, American troops dragged eight innocent children from
their beds and shot them dead. The children were aged 11 to 17, six of
them at high school and two at primary school. In February 2010, 23 male
civilians were killed and 12 women and children wounded in a helicopter
attack by U.S Army Special Forces. In July 2008, an American plane took
out an Afghan bridal party of 70-90 persons of mostly women on their
way to meet the groom. The bride and 27 other members of the party
including children were killed. In August 2008, a memorial service for a
tribal leader was hit by repeated U.S air strikes that killed at least 90
civilians, including 15 women and up to 60 children. Among the dead
were 76 members of one extended family.
In Pakistan civilians including women and children have become the
main victims of drone attacks operated by U.S military personnel from
the United States like playing a Nintendo game. Of the 44 drone strikes
carried out in 2009 only five were able to hit their actual targets but at the
cost of 700 innocent civilian lives. The use of drones violates the warfighting principles of distinction, necessity, proportionality, humanity.
Philip Girald, a former CIA officer states: ―Drones are currently killing
people in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia. … the United
States is not at war with any of these countries, which should mean in a
sane world the killing is illegal under both international law and the US
Constitution.‖
The US is the major nuclear power with 5,113 warheads operationally
deployed, in active reserve, or held in inactive storage. It is the only
country to have used nuclear weapons. In the recent Nuclear Posture
Review President Obama declared that the U.S. would not use nuclear
weapons against non-nuclear, NPT-compliant states but he excluded Iran
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from it. The threat of use of nuclear weapons against non-nuclear NPTcompliant Iran is state terrorism. The ICJ had ruled that ―the threat or use
of nuclear weapons would generally be contrary to the rules of
international law applicable in armed conflict, and in particular the
principles and rules of humanitarian law‖.
Victims of state terrorism who resort to violent methods to confront their
oppressors are labeled as terrorists. The Mujahidin from Palestine,
Afghanistan, Chechnya, Yemen, Pakistan and Somalia who resist foreign
occupation and fight to defend their homeland, families and national
honour are condemned as terrorists by those who kill babies, children and
women and claim to be acting in self-defence.
Israel and the US refuse to acknowledge that their policies towards
Palestinians, Afghans and others –aggression, occupation, killings,
violation of human rights- that instigate individual and group terrorism.
The Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad put it dramatically before the
judge in his court hearing. He said: ―... until the hour the US pulls out its
forces from Iraq and Afghanistan, and stops the drone strikes in Somalia,
and Yemen and in Pakistan, and stops the occupation of Muslim lands,
and stops killing the Muslims, we will be attacking US.‖
When the judge asked why he tried to kill innocent Americans, Shahzad
said: ―the people select the government; we consider them the same.‖ As
for children, he said: "the drone hits in Afghanistan and Iraq, they don't
see children, they don't see anybody. They kill women, children. They kill
everybody." Thus his resort to terrorism: "I am part of the answer to the
U.S. terrorizing the Muslim nations and the Muslim people, and on behalf
of that, I'm avenging the attacks."
On the motive behind individual or group terrorist attacks, Robert Pape of
the University of Chicago wrote: "The central fact is that overwhelmingly
suicide-terrorist attacks are not driven by religion as much as they are by
a clear strategic objective: to compel modern democracies to withdraw
military forces from the territory that the terrorists view as their
homeland. From Lebanon to Sri Lanka to Chechnya to Kashmir to the
West Bank, every major suicide-terrorist campaign -- over 95 percent of
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all the incidents -- has had as its central objective to compel a democratic
state to withdraw.‖
Despite the overwhelming evidence, both Israel and the US are in a state
of denial that their state terrorist policies breed individual and group
terrorism. They put the blame on Muslims and Islam. Muslims are being
targeted as purveyors of extremism, terrorism, violence and conflicts, and
followers of a religion that is backward, oppressive, undemocratic, and
inherently unjust. Islam is being maligned in the media as a religion that
preaches violence. Bush‘s war on terror continues, without fanfare,
directed against Muslims.
In the West, Muslims are being discriminated and their human rights
violated. Thousands have been detained under anti-terrorist laws without
trial for years. They have been subjected to physical and psychological
torture. Islamophobia is on the rise and becoming mainstream. Attacks on
mosques and violence against Muslims are increasing. These acts of
oppression are bound to produce undesirable responses from the victims.
There can be no global peace without the state actors renouncing
terrorism, abandoning their policy of regime change, dismantling the
institutions that spread terror and violence, and committing themselves to
the rule of law.
This Conference must lead to the establishment of a global alliance
against terrorism and for just peace. It must involve progressive
governments and progressive non-governmental organisations (NGOs).
There must be a plan of action for bringing the issue of state terrorism to
the global agenda and for raising the consciousness of the international
public about it. We must strongly support the national liberation
movements in Palestine, Afghanistan, and Somalia and the movement for
democracy and overthrow of dictators and authoritarian governments in
the Arab-Muslim world. We need a secretariat to coordinate networking
and effective communication among members of the alliance.
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References
1. Shukri, Mohamed Aziz, International Terrorism A Legal Critique, Amana
Books Brattleboro, Vermont
2. Chomsky, N, Who are the Global Terrorists?, CHOMSKY.INFO, May, 2002
3. Chomsky, N, International Terrorism: Image and Reality, CHOMSKY.INFO,
December, 1991
4. Grosscup, Beau, Cluster Munitions and State Terrorism, Monthly Review,
April 26th , 2011
5. Pilger, John, Time to Recognize State Terror, AntiWar.Com, September 17,
2004
6. Sherwood, Harriet, Israel accused of state terrorism after assault on flotilla
carrying Gaza aid, guardian.co.uk, June 1st 2010
7. Hirst, David, The war game, guardian.co.uk, September 21st 2003
8. Falk, Richard, UN official: Israeli occupation killed 1,300 Palestinian
children since 2000, middleeastmonitor.org.uk, May 4th, 2011
9. Wikipedia, United States and state terrorism
10. Kantar, Max, International Law: The First Casualty of the Drone War,
zmag.org, December 12th, 2009
11. Savage, Charlie, U.N. report scolds U.S. on growing use of drones,
International Herald Tribune, June 4th, 2010
12. Porter, Gareth, Report Shows Drones Strikes Based on Scant Evidence, Inter
Press Service News, October 18th, 2010
13. US Attacks in Pakistan Killed 700 Civilians in 2009, The Penisula, January
3rd, 2010
14. In Pakistan, more civilians fall victim to US drones, PressTV , January 1st,
2010
15. Over 700 killed in 44 drone strikes in 2009, DAWN, January 2nd, 2010
16. Savage, Charlie, U.S. is under pressure for drone strikes, International
Herald Tribune, May 29th – 30th , 2010
17. Engelhardt, Tom, Killing Civilians in Afghanistan and Iraq, Information
Clearing House, August 5th, 2010
18. Shanker, Thom, Bumiller, Elizabeth and Norland Rod, Karzai splits with
U.S. over night raids, New York Times, November 17th, 2010
19. Starkey, Jerome, Western troops accused of executing 10 Afghan civilians,
including children, Information Clearing House, December 31st, 2009
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20. Mckelvey, Tara, Covering Obama‘s Secret War, Columbia Journalism
Review, May & June 2011
21. Bandow, Doug, Terrorism: Why They Want to Kill Us, Information Clearing
House, July 02nd 2010
22. The pink revolution in Iran and the ―left‖ Vol.5, No.3, Special Issue
(Summer 2009)
23. Wikipedia, Covert United States foreign regime change actions
24. Stan, Israel‘s Dahiya Doctrine Undermines Its ‗Collateral Damage‘ Claims
In Gaza, December 30, 2009, Middle East, World
25. Iran Jundullah leader claims US military support, 26 February 2010, BBC
News
26. ABC News Exclusive: The Secret War Against Iran, April 03, 2007
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The Zionist, ―War on Terror‖ in the Middle East and the …
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The Zionists, “War on Terror” in the Middle
East and the Reshaping of the Muslim World:
Pakistan, s Unique Case Study
Zaid Zaman Hamid 
The History
Almost ninety years ago, in the beginning of the 20th century, a most
shattering and devastating blow was suffered by the Muslim world as its
maps were radically re-drawn by the invading and victorious Western
powers when the Ottoman Empire was defeated and dismembered. The
maps of the Middle East were re-drawn after the First World War by the
Zionists, a fact one would not be able to look up in history books. People
know and are reminded in continuum about the Germans and the war in
Europe, but what they are tactfully kept oblivious about is that there
existed a Muslim state in the beginning of the 20th century, called the
'Ottoman Empire', which stretched across continents from Russia to North
Africa. It was the 'One Single Muslim Empire'. After the First World
War, this empire was Balkanized, creating smaller, modern states as seen
today.
It was during this outrageous and sacrilegious pillage of the Muslim lands
that the State of Israel was sanctioned to the world Jewry by the
triumphant British Empire. It took another great war a few years later,
with horrendous bloodshed and destruction of humanity, both in the East
and the West, to finally materialize the dream of the Zionist Jewry- the
State of Israel in the Holy Lands. A political, military and ideological
dagger pierced the Muslim heartland.
 A security consultant and strategic defense analyst. He is the founder of BrassTacks, a
unique Pakistani Think Tank devoted to the study of regional and global political events
and their implications for Pakistan and Muslim world's security and interests
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Pakistan was born almost at the same time as Israel. Both countries,
representing two diametrically opposite religious ideologies hostile to
each other, were born to be enemies and have remained in a state of
covert war ever since. Against all odds, Pakistan rose to become a nuclear
power, the only one in the Muslim world posing a direct and existential
threat to the state of Israel and world Jewry.
India, a State which is secular on paper only, is led and controlled by idol
worshiping Brahmin pagans with extreme hostility towards Pakistan,
hence becoming a natural born collaborator of the Zionist State.
The Environment
Present times are witnessing the unraveling of the most sinister and evil
plans devised against humanity since the last hundred years.
The Soviet Union met their Waterloo in their Afghan misadventure, the
war that triggered the demise of the Soviet Union and the roll back of the
Soviet Empire. That was the period when the map of the world actually
started to unfold the way we see it today. Since that time, the strategy of
the dominant Neo-con Evangelicals or Zionists has been to dismember
the hostile states into smaller countries we see today.
After nearly 90 years the maps are being re-drawn once again, marking
smaller states. First the Soviet Union was dismembered, then they came
closer to home, in Europe, and Yugoslavia was made the next target.
Yugoslavia and Soviet Union, as countries, have been wiped out from the
world map. The latter had the largest, most powerful military in the world
and Yugoslavia possessed the fifth largest army in the world, but both the
countries do not exist today.
Yugoslavia was once a country . divided into smaller states in 90.s under
4th generation war doctrine which is now applied in the greater Middle
East on Muslim lands!
After having accomplished this mission in the 1900s, their attention now
focused towards the Middle East. The Soviet threat being safely
eradicated, the American Neo-cons were free to operate in the Middle
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East and create the greater Middle East. Subsequently, we find them
invading Afghanistan and then Iraq.
Their strategy now is to create headless states, dismember them into
smaller components and create enough anarchy in the region,
destabilizing these small states so that they are incapable of posing any
resistance to the organized state of Israel. Basically, all the major Muslim
countries in the Middle East are being dismembered; their maps are being
re-drawn. As the 21st century unfolds, the contemporary times are
witnessing yet another epic struggle within the Muslim heartland. The
Muslim world is desperately fighting an existential war, this time against
two violent ideologies which have invaded from opposing prongs. The
entire Muslim heartland . from the Arabian Peninsula to the greater
Middle East including Pakistan - is the battle ground, and the ultimate
prize. Not just that the heart and soul of the Muslim world is at stake,
even the geography is once again threatened to be altered radically.
Neo-con objective of WOT -- Division of large Muslim countries and
making them headless failed states! Iraq, Sudan down. Libya, Somalia,
Yemen, Syria, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iran and Pakistan are already under
attack at various levels! Somalia, another headless failed state being
dismembered.
In terms of phenomenon and scale, the threat is so severe and unique that
it has baffled even the finest Muslim thinkers, philosophers, Generals and
analysts who are desperately trying to understand and then cope with the
staggering emotional turmoil and the ensuing ground violence within the
Muslim lands. The ideological, political and military confusion and chaos
is so complete within the Muslim world that mature reason and sound
logic has almost given way to irrational radicalism or defeated resignation
to fate, as violence, anarchy and the dizzying pace of unfortunate events
cripple the capacity of the Muslim world to develop even a reactive
response let alone a pro-active one. There is no strategic threat analysis,
hence no long term response strategy. The Muslim political leadership,
despite hanging on to power, has crumbled in totality to rise to the
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challenges, hence giving a free run to the invaders, leaving the hapless
Muslim population to the wolves.
Once again it seems sharply clear that the colonial and anarchic invading
forces- operating on external and internal axis -- will further attempt to
divide, conquer and dismember the Muslim countries into smaller
territories. The 4th Generation war deployed in the greater Middle East
today was first applied, experimented and perfected upon pro-Soviet
Yugoslavia in the last decade of the 20th century, obliterating the country
into history. Now the American wars are being waged right into the
Muslim heartland, with genuine threats of re-drawing of greater Middle
Eastern Maps as well. After bringing death and destruction to Afghanistan
and Iraq, Pakistan is now in the eye of the storm, already staggering under
the sheer scale of violence, war, chaos as well as political and economic
anarchy.
However, the threat is still manageable, downslide can be checked and
rock solid responses can be built but this remarkable turnaround would
need a genuinely great leadership with vision, courage and spiritual
prowess to dream and then achieve the seemingly impossible under these
desperate conditions.
The prongs
Today, the Muslim world finds itself between the two proverbial jaws of
an alligator, facing the following invading prongs from opposing
directions:
1. The Western Crusaders, US, NATO, Neo-Cons and the Zionists. Using
the full might of the western military and industrial power, backed by the
massive use of information warfare and Psy-ops weapons, another wave
of physical colonization of Muslim lands has begun.
2. The Radically anarchic Takfiri Kharjee religious militants. Exploiting
the heretical interpretations of religious ideals, these terrorist gangs have
been on the rampage within the Muslim lands, primarily targeting Iraq
and Pakistan with devastating effects. By declaring war on the Muslim
lands from within their territories, the Kharjees have become the most
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valuable assets for the Western crusaders to justify their global wars and
colonization.
The War on Terror (WOT) actually means Wars of Crusades by Zionists
within the Muslim world for its colonization, using the radical ideology of
Kharjees as a justification for invading and forcing the Muslim society to
accept this invasion by presenting to them the Kharjee ideology as a
bigger threat to the Muslim world. So even if the Kharjee threat is not real
in certain lands, creating, fabricating and promoting the phantom bogey
through orchestrated media campaigns and psy-ops, remains an integral
part of the entire Zionist war effort.
While Zionists invade Muslim lands and occupy them, they want the
Muslim world to fight and finish off the Kharjees first. On the other hand,
it is the ultimate desire of the Kharjees to bring about a massive, high
intensity conflict between the Muslim world and the Crusading Zionists
so that a power and leadership vacuum within the Muslim world would
allow Kharjees to break out and grab power, just as the Assassins did in
the past during the Crusades. The Zionists as well as the Kharjees want
each other to finish off the Muslim world, and one is using the bogey of
the other to justify their presence within the Muslim heartland and
society. Both are waging a war against the Muslim world with devastating
effects and the battleground is the Muslim urban societies. In reality, they
are often willing partners with the agenda to destroy the status quo within
the Muslim world through violent means. The net result for the Muslim
world will be total and complete destruction, if any or both of the
ideologies are successful.
The Great Game
Having understood the ideology of the two invading prongs, we come to
the grand strategic objectives of the Neo-Con foreign policy for the 21st
century in the Middle East, Africa and Asia. This is the larger game of the
Neo-Cons for which an "enemy" had to be created and the Zionist backed
Kharjees played this anarchic role, within the Muslim world, rather
brilliantly.
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1. Defense and Security of Israel and to create weak, headless States in
the Middle East, even changing geography to create a new Middle East.
Stopping Muslim countries from acquiring nuclear weapons or
destruction of nuclear potential of existing Muslim nations is an
integrated part of this objective. The end objective is the so called "greater
Israel"
2. Containment and destruction of political and militant Islam.
3. Control of fuel assets.
4. Control of global trading routes, oil pipelines and strategic water ways
like the Persian Gulf, Suez, Bosporus, horn of Africa, Gibraltar, Malacca
straits.
5. Encirclement and Containment of Russia.
6. Encirclement and Containment of China.
We emphasize that everything, repeat . everything that is happening in the
ME, Africa and Asia has to do with one or more of these objectives as
well as the clash between US foreign policy and the rest of the regional
players who have a stake in preventing the US from achieving these
objectives. These world wars and global agenda have nothing to do with
"war on terror". The "WOT" is the new great game to gain strategic
foothold in the 21st century.
Political heavyweight, Zbigniew Brzezinski, clarified the importance of
Central Asia to the US plans for global dominance in his book, The Grand
Chessboard:
Ever since the continents started interacting politically, some 500 years
ago, Eurasia has been the center of world power. For America, the chief
geopolitical prize is Eurasia.and America's global primacy is directly
dependent on how long and how effectively its preponderance on the
Eurasian continent is sustained. How America manages Eurasia is critical.
Eurasia is the globe's largest continent and is geopolitically axial. A
power that dominates Eurasia would control two of the world's three most
advanced and economically productive regions. A mere glance at the map
also suggests that control over Eurasia would almost automatically entail
Africa's subordination, rendering the Western Hemisphere and Oceania
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geopolitically peripheral to the world's central continent. About 75% of
the world's people live in Eurasia and most of the world's physical wealth
as well, both in its enterprises and underneath its soil. Eurasia accounts
for 60% of the world's GNP and about three-fourths of the world's known
energy resources. (The Grand Chessboard)
To achieve the above stated six Grand strategic objectives, the Muslim
lands need to be further dismembered. US forces need to be based within
Muslim lands. Ethnic and sectarian wars need to be ignited in order to
create "new blood borders" on ethnic and religious lines. Muslim nuclear
potential needs to be blunted. Defense of Israel is not possible if Pakistan
or Iran possess nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles. If Pakistan does
not agree to surrender its nuclear weapons and missile program, then TTP
Kharjees have to be deployed to create such mayhem and anarchy within
the state that Pakistan becomes a failed and dysfunctional state forcing the
world community to "step in" to prevent the "proliferation" of nuclear
weapons into "wrong" hands.
The New Middle East map planned by the US, for which multiple wars
would be launched in the region, is similar to what is shown below. The
US government has recently officially denied any such plans, but the
events on ground and US force positioning in the region, point towards
what the US denies.
Know your enemy -- The emergence of Zionist Christian, Evangelical
Neo-con thought in the United States . The Christian Zionists reshaping
the entire Muslim world!
The modern, easy to understand name for Zionists is Neo-Conservatives
Christian Evangelicals and they rule the United States of America today
with their ideological allies in London, Tel-Aviv and Delhi. The Christian
Zionists believe that the State of Israel must be protected at all costs as
that is the place where the final war with the Anti-Christ, Armageddon,
will take place and Christ would return to earth to lead the good
Christians. Hence, their fanatical loyalty to Jewish Zionists and their
ideals of creating a greater Israel in the Middle East at the cost of the
Muslim world. The Crusades of the Middle Ages were religious wars; the
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Crusades of the 21st century are equally fanatical in religious fervor,
driven by the same ideals which drove the frenzy of earlier Crusades.
For example, today, Pakistan is in a state of war, fighting an asymmetric
high intensity war within its own borders against an Indian backed
terrorist insurgency with a religious facade, which is based in the remote
tribal regions bordering Afghanistan but is waging a ruthless
decentralized war against the State and the civilian population in the
mainland urban environment. In the last 3 years alone, on the average,
Pakistan has suffered a suicide attack, bomb blast or an attack on the
security forces on almost daily basis. Hundreds of the finest officers and
soldiers as well as thousands of civilians have given their lives in a war
which has drawn staggering toll on Pakistan.s economy and society. At
least 3 serving General officers, many other Brigadiers and other senior
military officers have died in ambushes, suicide attacks and assaults by
the insurgent militants on military and civil installations in major cities of
Pakistan.
Regional offices of Pakistan.s military led Intelligence agency ISI have
been attacked. Even GHQ was targeted for an audacious attempt at
targeting military leadership. At one point in Swat, almost 2.5 million
people had to leave their homes in a mass migration to allow Pakistan
army to conduct military operations in an area bigger than England.
Cantonment and sensitive areas of Islamabad, Peshawar, Lahore and
Rawalpindi give the looks of cities under fortress defenses. Universities,
hospitals, hotels, bazaars, funerals, Masjids, schools, none have escaped
the most ruthless and bloody war by the TTP terrorists. Till 2007 and
2008, the TTP was having its reign of terror almost unchecked with large
regions of Swat valley and FATA under their influence. But then the
army began to get the grips on this new form of 4th generation war for
which Pakistan army was not initially trained mentally, emotionally,
militarily or logistically. Fighting a high intensity counter insurgency war
within its own borders in an urban environment in home cities was not the
form of warfare any army would want to fight.
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Despite lack of any previous experience to fight such a war, Pakistan
army performed with stunning success, breaking the back of the
insurgency in Swat, capturing the South Waziristan bastion of the
terrorists and taking back almost all regions of FATA which were
previously under terrorists. control. It's not over yet and the war continues
in remote tribal regions as well as in the cities where insurgents regularly
cause chaos, assassinations and bomb attacks.
Pakistan army has given great sacrifices to fight the ruthless Zionist
backed insurgency of religious fanatics and takfiris
The centre of gravity of the terrorists is in Afghanistan from where they
get their weapons, money and have sanctuaries . backed by CIA, Afghan
regime and Indian RAW. So far, Pakistan has been fighting a reactive war
within its own borders and has left the safe havens of the insurgents
untouched inside Afghanistan.
On another axis, on a lesser intensity, CIA, RAW and Afghan RAMA
have stirred up another insurgency in Baluchistan by supporting the
Secular Marxist Pakistani Baluch Separatists seeking to break Baluchistan
away from Pakistan. The mode of operations against the State include
blowing up gas lines, destroying power cables and State infrastructures as
well as attacking security forces and assassinating non-Baluch settlers
from rest of the country. Baluchistan consists of 42% area of Pakistan but
has only 4% of population divided between Pashtuns, Baluchis, Makranis,
Brahwis and Sindhis. With only a small segment of Baluch falling under
the spell of armed insurgency and also due to the remoteness of the
region, the situation in Baluchistan due to BLA/BRA militancy is not as
critical as it is due to the TTP insurgency but still, it is a serious menace.
Military has not been used in Baluchistan as yet and only Para military
forces, Police and local militias have been doing the security duties.
Baluch seperatists backed by CIA. Also, Jundullah created within Baluch
separatists. to create anarchy in Iranian Baluchistan
Apart from these two above mentioned active armed insurgencies, there
are secular political parties which have armed wings and also have
separatists. agendas and have been involved in urban violence especially
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in Karachi. Both MQM and ANP maintain armed militias in the city and
though they are in the government also, are waging a ruthless and brutal
war of assassinations and counter assassinations on the streets in Karachi.
Both MQM and ANP are fondly close to India and reject the creation of
Pakistan as a State and have dismissed the Islamic ideology of Pakistan.
ANP especially had been instrumental since 1947 to dismember Pakistan
on ethnic Pashtun lines. Lately, MQM and its leader Altaf Hussein has
also been vocal against the creation of Pakistan and has even suggested
"reunification", basically suggesting that India should take control of
Pakistan! In future, both these parties could become major threat and turn
into active insurgencies especially in Karachi and urban Sindh. For now,
while they remain in power politically and are allies of the PPP
government, they are also playing the assassination game in a turf war
and are keeping their armed wings as insurance policy against any
government or military operation against them in future.
The strength of a Muslim society lies in its ideology and morality and
once you weaken the Islamic ideology and the strong moral and social
values that knit the Islamic society together into family and social
networks, then that society is ripe for takeover through a foreign invasion.
Pakistan is facing multiple insurgencies; Pakistani media is heavily
influenced by western corrupt pornographic material and the Indian muck
and filth from the Bollywood film industry. Pakistan.s education system
has been handed over to the western universities; Pakistani text books are
being written and designed by the western universities right now. The
education system has polarized the society completely. There are
generations who have been brought up in an education system in a society
where they cannot speak the native language. This is what they have done
to Pakistan. There is financial corruption and mismanagement. Every day
riots erupt somewhere in the country. People are literally begging for
necessities like water, electricity, power, and gas, the resources that are
normally taken for granted. This is what they have reduced Pakistan to
today, and this is what they are going to do to many Muslims lands which
they are softening up now for this process.
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Now, using the pretext of Osama Bin laden, US is threatening Pakistan
with anther war. Once again, we see US using the pretext of terrorism to
justify its planned invasion of another Muslim land. Same strategy,
different theatre of war! The same justifications they would give to wage
wars against Iran, Saudi Arabia and other Muslim lands. Libya is not
already divided into two countries. Sudan is divided. Syria in Turmoil and
Yemen at war. More wars are coming in the Muslim lands and Muslim
leadership is frozen in time and fear.
Once the Muslim lands are softened up through 4th generation war and
support to insurgencies and political/religious violence, they will not be
able to resist a nuclear weapon armed state of Israel when it starts to
expand into the Middle East for the Greater Israel. Israel is the only
country in the world which does not have defined boundaries. Since 1948
till today every year the boundaries of Israel change. They annex more
settlements, they remove the villages of the Palestinians, they usurp their
lands, build walls, re-draw the boundaries. For the last 62 years the Israeli
boundaries have been changing constantly; it has no defined boundaries;
any land which can be grabbed, whether within the defined boundaries
today or even beyond, becomes Israel.s land as per their map. Google the
map, search for Greater Israel, and you will see where the Greater Israel
stretches to; which Muslim countries come into those lands and then you
will know why they are doing this to Middle East including Iraq, Syria,
Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia.
The Americans have been trying for many years now to stage some kind
of an internal coup in Iran but they don.t have any assets on ground. Iran
is one country that does not have an American Embassy and an American
Embassy is always the nest of spies. It is always a devil's den wherever
they are. In Pakistan, they have made the biggest embassy in the entire
region and they're constructing massive blocks inside, giving clear
indications to the Pakistanis that Americans wish to stay here for an
indefinitely long time.
When the Americans have an embassy on ground, they can do this. In
Iran they have a problem; they have to come through second hand
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sources. They have been trying for many years now and after the recent
elections when President Ahmadinejad was elected, they tried bringing
about a revolution even at that time, but that fizzled out. Iranians are
pretty tough in this regard and they hang the protestors if it is confirmed
that they are working on behalf of the CIA. In the 50's there was an
elected popular government of Musaddaq in Iran, he was a nationalist and
he had nationalized the entire oil field and the entire oil companies, which
were primarily British petroleum and western oil companies. Roosevelt.s
grandson was sent by the CIA with suitcases full of dollars to stage a
coup against Musaddaq. He bought off people, groups, gangsters,
commoners and even socialists and orchestrated a coup against
Musaddaq, consequently dragging him through the streets and hanging
him, and then they installed the Shah of Iran as the state head. That is how
the Shah of Iran came into power. So, Iran has been a playground for the
western intelligence agencies for a long time now. It has become
especially important because of this particular government which is
maintaining its own independent stance. The Americans are now trying to
raise the wave of emotion in this region to give the perception that there is
an indigenous revolt brewing in Iran, which is totally false. It.s
orchestrated just like it was in Egypt, but in Egypt people were fed up of
Hosni Mubarak so they came out in millions. In Iran, they.re not fed up of
their leadership that's why they came out in hundreds. This is the
difference between the two.
The ultimate nightmare for the Americans and NATO is that Pakistan and
Iran may form a strategic collective security arrangement. Then that
alliance can expand to include Saudi Arabia and Turkey as well as China
and Russia. It would completely throw the entire American game plan in
the region in topsy-turvy because there are a hundred and fifty thousand
American western troops and Blackwater in Afghanistan right now and
their 84% supply-lines, from toilet paper to helicopters, everything goes
from Pakistan; 60% fuel that the Americans and the NATO use in
Afghanistan goes from Pakistan as well.
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This is no conspiracy theory. These are the hard core grand strategic
objectives, strategies, policies and operations of the US foreign policy for
the 21st century, already set in motion a decade ago through the
orchestrated "Pearl Harbor" of 9/11 under the code name War on Terror
(WOT). The primary battle grounds chosen for the invasion, occupation
and waging multiple theatre high intensity wars are Afghanistan and Iraq,
with the entire greater middle East being the theatre of war and now
Pakistan being the next direct target and battle ground for the 4th
generation war already raging in full intensity with devastating
consequences for the country. Afghanistan and Iraq are the staging areas
for more high intensity wars and for the control of the global trade routes,
natural resource regions and for containing hostile ideologies and
civilizations; all under the facade of WOT.
Hindu Zionists - Hitching the ride with Western Zionists
Hindu Zionists are no different from their Judeo-Christian counterparts in
antipathy towards Islamic world, but suffer from an intrinsic inferiority
complex against Muslims due to the fact that the Muslims had ruled India
for a thousand years till 1857 and then India fell into the hands of the
British for another 90 years. Hindu zealots are burning with anger to
avenge their 1000 years of shame and subjugation at the hands of the
Muslims, but lack the courage and ferocity to do the job themselves,
especially against Pakistan, their arch- enemy. They need Western
Zionists to do the job for them. It is the ultimate dream of their foreign
policy and diplomacy to get the western countries to attack and destroy
Pakistan. One can still remember the eagerness and impatience of the
Indian government to offer bases to the US forces after 9/11 to attack and
destroy Pakistan! Just like the Israelis, the Indians also plan to fight
Pakistan to the last American!
Regarding Hindu Zionists and their objectives, Vijay Prashad, on August
8th, 2001, in a fascinating and thought provoking article titled Hindutva
and Zionism, writes:
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"The fantasy entertained by the Hindu Right government is that an
alliance with the world's lions (USA-Israel) will allow India to sup at
High Table, to eat high on the hog. Certainly the expectation is that trade
will follow the military tie-up.For that reason, we see a wholesale sell-out
by the Hindu Right to US-Israeli foreign/military policy objectives. The
Hindu Right recognize the persistence of US imperialism, and Israeli subimperialism -- and they want a piece of the action in South Asia. It
appears that the Hindu Right seeks the franchise for US lackey against
what it sees as Islamic fundamentalism and Chinese Communism. But the
alliance with Israel is not so strange after all, because at the ideological
level, Hindutva is much like Zionism, for both extol the importance of the
Race-State, and both cast aspersions at the presence of a Muslim
minority. An India-born analyst at the Zionist Freeman Center in
Houston, Texas, makes just this connection: "Islamic fascists see Bharat
[India] as the soft spot to propagate their irrational creed and foment
violence. India tries to placate them. Israel expels them. This is what
Bharat should do. If they hate Hindu Rashtra so much they are free to
leave for dar-ul Islam." At the unofficial level, the links seem to be
growing. Among semi-fascists the links are deep. The restless lions of
west and south Asia join the tigers of East Asia to encircle China and the
predominantly Muslim states of west and central Asia"
Having seen through the American game, it is time to build the responses.
Pakistan is now taking the full brunt of this massive 4GW. As a softening
up operation, a bloody overt as well as covert war has been waged against
Pakistan on all axis, by exploiting internal political instabilities, igniting
sectarian wars, supporting insurgencies, staging economic collapse,
launching media psy-ops .and to target the country diplomatically under
the pretext of supporting "terrorism". Creating "terrorist" groups within
Pakistan and in other Muslim lands is as critical a dimension of this war
as waging the "pre-emptive war" against them. Though, no Muslim
country, from North Africa to the Far East, is safe in this war, Pakistan is
the hotly contested battleground now.
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These challenges and the crises are also the greatest of opportunities for
Pakistan. America.s wars have turned into military and economic
disasters for the occupation forces. Under the staggering burden of two
active wars and global deployments, the US economy at home is
collapsing. NATO and US supplies pass through Pakistan giving
incredible leverage to Pakistan to decide the fate of the US war in
Afghanistan. Despite facing the most ruthless wave of terrorism and
insurgencies, the Pakistan army has held its ground and emerged
triumphant against overwhelming odds. Pakistan.s strategic and nuclear
assets still remain safe.
Now, following is the brief summary of the ridiculous situation in which
Pakistan finds itself today due to these US "dirty wars". It is a masterpiece
of Pakistan.s foreign and national security policy blunders, failures and
confusion, fully exploited by the Zionists and Kharjee Fascists.
1. US is threatening to invade Pakistani tribal areas and regularly attack
targets of its choice using Drones and other means. Relations between the
US and Pakistan are tense, nervous and based on mistrust and betrayal.
The US supplies pass through Pakistan, making the US vulnerable to
developments in Pakistan. War in Afghanistan is not going as the US had
planned, creating a military and political crisis for the United States and
NATO, making the US even more nervous and jittery regarding Pakistan.
The US now want Pakistan to fight Afghan Taliban and other resistance
groups on behalf of the Americans, and is using all forms of carrots and
sticks to push Pakistan into another war in North Waziristan. Now with
OBL drama, another war directly threatening Pakistan is just around the
corner.
2. Pakistan is still not sure about its role in Afghanistan and remains
clueless regarding an Afghan policy and has no defined rules of
engagement with the US. Even after nearly 10 years of Afghan war,
Pakistan neither has a vision to protect its interests and assets in
Afghanistan nor any defined and declared national security goals. Despite
the anarchic chaos and the conflict within Pakistan due to US presence in
Afghanistan, the government and the military is still not sure what is good
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for Pakistan . American presence in Afghanistan or their withdrawal from
it!
3. Kabul government remains hostile to Islamabad and is supporting
multiple insurgencies, aiding the Indians to establish bases all along the
western border, staging terror campaigns inside Pakistan and protecting
wanted terrorists. Pakistan has not made any significant breakthrough in
the Northern alliance nor taken any independent initiative to play an
aggressive role as a peacemaker in Afghanistan. Islamabad.s hesitation
and lack of confidence to get involved is fatal.
4. TTP Kharjees, Al-Qaeda and their allied militant gangs have
maintained their open war against the State of Pakistan. Their supplies
remain open from Afghanistan making it impossible to eliminate this
threat decisively despite major gains made by the army against these
terrorists. The entire judicial system of the country has failed to respond
to the threat. Security forces are fighting a reactive war where the
advantage remains with the terrorists to hit urban soft targets of their
choice with surprise and impunity.
5. Afghan Taliban and other Pasthun resistance are still not treated as
assets for Pakistan nor are they offering any direct support to crush the
Kharjee insurgency against Pakistan. Although they have not declared
any war against Pakistan, they are extremely unhappy with the way
Pakistan has handled the entire crisis.
6. Indian Zionists continue to work on the plan to get Pakistan beaten up
by the Americans. They have been on this agenda since 9/11, when they
had offered bases to the US to attack Pakistan! It is the Indian desire to
create a situation in which an open confrontation is developed between
Pakistan and the US where the US would be doing the dirty job of
destroying Pakistan to the utter pleasure and advantage of India. US and
India have now successfully forged an open and aggressive alliance
against "Islamic" threat from Pakistan. Meanwhile Indians are busy trying
to crush the Kashmiri uprising and resistance in the valley, taking
advantage of the favorable environment in the region against Islamic
militancy and Pakistan.
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7. The government in Islamabad remains incapacitated, corrupt and
dysfunctional almost turning Pakistan into a banana republic if the army
and the Supreme Court were not there to salvage some dignity. The
economic and governance collapse is almost total with real possibilities of
a street level anarchic chaos unless the regime is changed urgently. This is
what both, the Zionists and Kharjees, had planned to bring about from the
very beginning and is being facilitated by the corrupt regime.
8. The national media remains equally confused and directionless, even
hostage to the Kharjee terrorists and the Neo-Cons. US information
warfare has penetrated deep into Pakistani media controlling the
direction, content and the perception management of the Pakistani nation.
Despite massive devastation and TTP driven war against the State, the
media remains dreadfully silent to nail and name the perpetrators. The
"free" media has willfully surrendered its "freedom" to the dreaded
terrorists.
9. Despite having closest and common national security interests,
Pakistan has still not used the power and clout of regional friendly
countries like China, Iran, Turkey and Saudi Arabia to exert itself in the
region or in Afghanistan to create a favorable space for Muslim countries.
10. Iran remains isolated from Pakistan despite some cooperation on
security and economic levels. Both countries have not yet discussed
Afghanistan and American presence
seriously nor have forged any common strategy to secure Afghanistan
after the US withdrawal or even to force a US withdrawal. Iran's present
stance in support of Kashmir and to support Pakistan against American
threats is a very positive welcome development which must be
reciprocated by Pakistan in equal warmth.
11. Americans are trying to create another Persian Gulf War between
Arab and Persian Muslims. Pakistan must play the role of mediator
immediately to bring down the frictions between Muslim nations around
the Persian Gulf else Muslim world would be doomed.
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12. Pakistan has still not built any relations with Russia who has great
interest in countering US aggressive postures in the Eurasian region and is
looking for allies in South and West Asia.
The Challenge and the Response:
The biggest failure of Pakistani leadership so far is that they have failed to
see the threats emerging from the Neo-Con ideology! The Neo-cons are
as sinister an existential threat as the Kharjee terrorists, but in Islamabad
Neo-Cons are taken as friends and masters. While Kharjee terrorist threat
is considered as the biggest national security risk, the Neo-Con colonial
and hostile agenda against Pakistan and in the region is dismissed as just a
conspiracy theory! This sheer lack of political, historic and philosophical
vision, touching the limits of stupidity and insanity by the political
leadership, has brought Pakistan to this unprecedented critical stage.
Pakistan has still not decided if the US presence in Afghanistan is part of
the problem or part of the solution for Pakistan.s national security
challenges. It cannot get more pathetically ironic than this.
It is the US presence in Afghanistan which is causing all the chaos and
anarchy in the region: Indians, Kharjees and the terrorism breed under the
US umbrella. When Afghan Taliban were in control in Afghanistan
between 1996 to 2001, not a single incident of bombings, terrorism and
insurgency was reported in Pakistan. Indians had been eliminated from
Afghanistan and drugs were not flowing into Pakistan. There was no
insurgency in Baluchistan. Pakistan had not lost a single soldier or
civilian to political terrorism during that period. TTP never existed. Even
if the so called Al-Qaeda existed in Afghanistan, they were kept in strong
check by the Afghan Taliban, never causing any security hazard to
Pakistan.
Even today, a certain mindset exists in the Pakistani government and
policy makers that strongly feels that the US must stay in Afghanistan to
bring "stability". They feel that NATO supplies must pass through
Pakistan so that Pakistan may maintain leverage over US in Afghanistan.
It is believed by them that if Pakistan demands the US withdrawal from
Afghanistan, it would make US openly hostile towards the Islamic
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republic and it would impose sanctions on Islamabad and the country
would collapse under the economic meltdown! They believe and
propagate that Afghans are not capable of managing their own affairs;
hence a foreign Western force is required to eliminate terrorism from the
region. The Neo-Con perception management and disinformation teams
have done a fantastic job at spreading despondency and strategic
confusion within the Pakistani leadership.
Major segments of the Pakistan government are open collaborators with
the Neo-Cons. They are not expected to protect or understand Pakistan.s
security needs. But even a segment of the patriots, for lack of
understanding of the Neo-Con threat and their great game against
Pakistan, believe that the US should continue to stay in Afghanistan and
give the above-mentioned reasons as an excuse. This great confusion
within the political leadership is the precise reason why there is still no
Afghan policy or vision in Pakistan despite having suffered so much since
the last 10 years.
Let us make it clear firmly and decisively: If Pakistan wants to come out
of the crisis, there is no option but to be ruthless.
1. There can be no peace in Pakistan if the US remains in Afghanistan. It
is the US presence which has brought Pakistan to this brink. The sooner
we throw the Americans out, the better. The leverage, which Pakistan has
over US for economic and military aid, due to their supply lines passing
through Pakistan, is nothing compared to the damages, losses and chaos
which is created in the country due to the US presence.
2. The US is broken economically as well as militarily. The two wars in
Iraq and Afghanistan have broken the back of the Neo-Con war machine.
There is no way the US can threaten Pakistan militarily. This major US
vulnerability should be powerfully exploited in strategic negotiations to
demand a US withdrawal and to eliminate Indian influence from
Afghanistan.
3. Pakistan must now decisively demand a US withdrawal from the
region.
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4. A regional political and diplomatic power bloc between Pakistan, Saudi
Arabia, China, Iran, Turkey and Russia can be created which should
further bolster Pakistan's posture in demanding a US withdrawal. All
countries are anti-US and want an exit of the western forces from
Afghanistan.
5. Pakistan, in cooperation with Iran, Saudi Arabia and Turkey must
aggressively and openly engage with all factions of the Afghan conflict
and exert its due role in bringing the warring Afghan factions closer for
peace. Most of the Northern alliance factions are former Afghan
Mujahideen parties of the Afghan Jihad era and can easily be brought
back into our fold. So far, no serious attempt has been made to bring them
back.
6. Pakistan should proactively and preemptively hit at TTP and Kharjee
bases in Afghanistan and exert pressure on the US, NATO and Afghan
regime to "do more" to check and control the logistics and supplies of the
terrorist networks. The war against Kharjees will have to enter
Afghanistan by all covert and overt means.
7. Zero tolerance and no mercy policy towards Kharjee terrorist with
special military courts to put to trial and eliminate the captured militants.
Since the civilian courts have totally failed to respond to the threat, the
clauses in the military law should be invoked, which allow for a military
court martial for the captured "civilian" terrorists and insurgents.
8. The Neo-Cons. influence on Pakistani media and policy making to be
eliminated and replaced with indigenous, homegrown national security
and media policy to revive the national ideology and patriotism.
The crisis is staggering. The challenge remains phenomenal. The stakes
are of life and death for this nation. If it were not for the army, the
country would have already disintegrated under the two prong Kharjee
and Zionist threat axis. Pakistan has never faced such monumental
existential threats of such staggering intensity in such a short duration of
time. What is cruelly ironic is that this crisis is self created by the
leadership since the past 10 years, and has emerged due to the deliberate
blunders of policy, diplomacy, politics, and strategy and perception
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management. The solution lies in undoing the damage done on the above
-mentioned points.
The crisis is still totally manageable in the shortest possible time. The
problem is sharply defined and solutions clear. Assets are available,
resources are at hand, military strength available to enforce political
decisions and the global and regional geo-politics rapidly turning into
Pakistan's favor; the military gaining ground against internal threats and
beginning to hard bargain with the foreign forces, but still we see a
complete lack of coherence in the national policies. The ship remains
rudderless and in seriously turbulent waters. The crisis of leadership is
phenomenal, undoing all the sacrifices made and the advantages gained
on ground. If saving Pakistan means bringing a regime change in
Islamabad first, then so be it!
Just imagine that if the supply-route from Pakistan is blocked, due to any
reason, either due to anarchy, hostile public sentiments or due to a
strategic alliance between Pakistan and Iran, 150,000 western troops in
Afghanistan would be dead meat. The entire US game plan of staying in
Afghanistan and trying to come down southwards through Baluchistan
into the Persian Gulf Waters, will end. From one side they.re encircling
Iran, and from the other, they are encircling Pakistan and then they are in
the soft belly of China and Central Asia. Afghanistan is the most strategic
location for the entire Asian continent right now.
But the American presence there depends upon Pakistan.s support. And
that is why they fear the coming together of Pakistan and Iran, because
Iran already has an ideologically motivated government, though they are
not a nuclear-weapon state but they are a very strong nation. In Pakistan,
we have very organized, much disciplined armed forces and they are
keeping this federation together. They are not secular, they are
ideologically motivated, are pro-Islam, anti-American, anti-Indian and
they are the source of stability in the region. And Pakistan is a still the
only nuclear-weapon force in the Muslim world.
The worst fear that the Americans have is of Pakistan, Saudi Arabia,
Turkey and Iran getting into a closer defensive cooperation of the Islamic
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block in a collective security arrangement. While they have a corrupt
government in Pakistan, they're working feverishly to dismember the
Pakistani state. Insha.Allah they will never be able to do that because the
patriots and the armed forces people have understood the game.
But In Iran, they have to topple that government in quick time because the
more they delay the possibility of Iran becoming a nuclear-weapon state
or Pakistan getting rid of its democracy, increases. They are also worried
that a patriotic government may come in Pakistan and form an alliance
with Iran and other regional countries like Saudi Arabia, Turkey, China
and Russia. This kind of security block is something they're trying to
prevent. This region has many nuclear-weapon states in close proximity.
Russia is a nuclear-weapon state, so are China, Pakistan, India, and Iran is
becoming one. So this region is the most explosive and volatile and of
course the Americans are sitting in the heart of it: In Afghanistan. While
they are reshaping the Middle East, the actual focus of the Americans
would be on Pakistan and on a secondary level, on Iran. In Pakistan, they
have already annihilated the political government. The Pakistani
government is totally pro-American, doing whatever the Americans are
telling them to do.
Another point worth mentioning is that often the world media projects
Pakistan as the epicenter of terror. That Pakistan is a failing state and the
world should take away the nuclear weapons from Pakistan. This would
be the greatest blunder that humanity would commit if Pakistan is brought
under pressure. The civil society, the patriotic elements, and the people
who are seeking the truth- the alternate media, they must see through this
Zionist game.
They must acknowledge the fact that Pakistan remains the last obstacle in
the Israel, Zionists and Neo-cons. expansion plan in the greater Middle
East because Pakistani armed forces train the armed forces of the entire
Middle Eastern Muslim countries. Pakistan in the past has always been
called for help when Israel had attacked Egypt and Syria in 1967and
1974. These countries had requested Pakistan and Pakistani Air defense
units for help. Pakistani fighter pilots went to Egypt
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and Syria and Pakistan is the only Muslim country in the world which
shot down Israeli aircraft in an air to air combat. This is a fact that nobody
knows in the world. That is why the Israelis are terribly scared of
Pakistan. Pakistanis have a history of shooting them down. They have a
history of defending the Arab lands and that is why they say they need
Pakistan. One of the greatest reasons for bogging down Pakistani forces
inside Pakistan was this precise fact that Israel does not want Pakistani
forces to be free to defend Arab Muslim lands when Israel starts to
change the geography of the Muslim world.
Indians have joined hands with the western Zionists in this evil game
against Pakistan. The projection about Pakistan that The Indians also give
in the western media is cunning, evil, and sinister. It is a propaganda
disinformation war against the Pakistani state. They are raising the
western emotions against Pakistan and they want to get Pakistan beaten
up from the west.
In reality Pakistan is not just stabilizing Asia but also the Middle East and
the Greater Middle East. Pakistan exists in the eye of the storm.
Pakistanis are fighting an existential war not just for their own country
but also for the entire Ummah. If Pakistan goes down, Allah forbid, there
is no power on earth stopping Israeli and Hindu Zionists, expanding into
Asia and Middle East. The threats of "Islamic" nuclear weapons are the
balancing factor and the protective shield that Muslim world has.
Muslim world has no other option now but to form a united Islamic
security block. Either we stand united or we fall divided! The threat is not
just for one nation or a few. The entire Ummah is under attack and on the
verge of being annihilated if we don't wake up and rise to forge a united,
aggressive and pro-active defense of our faith, ideology, honor and lands.
We must resist with dignity! There is no other path of honor and glory!
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East and West Sahre a Common World and Must Seek Common …
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East and West Share a Common World and
Must Seek Common Solutions to
Common Problems
Dr.Nikolay Slatinski 
In this article I will examine five aspects of the phenomenon of terrorism.
I. Terrorism - cause or consequence of global insecurity
In my opinion, terrorism should not be defined as the largest, let alone as
the only disturbing problem of our civilization and could not be analyzed
in isolation from other serious problems facing humanity. Terrorism can
be viewed in a much lesser extent as a cause for global insecurity and
escalating chaos in world affairs, and in much greater extent as a
consequence of systemic, structural, cultural and economic failures, and
of growing symmetrical and asymmetrical risks and challenges.
In this sense, we, global community, people of different religions,
cultures, nations should focus on essential causes for the current and
future crises on global and regional level, instead of waging so called
GWOT (Global War on Terrorism), which is totally distinct from real
problems of our world.
The focus of the West on GWOT replaces the actual agenda of our
civilization and wastes precious time and resources, instead of attacking
the most dramatic dangers and threats, which, if they are not adequately
answered, could push the world into chaos and anarchy.
Our fragile Planet is facing serious problems and some of them are really
very worrying:
● Climate change and environmental degradation;
 Associate Professor, Bulgaria.
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● Deepening of the gap between North and South, i.e. between rich and
poor countries;
● Depletion of strategic resources (oil, gas, timber, minerals, drinking
water);
● Overloading of the world with weapons and technologies that can lead
to devastating military conflicts, to natural, anthropogenic and
technogenic disasters, to massive destruction, pandemics and mass
casualties.
These problems are common and we must seek common solutions, based
on common approaches, that unite people of different ethnicities, cultures,
religions and regions, and not divide them and confront each other.
For historical reasons, for its economic and military power, the West (i.e.
the community of most developed countries) has a key position on the
global stage as leading geo-strategical, geo-political, geo-economical, and
recently geo-energetical factor. The West carries an enormous
responsibility for the world development, peace and security. For better or
worse, many of principles, understandings, legal norms that are shared
nowadays as global, are based in a very large extent on the legacy and on
the values of the European (and then Western) civilization: ancient Greek
philosophy, Roman law, Renaissance humanism, the ideas of democracy
and human rights.
This requires from the West an wise approach, strategic leadership and
visionary thinking – only they could allow the West to lead the world on
the way of a smooth and manageable transition from the current uni-polar
geo-political model with a single superpower to a multi-polar, pluralistic
and much more democratic geo-political model.
The dominating ultra-liberal geo-economical model has at least two major
drawbacks:
● First, it is not universal - from this model is benefiting the so-called.
"Golden billion".
● Second, this model consumes irreversibly most of the vital strategic
resources of the world (oil, gas, wood, minerals, water).
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This model is leading our civilization to the abyss. But the existential
problem is that on the ―playing field‖ and under the rules of this ultraliberal geo-economical model the West can not be defeated. This is the
West type of Game, and in this Game the West is the best player. This
determines the unique mission and responsibility of the West: leaders of
the Western world must find political courage to work for the
transformation of current unjust and dangerous model to a much more just
and sparing our planet resources model of economic development. We
need a model for further development in which the serious risks and
challenges can be at least to some extent manageable and put under
control. If the West does not find leaders who can work for a different
type of development, and if Western politicians continue lead the West
(and the whole world) on the same suicide way, only because it is
profitable for the West and because they do not possess the necessary
political courage, the world's future looks very pessimistic.
We must realize that we are all in the same boat and that states and
peoples are increasingly interdependent and interrelated. It is no longer
possible to believe that the problems of one separate community, or state,
or religion, or civilization are only its own internal problems - they are
common problems. We need to realize that the time for finding
sustainable and workable solutions to global problems is running out. The
question that stands before humanity is the question of Hamlet: To be or
Not to be.
II. Terrorism vs. Islam
Current development poses many injustices, and hundreds of millions,
billions of people feel deprived, discriminated, threatened because of the
way our world is functioning.
But we will not be able to find a safer, more sustainable and more humane
geopolitical and geo-economic model of our world if we start on the path
of confrontation and use the language of hatred. We should go and work
together and only together for a lasting, effective and just peace.
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We have to build bridges, not barricades. We have to find common
language for common solutions of our common problems.
Of course there exist many differences and distinctions among different
states, religions, politics and worldviews, but for me it would be much
better to try to understand each other instead of finger-pointing and
labelling the other as the Other. Because when the other becomes the
Other it is much more easier to thing on him as Evil, as Devil.
We need dialogue, because 100 monologues are not equal to 1 dialogue.
We can work much better when we seek what unites different Peoples,
States, Policies and Religions, instead of focusing on what divides them!
It is not the best idea to think that:
● We do the right things, and They do the wrong things;
● We are good gays, and They are bad gays;
● Our ideology is the correct one, and Their ideology is incorrect;
● Our religion is the true one, and Their religion is untrue.
As I said - we need not the Language of Hatred – it divides Me against
You. We need the Language of the Synergy, based on the ―We‖-power.
My home country Bulgaria is an excellent example for an inter-religious
cooperative behaviour with her model of common living of Christians and
Muslims. This model is based on tolerance, cooperation, mutual respect.
Majority of Bulgarians are Orthodox Christians, but we have
democratically elected Muslims in parliament, government, local
authorities. Our country respects the number of Muslim poets, writers,
artists, actors and sportsmen.
As a sincere friend of Iran and Iranian people, as a person brought up to
respect the opinions and believes of others, I will sincerely admit that I
feel a sense that among many of my Muslim colleagues exists some kind
of a strong conviction that the West and the world as a whole appear too
biased negative attitude towards the great religion of Islam and towards
the Muslims. Some scholars, professors, experts even speak and write
openly about the existence of a conspiracy of the West against Islam, and
that the West is almost striving to destroy the Islamic world. Over the past
few years this gave a strong emotional coloration of several conferences
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and other scientific and professional meetings, and occasionally replaced
the creative atmosphere of these expert gatherings with the exaltation of a
political rally, at which speak no reason and science, but emotions and
passions.
But I am convinced that there exist no global conspiracy against Islam
and its believers! Vast majority of the Christian world (Protestant,
Catholic and Orthodox) relates with the sincere respect to the world of
Islam and sees in its face a great community of partners, friends, brothers
and sisters.
To believe that terrorism is fought on Christian religious grounds and
seeks to destroy the Islamic world - it's too easy an explanation of very
complex problems.
No doubt, there are some hidden, invisible objectives behind the war
against terrorism, as well as outright economic interests, associated with
the strategic resources such as oil and gas. But to this war must not be
attributed plans and ambitions for a new crusade! By doing so, among
other things, people who carry this propaganda mislead and misinform
Islamic societies first of all. This wastes energy, which could be used
otherwise for solving some of internal problems of these societies.
In my view to see the Islamic world as a victim of global conspiracy is a
blunder. With such explanations some people could gain mass support,
but their societies will face the risk of not seeing the whole truth.
Christianity and Islam are partners, not enemies! Anyone who tries to
hound Christianity and Islam against each other in the war against
terrorism, in practice ranks in the camp of terrorists.
Instead to give a platform to extreme ideas, radical propaganda and
aggressive positions (both in the West and in the East, both in the
Christian and in the Islamic world), we should give a chance to people
who lead a policy of the outstretched hand, to individuals with an
independent opinion who do not say what political and religious leaders
want to hear but say what respective nations must hear.
Let me say again and again - whenever you are looking primarily what
connects people and less focus on what divides them, then inevitably
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arises a sense of community, of need of each other, of attachment to each
other.
Each individual, every nation must make an analysis of its life, of its good
features and its shortcomings. The answer for most worrying issues is
very often not outside us but inside us.
Our world is too small to divide it among ourselves, we must share it together and jointly.
But when we talk about terrorism, we must be both critical and truthful,
both anxious and objective.
Ideologies and religions in itself (unless they are fascist, obscurantist and
misanthrope) are not guilty for the escalating acts of un-human and
mediaeval actions of brutality. Guilty for that are those who use these
ideologies and religions as tools to breed violence in the name of political,
economic, social or other objectives – no matter strategic or tactical, no
matter local, regional, continental or global…
At the same time we should not turn a blind eye to real problems of
terrorism facing the world, the different religions, including Christianity
and Islam – such as:
● acts of suicide bombings (many performed by women);
● usage of religious symbols in some hideous brutal actions – for
example in beheading of hostages;
● promotion of religious ideas about holy war for recruiting terrorists and
motivating them to commit acts of destructive violence;
● gloat of some communities when other communities have been
subjected to acts of terrorism, etc.
Debating such issues would benefit all and would make us stronger in
combating terrorism, in its rejection as a means to achieve any goals and
purposes.
No one religion should be accused, that she breeds terrorism and preaches
violence. Religion is a delicate thing, one should not trample with boots
on the raw nerves of the believers and we should respect each religion –
as I said in their deepest essence all big religions are humanistic.
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However, we should carefully analyze why societies of certain great,
philanthropic, compassionate religions allow small radical groups to use
these religions in order to justify and motivate their terrorist acts. Every
religion has to find strength and truthfulness to neutralize and condemn
the terrorists who parasitize on her ideas and in that way discredit her in
the eyes of one part of humanity.
III. Terrorism and Just Peace
Just Peace Paradigm is full of deep content, it is extremely timely and
useful and everything has to be done to develop it as a theory and to
implement it in practice.
We must strive not for any kind of peace but for a just peace. The West is
not always deep enough considering and rationalizing this view.
Tying in a common theme of both the War on Terrorism and the strategy
for achieving Just Peace brings us to the following considerations:
Wars are among the greatest evils of mankind. But generally wars (armed
conflicts) can be divided into two types:
● Unjust Wars.
● Just Wars.
Europe and the West in general have done very much to develop
philosophically the paradigm of Just War. The basics of this paradigm
were the intellectual searches of the First Modern European - Saint
Augustine, who formulated the idea that Just is the war which is fought
for a just cause.
This idea was developed further and its common principles has been
established (down in two groups, respectively Low of war and Law in war
- Jus ad bellum and Jus in bello).
Interestingly, in the early Middle Ages, in the ancient lands of Bulgaria,
the Bogomils (a spiritual movement, close to Manichaeism and
alternative to the official religion) made an outstanding contribution to the
theory of Just War, formulating the principle that even the Just war must
be fought in a just way.
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Principles of Just war can be applied to the use of violence in achieving
political objectives. Need for that stems from a question with regard to
terrorism that remains open and with sharp disputes and contradictions:
abound the boundary between Terrorism and the Fight for freedom.
If we reject any use of violence, then what must do people who have
exhausted all peaceful means of liberation, of achievement of their goals,
aspirations and ideals?
I think that when we try to clarify what is terrorism, the emphasis in the
use of violence should be placed not only on question "Is violence
applied?", but also on question "Why is violence applied?".
Now I can formulate my working hypothesis:
Those who use violence to achieve political objectives, can generally be
divided into two groups:
● Terrorists.
● Freedom Fighters.
When violence is applied to impose somebody‘s will, culture, ideology
and identity over the others, to create chaos, to destroy the normal course
of things, then we could speak about Terrorists.
When violence is applied to achieve freedom (from slavery, from
oppression by foreign state, from imposition of foreign culture, religion,
identity, ideology), then we could speak about Freedom fighters.
Under the prevailing thinking of the American elite, any violence applied
to achieve political goals (of course – political goals that do not meet the
U.S. interests) is terrorism. In such an approach the only asked question
is: "Is violence applied?".
The European approach is as a rule different - a huge part of the European
elites is asking the another question "Why is violence applied?".
And here it becomes clear that both approaches are in extreme - the
American approach, because it is not interested in the objectives, but only
in the means applied to achieve them; and the European approach –
because it is interested only in the objectives, but not in the means applied
to achieve them. Obviously, the European approach could mean that if the
objectives are noble, progressive, patriotic, all means for achieving them
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are acceptable. Then each rogue or terrorist could raise a higher purpose
and use violence and commit brutal acts of terrorism.
The outcome of this dilemma is given again by the logic of Bogomils, i.e.
in pursuit of just objectives one must act in a just manner.
This means that between freedom fighters and terrorists there is a thin
dividing line and it is passing through the full, explicit, categorical
UNACCEPTABILITY OF DESTROYING - intentionally! – the life, the
health and property of innocent people, as well OF ATTACKING on a
particular kind of infrastructure – e.g. hospitals, religious facilities,
schools and universities, as well dams, nuclear plants and others.
I am firmly convinced that using terrorism is impossible to change an
unjust peace into a just one. Even in achieving Just Peace we must
achieve it in a just way. Only achieved by just means peace is truly just.
Let me add a little more about Just Peace.
In the West, when we think about Peace, we consider it as a special, vital,
necessarily value - as a value in itself. We believe that the presence of
peace is enough to ensure the normal life of society – life without
violence and coercion, with freedom and stability. And we ascribe to
Peace only positive qualities.
But the existence of Peace does not automatically lead to the realization
of all these positive qualities which we ascribe to Peace. Without any
doubt, even peace, if it's unfair, can suppress people and deprive them of
freedom and future. Peace is not the end of the process, but its beginning.
Peace is only a prerequisite, it is necessary but not sufficient condition for
a better, safer, more stable life.
The rich, the powerful, the advanced, the successful seeks Peace in order
to realize his own advantages, to reap the results of these advantages.
Meanwhile, the poor, the weak, the developing (the underdeveloped), the
unsuccessful can not enjoy Peace if this Peace maintains, "conserves" its
shortcomings and deficiencies and doesn‘t bring him prosperity, security,
stability.
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For the West Peace is a quantitative value, i.e. the more peace – the
better. But for the East and-or for the developing countries Peace is much
more a qualitative value, measured by justice.
West really needs to understand that developing countries want not just a
peace, but a just peace. Any peace which doom these countries to slow or
no development, to doubtful or difficult to achieve perspectives is not a
desired value for them because such kind of incomplete peace is seen by
them as a continuation of the old policy (colonial, robbing, exploiting,
seizing, repressive), but with other means.
Of course, the establishment of Just Peace is a question our mankind
could not answer so far for 70-90 centuries. Great politics always have
been in favour of the stronger: internationally - in favour of the most
developed countries; at national level - in favour of the richest groups.
In this sense, to believe that it is possible quickly to achieve peace for
everyone and just peace for all is tantamount to utopia. The main what we
should do, however, is to endeavour to build more just and more solidary
relations among states and among social groups within states.
If the states and peoples could realize how fragile and vulnerable our
world is and how quickly it could collapse into chaos and anarchy, then
humanity could go towards the Kantian Perpetual Peace where resolutions
of the conflicts will be sought by peaceful means and where common
goals, common values and common interests will be placed above
individual corporate, group, private and selfish interests.
Now the most important thing is to begin to form, to shape, to create, to
develop a new culture of thinking about the future and destiny of our
world. This culture must be based on awareness of the 4 critical
limitations:
● limitation 1 - of resources at our disposal;
● limitation 2 - of time for decision making;
● limitation 3 – of opportunities to manage escalating risks;
● limitation 4 – of scenarios that could lead the world out of the global
crisis and could guarantee the survival of our planet.
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IV. Terrorism as a problem of global and regional security
Terrorism is not a new phenomenon - it accompanied mankind
throughout its history from ancient centuries to modern times.
Now, however, more and more today terrorism is but one of asymmetric
responses to current global asymmetries.
Such polarizing asymmetries - in wealth, influence, military power,
quality of life, prospects and hopes are "preserved" in the established
geopolitical and geo-economical status quo, which constantly generates
instability, insecurity, injustice and immorality.
At the same time we must be clearly aware that the change of nowadays
destructive status quo can be done in two ways.
● One way is this to be done from "top", from ―above‖ and by legal
means - through dialogue between states, through modernization of
existing organizations and international relations, through finding
pluralistic, sustainable alternatives to current political, military, economic,
financial and social asymmetries.
● Another way is this to happen from "bottom", from ―below‖ and by
illegal means - through violence, through crime and terrorism.
The first way to change the status quo sounds idealistic, but this is the
only opportunity for manageable and sustainable exit from the current
global - political, economic, social, cultural and moral - crisis.
The second way is the darkest possible scenario in which the medicine for
the disease is worse than the disease itself.
Tragically, those elites and leaders who want to use terrorism as a
strategic instrument and to turn it into a weapon to achieve their interests
are not at all a few.
Different individuals and communities of people are incited ideologically
or inspired religiously to commit acts of terrorism by some leaders, by
some organized groups or by some states, which are incapable to find the
right ways for their societies and instead of that offer easy, but impossible
solutions to all these complex and intractable problems.
These leaders, organized groups and states give to desperate individuals
or communities of people simple explanation for their marginalization,
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for their failures in the struggle for surviving or modernizing, for their
social or intellectual misery, for their status of outsiders.
There were, are and will be states, which use their might, their military
capacity for the achievement of their aims and objectives on the Grand
World Chessboard, and their use of force and violence is too often a form
of imperial behaviour that can be compared to terrorism.
There are many studies of individuals (―kamikaze‖) who resort to suicide
actions. Their motives may be different - psychological, social,
ideological, religious. These people are generally a means for others. It is
essential that countries and societies must not tolerate and nurture such
culture of death and of ritual suicide, and must not celebrate these
terrorists as national heroes.
At the same time, we must attack the deep roots of terrorism such as
poverty, underdevelopment, exploitation, poor education and health,
repressive regimes, crumbling statehood, poor environment, crime and
insecurity. We should carefully treat these impairments of societies which
push many people to the social bottom and make them feel themselves
totally powerless. Some of these desperate and doomed people deceive
themselves that by terrorist acts they could use the power of their
powerless to avenge more powerful people and make them feel
powerless. So suicide men or women imagine that they mete out
retribution and in this way interchange the places and roles of victim and
executioner.
Terrorism, and organized crime as well, must in no case be
underestimated!
We are faced with different scenarios of development and one of them is
a gradual interlacing of the networks of organized crime and terrorism
and their transformation into geo-strategic factor. If this combined
network structure, Organized Crime & Terrorism Network (let's call it
OCTopus-N structure) is undervalued and put out of Pandora's box, it
could bring real claim to its role as one of the poles in the future grand
geopolitical game.
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Networks of organized crime and terrorism are like cobwebs: flexible and
mutating, highly adaptive kernels and nuts such as sects and secret
brotherhoods, quickly learning new communication technologies and
fluently manipulating both human communities and individuals. These
networks are becoming a state without territory or a territory without
state. They operate with increasingly large and inexhaustible resources.
Organised crime and terrorism "write" sounding headlines in the media
and command the cameras where and what to reflect. They are ingenious
in violence, they have a monopoly over time and space in which they
operate, they have constantly changing forms, methods, objectives,
resources for optimal impact. We - the normal states, democratic
societies, reasonable people - are re-active, they are pro-active.
At the same time democratic forces in each country must be vigilant not
to allow political elites to use the war against terrorism as a pretext for
strengthening their power over their societies - by creating a powerful
police, powerful special and other types of repressive services.
There is a real danger, that infatuated in the global war on terrorism
(when societies and individual citizens are inclining to allow their rights
to be limited in the name of more security), we could face someday a
situation, when under the slogan of combating terrorism the elites have
created force structures, ready to serve them for protection against all who
disagree with their excessive power.
Political, cultural, scientific, religious leaders, opinion leaders, leaders of
local communities have a special role in the enlightenment of the
societies, in raising of public culture, in finding of a new language positive, modern, turn not to the past, but to future.
Every society needs values, principles, objectives and ideals. Leaders,
religious scholars, intellectuals, scientists must explain to their societies
that there is no incompatibility between values and cultures of different
nations. They should stimulate creative, joint and creative thinking and
not build the image of the enemy.
The world today is facing many serious problems. These problems can
not be solved by intuition, improvisation, propaganda and public
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relations. They must be dealt with extremely intense mental efforts, with
strong participation of science, with a lot of will and perseverance.
At this moment of truth leaders can no longer rely on unlimited populism,
they can not go behind or together with their nations and seek only to
meet their daily needs. Leaders are therefore leaders - to lead their
nations, to be in front of them, to help them see not one day, one month or
one year ahead, but to see 10-20 years ahead, i.e. to see to the horizon and
beyond.
Very often the leaders - political, religious, intellectual, scientific - prefer
to lead obedient, disciplined people who blindly obey their will. Leaders
now need competent, engaged, active and enlightened people who think
critically, who see themselves not only as a part of problems, but as a part
of the solutions to these problems.
Our World is experiencing urgent need of a new type of leadership strategic thinkers and visionaries, global security managers, bold, modern
and highly educated individuals. Only with such leaders serious
challenges, facing the world could be overcome.
Nowadays the world is full of conflicts. But the vast majority of these
conflicts are not among nations, among cultures, among religions, among
civilizations. The overwhelming majority of these conflicts are among the
elites of the states, they are in the heads of the leaders of these states.
If earlier leaders needed conflicts to rally their people behind themselves,
now, in today's landmark time, leaders need peace, they need just peace
because only in those circumstances, they can mobilize their peoples to
prove worthy of the challenges they face.
Leaders of great religions of the world must recognize their role not only
as leaders of their religions, but also as leaders of the world. They must
preach the values of peace, cooperation and mutual respect. They must
not tolerate terrorism and terrorists. They should not allow religious
temples to become shelters and hangouts for terrorists. They should not
insult other religions and accuse them of all possible sins and crimes.
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V. World and terrorism – the way ahead
After the Cold War the World is highly changed, changed is the very
paradigm of security.
In place of the old Westphalian world of nation-states comes a new,
globalized world. When the old order is collapsing, the good old
organizations which were the foundation of that gone old world order
have to find energy and strength to transform themselves and come up
with the times in order to be the basis and the new world order. Or they
would inevitable drop out and dye slowly and on their place will come
new - more relevant – organizations of this new world order. Of course, it
is possible to have another, much more grimmer scenario – when the
disorder occurs.
Therefore, the United Nations should be changed and filled with new
content, new mission and new role. The UN organization needs radical
and democratic reforms to keep its place as the key institution for global
security. Otherwise the UN will remain a lifeless relic of past times.
Especially dramatic disagrees with reality the Security Council of the UN
- of the 5 members with veto power 4 are Christian states, 3 are NATO
members, 2 are members of the EU. Whole continents, great civilizations,
large states are excluded from the permanent members of the Security
Council. This erodes the legitimacy of the UN and reduces its credibility.
There can be no just peace if the main organization, existing to ensure
that just peace is not just constructed and by its structure and rules of
action actually discriminates against the vast majority of the world
humanity.
Security is now common, shared and indivisible – it exists for everybody
or nobody has it. Terrorism is a negation of both democracy and security,
and war against should not face us to the unsolvable dilemma
"Democracy or Security". Proper counter-terrorism means "Democracy
and Security. "
We strive not just towards a world free from terrorism but towards a
democratic world free of terrorism. The sharp limitation of democratic
freedoms may facilitate the war against terrorism, but it would be a
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victory for terrorists - because they fight against our values and ideas,
against our faith in God, in justice, in democracy, in rule of law, in human
rights. It is strange that lately, those who have taught us democracy, are
willing to teach us how to limit democracy - because of more effective
counter-terrorism.
Security goes hand in hand with freedom and human rights. And we
should not think that less security means more freedom, and that less
freedom means more security.
For many of our current troubles we blame globalization. But
globalization should not be demonized, but humanized. We need to
rethink the globalization and its challenges. We should seek solutions to
globalization problems in a peaceful, equitable, ecological and sustainable
manner. And most important of these problems is the problem of the
development of the world.
Development today poses many injustices, inequalities and double
standards. Security is inseparable connected with the development.
Without development there is no security and there is no security without
development. The question before us is - what development we really
need? We do not need any development, but development that generates
security, i.e. sustainable development.
We need a global culture of solidarity, empathy and mutual assistance.
This global culture does not only mean the treatment of damages from
major disasters, but also modernization of lagging behind regions,
strategies for catching up (accelerated) development and efforts to
overcome political, social and environmental shortcomings.
It is important to understand that the strategies for aid and development
can not be intrusive. Development and democratization, modernization
and models of state building must be recognized by the nations to whom
they are directed and those nations should accept them peacefully as a
better alternative, and without fear that by these means, advises,
investment and models their identity, integrity, culture and traditions are
under threat.
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If we want to overcome the dark prophecy for the imminent and
unavoidable Clash of civilizations we should begin to consider a new
process analogous to the Process of Helsinki (in the 70‘s of 20th century),
which did so much to reduce fatal tensions between two antagonistic
systems of capitalism and socialism.
We must unite around the following understandings, which will allow us
to build a qualitatively new anti-terrorist and pro-peace culture:
(1) The world needs Dialogue of Civilizations. To build trust between
different civilizations, however, we should not perceive reality according
to our own attitudes, stereotypes and prejudices, but according to reality
as it is; we need to hear through the ears and see through the eyes of
others - with more ethnic and religious, ethical and cultural sensitivity.
(2) No one religion should be accused, that she breeds terrorism and
preaches violence.
(3) Terrorism is a complex, multi-faceted phenomenon. Actually there is
not one and only one terrorism, but many terrorisms, various terrorisms.
Every terrorism must be understood in its unique cultural, ethical,
religious, social, historical and political context.
(4) We should not put an equal sign between freedom fighters and
terrorists
(5) It is necessary to strengthen further the leading role of UN in
combating terrorism.
(6) There is a pressing need for reforming and transformation of other
existing international and regional organizations and for strengthening of
the cooperation between them.
(7) All UN member states should accede to existing international legal
instruments for combating terrorism and a comprehensive convention
against international terrorism should be adopted.
(8) Countries that harbour terrorists or sponsor terrorism should be most
energetically condemned and punished be sanctions imposed by the
Security Council of UN.
(9) Rehabilitation measures and strict control are needed towards the
failed and failing states.
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(10) We should not restrain ourselves only with efforts to combat the
terrorism, but must attack first of all the root causes of terrorism.
(11) Although the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals is
so far extremely insufficient, all possible measures must be taken reach as
many of these targets by 2015.
(12) Much more intensive efforts are needed to dry up the financial roots
of terrorism and to counter the interlacing and symbiosis of terrorism and
organized crime networks.
(13) Much more important becomes the role of education in all its aspects
and especially in the sphere of culture, religion, literacy, in the
termination of educational practices in many countries where children
learn to hate peoples, religions and cultures different from them.
(14) Developed societies must make much more efforts to integrate
immigrants and to raise their physical, social and psychological status.
Tackling Internalised Racism and the Terrorist Agenda of …
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Tackling Internalised Racism and the
Terrorist Agenda of
Divide and Rule
Arzu Merali 
Abstract
In order to develop a co-operative strategy against "terrorism", this
paper argues that those concerned with challenging it need to address
how terrorism is understood by themselves and the communities they
serve. This paper contends that internalised racism is the elephant in
the room, when these issues are discussed in terms of international
relations, diplomacy and civil society movements.
Defined in its simplest form as a form of self-hatred that results from
the constant bombardment of negativity surrounding one's identity and
culture, and the superiority of "white" "European" culture, internalised
racism is known to impact on the health and well-being of minority
individuals AND communities.
This paper seeks to apply the characteristics and impacts of this
process of internalisation to thinking and praxis of transnational
communities of faith and colour, including states that are defined as
"outside" the norms and standards of "white" "European" international
diplomacy and relations.
We need to look at how being mutes or a muted group as a state of
minority being, is in fact transforming into Internalised Racism and its
impacts.
This paper argues that whilst racism that creates the various, health,
education and intra-community violent outcomes for minorities is
systemic and institutionalised, the security discourse that has
developed in the last decade, actually actively seeks to promote this
 Member of the Islamic Human Rights Commission.
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internalisation as a way of controlling not only minority communities
but global communities that pose a threat to current power
hegemonies. Policies implemented by Western governments have
consciously sought to stigmatise and devalue normative thinking that
deviates from the hegemonic norm, resulting in compliant civil society
and governmental actors in the developing world.
More needs to be done to address how Internalised Racism also
permeates how marginalised communities as states or international
actors (NGOs, IGOs etc) deal with international diplomacy, as well as
between themselves. This paper contends that an internalisation of
racism is a core cause of internecine, sectarian conflict and bloodshed,
even undermining of universal causes e.g. the liberation of Palestine.
Just as various strategies have been developed to combat internalised
racism as part of various civil rights struggles, so this paper argues,
must NAM and Muslims states and movements come to terms with
the operation of such prejudice in their thinking and look to develop
solutions that value cultures, faiths and ways of thinking that do not
reflect an external „norm‟ that devalues all else.
-------------------------------Notes on 'Whiteness'
This paper avers to the term white. This term does not denote skin colour
but rather refers to a state of mind exhibited by supremacist cultures that
claim variously Christian, liberal, Western, enlightened, European ideals
and values. They form the opposite that the black consciousness
movement of Steve Biko and SASO (Biko, 1987) tried to counter. More
aptly, in his introduction to the work of Steven T Newcomb (2008), Peter
d'Errico writes:
―This is not a statement about skin color. It is a statement about
demographics and the historical development of a conceptual framework.
Indeed, the white man's imagination has spread to the minds of many who
are not white. The target of critique is a metaphorical, rather than literal,
whiteness. It's about a way of thinking, not the color of the people who
think that way.‖
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Who understands terrorism and how?
Terrorism is a glib term that has been used repeatedly in the last 30 years
to often but not solely to describe Muslim resistance groups. The criteria
used to define what a terrorist is usually vague both in philosophical
terms but also legal terms. Various reports and briefings by Fahad Ansari
(2005, 2006) indicate how far and all encompassing the last decade worth
of legal definitions of terrorism and supporting terrorism can mean.
Sitting on a platform with a supposed terrorist even if it is to oppose them
can mean you are guilty of a terrorist offence and therefore also a
terrorist. Likewise a text quoted by a Muslim in an academic context can
see that person arrested and convicted whilst a non-Muslim can quote
with impunity.
These are the peculiarities and hypocrisy of extant laws and the
definitions imposed by Western governments. They are not new. Scroll
back 40 years these were applied to the Irish in the UK, scroll back a
century and more, these were applied to Native Americans in what is now
called the USA. The responses to this by activists, NGOs etc who would
oppose such definitions if often and understandably along the lines of one
man's terrorist is a freedom fighter, or pointing out the hypocrisy of
applications, or pointing out the bigger crimes committed by
governments. They are all legitimate responses, but they do not take us
any nearer a definition of terrorism. Indeed they suggest that "terrorism"
is not only an abstract concept but pathologically subjective. There is no
core basic characteristic that can define any number of phenomenon as
terrorist and there is no intrinsic idea of terror as a bad thing.
Another set of reactions, which includes those of states, which is to
happily accept these deifinitions when they target those we believe to be
terrorist, whilst oppose them as perverse when they apply to resistance
movements. Whilst this also has validity it does not take us out of the
bind that we are still battling terms set by others who do not have an
interest in understanding terror as a universal concept or one that can be
derived through an understanding of the oppressed / objectively decided.
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Thirdly there is the internalisation of all these definitions and the
arguments that precede them and we are witnessing this in the UK at least
with the younger generation and its so-called leadership. This will be
discussed in fuller detail below, because there is a link between how those
who have been fighting for social justice and global justice issues have
conducted their discussions and the effects of internalisation upon
significant sections of global society.
If we are really seeking to work cooperatively to end terrorism or
diminish its effects, we need to be able to break out of the cycle of
definitions described before. A number of approaches need to be pursued,
one of which includes asking people what they believe terrorism to be.
This approach has been used cautiously because there is a perception that
by asking this you will get a mob mentality response, as if everyone, at
least everyone e.g. in the western world may answer as those who rather
disgracefully partied at Ground Zero upon news of Osama Bin Laden‟s
death, or as if their answers will mirror some sort of Nazi rhetoric. Even if
true, using the idea that numerical superiority of answers, is somehow an
indicator of right and righteousness – a democracy of definition.
Firstly – this is impressionistic and needs to be scientifically tested, but
the author contends we may still be surprised at the multiplicity of voices
that exist. More importantly however is the rejection of the notion of
some sort of "democratic decision making" with regards to Tackling
internalised racism and the terrorist agenda of divide and rule definitions.
We as activists and those concerned in academia with issues of justice
that go beyond the rhetoric of Capitol Hill or Whitehall have certain
notions. If we believe freedom fighters have been mislabelled terrorists
then we believe some people, somewhere, maybe even we, are unfree. By
being unfree and therefore in our estimation having the right to resist,
even with force, we must be recognising that what they oppose oppresses
them. That oppression – even the use of that word – is often disregarded.
It is often discussed as the possible cause of "terrorism" e.g. we have the
ongoing fight between activists and government in the UK over the 7/7
bombers and their motivations: governments have foisted the idea that
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they hated "our way of life" on us (Blair, 2005; Cameron, 2011).
Whereas, the bombers e.g. the 7/7 bombers, themselves and those who
seek the bigger picture, indeed some who support them would say it is
because of the US / UK allied war in Afghanistan and Iraq (Siddique
Khan, 2005; Briggs et al, 2006; Brigg & Birdwell, 2009). So that
oppression is deemed the cause of their acts of terrorism. Speak to
someone on the ground in Afghanistan and Iraq and they may well define
terrorism not as or solely as the acts of those of 7/7 but of the actual
oppression itself. So we fall into the realm of states as terrorists. However
this is also problematised by the use of such terms in political slanging
matches. What makes it perhaps less subjective or superficial are the any
number of normative lenses through which we can analyse the acts of
states.
Both international law, and concrete systems of Islamic thought can be
used to measure – to coin a common phrase "Who the Real Terrorist are".
If we are to take oppression – systemic and systematic – as opposed to
individual or small group acts, as the basis of a definition of terrorism,
then we need to expand beyond the idea of mass or individual acts of
physical violence as the sole expression and determiner of what
oppression is. Violence can be emotional, it can be psychological and it
can operate on a community or society wide level.
Before proceeding, a first recommendation is placed here because it
addresses the core of the foregoing – naming the problem. There is an
Islamic narrative of Haq and Batil and of oppressed and oppressor. When
discussing "terrorism" there isn't a problem in averring to Quranic
concepts. They do translate often in the main and not just the particular
because these are universal concepts. Of course there are differences, but
there are universal understandings. Making the links between then and
now, or the cosmic narrative may be lampooned by some, but – and this is
a key concern – by not openly doing so, by dressing up concerns as
somehow other than divinely inspired, the de-Islamitisation process is
legitimised by our own communication praxis, whether public, political or
academi, which is then furthered at the grassroots level by the
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internalisation of other societal issues. Essentially a recommendation is
posited here before the main problem is fully indetified.
What is internalised racism?
There is little utility in rehashing Fanon (2001) here. His
conceptualisation of the processes of subjugation, ensuing internecine
violence, the creation of a liberal class of native that speak as "native
informants" to the oppressed in socialising any transformative movement
to the norms of the colonial power inevitably white, European and
Christian. The author wishes to focus on how civil rights organisations
define the operation of internalised racism among minority communities,
because this is where in the West at least the battle for definition and
freedom from being defined / restrained / suppressed exists. It takes
Fanon's descriptions of the psychological impact of internalisation of the
racist norms of colonialism and reapplies them to contemporary situations
at the local and global levels. In particular it looks at internalised racism
as not simply the effect of systemic racism bit a systemic form of
oppression that is deliberately utilised to further suppress "people of
color" "minorities" "Muslims" etc.
The term has both academic applicability and usage amongst civil rights
movements – mainly in the USA. The academic literature focuses
predominantly on the physical and mental health effects (Tull et al, 1999
etc.), as well as on destructive behaviours including intra-community
violence and crime (Bruce, 2006). There are also several works that raise
the issue of self-identification through internalised racism and the
monitoring and control of social behaviour (Pyke & Dang, 2003)
The Women's Theological Centre (WTC, 1995) is one of several local
organisations which, while dealing with intracommunity issues, sees the
operation of this in a global context.
Internalised racism is:
―... the situation that occurs in a racist system when a racial group
oppressed by racism supports the supremacy and dominance of the
dominating group by maintaining or participating in the set of attitudes,
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behaviors, social structures and ideologies that undergird the dominating
group's power„. It involves at least four essential and interconnected
elements:
1. Decision-making
Due to racism, people of color do not have the ultimate decision-making
power over the decisions that control our lives and resources. As a result,
on a personal level, we may think white people know more about what
needs to be done for us than we do. On an interpersonal level, we may not
support each other's authority and power – especially if it is in opposition
to the dominating racial group. Structurally, there is a system in place that
rewards people of color who support white supremacy and power and
coerces or punishes those who do not.
2. Resources
Resources, broadly defined (e.g. money, time, salaried work etc), are
unequally in the hands and under the control of white people. Internalized
racism is the system in place that makes it difficult for people of color to
get access to resources for our own communities and to control the
resources of our community. We learn to believe that serving and using
resources for ourselves and our particular community is not serving
―everybody.‖ There is also often a self-imposed barrier that makes it
difficult for us to respectfully access the resources of other peoples,
particularly other peoples of color.
3. Standards
With internalized racism, the standards for what is appropriate or
"normal" that people of color accept are white people's or Eurocentric
standards. We have difficulty naming, communicating and living up to
our deepest standards and values, and holding ourselves and each other
accountable to them. Too often, we instead grab onto standards set in
reaction to the abuse of systemic racism.
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4. Naming the problem
There is a system in place that misnames the problem of racism as a
problem of or caused by people of color and blames the disease emotional, economic, political, etc. - on people of color. With internalized
racism, people of color might, for example, believe we are more violent
than white people and not consider state-sanctioned political violence or
the hidden or privatized violence of white people and the systems they put
in place and support.‖
In their opinion, the effect and impact of these is effectively divide and
rule of disparate communities under a supremacist culture. Importantly,
this divide and rule actually fosters violence between subjugated
communities. Whilst these discussions of internalised racism have taken
place within nation state contexts, it is important to test the parallels in
transnational communities, particularly within civil society and the
putative political classes of the marginalised world / South / periphery.
This paper has already outlined how (4) control of language and the
discursive practice of the dominant group (Hall cited in Ameli et al, 2007)
have a symbiotic relationship which marks out any discussion of
"terrorism" and the quest for a just peace, in a way that must be tackled by
non-dominant groups if they are really to take the initiative in controlling
their lives and reducing / eradicating unjust violence.
If we take each of WTC‟s terms and apply to current discourse in simply
the UK Muslim communities vis a vis definitions of terrorism and the
relationship between Muslim civil society and government, this gives us
an idea of how even in just one national context we see how the idea of
"terrorism" has become a defining feature of minority suppression –
ostensibly Muslims, but arguable of other minorities and political
dissidents – and which then is intimately linked to oppression committed
"abroad".
Decision-making
A "Know Your Rights" leaflet initiative in the UK by IHRC was launched
in the wake of the successive anti-terrorism laws, resulting in three
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leaflets. A counter leaflet was produced by a government approved
organisation, one of whose key members was the Chair of secular rights
organisation Liberty. That leaflet was entitled Know "Your Rights and
Responsibilities" and outlined how Muslims should show responsibility
vis a vis the current security situation.
The leaflet was heavily promoted by government agencies, and was seen
as more appropriate than the IHRC leaflet which was criticised for
allowing potential terrorists to use the law to their advantage by some
white judges and police officers. Alarmingly this narrative then led to a
major Muslim organisation developing the Know Your Rights and
Responsibilities leaflet, to essentially assuage but also capitalise on the
narrative of white power.
The author is unaware as to how far the other leaflet was directly or
indirectly influenced by government or the mainstream secular rights
organisation, however it is clear that the conditionality of Muslim
citizenship exhibited in the second leaflet – that they have peculiar
responsibilities as citizens vis a vis terrorism than other citizens – is one
that was accepted by a major Muslim organisation and promoted through
its network of some 400 mosques in the UK.
The same organisation in 2004 after the Madrid train bombings issued a
letter to all mosques in the UK advising and asking Muslims in the UK to
report anything suspicious to the police. This emphasised in the public
psyche and enhanced the stereotypes and association of variously:
 The mosque as a potential site of terrorist plot, and a base for terrorists
 Muslims – particularly practising Muslims – as terrorists
 Islam – as a source of terrorism
By contrast, just as the IHRC leaflets were universal and had applicability
to all, a letter issued after the Madrid bombings by a London coalition of
Muslim organisations asked for prayers and calm after the event. The
difference prompted this critique by Shadjareh (2004):
―It's the difference between being a part of society, however marginalised,
and perpetuating the idea that you are an unruly guest, your stay
determined by different conditions than for everyone else.‖
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In recent conversation with Muslim activists from Australia, the author
was advised that one Muslim organisation took the Know Your Rights
leaflet example to the main civil rights organisation in the country with a
proposal to do a joint leaflet applicable to the Australian context. They
were advised that it would be more "appropriate" to do a Know Your
Rights and Responsibilities leaflet.
It appears then that the idea of civil and political rights has different
conditions visa v is minorities and particularly Muslims. By nor
succumbing to this, Muslims and other marginalised communities can
effect small acts of autonomy. The trend amongst mainstream Muslim /
minority organisations however has been the opposite. Their critique of
those not accepting the dominant narrative succumb to the idea that only
white power and dominant culture know what is best for us.
Similar conclusions can be drawn vis a vis other issues not related irectly
to a security discourse. In response to a request to review the findings of
Ameli et al (2006b) on Muslim expectations regarding law in the UK, one
potential reviewer - a Muslim legal specialist – stated she could not
promote the recommendations, based on the qualitative research that for
those Muslims who wished for it, shariah law courts for civil matters
should be established. In correspondence she stated that such claims
would only serve to make Muslims more unpopular and would bring
further discrimination and hatred against them.
Again, legitimate claims by Muslims, are accepted as unacceptable
according to the dominant narrative – that Muslims seek extra rights, that
by doing so they deserve the hatred and prejudice levelled at them.
Further, the fact that the claim is made additionally because such
provisions exist already for other minorities in the form od Beth Din
courts for the Jewish communities, even relegates Muslims to a lower
rung than other minorities and less deserving in their own perception.
The idea of white / western superiority in decision making has its most
devastating potential exhibited in current events. Conflict Resolution is a
necessity that Muslims and other marginalised people require action over.
The example of Libya and the NATO intervention is instructive. A peace
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delegation from the UK found little or no support from the mainstream
and therefore also the Muslim community who appeared to support the
narrative of NATO intervention based on the idea that the opposition
were "Islamic", regardless of the clear harm caused both in the immediate
and long term to Islamic aspirations for freedom, justice and
independence. So caught up are Muslims in the dominant narrative that
expressing any dissent to the current conflict as a result of the NATO
intervention is expressed as anti-Islamic, rather than an opportunity to
seek other forms of resolution that may actually be able to deliver a just
future for Libya and the region.
At the time of writing, similar dilemmas and machinations over Syria
unfold. The dominant narrative portrays events in Syria as a sectarian
conflict, even though opposition to Bashar AlAssad hails from many
communities, and even though the Syrian government has, despite its
many manifest failings including internal repression, has sought to bolster
the Palestinian struggle and provided material support for it. Those
seeking to topple Assad from the grassroots have every right to oppose
him. However the involvement as exposed through Wikileaks (EA
Worldview, 2011) of US government in Syrian human rights and civil
society organisations raises the spectre of an uprising that serves and is
vocally supported by white media and government. Effectively the
genuine grievances of the masses are being exploited not in their service
but of a civil society grouping seeking US approval and ultimately
undermining support for the Palestinian cause as a result. Again the
challenge now is for non-white / US / western actors i.e. Muslims and
their institutions to resolve this conflict before it achieves a US policy
goal.
Resources
This needs little elaboration. The issue of land and dispossession stems
back to the British Empire and the theft of the land and resources of
indigenous peoples and the genocides that accompanied them. The
usurpation e.g. of the Americas, and the resultant decimation of the native
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population from 13 million to a few hundred thousand, is rarely
acknowledged and assumed to be the perogative of the wasteful west, we
hardly question it. The vast wealth of nations is usurped both through
violence but also complicity. This is not simply a question of active
collaboration between historical figures fighting against their own people
or helping the perpetration of injustice against them. Complicity can be
unconscious, pervasive and contemporary, the result of imbuing notions
of inferiority conferred by the subtlety of white / coloniser laws that
transform the dispossession into the normative legal underpinnings of the
state (Newcombe, 2009).
Taking this down to the local level, we have the issue of funding
resources and the funding of Muslim organisations in the UK. Decades
old funding streams for Muslim organisations from the UK government
were cut overnight on the basis that they were single purpose. Whilst
there was some protest, those most reliant on this funding had to socialise
themselves to this regimen in order to receive funding. A similar example
was the retargeting of such funding toward "preventing extremism".
Again smaller grassroots organisations who are not supported by Muslim
money, internal or external, who have not grasped the significance of
internal institutions, were forced to adopt this language in order to
survive.
A more nefarious adoption came from leading organisations, who were
the key players placed to protest having the ear of government. However
that place was already part of a vicious circle whereby Muslims have
positioned themselves as moderate from the time of Rushdie in 1989
against those who were able to mobilise in their own interest in the tens of
thousands. That example is one whereby the manpower of Muslims their
salaried and social work was disseminated via competition for power that
in fact was simply the legitimisation of supremacy. Therefore those who
supported the fatwa against Rushdie had the support of the majority for
this stance, but those who stated they opposed both Rushdie and the
fatwa, were able to leapfrog in their eyes the others in gaining the ear of
power. Muslims in the UK today suffer the consequences of such
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appeasement, as the resources available from government and community
have been funnelled through such organisations. Even externally funded
organisations that hail from resistance movements in the Middle East
have sought the same place and used the same organisational tools. In
their operation they compete rather than work co-operatively with other
organisations. This is why we have multitudes of conferences on
Palestine, on Islamophobia that exclude key organisations.
In depth qualitative and quantitative work on Islaophobia, citizenship,
Muslim expectations et al led by Ameli (2004 – 2007) is highly regarded
in radical academia, but successive pieces of research by non-Muslims
good or bad or similar have been adopted by Muslim organisations for the
reasons outlined.
Standards
Just as the conflict over Rushdie sought to silence aspects of Islamic law
applicable to the situation in favour of a discourse that supported white
norms, a recent campaign to support Sheikh Usama Hassan highlighted
the supremacy of white terms.
Hassan was allegedly threatened for espousing the Darwinian Theory of
Evolution at a mosque. Despite denials from those accused of threatening
him, a campaign was launched in his support entitled "Defend Usama
Hasan -- Support Freedom of Conscience and Oppose Intolerance"1. A
combination of secular Muslim organisations, mainstream umbrella
organisations and fringe groups added their voice to this campaign, yet
few if any have leant their name or support to the many ongoing cases in
the UK, including where people have been imprisoned or taken to court
for expressing their views. As this campaign was targeting Muslims it
again highlighted a Muslim concern with the inappropriate behaviour (as
perceived by its elite) of Muslims regarding the values of dominant
society, in this case both free speech and Darwinian Evolution Theory.
Such support has not been forthcoming in the case of the "Lyrical
terrorist" Samina Malik, a 22 year old shopworker who was given a 9
month suspended sentence for penning poetry that depicted violent
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images of "beheading" "kuffar" (Trescott, 2007). Ironically, the British
state did not pursue prosecutions in the case of Usama Hasan's alleged
attackers. However the Court of Appeal did quash Malik's sentence. The
law that convicted Malik however remains ambiguous and prosecutions
for possessing material that is deemed to glorify terrorism remain
possible. Additionally there have been several convictions of Muslims for
downloading material – including material downloaded for the university
studies – like the Bomb makers manual, the Terrorist Handbook etc.
which, had they been downloaded by a non-Muslim would have been
deemed
1 The campaign was waged primarily via a Facebook group
https://www.facebook.com/home.php?sk=group_187296237972197#!/ho
me.php?sk=group_187296237972197&view=doc&id=187536391281515
by the law to be without liability. Likewise, as regards a white / non-white
double standard, racist / right wing activists found with bomb making
equipment were not tried under anti-terrorism laws, despite having a list
of potential targets, including various mosques and the former Prime
Minister Tony Blair (Ansari, 2007).
The support of one type of free speech over another – of a white narrative
over and non-white narrative, mirrors governmental initiatives that speak
directly to the goal of socialising Muslims to Western values (Blair, 2005;
Cameron, 2011).
Naming the problem – the ability to define reality
Or blaming the victim. The cycle of self-blame, whereby the rise in
Islamophobia or invasion of countries can be easily blamed on Muslim
stupidity or criminality – Taliban, al-Qaeda etc rather than the precursors
to their acts of violence or otherwise – invasion of countries, bombings,
theft of resources, forced impoverishment, that preceded these acts is
pervasive and on the rise (Merali, forthcoming 2011) in the UK context,
and exemplifies the internalisation of the narrative or merit and of
deserving.
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Vis a vis these particular examples, and what we see playing out inb the
Arab Spring now and what in part we saw during the Iran – Iraq war is
the internalisation within the global Islamic community that racism which
makes each particular vye for the affections of the US / West against
other particular Muslims. The sectarianism exhibited takes the form not of
a discussion or dialogue or even direct conflict between e.g. Shias and
Sunnis, but any or all of these as an adjunct to the main conversation of
one or sometimes both sides with dominant powers e.g. the USA.
As such, Sunni chauvinism was served by Iraqi antagonism against Iran
in 1990's being played out as a sectarian conflict in the psyche of various
parts of the ummah, rather than as a war of aggression against a nascent
Islamic movement led by a secular tyrant in support of US imperial
aggression. This led to the placement of a Sunni stereotype as moderate in
comparison to Shias in the 1980s, and served to demonise the nascent
Hizbullah movement at the end of the 1980s in Lebanon that sought to
tackle Israeli aggression. Notable adoption of this line, within Islamic
movements, include the following self-blame narrative produced by
Liberty for the Muslim World in conjunction with the Centre for the
Study of Democracy at the University of Westminster (Tamimi in
Tamimi ed, 1993):
"Until elections were held in countries like Egypt, Tunisia, Jordan,
Algeria, Kuwait and most recently the Yemen, the phenomenon of
Islamic resurgence was continued to be viewed in the West as an
intolerant fundamentalist movement seeking to seize power through
militant endeavours in order to impose strict Islamic laws that did not – at
least in the eyes of many Westerners – respect human rights, tolerate
differences or recognise the other".
"Although in the West much of this perception has been the product of
historic misconceptions and disinformation dating back to the 11th
century Crusade, the anti-West, Khomeyni-led Iranian revolution of 1979
and the subsequent tension between the West on the one hand and Iran
and Iranian-backed militants in Lebanon on the other created and
optimum medium for the revival of fears, anxieties and hostilities. Very
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few people in the west were really interested in understanding the
background of Iran's revolution. Not much was said about the fact that it
was essentially a popular revolution to rid the country of a dictator who –
thanks to the support of his Western allies – oppressed his nation and
attempted to force his people to abandon their culture and traditional
values".
Through the eighties neither the public nor the media in the West had the
time or perhaps the willingness to learn more about Islam, which was
given extremely bad coverage which associated it with terrorist
activities... Had the Shah of Iran been a just democratic ruler, none of this
would have happened. Had the West not protected and supported
despotism in Iran, the former oppressive regime would not – as a measure
of radical reaction – have been replaced by another form of dictatorship
that seeks to legitimise its theocratic despotism through the adoption of
some anomalous interpretation of Islam.
―It is now evident that in the cases where democracy was respected – such
as in Jordan, Kuwait and Yemen – the Islamists have been incorporated
into the system and have played a constructive role through power
sharing.‖
Several internalisations are apparent. The entire publication expresses
itself as targeted to a Western audience to explain Islamic political
aspirations. This conversation at the outset, sets out a stall of preference
of one type of movement over all others as Islamic. The blame for the
misconceptions in Western eyes is blamed in a contemporary context on
Iran and its alleged activities. Iran's own political movement and Islamic
resurgence is described in terms devoid of any Islamic appellation. The
Shah did not try and destroy Islam, but Iranian culture and traditions. The
government of Iran, which even during the war years held regular
elections, is described as a theologically deviant project, despotic and
oppressive. Pro-Palestinian and anti-Israeli aggression resistance is also
demonised in a way that panders to existing notions of Islamic otherness.
The narrative is not that Islam and Muslims are demonised per se but that
not all Muslim conform to this demonic depiction, however some do.
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Likewise, the strange partnership of Western public and media are
absolved of much blame for their ignorance by having no time or perhaps
no willingness to learn about Islam, whereas such misconceptions can be
blame directly on Iran and its alleged supporters and activities and beliefs.
Likewise, elements of Shia communities have posited themselves in the
noughties as the antidote for a demonised portrayal of Sunnism /
Salafiism. The creation of the so-called Shia-cons in the USA is
instructive, given the foregoing discussion vis a vis Syria and Libya. Shia
clerics were funded by the US in the run up to the Iraq war, and were
actively courted to promote a US agenda on Iraq (Asadabadi, 2011). Part
of their agenda included the setting up of UMAA (Universal Muslim
Association of America):
―... [to] readily engage in interfaith programs with members from the
Zionist lobby AIPAC. The idea is to desensitize the Muslims over the
issue of Israel and Palestine while engaging in dialogue with the Jewish
Community. Recall the Neocons want to convince the Zionists and the
American Jews that the Shi'as are an asset when it comes to the war
against Iran‖.
―Organizers of the annual pro-Palestinian Al-Quds Rally in Washington
DC cited that Shia-Con clerics refused to attend the rally and discouraged
members of their congregations from attending as well.‖
Beyond Stigmatising Dissent – Crushing a Better World
As a by product of the oppressive system that already exists that portrays
otherness as inmincal, Muslims, minorities, disenfranchised and
marginalised and dissenting others (these categories are not mutually
exclusive), all these are muted and bombarded with negativity that is
inevitably internalised. It cannot be the fault of individuals and grassroots
for that internalisation. This raises the question as to who should be
responsible for dealing with the causes and effects of internalised racism.
Ultimately it requires a revolution amongst those that hold power – either
as an internally driven, moral narrative or an externally forced one to deal
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with the causes of internalised racism. To make this concrete, the
Women's Theological Center (2005) state:
―The struggle against racism for white people is a long and difficult one
that involves their learning to live in the world as peers with people of
color. To do this requires no less than for them to dismantle oppressive
structures that give them an unjust power over peoples of color and to
learn to live in this country and the world as nothing more or less than a
part of the whole. This is long hard work.‖
Where does that leave us while we wait for that to happen? In terms of
dealing with the effects of internalised racism, it has to be at the level of
civil society and its leadership, and Muslim civil society worldwide is
powerful in terms of numbers if not effect. However as with all others
arenas, internalised racism operates in this arena too, on the individuals
who comprise civil society.
The knowledge of this internalisation, held by corrupted power has been
utilised and transformed from tacit understanding to polemic and then
policy. The following examples mainly focus on the UK, but they are
worth further study in extrapolating to other scenarios. What happens at
the local is intimately linked with what happens at the international.
Ameli et al (2006) have applied muted group theory to the situation of
Muslims in the UK context. Karmerae (1981) used this theory to describe
how women function within a patriarchal society – they have a way of
being and language between themselves which power – in this case men,
do not or will not comprehend. Women therefore have to express
themselves according to the language of power and those norms when
speaking to power or trying to operate in the public sphere controlled by
them. This has been developed notably in Ameli (et al 2006b), to fit the
experience of minorities, in this study Muslims. That internal discourse /
language is one that in the mid-90s was a cross between easily
comprehensible dissent that bleeds through the muted linguistic barriers
into a mainstream that still sees such dissent crushed, and crushed more
aggressively when it comes from said minority.
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A case in point to exemplify this first contention is the idea posited and
promoted as polemic and policy by erstwhile Prime Minister Tony Blair
after 7/7 – that Muslim have an unjustifiable sense of grievance. This was
an all encompassing statement and covered everything from foreign
policy to disproportionate underachievement in education, social
injustice, poverty, discrimination etc. These comments built upon a
governmental project, knowledge of which was leaked in the public
sphere in the early 2000s, where government proposed to socially
engineer a compliant Muslim community (Thomson, 2003). As part of
this key scholars were picked out to promote the idea amongst the young
precisely that their sense of grievance was unjustified. As a result – and
we see its effects now through various programmes, The City Circle,
Radical Middle Way, that espouse the idea of citizenship and Britishness
but actually undermine the former and simply degrade all ideas of
universal humanity with the latter. As a result of this polemic, we are
moving from a scenario where the civil society component of Muslim
communities negotiates being muted to one where it has fully internalised
racism as a result of government's utilisation of the power of internalised
racism.
Whereas before you had Muslim civil society leaders believing, say in the
fatwa against Rushdie or armed resistance against „Israel‟ but feared the
repercussions of saying so, or did not feel confident to express it, or
understood the problematic of trying to break their mutedness on these
issues, you now have a civil society leadership that actually believes these
things are wrong because those who hold power say so. That moral right
they own to determine what is right and wrong has been internalised. We
have been sold subjecthood in place of citizenship. The only thing left for
us to scramble up the ladder against each other.
Other models that enforce supremacist ideologies include interfaith /
intercommunity conflict resolution. An example taken from Nigeria in the
late 1990s early 2000s has contributed to models in the West. The Pastor
and Imam project saw an Imam and pastor working together to ostensibly
overcome communal strife that in the past saw violence escalating to
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deaths between the communities. One of the issues that the Pastor and
Imam brought up as part of their outreach work was the issue of Palestine.
According to the Pastor, there immutable link between Muslim narrative
and support for the Palestinian cause resulted in a reverse and unthinking
action amongst Christian groups to ―support Israel‖ thus you would see
Israeli flags flying at Christian demonstrations. Part of the conflict
resolution their model follows is to remove the external from internal
discussions. To do this Muslims must be desensitised from their
affiliation to the Palestinian cause, as a result Christians will drop their
affiliation to Israel. This project took hold at the end of the nineties, and it
is significant that Nigeria has started hosting Israeli security training for
its security personnel in the last decade.
Do non-white / Western international actors internalise?
There are no definitive answers, and the author does not wish to malign
any non-Western state or group in generalised terms. However we should
all be aware of certain trends. One of the factors in the academic literature
regarding internalised racism is that even those with high self-esteem can
and do internalise and we need to be constantly aware of the dangers of
this.
Key examples, include the affiliations and language of resistance
movements. In recent years there has been a shift in tone from one of panArabism, pan-Islamism, or non-aligned solidarity to that of national
struggles. Once the idea of transnational solidarity as wrong or less
important has been internalised, the dilemmas facing resistance
movements increase further. By internalising their own situation as
qualitatively worse, let‟s say in Syria than in the UK (the same idea, that
you are better off here than elsewhere is promoted by the UK and other
West / White governments), internalises the normativity of a colonialist
narrative. By seeing other Muslim / Islamic / non-Western activism as
inferior these resistance movements then latch on to supposedly superior
external support – the price then is not only undermining of alternatives
but to actually hand over that resistance movement‟s power and its soul
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to the West. The obstacles that may exists in fostering alternative unity
and movements can be overcome and the fact that for some considerable
time 30 years ago they were overcome, set in motion a programme of
divide and rule by the USA and UK.
This change from mutedness and the struggle to be heard on your own
terms into an delusion of empowerment by adopting western ideals
(human rights language, the language of liberalism and individualism)
actually reflects a real disempowerment. This is socialisation to
oppressive norms, whereby you recognise your own lower status yet
believe yourself to be better than others elsewhere both in terms of the
national social mores you live in and yourself as morally superior over
others.
During the Egyptian revolution – amongst some of the most moving
pictures were those of demonstrations around the world in support of the
protestors. In Iran these demonstrations saw millions on the streets
showing their support. In response to this news, and the comments made
that the path of revolutions in the region started some 30 years ago, the
head of Ikhwanweb – Khaled Hamza made a media statement distancing
himself and Ikhwan from Iran, by claiming in his words ―Khamenei is
trying to hijack the revolution‖ and then quoting Maryam Rajavi's hope
that the government of Iran would be overthrown claiming it was
undemocratic. He even went so far as to describe Rajavi as the
"democratically elected leader' of the NCR (Hamza, 2011). Again we see
the positioning of self as authentic and palatable to Western eyes, but
also, as the article paraphrases, his claim that ―...that the Egyptian protests
are not an Islamic uprising, but a mass protest against an unjust,
autocratic regime which includes Egyptians from all walks of life and all
religions and sects.‖
Evidencing the internalisation of the narrative that Islamic activism,
Islamic anything is bad, that it discriminates against others, that it is
inappropriate.
This is the statement of one part of Ikhwan, albeit its communication unit.
At the same time very respected elders of Egyptian Ikhwan met with
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Ayatollah Khamenei with all due reverancde, however the distinction is
stark. This new move within resistance movements to disassociate Islam
from the narrative in order too prove themselves progressive or simply
just palatable bears all the hallmarks of internalised racism.
Joyce E. King in 1991 coined the term dysconscious racism that could be
applicable to way institutionalised civil society groups based originally in
resistance can operate. More thinking on this needs to be undertaken to
find ways of obviating the current rejectionism between facets of
oppressed peoples representation. King says:
―Dysconsciousness is uncritical habit of mind (including perceptions,
attitudes, assumptions, and beliefs) that justifies inequity and exploitation
by accepting the existing order of things given. If, as Heaney (1984)
suggests, critical consciousness ―involves an ethical judgement [sic]‖
about the social order, dysconsciousness accepts it uncritically. This lack
of critical judgment against society reflects an absence of what Cox
(1974) refers to as ―social ethics‖; it involves a subjective identification
with ideological viewpoint that admits no fundamentally alternative
vision of society‖.
―Dysconscious racism is a form of racism that tacitly accepts dominant
White norms and privileges. It is not the absence of consciousness (that
is, not unconsciousness) but an impaired consciousness or distorted way
of thinking about race as compared to, for example, critical
consciousness. Uncritical ways thinking about racial inequity accept
certain culturally sanctioned assumptions, myths, and beliefs that justify
the social and economic advantages White people have as a result of
subordinating diverse others (Wellman, 1977). Any serious challenge to
the status quo that calls this racial privilege into question inevitably
challenges the self-identity of White people who have internalized these
ideological justifications. The reactions of my students to information I
have presented about societal inequity have led me to conceptualise
dysconscious racism as one form that racism takes in this post-civil rights
era of intellectual conservatism.‖
Overcoming IR in non-Western supremacist worlds
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Just as there are community strategies to deal with internalised racism
within communities, we need to rebuild the pride, self-love, mutual love
and respect of the oppressed other as our oppressed brother or sister
(regardless of background), and above all fix in our minds once and for
all that the journey God has set us on is one we can negotiate with our
values and with good leadership.
The fact that we don't is not only the operation of internalised racism but
a violent act against our communities that in turn can be characterised as
oppression or terror. By failing to see how this works we are all complicit
in this form of terrorism.
We need to develop ideas but also institutions to tackle the dyscfunction
we face. Last year in Jakarta I was at a meeting of NGOs when a
participant - a leading Islamic human rights lawyer from Turkey suggested we campaign for the OIC to set up its own human rights court a
la European Court of Human Rights. The author immediately internally
mocked such a suggestion. However this is exactly an example of
internalisation. Whilst not without problems given the current state of the
ummah, we need to be brave enough to moot these types of ideas and
more, and for those within civil society, like the author, who claim to care
for justice, to be able to respect and care for this type of thinking and
develop these conversations within our world, where the struggle should
not be for power but for justice.
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Resources
1. Ameli, S.R. & Merali, A. (2004) London: Islamic Human Rights
Commission
2. Ameli, S.R., Elahi, M. & Merali, A. (2004) Social Discrimination: Across
the Muslim Divide London: Islamic Human Rights Commission
3. Ameli, S.R., Azam, A. & Merali, A. (2005) London: Islamic Human Rights
Commission
4. Ameli, S.R. & Merali, A. (2006) Hijab, Meaning, Identity, Otherization and
Politics: British Muslim Women London: Islamic Human Rights Commission
5. Ameli, S.R., Faridi, B. Lindahl, K. & Merali, A. (2006) Law and British
Muslims: Domination of the Majority or Process of Balance London: Islamic
Human Rights Commission
6. Ameli, S.R., Marandi, S.M., Ahmed, S., Merali, A. & Kara, S. (2007) The
British Media and Muslim Representation: The Ideology of Demonisation
London: Islamic Human Rights Commission
7. Ansari, F. (2006, 2nd edition) British Anti-Terrorism: A Modern Day
Witchhunt London: Islamic Human Rights Commission
8. Ansari, F. (2007) „The Crime of Rhyme: The Extraordinary Case of Samina
Malik‟ http://www.islamicawakening.com/viewarticle.php?articleID=1328
9. Asadabadi, S.M. (2011, May 20) „The Secret War: The Zionist Spy and the
Formation
of
the
Shia-Con
(aka
UMAA)‟
http://oppression.org/site/index.php/world/americas/148-the-secret-war-thezionist-spy-and-the-formation-of-the-shia-con
10. Blair, T. (2005, July 16) „Full Text: Blair Speech on Terror‟
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4689363.stm
11. Biko, S. (1987) I Write What I Like, London: Heinemann
12. Briggs, R. & Birdwell, J. (2009). Radicalisation among Muslims in
13. the UK. MICROCON Policy Working Paper 7, Brighton: MICROCON.
14. Briggs, R., Fieschi, C. and Lownsbrough, H. (2006) „Bringing it Home:
Community based
15. approaches to counter-terrorism‟ London: Demos
16. Bruce, D. (2006, September) „Racism, Selfesteem and Vilence in SA: Gaps
in the NCPS‟ explanation?‟ SA CRIME QUARTERLY No 17 pp32 - 36
17. Cameron, D. (2011, February 5) „Full transcript | David Cameron | Speech
on
radicalisation
and
Islamic
extremism‟
New
Statesman
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http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/the-staggers/2011/02/terrorism-islamideology
18. EA Worldview (2011, April 20) „Syria WikiLeaks Document: The US
Government Support of Opposition Groups, Civil Society, and Human Rights
(April
2009)‟
http://www.enduringamerica.com/home/2011/4/20/syriawikileaks-document-the-us-government-support-of-opposi.html
19. Fanon, F. (2001) The Wretched of the Earth , London: Penguin
20. Hamza, K. (2011, February 5) cited in „Ikhwanweb: Egypt‟s Revolution Is a
People‟s
Revolution
with
No
Islamic
Agenda‟http://www.ikhwanweb.com/article.php?id=27963
21. King, J.E. (1991) „Dysconscious Racism: Ideology, Identity, and the
Miseducation of Teachers‟ The Journal of Negro Education, Vol. 60, No. 2
(Spring, 1991), pp. 133-146
22. Kramerae, C. (1981) Women and Men Speaking; Frameworks for Analysis
Rowley, Massachusetts: Newbury House,
23. Merali, A. (2011 forthcoming) „Blaming the Victim and the Big Lie‟
(working title), Paris: Maison des Science de l'Homme
24. Newcomb, S.T. (2008) Pagans in the Promised Land: Decoding the
Doctrine of Christian Discovery, Goldon: Fulcrum
25. Pyke, K. & Dang, T. (2003, June 01) „―FOB‖ and ―Whitewashed‖: Identity
and Internalized Racism Among Second Generation Asian Americans‟
Qualitative Sociology Netherlands: Springer
26. Siddique Khan, M. (2005) „London bomber: Text in full‟ BBC News Online http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4206800.stm
27. Shadjareh, M. (2004, April 1) „Aliens in their Own Country‟ The Guardian
28. http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2004/apr/01/britishidentity.race
29. Tamimi, A. ed.(1993) Power Sharing Islam London: Liberty for Muslim
World Publications
30. Thomson, H. (2004, June 3) „Blair government‟s strategy to police Britain‟s
Muslims
leaked‟
World
Wide
Socialist
Web‟
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2004/jun2004/musl-j03.shtml
International
Committee for the Fourth International
31. Trescott, C. (2007, December 6) „'Lyrical terrorist' sentenced over extremist
poetry‟ http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2007/dec/06/terrorism.books
32. Tull, S.E., Wickramasuriya, T., Taylor, J., Smith-Burns, V., Brown, M.,
Champagnie, G., Daye, D., Donaldson, K., Solomon, N., Walker, S. Fraser, H.
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and Jordan, O.W. „Relationship of internalized racism to abdominal obesity and
blood pressure in Afro-Caribbean women.‟ Journal of the National Medical
Association, 1999 August; 91(8): 447–452
Self-Defense in Response to Terrorism: Prohibitions and Limits
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Self-Defense in Response to Terrorism:
Prohibitions and Limits
Dr. Nader Saed 
Abstract
Unfortunately in the contemporary international community use of force
is still an important alternative in the foreign policy of some states.
However, the influence of international law in the society has made the
states to explain use of force in the light of legal standards and
institutions in order to be stay immune from international criticism and
opposition. Legitimate defense is among the most essential legal
institutions and has the highest ability to resort to. After the September
11, the efforts made to spread the potentials of self-defense to the policy
of powers that basically use military option has resulted in ambiguities
about the range of latent legitimate measures in this right and the way of
its conformity with some new situations specially terrorist attacks as
well as innovation in producing concepts such as combat against
potential future threats (forestalling). International Court of Justice
through the approach of preserving the existing order and the
"principle" of prohibition of use of force has replied to these
ambiguities and has made it clear that self-defense to what extent has
the capacity of contraction and expansion. In this paper, self-defense
and the frameworks of its application in combat against terrorism is
analyzed.
Key words: the sovereignty of state, self-defense, military-defense,
armed attack, terrorist attack, International Court of Justice, common
law.
 PhD in International Law, member of Lawyer Without Borders (LWB) in Iran,
Director of Academia Department of the IWPF.
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Introduction
International community is the accomplishment of the linkage among
international actors on the basis of mutual consent and pursuing the
common interests. The significant characteristics of this society are: the
existence of various and different interests; the lack of solidarity in
relationship; the lack of a developed organized structure; the lack of three
executive, judicial and global executive powers or the globalized
transnational powers' organization; the lack of the concept of international
sovereignty vs. national sovereignty; inequality in national power; the
essential establishing of legal standards of this society on the consent and
concordant will of traditional actors and the significant role of states as
the legislators and, at the same time, followers of the governing rules in
the society; the existence of a different process of power-making; making
efforts to establish rules; and, globalization of national values and norms.
In such society, the current legal system is mainly state-centric and the
role of states in the processes of establishment, interpretation, execution
and even assurance of the implementation of rules is definite. 1 One of the
necessities of stable life in this society is to ensure the minimum basics of
peace and stability in the light of which the prohibition of war and using it
as a national policy is legitimated. Hence, during the creation of the first
association or the appearance of the first international community in its
certain concept (United Nations), prevention of war was also taken into
consideration. Of course it was not so amazing; a society which was
1. Of course the state-centric characteristic of the structure of international community,
and as a result international law, doesn't mean negation or denial of the existence or
effectiveness of international actors especially international organizations. However, the
existence of international organizations, both state and non-state, does not emit the
priority of the significance of states' role in determining the agenda of international
community and in establishing states' common interests as the criterion for defining the
objective of legal rules. It seems that such society is centered on the interests of states
and their cooperation.
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created after the First World War should basically pay attention to the
prevention of such conflicts.2
Anyway, the Second World War showed that neither the thoughts of
founders of United Nations nor the methods and bases of this
international organization has not been as desirable and strong as to
modify the individual and, sometimes, collective tendencies of states in
the favor of co-existence and acceptance of minimum of common
interests. However, the founders of the United Nations were looking
seriously to address this weakness and, at the end, the paragraph 4 of
Article 2 on strengthening the 1927 Kellogg-Briand Pact was ratified by
the San Francisco Conference. Taking into consideration the letter of the
charter and regarding as foundations the thought of the founders of United
Nations as well as paying attention to the procedures of this organization
to the end of 20th Century, one can say that the charter, in this regard, had
a general principle with two exceptions3 and justifying the existence of
new exceptions and/or the conceptual expansion of existing exceptions,
would tighten the circle of principle and thus the possibility of use of
force against international peace and security is provided. But the
September 11 events and the ratification of Security Council 1368 and
1373 Resolutions has given a new life to the discussion of self-defense
and has created an opportunity in the light of which the need to develop
the conceptual domain of "armed attack" or assault and therefore to
develop the possibility of use of self-defense has been raised among
lawyers and even indisputable groups in some countries. Even some
assume these developments as objective reality and claim themselves to
be the creators of a new rule in international common laws. According to
2. Nader Saed, "The Criticism of Expansion the Concept and Scope of Legitimate
Defense in the International Process of Combat against Terrorism," Islam: A Victim of
Terrorism, Tehran, The Islamic Association of Islamic Peace, 2009.
3. Of course, some claim that "a new exception can be found to the article 51 of the
Charter by using international conventions". See: Research Group of Pars international
Law Institution in Tehran, "The Rule of Use of Force in International Relations after the
Crisis of Southern Ossetia", The Journal of Legal Research, No. 13, 1387, p. 165.
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this rule, they can use self-defense against terrorism4 and such use of
force is not inconsistent with contemporary international law and the UN
Charter, in a way that because of its being basically and inherent right,
there is no need to obtain the Security Council resolution.
The present paper is a survey and analysis of the institution of selfdefense (military defense)5 in the light of teachings that International
Court of Justice has issued in its contentious cases and advisory
proceedings after September 11. In this regard, the advisory opinion of 9
June 2004 about the Construction of a wall in the Occupied Palestinian
Territory is of great importance. The importance of opinions of the Court,
specifically advisory opinions, is that "in the introduction of each order,
institutions (theses) and anti-institutions (anti-theses) are combined and at
the end the new word which is formed of the combination of the best
elements of mutual views is given."6 Therefore, in the analysis of each
order, the basic arguments of the order (verifications) should be separated
from the content of decisions (the outcome of verifications) which have a
limited validity.7 Although the recent case is more important for the
applicants of contentious or advisory proceedings of the Court, the
preliminaries of the order have effect8 on addressing a general theory of
the international law9 and, therefore, the explanatory and interpretive
aspects of the existing laws hidden in the orders of the Court are of
4. As it is mentioned in the second paragraph of this article, International Court of
Justice in several opportunities during 2003 (the cases of oil platforms, the fight of
Islamic Republic of Iran against USA), 2004 (Advisory opinion about the construction
of a wall in the occupied Palestinian Territory), 2005 (Congo Vs. Uganda) and 2006
(Congo Vs. Rwanda) has denied the claim of existence of a new common law.
5. In military literature, defense is a subject beyond the application of military power and
a part of defensive measures is managed through non-military canals (non-operating
defense). In this article the concept of military defense is the application of military
power in response to armed attack which has happened or is imminent by thresholds
defined in international legal order.
6. Falsafi, Hedayatollah, The International Law of Conventions, Tehran: Farhang Nashre
No, 1996, p. 35, footnote 16.
7. Ibid.
8. Ibid, pp. 25-26.
9. Ibid.
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important documents that can be applied to stop the illegitimate use of
self-defense in unlawful and selective fight against terrorism. However,
the primary point is that why the Security Council entered such
innovation in 1368 resolution.
I. Changes in the Security Council's Approach to Terrorism
Most legal analyses of terrorism and fight against it deal with the new
phase in United Nation's response to international (and internal) terrorism
which has begun after the September 11 attacks. This method of analysis
makes it impossible to study the change in the Security Council's
approach to this phenomenon. Meanwhile, "terrorism has been the deep
wound on the face of twentieth Century"10 and Security Council had taken
up a position on international terrorism and its relation with international
peace and security even before these events.
The first resolution of the Security Council on Terrorism is the case 666
resolution ratified in 1990 during the Kuwait war. While citing to the
existing conventional standards, especially the Convention against
Hostage, this resolution considered the Iraq's actions in Kuwait for
controlling the prohibition of foreign nationals' exit of the country and
hostage taking and imprisonment of people as terrorism and condemning
the terrorist acts of Iraq outside its borders, called on that country to
acknowledge it is bound to ban terrorism.11 Following this the Council by
ratifying case resolutions showed a normal response (condemning and
calling upon states and, regarding Taliban, establishing a monitoring
committee) to terrorist acts such as the assassination of high political
officials (resolution 1044 in 1996 on the unsuccessful attempt to
assassinate Hosni Mubarak and 1267 in 1999 on the assassination of
Iranian diplomats in Mazar Sharif), terrorist bomb attacks to political
10. Manfred Lachs, "International Law in the Dawn of 21st Century", translated by Amir
Hossein Ranjbarian, Foreign Policy, 7th Year, no. 1, Spring 72, p. 89.
11. For a more comprehensive study See: Sonboli, Nabi, "Studying the Function of the
United Nations in Fight against Terrorism," Foreign Policy, Year 15, No. 4, Winter
2002, pp. 1133-1141.
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places (resolution 1189 in 1998 about the bomb attacks to the US
Embassy in Kenya and Tanzania), Taliban acts (resolution 1267 in 1999
and 1333 in 2000 and 1363 in 2001). The aforementioned special
resolutions have been issued in the form of Chapter VII of the Charter.
Accordingly, the Council up to 1999 had put terrorism merely in its case
agenda and made periodic and provisional decisions appropriated with the
events. But this year coincides with the public meeting of the Council and
introducing the terrorism issue in the permanent agenda. In 1999, the
council by ratification of Resolution 1269 showed its public approach to
terrorism and hence it was in accordance with the public approach of
General Assembly in 1994 when it had ratified the Resolution 49/60. In
this Resolution, the Council while giving a definition of terrorism in
accordance with the brief definition given by General Assembly, called
upon the states to take some measures in fight against terrorism. In none
of these measures, the possibility of use of force, explicitly or implicitly,
was mentioned.
The Resolution 1373 is the continuation of this public approach but with
binding principles and frameworks. With this resolution, the Council not
only introduced use of defending force into the fight against terrorism but
also turned the approach of 1999 Resolution from a recommendation to a
Charter requirement. No specific reason can be found for this change
except that the host city of United Nations was the victim of a bomb
attack and a great number of civilians were killed and the atmosphere of
fear had taken over all US cities and other countries and this attack was
attributed to non-state actors, specially Al-Qaeda – which already had
been considered as a terrorist group in Western public opinion – and more
important this attack was against the United States of America.
The procedure of change in the Security Council's function on terrorism
will show somewhat that if such attacks were really terrorist and were
taken against other countries including Asian, African and South
American countries, the Council would rarely emphasize so hard on the
suppression of terrorism and terrorists and grant the highest reactive
action i.e. use of force not as a collective security but rather as a
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legitimate defense to the victim country. Another reason for this claim is
that in the past decade, tens of terrorist acts have been done in different
parts of the world, but the Council has not paid due attention to them or,
in their processing, has never cited the right of self-defense.12
II. the Framework
MilitaryDefense
of
Inherent
Right
of
Legitimate
The laws of use of force or the laws of war have anticipated specific
arrangements and conditions for defensive attack in the relations of
governments. In fact, these laws, in the light of the principle of
prohibition of use of force, which today is a jus cogens,13 by giving a
clear understanding of legal principle related to these attacks, will make it
possible to analyze the specific events and judge about them on the basis
of the specific situation and conditions of each case. Self-defense is an
inherent right according to the sovereignty rights of states which has been
the result of degradation of absolute sovereignty (the right of war)14 to
relative sovereignty (prohibition of aggressive war): governments, with
the deprivation of absolute right of war and acceptance of prohibition of
use of force, sufficed to its narrow survival in the form of right of defense
12. The same lack of the repetition of the right of self-defense against terrorist acts and
events can confirm that this right set in Resolution 1368 is a case issue (USA-Al-Qaeda)
and cannot be generalized to other cases or be interpreted as a public right.
13. Antonio Cassese, International Law in a Divided World, translated by Morteza
Kalantarian (Tehran: The Office of international Legal Services of the Islamic Republic
of Iran, 1991), p. 174, no. 70. The statements of the representatives of the states of
former Soviet Union, Cuba, Poland, Cyprus, Sierra Leon, Uruguay, Czechoslovakia,
Federal Germany, Ecuador, Italy, White Russia, Switzerland, Norway, Malaysia and
Chile in the Conference on Rights of Conventions, the statement of US representative in
the sixth Committee of General Assembly 1976. (UN Doc. A/C/6134 SR. 44, pl 130)
and the statements of Japanese representative in Security Council in Malvinas Islands
Case (S/R/2350. 3 Apr. 1982, p. 27) all prove the commanded rule of the prohibition of
use of force. International Court of Justice has also confirmed such explanation and the
Paragraph … of Advisory Opinion concerning the construction of a wall in Occupied
Palestinian Territory is one of these cases.
14. Monique Chemillier-Gendreau, Humanity and Sovereignties: A Passage into
International Law, translated by Morteza Kalantarian, Tehran, Agah, 82, p. 172.
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against the foreign invasion (beside the UN collective security) and
promoted the place of such phenomenon to jus cogens.
1. The Conditions of Creating the Right to Military Defense
In the approach of international legal order, national security and
defending it is an accepted and emphasized issue but according to
regulation and subject to normative discipline. In fact, defending national
security and making efforts for its realization and assurance, is the
specific task of every state in international system owning various actors
and lacking transnational power; and in the society that is not able to deny
this situation, the governing law is international law. The Court, that has
"the duty to say the facts according to the existing formal rules,"15
inevitably confirmed this. Although every state has the right to defend its
fundamental and vital interests of national security, the mentioned
objective cannot justify, in its turn, the unlimited means and methods of
choice in this regard. Such finding is mainly analyzed and explained in
the Court's vote in the oil platforms case in detail. In the advisory opinion
regarding the construction of a wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory,
what is of great importance to the Court is that "the selected measures in
order to protect the essential interests of national security should comply
with applicable international laws".
The form and substantive conditions of creating the inherent right of
individual and collective self-defense include: the existence of an initial
foreign attack, whether concrete or imminent; the realization of the
threshold of military measures which form the concept of armed attack;16
15. Falsafi, ibid, p. 26.
16. According to common law, armed attack is an example of use of force that apart
from being direct or indirect, has a wide range and intense effects". See: Seyyed Ghasem
Zamani, "The Judicial Policy of International Court of Justice toward the principle of
prohibition of use of force", in a group of writers, The Role of International Court of
Justice in the Continuation and Development of International Law, Tehran: Iranian
Society of Studies on United Nations, 88, p. 77. This issue is emphasized in the Court's
vote on Nicaragua Case (Paragraphs 119 & 120) in the same manner. Furthermore the
criterion in this regard, as is stated in the Court's vote on the Oil Platform Case (2003), is
collective method, i.e. considering all the effects and results of attacks by the aggressor.
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attribution of aggressive attack to a state; attack by a government;17
reaction from the state under attack or other states that had requested the
help of the state under attack18; necessity and proportionality in defense;
the commitment of the defender to report to Security Council; and,
finally, the lack of commanding decision of the Security Council to stop
the defense.19 In the meantime, announcing the proceedings to the
Security Council is a requirement out of essential requirements of selfdefense which have been added to the common laws before codification
of the Charter. Nevertheless, considering the decisions of the Security
Council about international peace and security (Article 25 of the Charter)
pervades over the inherent right to defend, this right has lost its absolute
and unquestioned character regarding the common laws before 1945. As
Prof. Cassese has explained, "The UN system relies on three basic pillars:
not only use of force but also military threat is banned; the responsibility
of Gendarmerie has been entrusted to the Security Council; and finally,
the right to defend has been given to countries exceptionally and as long
as the Security Council has not intervened."20
The "self-defense" claim puts the burden of proof on the defender that the
urgency and severity of attack had caused the inevitable use of force by
the defender21. However, this does not meant that the final judge to
See: Heybatollah Najdimanesh, "Self-defense in the Procedures of International Court of
Justice: Continuity or Development?" in: a group of writers, ibid, pp. 94-95.
17. Article 51 of the UN Charter has recognized the right of self-defense only for its
"parties" and not absolutely "states". But in the procedure this right can be considered for
"every state". See: Robert Bledsoe and Boleslaw Boczek, ibid, p. 417.
18. The intervention of third states is only true in collective self-defense.
19. It is said that one of the other conditions is that "the objective of the reaction is
prevention of future attacks by the aggressor". Heybatollah Najandimanesh, ibid, p. 91.
It seems that the mentioned objective is to complement this basic specific work that
reaction should repel the aggressive attack and turn its effects to the situation before the
aggression.
20. Antonio Cassese, The Role of Force in International Relations, Translated by
Morteza Kalantarian, Tehran: Agah, 75, p. 75, p. 64.
21. See: Jamshid Momtaz, "The Natural Right of Self-defense in Iran-Iraq War",
Rethinking the Aspects of Assault and Defense, (Tehran, Secretariat of International
Conference on Assault and Defense, 1989) p. 189.
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realize these conditions is the same as claimant state, rather the primary
recognition is accompanied by the acceptance of the risk of violation of
peace or international commitment of that state. To give a better
interpretation, " self-defense doesn't mean that the country using the
defense can be the final judge and potent to judge about its own behavior.
Because that country is responsible for what it does. Therefore, if the
country has an ill-consideration in its judgment and turns the defense into
a weapon for conquering the world and lawlessness and uses this natural
right as means for aggressive war, it would be responsible. Hence it
cannot be the only judge of its acts."22
2. Twofold Concepts of Article 51 of the Charter
One of the key reasons of Israeli Regime for construction of a wall in the
Occupied Palestinian Territory was self-defense and, therefore, the Court
found the opportunity, in advisory opinion of 2003, to re-process its
previous announced positions in detail and to "defend" its own reputation
as well as the respect for the principle of prohibition of the use of force.
In Israeli Regime's view, "the construction of the wall complies with
Article 51 of UN Charter, the regime's inherent right of self-defense and
Security Council Resolutions 1368 (2001) and 1373 (2001)." In order to
evaluate this claim, the Court once again reminded the right to selfdefense and standards that apply to it and emphasized on its own previous
proceedings in Nicaraguan case as well as its opinion on the case of oil
platforms that defense is only legitimate when the conditions mentioned
in Article 51 of the Charter, including "armed attack by one State against
another State" is present.
In relation to the lack of such condition considered as the reason for
construction of the wall, the Court has acknowledged that:
"Article 51 of the Charter thus recognizes the existence of an inherent
right of self-defense in the case of armed attack of one State against
22. One of the votes of Nuremberg Court, cited from: D.W. Bowett, Self-defense in
International Law, (London, Manchester University Press, 1958), pp. 150-151.
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another State. However, Israel does not claim that the attacks against it
are imputable to a foreign State.
The Court also notes that Israel exercises control in the Occupied
Palestinian Territory and that, as Israel itself states, the threat which it
regards as justifying the construction of the wall originates within, and
not outside, that territory. The situation is thus different from that
contemplated by Security Council Resolutions 1368 (2001) and 1373
(2001), and therefore Israel could not in any event invoke those
resolutions in support of its claim to be exercising a right of self-defense."
What is worthy to note is that the above-mentioned explanation by the
Court can be considered as a credit given to a doctrine according to which
self-defense against non-state terrorism can be also invoked. In fact, there
are two totally different impressions of this viewpoint of the Court. The
range of right of military defense is base on the two approaches of broad
and strict interpretation.
The Approach of Broad Interpretation
According to this impression, if this resolution had not any relevance for
the creation of the right of defense, there would be no need for the Court
to enter the analysis of conditions and components of self-defense;
however, the Court entered the debate in detail. It must be noted that
Security Council in Resolutions 1368 and 1373, which were issued
respectively in reaction to September 11 attacks, considered terrorism as a
threat to international peace and security, assimilated self-defense and
Article 42 and invoking to Chapter 7 of the Charter and using its
terminology23 confirmed the existence of self-defense.24 From the
perspective of use of force, the ambiguity of the contents of this
resolution have had and has the capability to be interpreted in different
ways, so that both the legitimacy and non-legitimacy of armed attack can
23. "Response to International Terrorism: The Expansion of Borders of International
Law towards a Stable Freedom", translated by Mohsen Sharifi, Foreign Policy, (special
No. 4, 2001), p. 1152.
24. Nabi Sonboli, "Studying the Function of United Nations in Combat Against
Terrorism", Foreign Policy, (Special Issue 4, Winter 2001), pp. 1135-1141.
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be raised relying on Afghan issue.25 In the meantime, Resolution 1373 has
a more general range and is not limited to September 11. In this
resolution, Security Council, following the legislative process, all at once
selects what had been predicted in several international anti-terrorism
treaties and in this way benefited from Chapter 7 of the Charter and its
own powers to play a role in the replacement of the processes of treaty
rights.
The Approach of Strict Interpretation
However, it seems that the above explanation does not mean the implicit
confirmation of creating self-defense in Security Council resolutions on
fight against terrorism. Because first of all the concept of opponent is not
true and meaningful in all cases. Secondly the Court explicitly has
accounted self-defense as true only in relations between states. Thirdly if
the Court was willing to verify self-defense for non-state actors, it would
not point to such a critical issue implicitly. Furthermore, the expedient of
principle of "useful interpretation" is that self-defense should be limited
mainly to "governmental" terrorist act which is in accordance with
international context of paragraph 2, Article 4 and text of Article 51 of the
Charter. On this basis, one could find no match in Resolution 1373 which
indicates that non-implementation of the provisions of this resolution as
well as organizational commitment of the members and even anti-terrorist
treaties would provide the right of self-defense for other countries. On the
other hand, the expedient of respect for the "principle" is the prohibition
of a broad interpretation of "exception".26 Therefore, the principle of
prohibiting use of force deems it as necessary that the domain of
legitimate military action should not go beyond the "certainty
magnitude"27, i.e. the text of Articles 42 and 51.
25. To be informed about the effect of these interpretations on the States' sovereignty,
See: Seyyed Kamal-al-din Mohammad Rafii, "September 11 Event, War against
Terrorism and the Sovereignty and Security of States", Defense Policy, (Nos. 38 & 39,
2002), pp. 83-106.
26. See: Zamani, ibid, p. 76.
27. Ibid.
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III. Self-defense against Terrorist Attack and Non-state Military
Measures
As it was mentioned above, self-defense is an institute which can be
invoked when it is the reaction of one state to another state's "armed
attack". Since 2001, this question always has been raised that "can armed
attack be also considered as synonymous with the armed attack included
in Article 51 of the Charter from the perspective of concept and the
threshold of the intensity of military effectiveness? On the other hand, can
this inter-governmental organization be used and applied when the
measures taken by non-state actors results in violence?
1. The Concept of Armed Attack and Terrorist Attack
International Court of Justice in its opinion on Nicaraguan case against
United States expressed that armed attack is to be understood as meaning
not merely action by regular armed forces across an international border,
but also the sending by a State of armed bans, groups, irregular forces or
agents on to the territory of another state.28 On the same basis, planned
terrorist attacks organized or done by any state could be included in
armed attacks that the victim state might show in reaction to those attacks.
Nevertheless, the Court in the next parts of its opinion, assigned a
threshold that terrorist or irregular operations are considered as armed
attack only when its scope and effects is such that if it is done by regular
armed forces, it would be considered as an armed attack rather than a
mere border event.29
It seems that despite different interpretations and impressions of this
Resolution, one cannot accept that terrorist attack is a kind of armed
attack as defined in Article 51 of the Charter to be resulted in the right of
28. ICJ Reports 1986, p. 14, at para..195. The Court was quoting from Art. 3 of the
Definition of Aggression, annexed to UN GA Res. 3314.
29. Christopher Greenwood, "Humanitarian Law: The Historical Development and Legal
Basis", translated by Hosein Sharifi Tarazkuhi, in: Seyyed Ghasem Zamani and Nader
Sa'ed, Humanitarian Law in Armed Conflicts, Tehran: Shahr-e Danesh, 2008, p. 20.
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self-defense30, unless it is done against a State by another State and has all
conditions and thresholds of the severity of the military attack which is
mentioned in the Resolution as the definition of aggression. In fact, the
application of self-defense against terrorism is true if only the terrorist act
is done by a State and owns high military intensity and is similar to armed
attacks. In such case, "terrorist attack of a State can be considered as an
armed attack and in this way self-defense makes sense".31
However, in the case of attacks to World Trade Center in New York,
Security Council, without identifying the factors of attack and proving the
concept of armed attack, emphasized on inherent right of individual or
collective self-defense for United States in both 1368 and 1373
Resolutions. It should be asked that "could Security Council change the
concept of armed attack or other elements of self-defense?" Is the right in
two above-mentioned Resolutions applied only to certain cases or can be
used for other cases as well?
Regarding the introduction of aforesaid resolutions and preliminary
studies for their codification, it can be confirmed that the Council in the
two Resolutions forthrightly and without considering the standards of
public rights has recognized self-defense against so-called terrorist attack
of September 11 as an inherent right for the victim country. Of course,
some lawyers for avoiding the expansion of this dangerous measure deny
the origin of such an issue. Another approach is that the Council has taken
such a measure but basically it has not the competence to establish such a
right. In identifying the right of defense, Security Council cannot change
its elements in public law. Another view is that the Council has been
merely considering a certain case and this does not necessarily means that
it can be applied to similar cases or in all terrorist acts. The final approach
is that the right of self-defense resulting from Security Council
30. Jamshid Momtaz, "Legal Dimensions of Combat against International Terrorism", A
speech delivered in Center for International Higher Studies, University of Tehran, The
Bulletin of the Center for International Higher Studies, (2nd Year, No. 1, January 2001),
pp. 1-13.
31. Hasan Sadati, "The Laws of Self-Defense in the Light of Terrorist Attack of
September 11, 2001 in the United States", Legal Viewpoints (Nos. 23-24, 2001), p. 65.
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Resolutions "for the United States and its allies cannot be considered as
carte blanche according to which they can do whatever they recognize as
appropriate."32
2- Self-Defense against Non-state Terrorist Actors
As long as there is no change in Article 51 of the Charter and common
law, self-defense in dominant only in relations among states and cannot
be applied to non-state terrorist groups and their armed attack against
states33 including the state of the location of these groups or other states34.
Therefore, Dr. Kirgis, member of American Society of International Law,
has focused on this important point and has expressed doubts about the
possibility of invoking self-defense on September 11 attacks. In his
opinion, "If the party responsible for the attacks on the World Trade
Center and the Pentagon is not the government of the country from which
the terrorists operate, a question could arise whether use of armed force
that causes injury to that country is lawful."35 In response, he says that the
UN Charter was not drafted with such situations in mind. However, the
reasoning which might be given is that if the state is knowingly harboring
the terrorists, the principle embodied in Article 51 will extend to this
situation.36 The basis of above citation is the Resolution of aggression
32. "Response to International Terrorism: The Expansion of Borders of International
Law towards a Stable Freedom", translated by Mohsen Sharifi, Foreign Policy, No. 4,
11th year, Winter 2001, p. 1164.
33. The only opponent of this Court's finding has been Judge Thomas Buergentahl. In
his opinion, "the right of self-defense is not applied only to state actors and armed
attacks against Israeli regime from the Occupied Territory should be considered in the
framework of this issue, in conformity with Article 51 of the Charter".
34. International Court of Justice in the case of Nicaragua, in studying the concept of
armed attack only mentions relationship among states. See: Nicaragua Case, ICJ Rep.
1986, para. 195.
35. Fredric Kirgis, "Terrorist Attacks on the world Trade Center and the Pentagon",
ASIL Insights, (Sep. 2001). www.asil.org/insights.htm.
36. The records and procedures of Security Council, especially its reaction toward Israeli
Regime's attack against Tunisia because of the location of the headquarters of PLO in
this country denies this view. In October 1985, Israeli planes bombed the headquarters of
PLO in Tunisia. In Security Council, Israeli regime claimed that the bombardment has
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definition in which supporting armed groups in military measure against a
state is considered as an aggression.
Conclusion
UN Charter, strengthening the spirit of Locarno Treaty and KelloggBriand Pact banning the use of force, identified three exceptions in this
regard: military measure according to collective security system (Article
42), self-defense (Article 51) and, finally, military confrontation with the
policies of the enemy states of UN members (Articles 53 and 107).
Among these, the third one, because of the reasons of the Charter and its
being temporary as well as the membership of enemy and defeated states
in the Second World War in the Charter (and that the condition for their
membership, according to the article, is their peacemaking interests),
seems obsolete.37 International Court of Justice, in its advisory opinion on
the Construction of a wall in Palestinian Territory, paid attention to the
components of self-defense and gave response to new claims after the
September 11 attack to spread the frameworks of this right. Regarding the
right of self-determination of nations and its relation with staying immune
against the states' use of force, the Court started consolidation of
international stability and order.
On the principle of self-determination of nations, the Court expressed that
this issue has been given significant attentions in UN Charter and has
been re-emphasized by General Assembly in 2625 Resolution, according
to which every state has the duty to refrain from any kind of coercion
aimed against the political independence of any state included in this
Resolution. Article 1 of both International Covenant on Economic, Social
and Cultural Rights as well as International Covenant on Civil and
Political Rights once more have emphasized the right of selfbeen legitimate because Tunisian state has knowingly harbored the terrorists whose aim
was Israel. Security Council, in Resolution 573, condemning this measure, severely
rejected this claim (i.e. considering supporting terrorism as equal with armed attack)
with 14 positive votes and without any opponent and with the US abstention vote.
37. See: Robert Bledsoe and Boleslaw Boczek, The International Law Dictionary,
Translation and research by Alireza Parsa, Tehran: Ghomes, 1996, p. 401.
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determination of all peoples and have reiterated that all State Parties to
these Covenants shall promote the realization of the right of selfdetermination, and shall respect that right, in conformity with the
provisions of the Charter of the United Nations. The Court recalls its
previous procedures in which it emphasized that recent development in
nations' role in international law about non-autonomous territories, as
being respected in the Charter of the United Nations, has made the
autonomy principle applicable to all (such territories) and the people's
right of autonomy is a jus cogens. The aforesaid right will provide nations
and actors who are trying to obtain this right on behalf of the nations with
rights that might require resistance or armed measures. However, in
reaction toward their acts, the concept of self-defense will not be applied.
Ultimately, the decisive finding of the international judicial procedure is
that Israeli regime in no case38 can invoke the right of self-defense or the
state of emergency to negate outrageous aspect of a wall that has violated
some of the most important international obligations and standards
tremendously and systematically. "As a result, the Court finds out that the
construction of the wall and the regime related to it, is contrary to
international law "including the rights of self-defense and selfdetermination. In this regard, Judge Al-Khasawneh with a sarcastic
expression about the Israeli operation under the title of Peace Negotiations
says that "if these negotiations are not to produce non-principled solutions,
then they should act according to law and good faith".
"States have accepted that the final authority to determine the legitimacy or
illegitimacy acts of international actor is the International Court of Justice"
and therefore, the judicial procedure based on the decisions of this Court is
the final word. But this "final word" sometimes has the minimum aspect. In
fact, although if the judicial declaration about the illegitimacy of such
organized and planned measures is sometimes a necessary step for
38. Contrary to some impressions, the aforesaid advisory opinion has not left any place
for the impression that the construction of the wall or other non-forcible measures can be
explained in the light of self-defense. The court is on the opinion that since there has
been done no armed attack, defense has no place here. The defense in the Article 51 of
the Charter means military defense: a defense appropriate with the attack.
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preserving "contemporary international order", it would never be enough.
The international community of states and all governmental and nongovernmental civil organizations should be the custodians of international
order and use their capacities to preserve this order, to improve the system of
producing, monitoring and implementing that order. In the meantime, the
United Nations and especially the General Assembly and Security Council,
by taking into account the Court's decision, should deliberate upon a way to
end the illegal situation resulted from the construction of the wall in
Occupied Palestinian Territory and the regime related to it. It seems that the
last paragraph of the Court's final decision in its advisory opinion on the
construction of the wall has not caught the attention of the United Nations
and its organs so much after 5 years of its codification; rather, non-state
organizations of human rights and humanitarian law have taken the burden to
pursue it. Although the Court itself cannot issue a vote according to desirable
rights and use the works of a legislator"39, through "the broad interpretation
of principles and rules, seeks to ensure the survival and continuity of
international system"40 and it seems that eleven years after the September 11
events, it has properly displayed its specific work. Ultimately, the court with
this coordinated and homogenous procedure, has remained immune from the
emotional atmosphere of innocence-shows after these events and the
deliberate highlighting the tragedy of victims of terrorism – which mostly
affected the structure of the United Nations – 41 and has said a decisive "no"
to some powers who were seeking to expand the range of self-defense in
order to give legitimacy to their military operations in some regions and
against some countries and nations and hence has made the costs of military
option outside the accepted legal cases costly and expensive.
39. Mohammad Reza Zia'I Bigdeli, "The Courts Mission in Preserving International
Law".
40. Hedayatollah Falsafi, "The Interpretation in International Court of Justice".
41. The ratification of Security Council Resolutions 1368 and 1737 is the most
significant result of these emotions which gave America to ride the wave of public
opinion and to use this vital opportunity to pursue its national interests and hence the socalled process of "international combat against terrorism" was created in contemporary
literature. This conceived the world with continuous changes.
Democratization and Freedom in the Middle East: Challenges of …
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Democratization and Freedom in the Middle
East: Challenges of Muslim Future
Mirnes Kovac 
This short analysis, is based on a short message which inspired me deeply
throughout these days as we witness criminal actions of regimes in Libya,
Yemen and Bahrain.
The main idea of my work is that as soon as freedom is established in the
Middle East - parties and movements inspired by Islam will gain power in
regular democratic contest. The response of my then supervisor was
negative. I insisted on the thesis and upon Hamas won the elections in
Palestine, I e-maild him telling him: "Did you see that I was right. The
response of my Supervisor was very short: Wait for a while and we will
see that is not the way things go in international relations. After that I
understood one thing I did not understand earlier: there exists a
hegemonic force in the global system that tries to channel all
developments. I hope that recent developments in the Middle East, at
least, in some sense, overcame this trend).
When the "Age of revolution" had been happening from both sides of
Atlantic at the end of 18th and early 19th centuries it was mainly
characterized by the yearning of peoples for freedom, to slide out of
burden of absolutistic monarchies and chains of all kinds. People wanted
their honor and dignity, property and prospective of future to be realized
in constitutional states and republics. Looking at what is happening in
Middle East and North Africa in last six months I wonder as if those ages
of revolutions were in fact postponed in Arab world. It seemed that the
 The editor of the bi-monthly Preporod Islamic Magazine published in Sarajevo. He
graduated in Islamic Studies from the Faculty of Islamic Studies in Sarajevo University
and has an MA in International Relations from the University of Sussex, UK.
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dawn of new age in Middle East had to wait for whole 19th and 20th. The
centuries to break out with the end of first decade of 21st century. The
period of fermentation reached the point where it has no returning, where
it must break on all sides.
Islam as a Freedom Religion
There exist no religious faith that emphasizes freedom and entrusts it with
such a special status as Islam did in its worldview. In Islam freedoms is
absolute feature, a seal and guarantee that only Almighty gives to its most
exquisite creature, man, as a sign. "And indeed We have honored the
Children of A dam, and We have carried them on land and sea, and have
provided them with all good things and have preferred them above many
of those whom We have created with a marked preference", says Quran
(17:70'). And this honor and feature is unquestionable.
It is a feature by which human is human, No religious worldview puts
freedom of man at such exalted place as Islam. Islam in itself, in its
historical emergence proved itself as all-encompassing revolution of
freedom. In addition, Islam in its practical realization is simply not
possible without freedom. The very pre-condition for religious
observance, i.e., for a person to be obliged for any kind of worship is at
first place to be free individual. For a slave the rules were almost totally
different, or, one can says that Islam did all what was needed for slavery
to diminish by the force of intrinsic energy of Islamic message. For its
disappearance (at least in formal medieval fashion) Islam ensured all
necessary elements! Besides, according to the teachings of Islam, any
contract or promise are meaningless unless person is free.
Freedom is the quality by which human beings were dignified to the
extent that angels were commanded by God (according to Qur'anic story
of creation) to bow before Adam. With all this said, there exists no
worldview that rose up against social injustice. It is done in such an open
and explicit way to the extent that Islam in its worshiping precepts
proscribed one part of person's property to be given in alms for those in
need. On the other hand, Islam by its nature is fundamentally opposed to
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any kind of iconism, cult of personality or any type of worshiping of
beings or idols. Islamic art, it is very evident, completely excludes
imagery and is iconoclastic per se.
The Customary Planet of Oppression abs Slavery
All this are mere facts and figures according which Islam distinguished
itself throughout centuries by its idea and mission, from other religious
traditions, faiths and movements.
However, nowhere on the planet more oppression and slavery, at least
until recently, were present than in Muslim lands, and especially in the
countries of Middle East and North Africa (MENA) - torture, despotism,
decade-long rulers and leaders with their portraits everywhere from coins
to large billboards and statues on the streets ... All public life was in tune
with praising their "greatness" - so fundamentally incompatible with lands
where calls for worshiping only One God and praising His Greatness
(Allahu Akbar) were heard regularly five times a day.
This internal conflict was rising with rising awareness and education of
masses. For, the systems of control created for twentieth century were
eventually defeated by systems of free communications of" \ st century, as
one analyst wisely noted. The system that enabled people to freely say
what they think and share it with their fellow citizens and in doing so not
to be interrupted or prevented, overcoming by it the largest barrier and
agent in Muslim world, and Arab world especially, - the agent of fear.
"We are not afraid anyrnore!" still resonates as most widely heard parole
of Arab awakening from Tunisia, Cairo, Sana, Benghazi, Misurata,
Dar'aa to Bahrain and even further into countries yet to be affected by this
momentum.
It has to be noted that, as we mentioned at the beginning of this short text,
revolutions in the West were scientific, political and economic, and their
very prominent feature was that they were a kind of upheaval against
religious authority and by that religion itself. And there appeared the
conflict between freedom and faith, between science and religion,
between rule of God and rule of man.
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The most evident fact in Islamic awakening, and Arab Street shows this
very vividly, that conflict of this kind does not exist in this region. There
is no conflict with religion, as this kind of conflict does not exist, in
principle, in Islam. And evidently this conflict is absent from the current
Arab street. In this case the religion is on the same side of revolutionaries.
Also, very symptomatic is that in recent upheavals on the Arab Street we
had not seen any antiAmericanism, anti-Israelisrn or any anti-Western
slogans, which was unavoidable feature of any gathering and
demonstrations in past times. The demonstrations without burning
American and Israeli nags were unthinkable, and rarely this occasions
were extensively used by ruling regimes as a kind of justifications for
repressive measures and projecting picture in the West that authoritarian
regimes were necessity for those masses to be kept in check and
becalmed. Nowadays, however, the conflict exists but only in those
domains where the principle of freedom and justice clashes with practice
of tyranny and personal interests of ruling elites in the region that is
"satanically united in defence of ruling tyrants". Any step, no matter how
painful it would be, and according to what we have seen in past six
months, will be hard and demanding. It can ensure the climate for
strengthening freedom because it has deep spiritual foundation, otherwise,
if stronger global support fails it can lead the whole religion in much
onerous turmoil.
It is not surprise therefore that the heart of Muslim world, and especially
its Arabic part, represents very challenging region, because it was for
decades and centuries black hole in sphere of freedom around which all
possible geo-political and economic interests were interlocked. We see
their reflexion today in positioning of key global players and their
reluctance to firmly take a stance towards voices of freedom and change.
Hypocrisy of International Order
For, many interests could be at stake here and that is one of the
explanation of hypocrisy of international (dis)order and policy of waiting
and keeping the status quo and striving to get the best out of it for own
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interests. Nevertheless, that huge will of people for better future, more
honest and dignified life in freedom and welfare has a real chances, and
above all things, it has a legitimate and historical right for all this to take
place.
For, it had been too long that an Arab lived in internal conflict - his or her
faith was teaching him or her that there were no slavery, but soon as he
steps out of a mosque he or she sees slavery at every corner! His or her
religion constantly reminds that there is no cult of personality, not even
those of Prophet's, and soon as he or she walks at street gigantic
billboards of various leaders, kings and princes hanging on buildings and
towers are striking directly with messages that they are here and the life is
not possible without them! His or her faith teaches that there must not be
exploitation of human beings, but as soon as he or she steps out luxury
life, fancy cars, yachts and villas of the elites prove just opposite and
more strikingly all what he or she sees is taken from him or her. His or
her religion teaches that dignity is not in one being male or female, black
or white, not even being Muslim or non-Muslim, but in being human, but
as soon as he or she takes more insightful look at the situation he or she
finds that women in Muslim land do not have even close status as they
had in the lifetime of their beloved Prophet. His or her Islamic tradition
and worldview teach and recognize sanctity of human dignity, but those
who conceit that in their hands is everything, they took it all and usurped
it and that is the main reason for him or her to go out on the street and
demand the change without any fear.
For all these reasons the experience of Arab awakening is unique and
exceptional. However, the West had its own experience of change,
revolution and democracy. It was remarkable and unique but it was not
the only experience of change possible. Arab Street proved it in the best
way possible. It proved and is still proving that it has intrinsic potential to
offer its own way out of tyranny and despotism. It has its own way that
will not put the religion and democracy on the collision course, as many
in the West feared. It simply does not have that kind of need.
I will end my short reflection with the message I saw at the Facebook
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status of one young Libyan which inspired me deeply throughout these
days as we witness criminal actions of regimes in Misurata in Libya and
in Bahrain cities.
My name is Freedom. Born in Tunisia, raised in Egypt, studied in
Yemenifought in Libya and now in Bahrain ... I'll grow up in all the
Arab world ...
It must be this way; the other way is just something unimaginable!
Crime of Terror in the Case Low of the ICTY
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Crime of Terror in the Case Law of the ICTY
Dr. Heybatollah Najandimanesh 
Zahra Elyasi Ghahfarokhi 
Abstract:
One of the major developments in the area of international law, in
general, and international criminal law, in particular is the
establishment of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former
Yugoslavia (ICTY). The Tribunal was established by the UN Security
Council in 1993 in reaction to the atrocities committed in the Balkans.
Dealing with several criminal cases, the Tribunal- as an international
criminal tribunal- for the first time interpreted the rules of the Geneva
Conventions 1949. Certainly, consideration by the ICTY of the crime
of terror is of high importance, for yet there is no consensus on the
definition of this crime among the members of the international
community. Because of the lack of such consensus the states adopting
the Rome Statute (1998) couldn‘t insert the crime of terror in the
Statute. Considering of this crime, its definition and its elements by
the tribunal may pave the way for establishing consensus among the
states in regard the definition of the crime. This research deals with
the crime of terror and its actus reus and mens rea in the light of the
tribunal`s case-law. The crime of terror, under the relevant
circumstances, may be regarded as a war crime or a crime against
humanity.
Key Words: Crime of terror, Terrorism, the International Criminal
Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), armed conflict
 Assistant Professor of International Law.
 Researcher of Law
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Introduction
While international law, originally, governing the relations between
states, today it has so developed to regulate the conducts of the
individuals.1 Today, the rules of international law in this field are called
international criminal law. In other words ‗international criminal law
concerns prohibitions addressing the individuals whose violations are
punishable‘.2 Under these rules if the acts of the individuals are in
violation of the treaty and customary international law, in particular
international human rights law, they regarded to bear criminal
responsibility. There is no doubt that these rules are made to protect
human beings. It may be said that ‗sovereignty- oriented approach has
been replaced by a human-oriented approach slowly… . Protecting the
legal interests of states, international must consider protection of human
beings slowly…‘.3
In the past whenever these rules were being violated, the international
community, appropriate to its mechanisms and devices, reacted these
violations. Among these, one may refer to Nuremberg and Tokyo courts.
These courts may be regarded as the first relative successful efforts to
treat the violators of the laws of war and humanitarian law. Because of
defects in the structure of these tribunals and their activities, the
international community tried to take a basic step in establishing a
permanent international criminal body. To this end, the UN General
Assembly asked the international law commission to prepare the draft of
an international criminal court`s statute.4
1. It is so clear that international organizations are also governed by the rules of
international law.
2. Robert Cryer et al., 2007, p. 1.
3. Tadic Appeals Judgement (2 May, 1995), para. 97. Tadic Appeals Judgement (2 May,
1995), para. 97.
4. See generally at: M. Cherif Bassiouni, "From Versailles to Rwanda in Seventy- five
Years: the Need to Establish a Permanent International Criminal Court", Harvard Human
Rights Journal, Vol. 10 (1997) pp. 11- 62; M. Cherif Bassiouni, The Statute of the
International Criminal Court and Related Instruments: Legislative History, 1994-2000,
New York, Transnational Publishers, 2001 and M. Cherif Bassiouni, "The Time Has
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Calling for establishing an international tribunal for prosecuting
individuals bearing responsibility for crimes against peace and crimes
against humanity in the former Yugoslavia was made by the leaders of the
world in 1992. Those who made statements in the UN in this regard
confirmed the principle of individual responsibility for grave breaches of
the Geneva conventions of 1949 and other international crimes. In
particular, in 13 July 1992 the UN Security Council, in resolution 7645,
recalled the parties to the conflict that they are bound to respect the
international humanitarian law and especially Geneva conventions and
those who commit the grave violations of these conventions or order these
violations are individually responsible (Para. 10). Further, in 13 August
1992, reaffirming the principle of individual responsibility in resolution
7716 (para. 1), the Council called the parties to stop any violation of
international humanitarian law, including those were as practice of ethnic
cleaning (para. 3) and under UN chapter 7 rules decided that failure to its
calling shall result in further measures being taken under UN charter
(para. 7).
Adopting of the Council resolution 780 in 6 October 1992 7 may be
regarded as an important step in establishing an international tribunal as a
‗further measure‘.8 By this resolution, the Council asked the UN General
Secretary to create an impartial commission consisting of experts for
collecting evidence of violations of Geneva conventions and other
violations of international humanitarian law (para. 2). After that, a group
of three rapporteur appointed by the Conference on Security and
Cooperation in Europe as well as commissions of lawyers from France
and Germany contributed to establishment of such tribunal and codifying
Come for an International Criminal Court", Indiana International and Comparative Law
Review, Vol. 1, pp. 1-43 (1991).
5. 13 July 1992, S/RES/764.
6. SC Res. 771, 13 August 1992, S/RES/771.
7. SC Res. 780, 6 October 1992, S/RES 780.
8. The Council in resolution 771 called the parties to end the violations of international
humanitarian law otherwise ‗further measures‘ shall be taken under the UN charter(
para. 7).
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its statute. The UN General Secretary, then, employed these drafts for
preparing its report to the UN Security Council under resolution 808 (22
February 1993). Establishment of an international tribunal for prosecuting
individuals responsible for grave violations committed in the territory of
the former Yugoslavia since 1991 has been entirely agreed in resolution
808. Finding under article 399 of the UN Charter that the situation in the
former Yugoslavia was constituted as a threat against the international
peace and security in the meaning of the chapter 7, the UN Security
Council decided to establish an international tribunal as an effective
action in order to prevent the commission of the crimes, trying the
responsible persons and contribution to the restore and maintenance of
peace. The UN General Secretary`s report prepared according resolution
808 dealt with several legal issues in relation to creation an ad hoc
international tribunal and it also had prepared the draft statute for the
tribunal. The UN Security Council, under chapter 7, in resolution 82710
unanimously adopted the UN General Secretary`s report and the statute of
the international criminal tribunal for former Yugoslavia (hereinafter the
international tribunal) annexed to it, without changing it.11 According to
the Security Council, establishment of the tribunal ‗shall contribute
securing that such violations shall be stopped and effectively
suppressed‘.12 The Council, therefore, followed two major aims by
establishing the tribunal: ‗firstly, the tribunal shall prevent the individual
from committing similar crimes in the future; and it therefore contributes
to reduction of the crimes. Second, implementing of justice seemed to be
necessary for it guaranteed that violations of international law would not
9. According to article 39: The Security Council shall determine the existence of any
threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression and shall make
recommendations, or decide what measures shall be taken in accordance with Articles 41
and 42, to maintain or restore international peace and security.
10. S/25704, 3 May 1993
11. John R. W. D. Jones, 2000, p. 40.
12. S. Trifunovska (ed.), Yugoslavia Through Documents: From its Creation to its
Dissolution, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, The Hague, 1994; D. Bethlehem M. Weller,
The Yugoslavia Crisis in International Law: General Issues, Part I, Vol. 5, Cambridge
International Documents Series, Grotius/Cambridge University Press, 1997.
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remain without punishment‘.13 The Security Council, about the special
case of the Former Yugoslavia, created a subsidiary body as an effective
measure, but of judicial nature, under chapter 7 in the framework of the
requirements provided for by article 29 of the Charter.14 This body shall
do its functions independently and independence of political
considerations. In performing its judicial functions, it is not subject to the
control or authority of the Council. However, the term of the tribunal`s
work will depend upon the restore and maintenance of international peace
and security in the territory of the former Yugoslavia as well as the
decisions of the Security Council in this regard.15
Until now, the Tribunal completed the proceedings against 120 persons of
the total 161 persons against whom the indictment had been issued.16
Certainly, it is of high importance for the Tribunal, as an international
criminal body, to deal with the crime of terror; because there is no
consensus among the members of the international community about this
crime. The absence of such consensus, among other things, caused the
international community couldn‘t insert the crime of terror in the
International Criminal Court`s Statute. Consideration of this crime by the
Tribunal may pave the way for consensus about the definition of this
crime.
This article deals with the concept of terror, its actus reus and mens rea.
The crime of terror has been considered as a war crime in the case-law of
the Tribunal. It is necessary to mention that the legal element of the crime
is Article 3 of the Tribunal`s Statute, Article 51 of the Additional Protocol
I and Article 13 of the Additional Protocol II.
13. Pierre Sob, 1998, p. 152.
14. Article 29 states: ‗The Security Council may establish such subsidiary organs as it
deems necessary for the performance of its functions‘.
15. See generally H. Najandimanesh, Protection of Cultural Properties in the Time of
Armed Conflicts: Case Study of the Former Yugoslavia, Thesis for LLM, Allame
Tabatabaie University, 2005 and also H. Najandimanesh, Contribution of the ICTY to
the Development of International Criminal Law, PhD Thesis, Allame Tabatabaie
University, 2008.
16. See www.icty.org
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1. Concept of the Crime of Terror in the Case-law of the
Tribunal: Terrorism as a War Crime
‗Terror‘ literally means ‗to make extreme fright and horror among the
people‘. According to Oxford ―terrorism: resort to violence for political
purposes or to compel the government to act or refrain from doing via
making horror among the people‖.17 It is right to say, therefore, that
foundation and the essence of ―terrorism‖ is: creating horror and fright
among the people in order to exercise pressure upon the government.
Although the international community at the time of council of the
League of the Nations started to combat terrorism, but increasing the
terrorist attacks in 1970s caused the UN to pay attention to terrorist
actions. UN General Assembly, in December 18, 1972, decided to
establish an ad hoc committee on terrorism. The committee failed to give
a definition of the terrorism. Since the international community failed to
agree on a comprehensive definition of all forms of terrorism, it was
gradually decided to insert combating against certain forms of terrorist
actions in its agenda.
Among other things which considered in the case-law of the ICTY is
violations of international humanitarian rules and international human
rights law at the time of the armed conflicts. The parties to the conflicts
occurred in the former Yugoslavia in 1990s committed the gross and
serious violations of international humanitarian and human rights law.
The Tribunal, therefore, according to its statute had the jurisdiction to
decide such violations. The crime of terror, as a war crime, was dealt for
the first time in Galic case by the tribunal.18 The Tribunal, then, dealt with
the crime in Dragor Milosovic in detail. Milosovic`s charges, inter alia,
included violations of Article 3 of the Statute and Article 51 of Additional
Protocol I and Article 13 of Additional Protocol II.19 According Article
51 (2) of Additional Protocol I and Article 13 (2) of Additional Protocol
II: ―The civilian population as such, as well as individual civilians, shall
17. Oxford Advanced Dictionary Learners Dictionary, 2009, p. 1233.
18. Galić Trial Judgement and Appeal Judgement.
19. D. Milo evi Trial Judgement, para. 873.
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not be the object of attack. Acts or threats of violence the primary purpose
of which is to spread terror among the civilian population are prohibited.‖
Terrorist acts in internal conflicts against the civilians and those who do
not participate in military actions are also prohibited.
The first sentence of Article 51 (2) of Additional Protocol I and Article 13
(2) of Additional Protocol II ―incorporate a general prohibition of attacks
on civilians, while the second sentence prohibits a specific form of attacks
on civilians‖.20 So, the crime of terror includes violent acts or threats the
primary purpose of which is to spread horror among the civilians.
According to Galic case customary international law prohibited and
criminalized the crime of terror. The crime is regarded as violation of
laws and customs of war which are the subject of Article 3 of the
Tribunal`s Statute and it is, therefore, subject to the Tribunal`s
jurisdiction.21Under the existing legal rules of international humanitarian
law the terrorist acts against the civilians are prohibited. In other words,
terrorist acts against the conflicting parties and or combatants may not be
considered as war crime, but it may be regarded as the crime of terror.
According to the ICRC commentary on the Additional Protocols the
terrorist acts, referred to in some provisions of the protocols without
saying that such acts need to be against the civilians, impliedly indicates
that terrorist acts against objects (such as civil aviation establishments)
are prohibited and considered as crime.22
The trial chamber in Galic case stated that the prosecutor didn‘t give any
definition of terror in the initial proceedings, but during the trial, the
prosecutor adopted a definition under which terror is regarded as
―extreme fear‖.23 Neither Trial Chamber nor Appeals Chamber
considered the term of ―terror‖. Only the Appeals Chamber stated, in
20. Galić Appeal Judgement, para. 87 Galić Appeal Judgement, para. 87 . See also Galić
Trial Judgement, para. 98.
21. Ibid, paras 86 – 87, 90, 98.
22. ICRC, Commentaire des Protocoles Additionnels (Geneva, Nijhoff, 1986), 1t 1399
(para. 4538).
23. Galić Trial Judgement, para. 75.
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footnote, that ―terror may be defined as extreme fear‖.24 The Trial
Chamber adopted this definition in Dragor Milosovic case. 25The Trial
Chamber, in Dragomir Milosovic, advocated the definition presented by
the prosecution as follow:26
No one knew whether they might be the next victim. It affected every
waking moment of their lives. People for 15 months […] knew absolutely
no sense of safety anywhere in the city. Terror is [...] the intentional
deprivation of a sense of security. It‘s been [sic] the primal fear that
people feel when they see someone in front of them gunned down and
that moment of panic when they try and run to help the victim, waiting for
the next shots to come, and you‘ve had ample evidence about that.
And it‘s not just [...] the fear that comes from being nearby the combat.
This is a fear calculated to demoralise, to disrupt, to take away any sense
of security from a body of people who have nothing [...] to do with the
combat.
According to the Tribunal the existence of an armed conflict may be
regarded as a general requirement for applying Article 3 of the Statute
and also of the crime of terror pursuant to Article 51 of Additional
Protocol I and Article 13 of Additional Protocol II. the Trial Chamber
notes that it needs to distinguish between terror in times of peace and
terror in a situation of armed conflict as understood in international
humanitarian law.27 Most international conventions are confined to terror
not governed by international humanitarian law. The
International Convention against the Taking of Hostages of 1979(Art.
12); International Convention for the Suppression of Terrorist Bombings
1997(Art. 19(2) and Nuclear Terrorism Convention of 2005 adopted this
attitude. However, the scope of the Draft Comprehensive Convention on
Terrorism was, and still is, a very contentious issue and was considered a
―key central focus‖. Currently, the Draft Comprehensive Convention
24. Galić Appeals Judgement, Footnote 320.
25. D. Milo evi Trial Judgement, Para. 883.
26. ibid., paras. 885- 6.
27. Ibid. para. 887.
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against International Terrorism contains an exemption for the activities of
armed forces during an armed conflict.28According to the Tribunal
―attacks directed against the civilian population are equally prohibited in
the international instruments dealing with the crime of terror in peace
time‖.29 Noting that the crime of terror only covers acts or threats of
violence
which are specifically intended to spread terror among the civilian
population, the Trial Chamber stated that ―It must be established that the
terror goes beyond the fear that is only the accompanying effect of the
activities of armed forces in armed conflict. The prohibition of spreading
terror among a civilian population must therefore always be distinguished
from the effects that acts of legitimate warfare can have on a civilian
population‖.30 Certainly, there is a certain degree of fear and intimidation
among the civilian population in nearly every armed conflict. The Trial
Chamber notes that the closer the theatre of war is to the civilian
population, the more it will suffer from fear and intimidation. This is
particularly true in an armed conflict conducted in an urban sphere, where
even legitimate attacks against combatants may result in intense fear and
intimidation among the civilian population, but to constitute terror, an
intent to instil fear beyond this level is required. After all, the Tribunal
holds that the circumstances of a particular armed conflict must be taken
into account in determining whether the crime of terror has been
committed, or whether the perpetrators intended to ―spread terror among a
civilian population.‖31
28. Ibid. See footnote 3042 and see also Draft Comprehensive Convention against
International Terrorism, Article 20(2) (A/61/37, Report of the Ad Hoc Committee
established by General Assembly resolution 51/210 of 17 December 1996, Tenth
Session (27 February – 3 March 2006), p. 4.
29. Ibid. para. 887.
30. ibid. para. 888. See also Galić Trial Judgement, para. 101.
31. ibid. para. 888.
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2. Elements of the Crime of Terror in the Case-law of the
Tribunal
The crime of terror against the civilian population consists of the elements
common to offences falling under Article 3 of the Statute as well as the
following elements:
a. Acts of violence directed against the civilian population or individual
civilians not taking direct part in hostilities causing death or serious injury
to body or health within the civilian population;
b. The offender willfully made the civilian population or individual
civilians not taking direct part in hostilities the object of those acts of
violence; and
c. The crime was committed with the primary purpose of spreading terror
among the civilian population.
The crime of terror, therefore, consists of actus reus and mens rea. It is
worthy to note that under these elements the violent acts or threats must
cause to death or serious injury to body or health within the civilian
population. The following section will deal with these elements.
A. Legal Element of the Crime of Terror
Under the case-law of the ICTY the legal element of the crime of terror
may be found in Article 3 of the Tribunal`s Statute, Article 51 of the
Additional Protocol I and Article 13 of the Additional Protocol II to the
Geneva conventions.32
B. Actus reus of the crime of Terror
The actus reus of the crime of terror consists of the acts or threats of
violence, directed against civilian population or individual civilians,
which cause serious injury to their body or health.33 The crime of terror
like the crime of the illegal attacks against the civilians is not limited to
direct attacks against civilians or threats thereof but may include
32. This issue was discussed in the prior section of this article in detail.
33. Galić Appeal Judgement, paras 100, 101.
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indiscriminate or disportionate attacks or threats thereof.34 While the
actual infliction of death or serious injury to body or health is a required
element of the crime of terror, ―both the Trial Chamber and the Appeals
Chamber in the Galić case held that actual infliction of ‗terror‘ on the
civilian population is not an element of the crime‖.35 Although the nature
of the acts or threats of violence may be different, the important elementas we shall see in the next section- is that the acts or the threats must be
directed with the specific intent of spreading terror among the civilian
people.
C. Mens rea of the crime of Terror
The crime of terror, surly, requires the specific intent.36 The mens rea of
the crime of terror consists of two parts: general intent and specific
intent.37 The general intent is that the perpetrator must have wilfully made
the civilian population or an individual civilian the object of acts or
threats of violence,38 while the specific intent is ―spreading terror among
the civilian population‖.39 As stated about the actus reus of terror,
according to the tribunal actual infliction of ‗terror‘ on the civilian
population is not an element of the crime, but the fact that the civilian
population suffered and experienced terror during an armed conflict may
be used as corroboration of the intent to terrorize.40 The trial chamber, in
Galic case, defined the crime of terror as such: ―willful violent acts or
threats against civil population or individual civilians with the primary
purpose of spreading terror among the civilian population‖.41 ―Primary‖
does not mean that the infliction of terror is the only objective of the acts
34. Ibid., para. 102.
35. D. Milosevic Trial Judgement., Para. 880. See also Galić Appeal Judgement, para.
104; Galić Trial Judgement, paras 65, 134.
36. Ibid., para. 878. See also Galić Trial Judgement, para. 137.
37. Ibid.
38. Ibid.
39. Ibid., para. 992. See also Galić Appeal Judgement, para. 104 and Galić Trial
Judgement, para. 133.
40. Ibid., Para. 880.
41. Galić Trial Judgement, para. 133.
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or threats of violence. Other purposes may exist simultaneously with the
purpose of spreading terror among the civilian population, provided that
the intent to spread terror is principal among the aims of the acts of
violence.42 The tribunal is of the view that perpetrators of the crime of
terror may have military, political or other goals. Consequently, the war
crime of terror does not need proof of ultimate military or political
goals.43
One may say that the ―primary purpose‖ for crime of terror is fully new
and innovative. All other crimes with specific intent require the proof of
the necessary mens rea. In other words, there is no hierarchy for intent. In
fact there was no classification of intent in international criminal law
before the Galic case. The tribunal, so, by its case-law inserted the
hierarchy of intent in international criminal law which is not supported by
doctrine.
The specific intent of the crime of terror can be inferred from the
circumstances of the acts or threats of violence, that is, from their nature,
manner, timing and duration.44 According to the trial Chamber, attacks
during cease-fires and truces or long term and persistent attacks against
civilians, as well as indiscriminate attacks, may be taken as indicia of the
intent to spread terror. The Trial Chamber considers that the specific
intent may also be inferred from the site of the attack. The fact that,
during the siege, civilians were targeted and attacked at sites, well-known
to be frequented by them during their daily activities, such as market
places, water distribution points, on public transport, and so on, may
provide strong indicia of the intent to spread terror.45
42. Galić Appeal Judgement, para.104.
43. D. Milosevic Trial Judgement., Para. 879.
44. Galić Appeal Judgement, para. 104.
45. D. Milosevic Trial Judgement., Para. 881.
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Conclusion
According to the case-law of the tribunal, the crime of terror, as a war
crime, consists of the following elements:
a) committing any violent act or threat (actus resus)
b) specific intent to spread terror among the civil population or the
civilians individually(mens rea)
This approach may be criticized in two aspects: first, in regard to actus
reus, it is better for the tribunal to use any ―illegal act or threat‖ instead of
―violent act or threat‖. The second, in respect to the crime of terror, result
is of special importance.
The tribunal shows us in its case-law that the crime of terror requires legal
elements like those are necessary for attacks against the civilians. The
crime of terror also needs an additional mental element of the ―main
purpose of spreading terror‖. So it may be regarded as an aggravated
crime and the most serious form of an illegal attack against the civilians.
It is necessary to mention that the crime of terror is not related to war
time; it also may be committed in peacetime as a crime against humanity.
After all, the case-law of the tribunal, alongside the doctrines, could
remove some of the ambiguities about the crime of terror. Although in the
case-law of the tribunal, the crime of terror as a war crime has been
debated, but this case-law may be useful in reaching a criminal legal
regime on the crime of terror in national and international level.
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Bibliography
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2.Cassese, A., P. Gaeta, J. Jones (eds.), The Rome Statute of the International
Criminal Court: A Commentary, Oxford, 2002.
3.Cryer, Robert, Hakan Friman and Darryl Robinson and Elizabeth Wilmshurst,
An Introduction to International Criminal Law and Procedure, Cambridge
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4.Jones, John R. W. D., the Practice of the International Criminal Tribunal
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5.Oxford Advanced Dictionary Learners Dictionary, 2009.
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to its Dissolution, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, The Hague, 1994.
7.Weller, D. Bethlehem M., The Yugoslavia Crisis in International Law:
General Issues, Part I, Vol. 5, Cambridge International Documents Series,
Grotius/Cambridge University Press, 1997.
Thesis
8.Najandimanesh, H., Protection of Cultural Properties in the Time of Armed
Conflicts: Case Study of the Former Yugoslavia, Thesis for LLM, Allame
Tabatabaie University, 2005.
9._______________, Contribution of the ICTY to the Development of
International Criminal Law, PhD Thesis, Allame Tabatabaie University, 2008.
Articles:
10.Bassiouni, M. Cherif, "From Versailles to Rwanda in Seventy- five Years:
the Need to Establish a Permanent International Criminal Court", Harvard
Human Rights Journal, Vol. 10 (1997).
11._______________, "The Time Has Come for an International Criminal
Court", Indiana International and Comparative Law Review, Vol. 1, pp. 143 (1991).
12.Cassese, A., ―The Multifaceted Criminal Notion of Terrorism in International
Law‖, Journal of International Criminal Justice, 4, 2006.
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13.Sob, Pierre, "The Dynamics of International Criminal Tribunals (Perspectives
on Achieving Effective Human Rights Protection)", Nordic Journal of
International Law, (1998), 67: PP. 139-163.
14.Weigend, T., ―The Universal Terrorist –The International Community
Grappling with a Definition‖, Journal of International Criminal Justice, Vol.
4, Issue 5, 2006, pp. 912- 932.
Cases:
15.Prosecutor V. Dusko Tadic, Case No. IT-94-1-T, Appeals Judgment of 2 May
1995.
16.Prosecutor V. Stanislav Galic, Case No. IT-98-29-A, Appeals Judgment of 30
November 2006.
17.Prosecutor V. Stanislav Galic, Case No. IT-98-29-T, Trial Judgment of 5
December 2003.
18.Prosecutor V. Dragomir Milosevic, Case No. IT-98-29/1-A, Appeals
Judgment of 12 November 2009.
19.Prosecutor v. Dragomir Milosevic, Case No. IT-98-29/1-T, Trial Judgment of
12 December 2007.
Documents:
20.SC Res. 764, 13 July 1992, S/RES/764.
21.SC Res. 771, 13 August 1992, S/RES/771.
22.SC Res. 780, 6 October 1992, S/RES 780.
23.Report of the International Tribunal for the Prosecution of Persons
Responsible for Serious Violations of International Humanitarian Law
Committed in the Territory of the Former Yugoslavia since 1991, A/64/205S/2009/394, 31 July 2009.
Committed in the Territory of the Former Yugoslavia since 1991, 17 August
2005, A/60/267-S/2005/532.
Committed in the Territory of the Former Yugoslavia since 1991, 21 August
2006, A/61/271-S/2006/666.
26.Draft Comprehensive Convention against International Terrorism, Article
20(2) (A/61/37, Report of the Ad Hoc Committee established by General
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Assembly resolution 51/210 of 17 December 1996, Tenth Session (27 February
– 3 March 2006).
Websites:
27.http://www.icty.org
28.http://www.icrc.org/IHL.NSF/INTRO/470?OpenDocument
Some Observations on Global Alliance Against Terrorism for a Just Peace
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Some Observations on Global Alliance
Cynthia Ann McKinney 
How wonderful to be at a Conference where the word "love" is used; we
are here because we love humankind. We are here from all corners of the
earth; we are against terrorism; we want peace.
However, we must clarify peace. What kind of peace do we want?
President John F. Kennedy answered his question by saying: ". . . not a
Pax Americana" imposed on the world by weapons of war. He went on to
say that the kind of peace we want is the kind of peace that makes life
worth living--peace for all men and women for all time.
No Justice, No Peace. No Truth, No Justice!
But, today, U.S. policy is rooted in lies, injustice, and war. And at home,
the people of the U.S. suffer. Racism is acute, despite and maybe because
of President Obama; hatred is rampant with hatred of Muslims, incarceration
of Palestinians, targeting of immigrants, the lynchings of Blacks,
disappearances of Latinos, and the pauperization of the people. People
inside the U.S. are under attack in the realm of policy:
• poor education opportunities--some communities experience 50% high
school dropout rates
• poor health care--Americans pay the most and get less; according to the
Central Intelligence Agency World Factbook, the US is 50th in the world
in life expectancy and if that is not bad enough, it picks on countries like
Iraq (ranked 145th in the world), Pakistan (166th), Gaza (111th), Libya
(58th), and Cuba (57th). In infant mortality, the US is worse than the
European Union and Israel.
 The Farmer member of the USA House of Representatives(1993-2003 and 20052007), nominated for President of the United States by the Green Party in 2008. She
served as Commissioner in the Citizens' Commission on 9-11
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The U.S. used to be a wealthy country with much to give to the world, but
now the country is being plundered and the economic policies now
promote the oligarchization of our country.
The country is coming apart a the seams even a sit terrorizes the world
and applies the death penalty to whole countries. Dr. Martin Luther King,
Jr. once said that we are a country of guided missiles and misguided men.
Today, that is still true. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. also said that the
U.S. was the greatest purveyor of violence on the planet and sadly, that is
still true, too.
But, there is some good news, too. And that is, despite the tightly
controlled U.S. media, despite the deceptive political structure that is not
now--if it ever was--democratic, the core American people who are the
true peace people, are beginning to see the truth. We cannot bring our
country to peace and respect for human dignity without the solid
foundation of the truth. Those in the service of hatred, war, Zionism are
being seen for what they are.
So now, our challenge is what to do with this awakening. The answer, I
believe, is whose revolution gets funded. I personally know the
importance of this. During the Civil Rights Movement in the U.S., Black
people were able to erase bad laws and write better ones. They didn't
have a lot of money, but they had enough. And what they lacked in
finance, they made up for in unity and strategy. Therefore, it is at this
moment, when things appear so bleak that we must redouble our efforts
and not give up. We must believe that we can remake the world in a more
peaceful reality.
Finally, I am saddened as an American at what my country is doing to the
world. am saddened that our first African-American President presents a
false perception of the Black political consensus in the U.S. when he
participate in war crimes and global death and destruction.
These wars constitute a crime against humanity, crimes against the peace,
and crimes against our planet. I believe the people are ready, but now we
have to organize ourselves in Revolutionary Love, as Malcolm X said,
"by any means necessary."
Some Observations on Global Alliance Against Terrorism for a Just Peace
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Thank you all for caring about justice, peace, and human dignity. Thank
you for inviting me to this Conference. Thank you for having it and
thanks, especially to the Organizing Committee for making sure that I
arrived on time!
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Islamic Awakening and the Global Alliance for Peace and Security
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Islamic Awakening and the Global Alliance
for Peace and Security
Dr. Hassan Bashir 
Terrorism is a kind of anomie. It is the lack of social norms from the
rational perspective. The French sociologist Emile Durkheim (1951),
coined the term "anomie" to mark those people and individuals lacking
norms, who do not comply with the general rules of the society. Some
other researchers believe that anomie "is associated with the diversion and
it can even create it." (Arthur Asa Berger, 1379: 158)
Terrorism is a kind of anomie which is formed against the general norms
of the human society and it is trying to create and trigger some kind of
diversion in the general social situation. Moreover, terrorism is a moral
and doctrinal diversion which is against the human nature, and causes it to
crash down.
Basically "anomie" is the direct result of "mechanical" outlook which is
governing the religious, social, and ethical aspects of a group of people.
On the other hand, there is the "organic" outlook which is the direct
product of complex legal relations based on religious or social agreements
and contracts. Anomic groups experience the dissociation of mass
consciousness in which notions such as right and wrong, good and evil,
injustice and justice are severely undermined, suffering severe
fluctuations.
Anomie is in fact a social phenomenon that affects individuals and
society. It does not exist only because some people can not comply with
the community, but it is mostly the result of community structure and
arrangements which these communities create for some people and lead
them towards diversion.
 professor of International Relations.
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With this view about anomie, one can define terrorism. Terrorism is
indeed a social diversion. It is an anomie and a human diversion. This is
in fact the direct result of broader social diversions which pave the way
for such a deviation. But despite this fact, terrorism can not be defined as
a natural reaction against these diversions in the individual and social
structures.
Contemporary terrorism is a blindly anomic move which tries to justify
itself as a natural reaction against the global deviations. But in fact, it is
itself a great diversion which is extremely threatening the world. This
threatening move is trying to achieve the so called peace and security
through terror and destruction. It is a philosophical anomie in people›s
belief and it is why it has the highest rate of incidence in religious groups.
Terrorism in its current form has imposed lots of costs on the
international community. The Western society is reacting just like the
colonialism era in which it always tried to pretend itself as a more
superior, more rational, more regular and more civilized compared to the
inferior oriental people, what they mean as Muslims; in the new
colonialism the situation has not changed and the West tries to pretend
that there is still a deeper, wider, and amore philosophical gap between
the orient and the occident. In this age, the new trend of oriental studies
are based on a new discourse; expanding the policy of cultural
differences, making other identities inferior to the West and finally
creating a kind of discrimination in terms of civilization. In this new
situation, the West is trying to replace the concept of "violence' with the
notion of terrorism in the eastern community (Islamic community) and to
create a new barbarism in the name of the Islam and to marginalize the
Muslim population.
In such a situation of global terrorism, fighting with the terrorist
movement is not enough, and we must try to eradicate such a philosophy.
If the West is trying to introduce terrorism as a new indicator for the
global Muslim community vis-à-vis notions such rationality, peace, and
civilization, we must be skeptical about the real fight against terrorism. So
the first step in the suppression of international terrorism is the
Islamic Awakening and the Global Alliance for Peace and Security
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intellectual change in the governing policies of the West which links
terrorism to the Muslim world. Although terrorism in the current world is
related to a few number of Muslims, but the main cause of this terrorism
is the discrimination, injustice, oppression and exploitation which is the
direct result of Western policies. This definition never wants to justify
terrorism in the current world, but rather on the contrary, it can be said
that the current wave of terrorist attacks is the product of the West and
some of the despots in the Islamic world. Such an impression means that
the terrorism is the new global policy for the suppression of nations
standing against oppression and arrogance.
Therefore international peace and security, can not only be achieved by
repression and eradication of some terrorist movement-which must be
continued in the future- but beyond that the established global policies
must be taken into consideration and there must be a reconsideration in
the global counter - terrorist policies. It should also be emphasized that
the failure to end the global social conflict is the most important factor
depriving the current world from peace and security. International peace
and security is in fact a process that requires a global alliance and
coalition. This alliance should be formed without any discrimination and
injustice. One of the basic elements of such a coalition is to identify the
key factors and actors of the global terrorism. This identification and
understanding also should be independent of any philosophical or
religious discrimination. If terrorism is attributed to Islam, only because
of some extremist Islamic movements, and its ugly, unfair and inhumane
nature is completely accepted, so the Zionist regime of Israel which has
caused the Palestinian people to leave their motherland should also be
described as a terrorist organization. Here again there is no place for such
discriminatory analysis which want to purify some terrorist movements,
because it is the biggest obstacle in achieving peace and security in the
world. Today, unfortunately, the world is witnessing the largest human
discrimination throughout the history. This discrimination is more than a
terrorist act to kill and eliminate a few people. Instead of targeting one
individual, this move has targeted a nation for many years and exercise
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various terrorist plots every day to destruct it completely. Palestine is
facing such an approach and the peace and security would not be
achieved without returning what belongs to the Palestinians.
The contemporary Islamic awakening in the Muslim world is another
correcting move against injustice, discrimination and terrorism. In this
new situation, the Islamic world is completely aware of the western plots
and conspiracies to introduce the Muslims as a group of uncivilized
people. However Muslims are seeking to eliminate those internal and
external factors by their peaceful and non-violent revolutions. But the
state sponsored terrorism seeks to suppress these popular uprisings and
with the help of imperialistic propaganda, the corrupt governments are
trying to justify their efforts and to deviate the people›s movement.
Today, the behavior of the Bahraini government is a clear example of the
state terrorism within the Islamic world which is faced with the silence of
the western societies. This kind of discrimination in dealing with
terrorism, not only expands its circle, but it will threaten the international
peace and security.
In such circumstances, the international community should seek to review
its human experience of the recent centuries. Without correcting the past
mistakes we will not achieve the global peace and security in its desired
form. Islam is the doctrine of peace and security. Islam is based on peace
and tranquility. Throughout the history, Muslims treated all different
tribes and nations with respect. Humanity must now test pure Islamic
thoughts both at the intellectual and practical levels. Such a test could be
considered as a new foundation for the new human society in which there
would be no place for anomic groups, terrorists and the Zionists.
Interpretation of International Peace and Security According to the …
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Interpretation of International Peace and
Security According to the Charter of the
United Nations
Dr. S. Qasem Zamani 
Introduction
We are here to discuss a right which has been sought by humans for many
centuries without much success to realize it. Sometimes, it has been
reflected in literature and, at other times, it has been pursued through
laws, especially international law and from the viewpoint of states and
international organizations. God has created human beings and has blown
his own soul in them and the same God has made humanity of human
beings a guarantee to establish and maintain peace. In reality, however,
the situation has been quite different.
As you know, the first international institution assigned to protect
international peace and security was the League of Nations which came
into being after World War I to prevent repetition of such wars which
constitute a blatant violation of international peace. Perhaps when the
covenant of the League of Nations was being drawn up, that organization
and its affiliated organs and even member states did not have a good
grasp of the concept of peace. Given the conditions of ―armed peace‖ era
before World War I, which started in 1914, founders of the League of
Nations were bent on just preventing another war. They ignored the fact
that war was brought about by certain causes. That is, when setting goals
and priorities of the League, due attention was not paid to fundaments of
peace. They were oblivious to causes and grounds which create or
strengthen peace.
 Assisstan Professor, Allameh Tabatabaei University‘s School of Law.
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World peace: Failure of the League of Nations and endeavors
to found the United Nations
Apart from structural and institutional weaknesses of which the League of
Nations suffered, it considered peace to only mean the absence of war.
Naturally, without due attention to the root causes, peace will be quite
fragile. Therefore, social, political and economic crises in member
countries of the League of Nations soon caused it to fail and in less than
two decades after its establishment, World War II began.
When the war was still raging, it was quite clear that instead of defining
peace in its negative sense, it should be addressed more basically.
Governments which had started the war were totalitarian states where
people‘s rights were easily ignored. They were fascist governments which
were not truly based on the will of their nations, had no respect for human
dignity and, as such, fanned the flame of the Second World War.
Therefore, when the Charter of the United Nations (which is the main
subject of my discussion) was being formulated, they tried to learn
lessons from bitter experience of the League of Nations in order to
prevent the new organization to tread on the same path. The main reason
for the creation of the United Nations was to ―protect peace,‖ but this
time, they did not suffice to just the negative meaning of peace. The
United Nations set out to deal with all forms of conflict and aggression.
Paragraph 4, Article 2 of the Charter of the United Nations has
recommended member states to ―refrain in their international relations
from the threat or use of force. ‖ Also, Article 51 recognizes ―the inherent
right of individual or collective self-defense if an armed attack occurs
against a Member of the United Nations. ‖ Later on, a council called the
Security Council was established which enjoys extraordinary powers
according to Chapter VII of the Charter to counteract factors that threaten
peace, breach peace or constitute an act of aggression.
The totality of the United Nations system, though, is not limited to these
general goals. Disarmament and arms control were other missions of the
Organization and special organs were established for that purpose. The
approach taken by the United Nations to peace was, however, an
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infrastructural approach and included international security too.
Combining ―peace and security‖ especially throughout Chapter VII and
establishment of the Security Council instead of ―peace council‖ was a
totally attentive and informed measure.
In its first article which enumerates organizational goals of the United
Nations, that is, in paragraphs 1, 2, and 3, the Charter of the United
Nations takes peace to mean much beyond absence of war and prevention
of military aggression. It announces that the purpose of the United
Nations is also to develop friendly relations among nations based on
respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples,
to achieve international cooperation in solving international problems of
an economic, social, cultural, or humanitarian character, and to be a
center for harmonizing the actions of nations in the attainment of these
common ends. These are major goals which the United Nations aims to
achieve. The peace considered by the United Nations is not just a
domestic peace, but there is strong relationship between domestic and
international varieties of peace.
It was clear that in a world which is getting smaller as a result of technical
developments to become a global village, peace was an indispensable
concept. Therefore, Paragraph 7, Article 2 of the Charter of the United
Nations advises governments not to jeopardize international peace and
security on grounds of domestic issues.
World peace and security without borders
The relationship between domestic peace and security within borders of a
given country and security of international community has been
frequently reflected in the procedure adopted by affiliated organs of the
United Nations. It would be sufficient to take a look at various resolutions
passed by the Security Council and General Assembly on racial
segregation. They pay special attention to supervision over elections in
various countries and to domestic terrorism. No borders can be conceived
between these two kinds of security. Political borders just divide countries
and break down the concept of peace into domestic and international
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ones. Factors threatening security of a country rapidly reverberate across
the globe and spread from one country to another.
Security, as envisaged by the Charter of the United Nations, is a human
and collective security beyond the concept of security described in
Chapter VII of the Charter. Threat against peace is different from threat or
use of force. Various organs of the United Nations including the Security
Council, General Assembly and International Court of Justice have
interpreted peace in relation to their own powers without officially
defining it.
Nowhere in the Charter has a solid definition of peace been provided.
Therefore its true meaning will transpire in time. This was done, for
example, by the International Court of Justice in its advisory opinion on
the situation in Namibia. The Charter of the United Nations was drawn up
in 1945, but its contents will be defined in the course of time. The Charter
has given birth to an institution and has set the course of that institution,
but has also pointed to concepts whose accurate definition will be
determined in the course of time and with respect to social necessities of
international life.
Conclusion
Peace is a dynamic, not static, concept. International peace and security is
no more limited to treaties aimed at preventing war. Protection of
environment; fighting contagious diseases like AIDS and swine influenza,
and alleviating poverty and illiteracy are other issues which further
strengthen peace. The United Nations is the name of this organization, but
how nations can remain united or become united with other nations? Can
they be indifferent to destiny of other nations in international community
while talking about international peace and security? All nations share the
same fate. Only a small part of sustainable and just peace is related to
disarmament and arms control. A large part of it hinges on the elimination
of poverty or reduction of class divide between developed and developing
countries. Based on international resolutions, many international
differences should be addressed; otherwise, international peace will be at
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great danger. We must also try to build peace and do not suffice to
peacekeeping.
Peace should be built. The United Nations has not been passive toward
peace and all its organs, including UNESCO and UNICEF, have been
trying to realize it. Although political factors have somehow prevented
realization of true peace, if suitable grounds were provided, class divide
will become narrower and international community will not have to worry
about peace. The international community should be concerned about
maintaining peace when it is superficial and only limited to external
structures.
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Challenges Facing International Humanitarian Law in Fight …
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Challenges Facing International
Humanitarian Law in Fight against
Terrorism
Dr. Pouria Askary 
Introduction
When talking of terrorism, we need first to remind the bitter reality that
civilians, since long, have been the main victim of terrorist attacks.
However, right from the beginning we should take into account that even
states and nations are not spared from the consequences of such
operations against civilians. For instance, in 1914, assassination of an
Austrian prince in Sarajevo triggered the World War I. This event,
together with the 1917 Russian Revolution, robbed the 19th and 20th
century Europe from peace and tranquility. In recent years, too, before the
Sept. 11, we had witnessed widespread terrorist operations against
civilians. The Sept. 11 attacks and the subsequent US attack against
Afghanistan in a bid to ''eliminate'' terrorism, once again and this time
more than ever, brought the attention of the international community to
the issue of terrorism.1
Formerly, it was believed within the academic circles that IHL reflected
in the four GCs and their APs cover all types of terrorist acts committed
in the course of an armed conflict. Therefore, the existing IHL was
considered sufficient for addressing the consequences of the then terrorist
operations. However, events of the past two decades along with the huge
 The legal advisor and IHL Programme Responsible of the ICRC in Iran. The opinions
expressed in this article are the author's own, and do not necessarily reflect the views of
the International Committee of the Red Cross. Original in Farsi.
1. Hans-Peter Gasser, ''Acts of Terror, ''Terrorism'' and IHL'' IRRC, 2002, vol 84, p 547
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global changes we have witnessed, especially concerning power relations,
all make it necessary to reconsider such concepts.2
International Law and Prohibition of Terrorism
At present, no specific international treaty can be found within the
international order that contains a comprehensive rule to ban terrorism,
and to be applicable in all circumstances. In fact, the only instrument to
be referred to as the ''Convention on Ban and Punishment of Terrorism''
drafted in 1937 by the community of nations, which never became
binding. Some other documents have been approved to face other types of
terrorism3, including the following 13 int'l instruments:
1. Convention on Offences and Certain Other Acts Committed on Board
Aircraft (binding since 04.12.1969)
2. Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Seizure of Aircraft
(binding since 14.10.1971)
3. Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts against the Safety of
Civil Aviation (binding as of 04.06.1971)
4. Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Crimes against
Internationally Protected Persons, including Diplomatic Agents (binding
as of 20.02.1977)
5. International Convention against the Taking of Hostages (binding as of
02.06.1983)
6. Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material (binding as
of 08.02.1987)
7. Protocol on the Suppression of Unlawful Acts of Violence at Airports
Serving International Civil Aviation (binding as of 06.08.1989)
8. Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts against the Safety of
Maritime Navigation (binding as of 01.03.1992)
2. Hans-Peter Gasser, ''Prohibition of Terrorist Acts in IHL'', IRRC, August 1986, No.
253, p 200
3. Comprehensive List: http://untreaty.un.org/emglish/terrorism.asp
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9. Protocol for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts against the Safety of
Fixed Platforms Located on the Continental Shelf (binding as of
01.03.1992)
10. Convention on the Marking of Plastic Explosives for the Purpose of
Detection (binding as of 21.06.1998)
11. International Convention for the Suppression of Terrorist Bombings
(binding as of 23.02.2001)
12. International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of
Terrorism (ratified in 1999)
13. International Convention for the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear
Terrorism (ratified in 2005).4
Apart from such international treaties, there are also other important
instruments ratified by states at the regional level, as well as other
instruments shaped subsequent to resolutions released by UNGA and
UNSC. UNGA has taken terrorism into account in several important
documents, including the ''charter of cordial relations'' (1970) in which the
commitment of governments to refrain from organizing, stimulating,
assisting or participating in terrorist acts against other states is reminded,
and the resolution for ''defining aggression (1974) which prohibits the
dispatch of armed groups, militia or mercenaries to carry out armed
operations against states. It was in resolution 687 of UNSC that for the
first time the international convention on fight against hostage-taking was
raised, referring to hostage-taking as a ''manifestation of terrorism''.
UNSC has issued several resolutions concerning the fight against
terrorism, considering in its latest resolution the involvement of a state in
terrorist acts a threat to international peace and security. 5 In resolution
1368 dated Sept 12, 2001 and resolution 748 dated March 31, 1992
concerning Lockerby case, international terrorist operation is considered
4. http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/terrorism-convention.html
5. Seyed Kamaleddin Mohammad Rafii, ''Sep. 11; fight against terrorism and state
sovereignty and security'', Defence Policy journal, Nos 38 & 39, spring and summer of
2002.
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to be a threat to global peace and security.6 (However, there is much
dispute on whether a terrorist operation can be considered by itself a
threat to global peace and security, which is not the subject of our
discussion here.)
A high-ranking delegation selected by the UN secretary general redefined
terrorism in their proposal for restructuring the UN. According to this
report, ''the capability of UN for developing a comprehensive strategy
fails to offer a desirable definition for terrorism due to the incapability of
state parties to reach a consensus over an anti-terrorist convention. Since
1945, a collection of more concrete standards and norms, including the
UN Charter, Geneva Conventions and Rome Statute has regulated the
decisions made by states to use force, binding states to comply with some
rules in wartime. Nevertheless, norms governing the use of force have not
developed by non-governmental entities the way they have by states.
This board believes that the definition of terrorism must cover the
following aspects:
A) Recognizing in advance that use of force by any state against
civilians is considered in GCs and other international instruments as war
crime or crime against humanity.
B) Emphasizing that acts referred to in the 12 anti-terrorism conventions
(today 13) are considered terrorist acts, and declaring that according to
IHL, terrorist acts are banned in armed conflicts.
C) Referring to the definitions stipulated in the int'l convention of 1999
to prevent financing of terrorism as well as related UNSC resolutions.
D) Describing terrorism as any act, in addition to the acts so far banned
by existing conventions on terrorism, GCs and UNSC resolution 1566,
carried out to kill or injure civilians or non-combatants, when such acts,
taking into account their nature or context, are aimed to intimidate a
population or force a state or an int'l org to refrain from taking any
measures.
6. Dr. Mohamadreza Ziaei Bigdeli, ''An analysis of recent UNSC resolution on fight
against int'l terrorism'', article presented in the conference on terrorism and legitimate
defence from the perspectives of Islam and int'l law.
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UN secretary general says in his report titled ''more freedom,
development, security and human rights'' about transnational terrorism,
''Terrorism is a threat to all the principles supported by the UN. It is time
now to put aside state terrorism, since the use of force by governments is
now supervised according to international laws and regulations. The real
meaning of the right to resist occupation must be understood. This cannot
include deliberate homicide or amputation of civilians.''
Definition of Terrorism
None of the above-mentioned treaties defines terrorism and terrorist acts.
Terrorism is a social phenomenon having different dimensions in various
cases. For this reason, lawyers and states have not been able to provide a
complete different comprehensive definition for terrorism. In Convention
1973, as mentioned earlier, terrorist acts are defined as follows:
''Criminal acts directed against a state or intended to create a state of
terror in the minds of particular persons, or a group of persons or the
general public.''
As noted this definition is vague and unclear and does not indicate which
group of acts is intended.
In recent years, (1996) UN general assembly formed an ad hoc committee
for preparation of ''comprehensive convention on international
terrorism''.7 In article 2 of its proposal, this committee has provided a
definition on terrorist acts. According to article 2 prepared by this
committee: ''Any person committing a crime within the concept defined in
this convention, in such a way, illegally and deliberately, to:
 kill or injure other person or
 cause a serious damage to public or private property or
 the damages caused make a major economic loss''
and the purpose of the above-mentioned acts (its inherent or parallel
objective) is to intimidate a group of people or force a state or an
7. UNGA Res 51/210, 17 December 1996.
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international organization to do or not to do an action, such acts are
referred to as terrorist acts.
It is obvious this definition does not include all the aspects of terrorism.
However, we all clearly can figure out the meaning of terrorism to some
extend when facing such term and the following elements come to our
minds:
 Terrorism is an aggression or intimidation against civilians, their lives,
properties and welfare. There will be no distinction in an act of terrorism.
 Behind terrorist acts, there are political goals that cannot be achieved
legally.
 Among terrorist acts there are some acts planned in an organizational
strategy through time.
 In terrorist attacks, some objectives are targeted directly, which have
no role in fulfillment of their wishes. (such as civilian objectives)
 The aim of committing such acts is to create state of terror so that the
committer can reach his goals
 Terrorist acts humiliate human dignity
Terrorism and International Humanitarian Law
IHL is in fact a set of principles applied when armed violations reach the
stage and threshold of an international or non-international armed
conflict. Firstly, Humanitarian Law includes four Geneva Conventions
and its additional protocols and then consists of all the binding documents
regarding armed conflicts and customary IHL. IHL does not provide a
definition on terrorism; however, it prohibits the forces from attacking
civilians and civilian objectives. Such acts are called ''terrorist acts'' when
they are committed in peacetime.
According to one main principle in IHL, the parties to the conflict should
always discriminate between civilians and military personnel and their
objectives. (Article 48, first protocol).Some special rules originate out of
this main principle all of which are aimed at protecting civilians. Some of
these rules include:
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Prohibition on conducting a deliberate or direct attack on civilians and
their objectives, prohibition on indiscriminate attack, prohibition on using
human shield (article 51, protocol) and other protection principles. (article
57, first protocol). IHL also prohibits taking hostage civilians or other
person who do not participate in armed conflict (article 147 of fourth
convention and common article 3 and article 75 of first protocol).
IHL also prohibits terrorist acts and measures in some cases. Article 33 of
fourth convention stipulates: ''Collective punishment and any terrorist act
or intimidation are prohibited.'' and in part D, paragraph 2 of article 4 of
first protocol, terrorist acts directed against those who have not
participated in conflicts are prohibited.
Additional protocols of four Geneva Conventions also prohibit any
actions spreading terrorism among civilians. (Paragraph 2 of article 51,
first protocol and paragraph 2 of article 13 of second protocol)
The cases we mentioned here prohibit those actions in international and
non-international armed conflicts that guarantee a definite and personal
advantage (from military point of view).
Fighting against Terrorism and Humanitarian Law
It appears that the global fighting against terrorism can be neither
considered as an international armed conflict, because such conflicts
happen only when the states confront each other militarily nor as noninternational armed conflict, because it is not clear who should be
considered as warring parties. Meanwhile, if fighting against terrorism
become like armed conflict, the IHL will be applicable. US and its allies'
war against Afghanistan (October 2001) and Iraq (April 2003) can be
referred to as internal armed conflict.
Anyhow, it is necessary to mention if the aggressions are not armed
conflicts, then the binding principles of human rights, national criminal
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law international criminal law shall be enforced in fighting against
terrorism.8
After terrorist attacks of September 11, and subsequently US and its
allies' attacks against Iraq and Afghanistan, the efficiency of the
international legal system has always been challenged.
The question is whether we can consider fighting against terrorism as an
armed conflict and if so what type of armed conflict.
In the next parts, we have tried to review and analyze theses issues.
''Fighting against Terrorism'' is like an International Armed Conflict
Certainly, we can call Afghanistan war, starting in October 2001 and
ending in June 2002 when the new government of Afghanistan was
recognized worldwide, as the beginning point for ''Modern Fight Against
Terrorism''.
On September 11, 2001 'the United States was attacked' as US president
claims and subsequently on October 7th of the same year,US armed forces
and its allies launched a large-scale air raid on major cities, military
targets and camps in Afghanistan.
One day after September 11 terrorist attacks, the Security Council
condemned such attacks issuing resolution 1368 and referred to the
attacks as threats to international peace and security. A few days later on
September 28, the Security Council ratified resolution 1373 asking all the
states to avoid supporting terrorist operations financially or in any other
ways. The US government gave an ultimatum to Taliban to surrender Bin
laden. Taliban refused US request and finally US launched a large-scale
attack against Taliban and Al-Qaeda with collaboration of Pakistan,
Uzbekistan, England and NATO. Generally once clashed reach the level
or threshold of a conflict, principles of IHL should be observed.
To investigate other issues, we should clarify the situation of conflict first
then decide on the applicable law. In Afghanistan crisis, since there were
8. ICRC, official statement, 21/07/2005, ''the Relevance of IHL in the context of
Terrorism and '' some recent development and challenges in the field of IHL''.
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many parties to the conflicts, we faced a complicated situation. Therefore
determining the applicable law requires determining relations of parties to
the conflict.
A. US and Taliban
According to article 2 of Geneva Convention, ''in case of official war or
any other armed conflict between two or more states from high
contracting state parties, these conventions shall be enforced unless one of
the states does not confirm the situation as war'' . In ICRC's opinion, the
de facto existence of a conflict suffices to enforce these conventions.
Regarding US-Taliban conflict can be defined as above. In another word,
such conflict can be considered as internationally natured-armed conflict.
(US and Afghanistan both are state parties of Geneva Conventions).
Regarding part 3 of paragraph A of article 4 of Geneva third convention
stating: ''the personnel of armed forces, who are under control of a state or
an authority and are not identified by the arresting state, are considered as
POW.'' It should be stated that not recognizing Taliban as Afghanistan's
government does not affect recognizing a conflict as international armed
conflict. In another words, we cannot consider such recognition as a
prerequisite for identification of international armed conflict.
Therefore, we must say that the conflict between the US and the Taliban
was an international armed conflict governed by the Geneva Conventions
and the majority of the regulations stipulated in the 1st additional protocol
was applicable in this context in the form of the customary international
law because the two states since the two are not member to the 1st
additional protocol.
B. US allies and Taliban
Regarding US international allies such as Britain, we should also maintain
that there has been an international armed conflict between those states
and the Taliban, making IHL rules regarding such conflicts obligatory.
(Britain is not a party to protocol either)
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C. Al-Qaeda and US
It is clear that Al-Qaeda forces are not considered as Afghanistan's regular
armed forces, hence, recognition of relations between US and Al-Qaeda
seems a little complicated.
As per paragraphs 1 and 2 of article 13 of 1st and 2nd Geneva Conventions
and paragraphs 1 and 2 of article 4 of 3rd Geneva Conventions, the
Humanitarian Law is extended to cover guerilla forces, volunteer groups
who are part of armed forces of an state and organized resistance
movement of a hostile state provided that:
- They have one authority as head in charge of its forces
- They have a fixed emblem identifiable from far distance
- They openly carry guns
- They behave according to rules of war in their military operations
Could Al-Qaeda be considered as part of Taliban forces?
Geneva Conventions defines no criterion for this matter. Therefore, the
case will be decided based on State's local law that is Taliban government
here, however, this would be a very difficult task in a country like
Afghanistan with all the shortcomings in its legal and judicial system and
irregular military forces. Such issue should be decided based on relations
between Al-Qaeda and Taliban.
Did Al-Qaeda belong to Taliban? (as one side to the conflict)
It seems that the phrase ''belonging to one of the parties to the conflict''
that has been mentioned in Convention is a very flexible concept,
meaning the de facto existence of relation between Taliban and Al-Qaeda
indicates that Al-Qaeda belongs to the Taliban. Many American
authorities confirm this in their speeches.
Regarding four conditions stipulated in part 2 of paragraph A of article 4
of 3rd convention we can say that generally Al-Qaeda forces were subject
to these four conditions. Hence, they should be considered as Taliban
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forces when encountered by US forces.9 . Now we will review and
analyze some of the current situations in brief:
Treatment with Al-Qaeda and Taliban detainees
Shibergan Prison
One of the most horrendous reports that has ever been published in the
media is related to transfer of 6,000 Al-Qaeda and Taliban detainees to
Shibergan prison by American and northern coalition forces in metal
containers. The people transferred in these containers were huddled into
each other with no water, food or even air-conditioning. Many were
suffocated in the course of this transfer or died of thirst and those who
survived to reach the prison were held in inhumane conditions. They were
being tortured from time to time with only a piece of bread as their lunch.
They had to bear the coldness of the weather. No one took care of their
wounds and injuries. There were also Al-Qaeda forces from Pakistan,
Burma, and Bangladesh among Taliban forces.
Ghondooz prison
On November 26, 2001, nearly 9000 Taliban and Al-Qaeda people were
encircled in Ghondooz by coalition and allied forces, following an
agreement made between Taliban leader (Molla Fazel) in Ghondooz and
northern coalition forces. It was agreed that all the forces get unarmed
after siege and a general amnesty is applied to them; whereas, the
northern coalition forces overruled this agreement, people were arrested,
tortured and then killed.
Military Fort
The fort is located in the north of Mazar-e-Sharif. The Taliban and AlQaeda forces, mainly Pakistani, Uzbek, Chechnyan and Arab, who were
arrested in Ghondooz were transferred to this fort. Neck breaking and
9. Terrorism, counter – Terrorism and Jus in bello, Avril McDonald, Seminar on IHL
and terrorism, San Remo, 2002
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throwing acid on their bodies were just some examples of torture the
prisoners went through. These brutal actions were done mainly to those
who attempted to riot or escape.
Bagram Air base
Many prisoners were tortured in this base by American forces.
According to reported cases, to some of which we referred to above, we
can categorize the mistreatment of American, British and northern
coalition against Al-Qaeda and Taliban prisoners as follows:
1. Willful and extrajudicial executions and killings (in contradiction with
articles 13 and 14 of third conventions and common article 3)
2. Torture (articles 13 and 14 of 3rd convention, article 7 of Civil Code
Treaty, article 2 of convention regarding prohibition on torture and
common article 3)
3. Lack of water and food supply (articles 26 and 20 of 3rd convention,
common article 3 and Martines Condition in regards to respecting
humanitarian principles).
4. Problems in transfer of prisoners (article 20 of 3rd convention, and
common article 3)
5. Humiliating behaviors (common article 3)
6. Resorting to excessive force for oppressing riots (article 42 of 3 rd
convention)
7. Blocking the investigation process (article 121 of 3rd convention)
8. Treatment with prisoners in Guantanomo
The fact that Afghanistan conflict is of international nature means that
four conditions of Geneva Conventions and customary IHL regarding
theses conflicts are applicable. (US and Afghanistan are not parties to tje
protocol), hence, the rules of the first protocol regarding protecting war
victims governs this armed conflict since international customary law
exists.
According to article 4 of the third convention and article 43 of the first
convention, in international armed conflicts, the personnel of armed
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forces and other parties under control of commandership are considered
as combatants. The main feature of a combatant is that he can participate
in the conflicts directly and be immune from criminal prosecution for the
actions they have done which are in accordance with the Humanitarian
Law (such as attacking authorized military targets)
In case of captivation, the combatant is considered as POW and he should
not be put on trial and judged only because he has participated in the
conflict. The party who holds the POW in captivity can keep on holding
him until the end of active conflict. It is of course possible to prosecute
POWs for committing war crimes or other criminal actions during or
before the period of captivity. As per article 102 of the third convention,
the verdict for a POW is valid only when it is issued in the same courts
and according to the same judicial rules that applies to the people of the
state, which has arrested the POW.
According to article 45 of the first protocol and article 5 of the third
convention, if it is not clear whether a detainee should enjoy POW status,
he will be held in POW condition until a competent court decides. A
competent court is a court, which is established by local law and
according to the judicial proceedings governing that court, is quailed to
determine the status of persons. From ICRC point of view, such court
should not necessarily be a military court. It can be a judicial or
administrative court.
As mentioned earlier, once the conflicts are over, the POWs should not be
held in captivity any longer. However, according to article 119 of the
third convention, the POWs who are legally prosecuted due to committing
a crime or offence related to criminal law, may be kept in prison until the
legal procedures are taken and, if required, until the end of their
punishment period. In any case, if the period of their captivity is
extended, the third Geneva convention will not be applied for their
condition, in other word they should be covered by other legal system
such as local laws or Human Rights.
According to paragraph 3 of article 51 of the first protocol, civilians are
protected against attacks until they directly participate the conflicts. What
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has to be mentioned here is that from point of view of many lawyers,
those civilians who participate in conflicts and carry guns cannot enjoy
immunities as the military forces. They are referred to as 'illegal
combatants who may be prosecuted for participating directly in the
conflicts. 10
Following the start of the war against terrorism, the status and protection
of civilians who had directly participated in the armed conflict and had
been captured by the enemy forces have entailed extensive discussions.
Some legal experts, whom are in the minority, believe that the
humanitarian law does not provide any protection to such persons.11
Others have opted for a more moderate stance and consider such persons
to come under protection only by the Article 3 common to the Geneva
Conventions and article 75 of the 1st protocol. On the other hand, some
refer to the 4th Geneva Convention. According to them, including the
International Committee of the Red Cross, civilians who have directly
participated in an armed conflict are among persons protected by this
convention, on the condition that they meet the 'nationality' criteria
mentioned in the 4th Geneva Convention.
According to article 4 of the 4th Geneva Convention, persons captured by
their own state or the invading state during war or invasion, at any time
and in any form, shall be protected by this convention.
But those civilians who do not meet the mentioned criteria are protected
only by Article 3 common and article 75 of the 1st protocol (or customary
humanitarian law referring to the same cases).
Therefore, we cannot find examples of persons who are altogether
deprived of protections provided by the international humanitarian law in
armed conflicts.
According to the 4th Geneva Convention, protected persons might be
detained due to security reasons (articles 41 and 78). But nevertheless,
such persons, according to articles 43 and 78 of the 4th Convention, will
have the right to immediately make an appeal request to a court or an
10. See: Richard Bautes, ''So-Called Unprivileged Belligerency'', BYIL, No. 323, 1951
11. See: Ingrid Detter, The Law of War, Cambridge University, 2000.
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administrative board on the decision made on his case. And, in case the
detention or forced residence is confirmed, the court or the administrative
board shall deal with the case at lease twice each year so that if the
situation allows, the preliminary decision is changed in his favor.
According to article 5 of the 4th Geneva Convention, such persons shall be
treated humanely and not be deprived of fair legal proceedings. In
addition, article 132 of the same Convention says each detained person
will retain all rights provided to protection persons as soon as the security
in his country or the occupying state allows. As such Article 75 (3) of the
1st Additional Protocol states "Any person arrested, detained or interned
for actions related to the armed conflict shall be informed promptly, in a
language he understands, of the reasons why these measures have been
taken. Except in cases of arrest or detention for penal offences, such
persons shall be released with the minimum delay possible and in any
event as soon as the circumstances justifying the arrest, detention or
internment have ceased to exist." Article 133 of the fourth Geneva
Convention says, " Internment shall cease as soon as possible after the
close of hostilities.
Internees in the territory of a Party to the conflict against whom penal
proceedings are pending for offences not exclusively subject to
disciplinary penalties, may be detained until the close of such proceedings
and, if circumstances require, until the completion of the penalty. The
same shall apply to internees who have been previously sentenced to a
punishment depriving them of liberty.
By agreement between the Detaining Power and the Powers concerned,
committees may be set up after the close of hostilities, or of the
occupation of territories, to search for dispersed internees." 12
12. See: Adam Roberts, "The Law of War in the War on Terror", TMC Asser Press,
2003.
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Fight Against Terrorism Equal to an Non-International Armed
Conflict
If we consider that the conflicts we have witnessed after formation of the
national government in Afghanistan (11 June 2002) are non-international
armed conflict, given that Afghanistan is not a member of the 2nd
protocol, the regulations stipulated in the common article 3 in the Geneva
Convention and the customary international humanitarian law are
applicable here.13 Once can resort, also, to human rights regulations in
this case. Aside from discussions related to the ongoing conflicts in
Afghanistan, the foremost and the key question should be whether
terrorist activities, witnessed currently in various parts of the world, and
reactions shown to them, are equal to a non-international armed conflict.
At any rate, it has to be said that humanitarian law regarding noninternational armed conflict will govern armed conflicts between states
and non-state elements and or between these elements.
According to article 2 of the 2nd protocol, this protocol is applicable in all
armed conflicts which happen within the territory of one of the members
to the protocol or between the armed forces acting under the
responsibility of commandership, having such control over a part of the
country's territory that enables them to carry out military operations in a
collective and controlled manner. As it can be seen, this article takes into
account a series of criteria including "control over a part of the territory"
or "under commandership" of the armed groups.
In this brief wrap-up, it has to be mentioned again that the international
humanitarian law only governs armed conflicts, both international and
non-international. Therefore, if the threshold of violent incidents do not
reach the level of an armed conflict, regulations stipulated in the
international humanitarian law will not govern these violent incidents and
instead regulations stipulated in the human rights, domestic laws or
regulations stipulated in the international criminal law will govern. After
13. Afghanistan became a member of the 1st and 2nd additional protocols in 10 Nov.,
2009.
Terrorist Acts and Groups: A Role for International Law, Jelena Pejic, BYIL, 2004.
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this brief conclusion, we continue our discussions on human rights
regulations governing non-international armed conflicts.
The outcome of a balance and reconciliation between a state's right of
sovereignty and humanitarian considerations is application of the
international humanitarian law in a non-international armed conflict. In a
non-international armed conflict, at lease of the parties is not the "state".
Today, it has been generally accepted that the common article 3 to the
four Geneva Conventions and the 2nd additional protocol have explicated
on the minimum standards required for limited violence during a noninternational armed conflict and of course, the customary law conforms
and completes regulations in such treaty rules.
According to note (D) of paragraph 2 of the 2nd protocol, carrying out
terrorist acts during a non-international armed conflict against persons not
taking part in the hostilities is banned. The 2nd additional protocol also
stipulates regulations regarding military operations.
The most important of such regulations refers to the principle of making a
distinction between persons directly taking part in the hostilities and
persons not directly taking part in the hostilities as well as the injured and
the sick. Article 13 of the protocol talks about protection for the civilian
population as such that "civilian population, individually and collectively,
shall not be subject to attack. Acts or threats of violence the primary
purpose of which is to spread terror among the civilian population is
banned. Citizens shall be entitled to protections stipulates in this section,
unless when taking direct part in the hostility".
Regarding non-international armed conflict, the status of a "combatant" or
a "prisoner of war" does not exist and therefore, even armed group forces
taking part in the hostilities might face prosecution according to domestic
penal law merely for taking part in the hostilities. At any rate, in addition
to the common article 3, the 2nd protocol, both in articles 5 and 6, deals
with the rights of persons deprived of their liberty as well as issues related
to penal prosecution. In addition, such persons are entitled to guarantees
provided in the human rights and domestic laws.
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Conclusion
There exist only two types of armed conflicts: International and Noninternational
And when "fighting against terrorism" occurs in two forms, the
international humanitarian law shall be respected. When violence occurs
outside the framework of the legal concept of an armed conflict and or a
person is arrested on charges of terrorist activities outside a conflict, the
humanitarian law will not be applicable and instead, domestic laws, the
international criminal law and the human rights regulations will govern.
The humanitarian law does not provide a definition of terrorism, but
declares as illegal (during war) almost all acts that are considered as
terrorist during peace. From the viewpoint of the International Committee
of the Red Cross, terrorism is a phenomenon. As such, intelligence,
judicial and police measures or confiscating assets belonging to terrorist
groups and their supporters are considered acts which cannot be referred
to as war. On the other hand, terrorism as a "phenomenon" cannot be
considered as one of the parties to a conflict. Therefore, the ICRC prefers
to use "fight against terrorism" instead of "war against terrorism".
In its paragraph 2 of article 51 of the 1st additional protocol and paragraph
2 of article 13 of the 2nd additional protocol, the humanitarian law
explicitly bans acts that lead to promoting terrorism among civilian
population, as well as the following acts that can be considered as terrorist
acts:
- Attack against civilians and military objectives (paragraph 2 of articles
51 and 52 of the 1st additional protocol and article 13 of 2nd protocol)
- Indiscriminate attacks (paragraph 4 of article 51 of the 1st protocol)
- Attack against places of worship (article 53 of 1st protocol and article
16 of the 2nd protocol)
- Attack against infrastructures and factories containing dangerous
elements (article 56 of the 1st protocol and article 15 of the 2nd protocol)
- Kidnapping (article 75 of the 1st protocol, article 3 common of the
Geneva Convention and note (2) section (B) of article 4 of the 2nd
additional protocol)
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- Murder of people not taking part in hostilities or are no longer taking
part in hostilities (article 75 of the 1st protocol, common article 3, note (2)
section (A) 2nd additional protocol).
According to the international humanitarian law, in international
conflicts, members of armed forces and some other armed forces which
can directly take part in armed conflicts should they have the conditions.
These are considered as legitimate fighters and combatants who cannot be
prosecuted merely for taking part in an armed conflict if they respect
humanitarian law. Should they be arrested, they shall be considered as
prisoner of war.
If civilians directly take part in fightings, they shall be considered as
"illegal fighters or combatants" and might be prosecuted and convicted
according to the law of the detaining state for taking part in the conflict.
At any rate, both in face of legal combatants and illegal combatants
should receive human treatment while in detention.
With respect to the term "enemy's combatants", it has to be said generally
that what is meant is both legal and illegal combatants in an international
armed conflict who are on one side of the war front. This term, in the
fight against terrorism, is used by persons who consider the fight as "an
armed conflict". They call persons, which they believe are affiliated to
terrorist groups or collaborate with them with the same name, without
paying any attention to the condition of their detention.
As mentioned, armed forces and meeting the criteria to be considered as
"combatant" during an international armed conflict, if arrested, shall be
considered as a "prisoner of war". In non-international armed conflicts,
because states are not willing to provide immunities to persons detained
in the hostilities under domestic laws and regulations, the status of
"combatant" and "prisoner of war" is not taken into consideration.
Therefore, from the viewpoint of the international humanitarian law, the
terms "combatant" or "enemy combatant" has no meaning outside the
realm of an armed conflict. Whatever these people are called, if they are
detained in the course of an armed conflict, they are protected under the
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international humanitarian law. Also, should persons be detained outside
an armed conflict, domestic regulations and human rights will govern
their situation.14
But with respect to illegal combatants detained during an international
armed conflict, these persons shall not be considered as prisoners of war,
but their protection will be in the framework of the 4th Geneva
Convention if they meet the national criteria and the 1st protocol if the
detaining party is a member to this protocol. At any rate, such persons
could be put on trial due to taking part in the hostilities and held in
detention as long as their freedom is security threat.
But persons that do not fall under the protection of the 3rd and 4th Geneva
Conventions, as reflected in article 75 of the 1st protocol, are protected by
the customary international humanitarian law, domestic laws and human
rights.
In non-international armed conflicts, because the terms "combatant" and
"prisoner of war" do not exist, all persons taking part in the hostilities
might face prosecution according to domestic laws. For such persons, in
addition to common article 3 to the conventions and the 2nd protocol,
domestic laws as well as human rights will also be applicable as to their
situation.
14. These are cases which the US Supreme Court has referred to in the Hamdan v.s.
Rumsfeld and the Israeli High Tribunal has referred to in the targeted killings, admitting
that no person can be found as to whom there is no protection system.
Function of International Dispute Settlement Systems from Viewpiot …
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Function of International Dispute Settlement
Systems from Viewpoint of Peace:
Weaknesses and Strengths
Dr. S. Baqer Mirabbasi 
Introduction
This article focuses on the ―function of international dispute settlement
systems from viewpoint of peace‖ as well as their weaknesses and
strengths. When depicting international expectations from dispute
settlement mechanisms, a few points should be taken into serious
consideration. What is a dispute settlement system in general? What
developments have taken place in this system throughout history,
especially in the past few years? Then, a mention will be made of the
functions of this system from viewpoint of peace. Finally, its strengths
and weaknesses will be discussed on the basis of our accepted conceptual
model for efficiency of this system with respect to peace, especially
negative peace (avoidance of war).
As Dr. Saed has noted about conceptual structures and objective
frameworks of global peace (especially discourses influencing legal
understanding of this concept),1 the issue of peace can be studied from
various viewpoints and there are useful texts on every one of those
viewpoints. The subject I am going to discuss here is what can be done to
prevent war and invasion and even establish and maintain peace.
I will address this dimension of rights which govern peaceful settlement
of international disputes. Other authors in this conference will explain
about various issues related to peace, but here, we must focus on legal
requirements. In other words, domestic lawmakers interpret laws, but
 Professor of Public International Law,University of Tehran.
1. See N. Saed, Right to Just Peace, Tehran, IWPF, 2011.
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when it comes to international law, we give viewpoints on the basis of
resolutions. I will take a cursory look at efforts which aimed to establish
peace before discussing the results of those efforts. Then a mention will
be made of strengths and weaknesses of those efforts; that is, peaceful
means of dispute settlement.
History of the laws of peace
This issue has not been discussed at length. There are no binding
instruments on the right to peace and available literature is limited to
statements and recommendations, especially when it comes to the human
right on peace which is called ―the right to peace.‖
An international instrument on this right, however, has not been
formulated yet. Therefore, I will focus on necessary measures which have
been taken. Ancient civilizations of Rome, Greece and Iran used
mechanisms to prevent war.
We want to know what has been done to establish positive peace since
that time. Arbitration and mediation are among ancient institutions. In the
Middle Ages, both the Christian and Islamic civilizations were familiar
with these concepts, which will not be discussed here. Our legal
discussion pertains to the time when international community comprising
various governments came into being; that is, the time when governments
properly existed. However, I skip this issue too due to lack of enough
time. The next stop is when international community took official steps
through treaties to prevent war and settle disputes by peaceful means.
A. The Hague Peace Conferences
A collective treaty on peaceful settlement of disputes was, for the first
time, adopted during The Hague peace conferences in 1899 and 1907.
Here, we will focus on the year 1899 and analyze developments which are
known as ―peaceful means.‖ The 1899 treaty, to which more than 100
countries are members, includes such instances as negotiation for dispute
settlement, mediation, reference to arbitration commission, and referring
cases to a reconciliation commission. As a result, arbitration was, for the
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first time, introduced as a binding institution and the world believed that
if such methods were made official and accepted by the states, they may
refrain from the use of force. Those instruments tried to make arbitration
compulsory by obliging the states to refer to arbitration in case of
differences, but opposition of some countries including Germany aborted
that process.
The third conference of The Hague in 1914 was supposed to lay the
grounds for the establishment of a justice court. Some believe that if that
court had been established, perhaps later wars, including the World War I
could have been avoided. However, that effort was rendered void due to
the beginning of World War I. Following that war peace plans were
proposed and this time pioneered by the then president of the United
States. Some parties, however, opposed measures which were taken in
Versailles peace conference to prevent war, including establishment of a
political organization called the League of Nations. That organization was
vested with certain powers in order to settle possible disputes.
B. Establishment of International Court of Justice following World
War II
Articles 12 and 15 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political
Rights proposed establishment of an international court of justice. This
was the first major step to be taken in human history which was supposed
to bind countries to peaceful means of dispute settlement. Further steps
led to the establishment of International Court of Justice.
To institutionalize this development founders of the Covenant maintained
that if arrangements could be made to prevent war, they could be
institutionalized by governments. Therefore, the opposite of war, that is,
peaceful settlement of disputes came under more emphasis. The
Covenant, however, had not totally prohibited war and ―justified war‖ had
been recognized which led to some misunderstanding on the part of
various states.
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C. Establishment of the United Nations
Despite those efforts, World War II broke out and later efforts were made
through the Charter of the United Nations. Some international legal
experts maintain that the Charter is the gist of decades and perhaps
centuries of human efforts at establishing peace.
Therefore, the Charter has considered international security as one of its
most important goals and has emphasized on this goal in Article 2,
especially paragraphs 3 and 4, where it prohibits invasion and all kinds of
the use of force. In the third paragraph of the same article, the Charter of
the United Nations has specified that countries should settle disputes
through peaceful means.
As a result, the content of the Charter became universal and totally
binding. Emphasis has been also put on peaceful means in such
international instruments as the General Assembly statement (1970), in
Manila statement and in decisions of a summit meeting of the Security
Council member states in 1992. They assigned the Secretary-General of
the United Nations to present a plan to promote peace and delineate ways
for the establishment of the peace which had been purported by the
Charter of the United Nations. Other secretaries-general also presented
similar plans. This was a brief history. Now, what a dispute settlement
system is in view of this brief history?
In general, such a system comprises three kinds of mechanisms which
include legal methods used to settle disputes; human rights methods,
which are somehow new; and non-legal methods.
Legal mechanisms
Legal mechanisms are as old as history. Today, the highest emphasis is
put on arbitration by international community in order for governments to
settle disputes through arbitration. Disputes between the United States
and Iran soon after the (1979) Islamic Revolution constitute a good
example to the point. As tensions soared high and threat of war was
looming, the problem was sent for arbitration and an effect of arbitration
is gradual establishment of peace between belligerent countries.
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One may wonder whether 27 or 28 years of arbitration between the
United States and Iran has been actually successful, but they have been
actually effective in solving problems. Hostage taking at the American
embassy in Iran was another example and resultant problems were solved
through international arbitration. Today, the Charter of the United Nations
pioneers this mechanism.
Political mechanisms
The Security Council has been able to play its role one way or another
following World War II. During the Cold War, the Council was not very
active, but after the fall of the former Soviet Union the world has reached
a consensus that the Security Council can be instrumental in solving some
global problems.
It should be noted that preventing situations which may take the
international community toward war is one of the main endeavors of both
the General Assembly and the Security Council. They, for example, take
steps to prevent production and proliferation of nuclear weapons and
control nuclear arms. In its famous decision in 1996, the International
Court of Justice opined that international community is not authorize to
use nuclear weapons as a means of defending its interests, but it can be
used in defense.
Theoretical and practical capacities in international community
The Security Council and General Assembly, as two main organs of the
United Nations have done their best to safeguard peace.
However, two factors have been influential in the international
community‘s approach to these peaceful means, its approach to peaceful
methods and protection of international peace and security.
A. Precedence of legal methods
Many treaties and international instruments have been adopted in the past
50 years through which countries have accepted to resort to peaceful
means in order to settle disputes. At least this is true about 50 percent of
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legal instruments. International treaties have prescribed resorting to
peaceful means legally binding for all the states. It is for this reason that
this issue is of special importance, at least, from a legal point of view. In
fact, states are usually willing to settle disputes on the basis of rights and
relevant norms.
Clearly, as recourse to legal methods increases, so does international rule
of law and universalization of international law. If states considered the
existing rights as conforming to justice and their rights, they would be
more willing to promote their rule and let them govern their behaviors.
B. State sovereignty and consensual nature of dispute settlement
mechanisms
This is strength for peaceful means. Another forte of such methods is that
they are at the disposal of countries, that is, states are free to use them.
International community is based on independence and sovereignty of
states has decided to oblige countries to do something. Since resource to
peaceful means is arbitrary, it is desirable to the states.
In fact, it is inherent to sovereignty of states that you cannot force them
into doing anything. For example, although mediation is through consent
of states, but it is also a negative point that states should agree to it before
a case could be brought up before The Hague Tribunal. Since there is no
universal government, this will cause some degree of inconsistency. This
is a weakness of peaceful means. Also, decisions made through peaceful
means are not binding for the states. For example, decisions of The Hague
tribunal can be enforced through the Security Council. However, such
guarantee does not exist with regard to other peaceful means.
Conclusion
The arbitrary nature of those decisions has been somehow combined with
a certain degree of compulsion. That is, although states are free to choose
dispute settlement methods, this does not mean that they are also free not
to choose them. Obligating states to resort to peaceful means (that is any
method apart from armed conflict, armed violence, sanctions and other
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pressures not compatible with their commitments) to settle disputes is a
customary rule of international law.
In the past years, peaceful means have evolved in the eyes of international
community as a suitable method to establish global peace. International
treaties bind countries to choose for such means. In some instances, there
are solid interpretations of such means which have been accepted as strict
norms. Therefore, commitment of states to these requirements, that is, to
avoid recourse to force and use peaceful means, is now a universal value.
Let‘s hope that the international community will finally find ways to
achieve sustainable peace and the Iranian legal community will do its part
by analyzing necessities of doing so.
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Poverty and Injustice
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Dr. S. Abdolmajid Mirdamadi 
In order to make their children familiar with the religious principles of the
Islamic culture, Muslim parents teach them the principles of Islam. First
they are told that these principles are tawhid (monotheism), „adl (justice),
nubuwwa (prophecy), imama (leadership), and ma„ād (resurrection).
Growing older, they read in their schoolbooks about three principles of
faith: monotheism, prophecy, and resurrection, and about the principles of
our Shi‗i confession, i.e. justice and leadership. The most important
criterion in the context of our confession therefore is justice. God has
created the world in justice and established this principle in all the
domains of His creation.
We may identify mainly three areas in which justice is at stake, namely
justice in creation, in legislation in general and in the field of punitive
measures in particular. Justice is also demanded of religious leaders,
imams, witnesses and judges. In the modern age, beyond that, even social
justice is demanded, whose range is much wider than the theological and
personal area.
The purpose of referring to justice in this context is to diagnose the
opposite, i. e. injustice, because in Islamic culture, ‗poverty‘ and
‗injustice‘ represent negative and abominable states of affairs. This means
that, from the perspective of Islamic theology, poverty and injustice are
not of an independent nature or willed by God, but an imperfection with
regard to those things that are ordained by God.
 PhD of Human Rights Law.
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I.
Therefore, God has not created poverty and injustice, he rather
established justice as a principle of creation. Seen from a Quranic
perspective, after monotheism justice is the most important thing in
human life:
1. ―There is no god but He: that is the witness of God, His angels, and
those endued with knowledge, standing firm on justice. There is no god
but He, the Exalted in Power, the Wise‖. (sūra 3, Āl ‗Imrān, v. 18).
2. God has sent all the prophets in the first place to implement justice:
―To every people (was sent) an Apostle: when their Apostle comes
(before them), the matter will be judged between them with justice, and
they will not be wronged.‖ (Sūra 10, Yūnus, v.47)
3. The revelation of the divine books is likewise directed towards the
proclamation of justice. Thus the Quran says, ―[…] nor follow thou their
vain desires; but say: ‗I believe in the book which God has sent down;
and I am commanded to judge justly between you. […]‖ (Sūra 42, alShūrā, v.15). And another verse says, ―We sent aforetime our apostles
with Clear signs and sent down with them the Book and the Balance (of
Right and Wrong), that men may stand forth in justice; […].‖ (Sūra 57,
al-Hadīd, V. 25).
From these verses we know that the prophets are commanded to establish
social justice.
II.
Beginning with the above mentioned principles – with justice in creation,
legislation and in the field of punitive measures – the Muslim scholars
have defined social justice in a threefold manner:
1. Justice in the sense of the equality of all human beings in the history of
creation, with regard to human dignity and their position in relation to
God.
In contrast to this concept of justice is the denial of the equality of men
and women, the denial of respect for human life, of the right to personal
property, of the right to self-defence, of the right to freedom of opinion
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and expression, of the right to make use of the divine gifts, and of the
right of each individual to determine his/her own fate. We may identify
the scope of justice in three areas especially: in the area of the political
exercise of power, in the cultural field and in scientific work.
According to an utterance of the Prophet Muhammad, human beings are
like the teeth of a comb. Furthermore, Imām ‗Ali, the first imām of the
Shī‟īs, sent a letter to the Province governor of Egypt, which is nowadays
known as a historical document on human rights, saying, ―Oh Mālik, do
not attack other people like a bloodthirsty wolf. Because they are divided
in two groups: either they are your sisters and brothers in religion or they
are created (as humans) like you.‖ (Nahdj al-balāgha, Letter to Mālik alashtar). And in the said letter we find another passage, ―The best deed for
you is the most just one, the one which is closest to truth. The goal of
your activity shall be the contentment of people.‖ We all know that the
population in Egypt at that time consisted of Muslims, (Coptic)
Christians, and other groups.
In our world, many liberal thinkers, too, were of the same opinion, and we
may recognize in the ―Universal Declaration of Human Rights‖ of 1948
the result of their endeavors. This Declaration became the basis for the
acknowledgment that all human beings, on an international level, are
equal in rights with regard to their dignity and worthiness, to the value of
the various cultural traditions and of all scholarly works that refer to
human beings. That is, the equality of all human beings has to be seen as
recognized by Islam and Christianity, especially also in the documents of
Vatican II, their program being the acknowledgment of human dignity in
the various religions and peoples.
In today‘s worldwide situation, which may be defined as the epoch of
dialogue, we note that human identity is expressed in its cultural
framework, which includes the geographical position, ethnic affiliation
and religion, as well as the existence of certain forms of government.
Thus it is necessary to do justice to the variety of cultures, to refrain from
any form of degradation, and to avoid cultural paternalism in the context
of political or military exercise of power.
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These principles must be embodied in just relations among people and
mutual support in the framework of the international relations of
governments and peoples. Beyond that, through dialogue a deeper mutual
understanding among people must be achieved and the cultural level
raised in those fields wherever possible. The dialogue among
civilizations, religions and cultures not only involves the removal of walls
and borders, but also the opening of windows in order to know more
about the situation of others.
If we ignore legitimate borders and force our way into foreign areas, this
will certainly not produce good results. In doing so, the opportunity of
cultivating dialogue, cooperation and tolerance will be destroyed. It will
end up with the kind of problems that are today known to us in many
countries of the world. In addition to the respect for the convictions of
other faiths and with its basis on common religio-philosophical principles,
from the perspective of faith and of those truths that are rooted in it and of
the continuing interreligious dialogue about these truths the final
assessment must be left to God. Thus the Quran says, ―If it had been thy
Lord‘s Will, they would all have believed, – all who are on earth! […].‖
(Sūra 5, Yūnus, v. 99). And, "[…] To each among you have We
prescribed a Law and an Open Way. If God had so willed, He would have
made you a single People […]." (Sūra 5, al-Mā‘ida, v. 51).
Finally, we have to do justice to the worldwide development and
spreading sciences that are useful and necessary for the implementation of
just conditions. For this will enable us, in the sense of a long-term
development, to convey to all people the results and findings of science
and technology, especially in the field of agriculture and industry.
Because hoarding and concealment of knowledge and of results of the
research must be prevented, since they have been produced in the past
through joint endeavors of people in various civilizations. They all belong
to the heritage of the whole mankind, and all people must be in a position
to use their fruits without discrimination. According to a well-known
utterance of Imām ‗Alī, the tax on knowledge in the interest of the poor is
the dissemination of knowledge.
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2. Another meaning of justice refers to the varying modes according to
which people are granted what meets their individual wants and
capacities. Such differences do not only not imply any discrimination,
they rather correspond to the true meaning of justice. Thus Sūra 49 says,
―O mankind! We created you from a single (pair) of a male and a female,
and made you into nations and tribes, that ye may know each other […].‖
(Sūra 49, al-Hudjurāt, v. 13). ―And He has subjected to you, as from Him,
all that is in the heavens and on earth […].‖ (Sūra 45, al-Djāthiya, v. 13).
Finally Sūra 17 says, ―We have honoured the sons of Adam; provided
them with transport on land and sea; given them for sustenance things
good and pure; and conferred on them special favours, above a great part
of Our Creation.‖ (Sūra 17, al-Isrā‘, v. 70).
Furthermore, God has left to us the determination of our own personal
and social conditions: ―[…] Verily never will God change the condition
of a people until they change it themselves (with their own souls). […]‖
(Sūra 13, al-Ra‗d, v. 11). He also says that we have to bear the
consequences of our own activities: ―that man can have nothing but what
he strives for‖ (Sūra 53, al-Nadjm, v. 39).
The extent of benefit, therefore, corresponds to our personal involvement.
Whoever tries harder, will get higher remuneration. By that, however, I
want by no means to be claiming that it is just that today 80% of the
worldwide resources are for the benefit of only 20% of the world
population. Rather, I would like to raise the following questions:
- Is the fact that such a small minority disposes of 80% of the riches really
due to the endeavors of these 20% - or is it rather a consequence of
hoarding knowledge and of a sort of materialism that ignores spiritual and
human values? Is it not a consequence of modern imperialism, of the
exploitation of peoples, which becomes possible by controlling the
word‘s natural resources?
- Yet, if we have to assume that these riches were finally produced by the
efforts of all, does this inequality not cry out against human conscience
and are there no limits to be observed?
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- Even if we do not respect morals, are there no principles at all for the
distribution of wealth to be followed in the framework of divine and
human laws?
The Islamic prescripts, valid for the economic field, take therefore on
principle into consideration those differences and differentiations that
result from the various gifts and efforts of individual human beings. In
this context, however, importance is attached to the issue that there shall
be no excessive accumulation of wealth in the hands of individual people
or groups. Fortune and goods must be distributed to avoid poverty and
discrimination. ―[…] And there are those who bury gold and silver and
spend it not in the Way of God: announce unto them a most grievous
penalty‖ (Sūra 9, al-Tawba, v. 34).
We close this section by quoting Imām ‗Ali who once said that he never
saw any accumulation of great fortune without thereby violating the right
of a poor (Nahdj al-balāgha).
3. As to the third meaning of justice, I would like to explain it by two
dicta of Imām ‗Ali: "Justice means that everyone obtains his right‖ (Nahdj
al-balāgha). And: "Justice means that everything gets to the place that it
deserves‖ (Nahdj al-balāgha). This means that justice aims at the right of
him who has a right. In Islam, therefore, rights are stressed in a special
way, and justice is respected as a holy matter. Islam defines the rights to
which all regulations in detail must correspond, primarily in the field of
wealth formation. In this connection there are rules that, as previously
mentioned, limit the accumulation of property assets.
So, for instance, God is seen in Islam as the proprietor of all things. Man
has no absolute property. Property in truth is only a confidential pledge on
the part of God, which makes it possible for us to satisfy our needs and
those of our family and of those who are needy (cf. Qur‘ān 70,24 f. and
17,26).
The observance of these obligations guides society on the path of social
justice and relieves it of poverty. Islamic literature speaks of poverty in a
twofold manner: one kind of poverty is valuable – it is mainly celebrated
in the literary works of the Sufis and mystics. They refer to the prophet
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who said that poverty is an honour for him. This kind of poverty is
poverty related to God and leads to independence of all other people.
The second meaning is of a negative nature. About it there is a saying of
the Prophet: that poverty is a great death. According to Imām ‗Ali,
poverty can lead to unbelief. Other sayings make cultural and religious
poverty a subject of discussion; it is then seen as ―a red death‖. This kind
of poverty is the worst.
In the understanding of Imām ‗Ali, right is wide-ranging and
comprehensive; but when practice is at stake, right is in danger of being
restricted. In other words, de facto we try to cut down the rights of others.
Applied to the present-day situation: our thoughts have a worldwide
horizon, but when acting, we repeatedly remain restricted within certain
spheres of interest. Thus, in practice we prevent justice from being
implemented by sticking to restrictions and limitations, by dividing reality
into the spheres of ‗we‘ and ‗the others‘, by fixation on nationality,
descent, cultural and ideological affiliation to a certain ethnic group,
language or history, to certain values and traditions, etc.
Not only Islam, but the teachings of all religions, the opinions of
philosophers and sages, all Weltanschauungen and ideologies have been
striving to establish justice in our world and resisted oppression and
discrimination. They do not tire of demanding respect for human rights in
our day, too, for all those who are poor and starving, oppressed and
tortured, the homeless, refugees, prisoners and victims of war, prisoners
in general, women and children. Numerous organizations have been
founded for that purpose. It is also expressed in the ―Universal
Declaration of Human Rights‖ and other conventions.
All the more is it regrettable that justice was not only unable to spread, on
the contrary, since the Declaration of Human Rights the situation has
worsened. After all the present-day worldwide political situation shows
most clearly how war and poverty, social and family problems, drug
addiction and trade in bodies are spreading evermore.
Last year‘s statistics mention 1 billion people who are starving and 200
million undernourished children; 30 people die per minute due to hunger
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and drug addiction. The permanently increasing number of people sick
with Aids, the increase of violence in families, rape and sexual abuse of
children, high divorce rates – all that shows that our world does not
progress on the path of justice. It was Kofi Annan, ex UN Secretary
General and one of the most eminent international personalities of the
present day and age, who, during the Conference of Ministers of the 77
group in Sao Paolo, referred to the fact that justice, in our present-day
world, plays a much smaller role than was the case some 40 years ago.
III.
As followers of our religions, we can only appeal to the conscience of the
open-minded people of the world, of the compassionate citizens, the
faithful, of those who love justice, of countries and governments, to do
more in order to prepare the grounds for more justice in the world.
Finally, I would like to put down five points:
1. All religions are principally convinced that, in the future, justice will
gain acceptance in the world. The religious scholars and the followers of
religions are obliged to do their utmost in the interest of justice. But we
must be aware that a just order can only be established by overcoming
ignorance and discrimination, by supporting mutual understanding and
deepening tolerance through dialogue. A violent attitude and the
application of oppressive methods that contradict the spirit of religions
will never contribute to the establishment of justice in the world.
2. In terms of power and culture, the whole of mankind must on principle
be considered as equal. With this in mind, respectful relations with other
peoples, cultures, civilizations and religions on a global level must be
cultivated. Dialogue may prove to be an appropriate means towards the
re-enforcement of cultures; it may help to achieve a higher standard.
3. More attention must be paid to religious education, especially by
encouraging morals in order to avoid family problems, and to the
protection of one‘s own body and of one‘s spiritual welfare. The basic
teachings of religions, such as the Ten Mosaic Commandments, Jesus‘
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moral directives and Muhammad‘s peace treaty with the people of Mecca
must become our cultural guidelines.
4. I underline that man has the right of disposal of his/her own assets and
property, but at the same time we must be aware that in all that we have
collected, the poor, the weak and disabled, etc. have participated. To
create a just world and to eliminate poverty, it is necessary that we let the
disadvantaged participate in our wealth.
5. We must turn away from waste, hoarding of fortunes, striving for
power and from any kind of oppression. The implementation of more
justice verily can prepare the ground for the solution of the problems of
mankind and can also serve the spreading of democracy and freedom.
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Human Dignity and Right to Peace
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Dr. Mohammad J. Saed 
Abstract
Today, ―right to peace‖ is as a human final aim and ―human dignity‖ is
as its fundamental element which will be the first point of any efficient
pattern and the first expression of any human measure at international
level. Hierarchy of human dignity within the concept and nature of
peace is a result of meaning peace with respect to mentally and
materially human needs, the just-oriented and dignity-based peace
discourses and its priority on the static and state-based discourses
seeking inequity. The essay is trying to appear the conceptual extent of
the right to peace and find its nature and base along with these
categories on human dignity as the rightful and intrinsic value of human
being. This is also attempting to understand the first link and relation
between the right to peace and human dignity and indeed, appear its
place at the sphere of right to peace.
Key Words: peace, human dignity, war, right to life, human rights and
international human rights system.
Introduction
Peace along with democracy and development are the third sides of a
triangle each of them play the role to make other and all together make
the final aim of the world. No doubt, peace and its appearance is the
human final aim nowadays and human rights thoughts, meantime, can
provide the grounds of new beds on which it can be relied to take place
the importance in a premature process.
The right to peace is at the extent of the third generation of human rights,
namely solidarity rights,(Vakil et all, 1383:58), which is called to the
 PhD in Criminal and Criminology Law, Attorney at Law.
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name because of the necessity of global interaction among states in case
of appearing the rightful aims of common life. Thus, to make a border in
this relation does not have a mean and the effort is accounted as a duty
prosecuted by all nations without attention to being designed borders
among states and nations.
The whole approach of the essay is based on a ―human-oriented‖ peace
discourse and far from its ―state-oriented‖ one. In the framework of
Hegel‘s Dialectic rule, it circulates on the orbit that peace is an antithesis
of war and is against human war and violence to preserve his life and
insure his dignity. Perhaps, it is the peace is the final aim of human and
the common goal of humankind because the ―aim‖ always is a category
which is obtained after making a continuous effort during a long time. So,
it can be appeared ―the right to peace‖ in the same concept.
In such a situation, human dignity as a value of human being, born with
him, is in any places and times, with any thoughts of human by virtue of
its fundamental being. Thus, it is of the same important as the peace is.
The present essay is trying to recognize the concept and extent of peace,
its intellectual bases as a fundamental right in preserving the human life
and insuring human dignity in a human-based discourse by focusing on
explanation of the human dignity place in the body of right to peace or
right to human life in a peaceful realm, so that it can be lastly identified
the place of human dignity at the sphere of the right.
Part I: the Right to Peace; a Terra Incognita
The history of human life always speaks about war and folklore tales
consisting of military thoughts and actions, and two World Wars are
typically completing the human destroying process for humankind.
Enjoying human ―the power of insanity‖ in the language of Nietzsche
(Nietzsche, 1380:25) his meaning was ―the power of reason‖ points out
him that the way of saving human life and his dignity is not war and
violence, but being an area having peace and compromise which insures
the present days of humankind and its continuing. It is in such a position
that the right to peace or right to life in peace finds a mean for him and it
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will slowly be his given aim in his mind all times at the national and
international levels. Although the tiresome effort has always been a
rightful theoretical perspective of humankind but tendency to obtain to
personal interests and human intrinsic motive on seeking power is an
obstacle to get the completely high aim of human. It was on the basis of
such tendencies that Kant did not image to receive the human final aim at
the time he lived and called ―personal power, tendencies and lusts and
also tendency to independent sovereignty in the minds of governors‖ as
obstacles in this course and spoke of ―perpetual peace‖ (Kant, 1384:339).
While having a complete peace in the present world is a fictional
expectation of human being, it does not mean that we should leave off the
efforts and expect to happen a miracle to make it. Although the author
agree to the realist thought but it should be said in a contingent way with
the international institute of peace studies in Oslo that humankind has an
empathy ability and increasing the convergence level in the light of social
feature of human in the society is an inevitable thing.
1. The Conceptual Frame of Peace
Most authors divide peace into two parts: positive and negative peace.
Sometimes, they speak of ―radical peace‖ along with the two mentioned
ones in a peace-based approach. Negative peace means only ―non-war‖
and positive peace means ―being justice‖ (Cortright, 2008:21). In the
peace-based approach, the tranquil of peace with its third sides, positive,
negative and radical one, the function of negative peace is ―to decrease
the possibility of war and settle disputes‖ and that of radical peace is ―to
eliminate domination‖ and meantime, positive peace follows ―structural
violence‖ as its function(Abdollah Khani, 1383:53).
In some ancient literatures, peace, as a human common aim‖ is called
―non-war‖ and ―non-violence‖. The definition which is talking about ―the
negative dimension of peace‖, while we cannot lay aside it, but it seems
that it cannot involve the whole sphere of peace conceptually, because the
findings of peace studies indicate that it should be considered peace more
than the lack of war. While the approach on non-war was referred by
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Gandhi, some believes that he got it of the thought of Shell. In this
relation, Gandhi spoke of non-violence instead of peace and insisted on
the necessity of overcoming injustice. In view of the authors allocating
the expression to Shell, the meaning of Sell did not focus on the negative
dimension of peace, namely, ―violence‖ is a way on which ―the less
cruelty‖ can come over ―the very passive‖. So, ―non-violence‖ is a devise
by which ―the very active‖ can come over ―the less cruel‖. Non-violence
has a negative structure; so that the most importance point can be spoken
about it is that it is not anything. The word prevents the negative power of
violence. This group says that the English language was unable to have a
word for such a position. So, Shell used the word to define ―non-violence
as the power of cooperation‖, that is, a collective action based on a mutual
consent, instead of a ―compulsory power‖ resolving an act through threat
or the use of force. Some other says that we should abandon the term of
peace and use ―elimination of violence‖ instead of it. Although the reason
and philosophy of using the word is vague, it will not be any effective
result conceptually except changing the face of what is called peace
nowadays.
The right to peace means that to life in peace or in other words, that to
self-determination. The term gives a negative conception to peace which
circulates on the orbit of ―not ought to do‖ and orients human to not pass
the preserving borders of human life and his dignity for the purpose of
saving human life and respecting his dignity. If we consider a relation
between the values like freedom, justice and solidarity, and the right to
peace, the value of freedom from which we can derive autonomy and non
harm to human, promises to be an environment full of security and safety
for man, within which it cannot see any face of war and violence. The
status talks about the milieu lastly grants ―human security‖; the one which
will be appeared in the conceptual frame of peace for ―states‖, when the
borders were drawn among ―nations‖.
In positive dimension of peace, some thinkers like Galtong sees peace a
devise to pursue the aims including cooperation and convergence in order
to obtain a better world. The thought seems to be based on idealism, so
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that it is trying to make a better world on the basis of the human ability
about cooperation and convergence and through avoiding the use of threat
and force and war and enjoying other peaceful ways to reject the existing
disputes. The notion can typically be seen in the United Nations Charter
which is seeing available to receive collective measures by justiceoriented ways and the ones based on international law. For him, peace
should be meant a thing more than non-physical intentional violence. So,
he insists on eliminating ―structural violence‖ which is a cause to injustice
in his view.
Indeed, he increases the concept of peace to describe the positions of
negative peace having violent and unjust results. Violence in this
extensive concept refers to any circumstances which ban human being to
obtain his total abilities. Positive peace is to overcome the circumstances
limiting the human capacities and also to insure the opportunities to his
understanding and to receive his intrinsic abilities. In fact, positive peace
points out a peace-based status which prevents from waging any war and
violence among nations and states through settling the disputes happened
among nations (in a human-oriented discourse) and states(in a stateoriented discourse). In the description, ceasefire is only example of
positive peace. In the area, the kind of violence, from the direst, mental to
structural ones, lay in the core of peace and till there are not each of them,
peace will not be in the real world (Beyleveld, 1998:665).
Peace is a category beyond non-war. This includes the preservation of
society having order and justice as well; ―having order‖ in view of being
protection against violence or blackmail by violators, and ―having justice‖
in view of protecting against exploitation and abuse through more power
and authority. Peace researchers today argue that peace does not mean
non-dispute and conflict. Being dispute is intrinsic to human relations,
while it must not be with violence. The first challenge for peace
practitioners is to find the ways by which societies can settle the disputes
without physical violence. In this concept, peace is as a dynamic process
without having the final spot. The goal of the practitioners is to develop
more effective ways for settling disputes.
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What is meantime important is that peace appears in circumstances a
potential threat endangers its security and dignity, in a manner that if the
threat appears in practice, peace will lose its life and even will not, its
place of being will be so weak that it can be considered equal to lose.
2. The Nature of the Right to Peace
In most legal literatures more than speaking about the nature of peace
and a category of which it is called as a right (human right to peace in the
light of human society and state right to peace in the light to global
society constituting states), the base of their arguments to justify the right
have been on the basis of statutory documents at the international and
transnational levels, so that it seems that the nature has been as a terra
incognita.
Although international documents insisted on the right any way and
called it as a human final aim, but what is the first cause for considering it
as a human desire? The nature of peace as a right has the third sides
which relate to humankind on the one hand and to sovereignty of
humankind in terms of ―state‖ on the other hand and lastly to be global
peace.
A. the Nature of Human-based Peace
In the human nature of right to peace, humankind is as an active player in
the social scenario, changing his surrounding by his reason and making
everyday new things for the purpose of receiving his own final aims; the
ability which obviously knows the aims and orders to human the necessity
of preserving them all times. To save human life by human in favor of
human against some humans and also, to respect the human place and
dignity as his given values in the world are as the same final aims the
reason recognize them and must pay attention to make them by providing
their grounds and beds (Jonz, 1376:45).
A safe environment and a milieu full of peace and compromise, mentally
and physically, are as examples of the relevant grounds and beds in order
to provide the final aims; the environment devoid of any war and
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violence; the one in which it cannot see either individual violence or
structural one; the one within which mental violence rarely pays
attentions of minds to itself. Similarly, making grounds for having such
an environment, space or any other sphere also needs it that human knows
on his nature in the pros and cons of human actions and subsequent to
aware of philosophy of his appearance, understands his dignity in the
area. It is by using the concern that a safe environment and the one full of
compromise for him will be an environment to achieve his final aim.
In such a situation, peace for him, in fact, is not ―aim‖ but a ―device‖ to
obtain his promised truth and even by supposing accepting it as an ―aim‖,
it will be the ―procedural one‖ which provides other requirements to
move human towards his final aim (Andorno, 1387: 219).
B. the Nature of State-based Peace
When states like individuals are imaged at more extensive level like
human world, they are as active players who administer a society on the
basis of its sovereignty with its limit borders. Meantime, if the state plays
a role as a ―manager‖ or ―governor‖, its place in the society will be
deferent. The player has a significant role in both human-based and
world-based right to peace. Since a state, as a manager or governor,
monitors on the behaviors of its members on the one hand, it has a duty to
prepare relevant circumstances for saving their life and respecting their
dignity through taking appropriate measures; the duty which indicates a
safe environment to guarantee mental and physical integrity of humans; in
other words, the duty by which both the making of disputes among its
members is ceased to exist, it prevents from any interventions of neighbor
societies in its territory and if there is being conflict of interests among
them, it can ban to make any war. Thus, it both makes peace among its
members and acts to moderately with the neighbor societies though using
or having peaceful thoughts (Chalmers, 2007: 64).
In addition, states at the sphere of world-based or global peace, like
human-based peace, plays the role within its own borders. Since the
global player as the greatest group and member of human society can
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make very effect on the human world by enjoying various political, social
and economic instruments, if peaceful thoughts come over its whole
policies at the transnational level, it can help effectively to provide and
make grounds of appearing peace in the human world. No doubt, when
the thought of a state is on waging a war and domination on other nations
through powerful devices, it cannot find a road to develop peace and
consequently its constable sovereignty on the human world. It is the same
that the nature of state-based right to peace is similar to the two sides of a
coin which are effective within its own borders on one side and at the
international level (regional and global) on the other.
C. the Nature of World-based Peace
Out of its active players who appear in the form of ―individuals‖ doing a
role in the social process as well as out of collective groups constituting a
class and mass of persons in the name of ―states‖ or others, human world
has itself an independent legal identity like individuals and collective
groups having their own nature, namely the same whole personality
which is bigger than a body of its members or parts and it thus has an
independent social place with a single nature. In such a view, peace
appears as an obvious cause and stable element for the independent
personality of human world, otherwise is equal to the absence of the
feature. Although the mentioned human world is of the independent and
single personality but devices of making its ideal conditions will be
prepared by its members, individuals and entities like groups, including
states. Therefore, the weak practices of its members in a generic manner
cause seriously damage and harm to the body of the world. Taking sad
and abnormal policies in the First and Second World War are the best
examples of the policies made by its members; the policies which its
unsatisfactory effects help doubly to express the necessity of being peace
more than past and accelerate in the development of its concept and
extent (Dworkin, 1977: 99)
Having regard to such a thought, can we consider the United Nations
whose members do not have the same place by excuse of peace and
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security, a protector and regulator of the peace? If the rightful aim of the
UN is global peace for mankind, recognizing the different roles for its
players and making an artificial right so-called ―veto‖ will not mean at all
and will not insure the aim in fact. What advantages can be imaged by the
right of veto for global peace and its preservation? It is the considerable
note that the given aim of the UN, as stipulated in article 1 of its Charter,
is preservation of international peace and security and the aim means to
limit the width of powerful instruments and thoughts among states in
order to make it, while the holders of the right to veto are the states which
has been entitled the right by the same powerful devices and thoughts,
and here are the same states act to breach peace by making war and
disorder in international peace for the purposes of achieving their
interests.
Part II: the History of Right to Peace and Human Dignity in
International Human Rights System
While the league of nations on 28 June 1919 saw to guarantee
international peace and security requiring to respect the principles of
international relations and international provisions on the basis of justice
and human dignity, the introduction of the UN Charter, adopted in 1945,
dealt with human dignity and its relation to peace in a more relatively
knowingly view.
1. The Basis of Identifying the Right to Peace
The UN Charter states that ―WE THE PEOPLES OF THE UNITED
NATIONS DETERMINED to save succeeding generations from the
scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to
mankind, and to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights in the dignity
and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women
and of nations large and small… AND FOR THESE ENDS to practice
tolerance and live together in peace with one another as good neighbours,
and to unite our strength to maintain international peace and security
and….‖
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On the category also has been insisted in introduction of the UNESCO
Statute. In the document the member states maintain that …………..
Just some next years in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, in the
its first expressions, world community concluded that recognizing the
intrinsic dignity of all members of human family and their inevitable
rights constitute the basis of freedom, justice and peace in the world, and
it expressed on its certain decision to help to social development and
make a better position of life in a free environment along with saying the
given faith in case of fundamental human rights, dignity and equality
referred to in the Charter, where it says: ―……………….‖
At this time, identifying human intrinsic dignity is of such an important
that out of the sovereignty of states in case of peace, is a fundamental
base of peace in the world being the priority to respecting human rights
must be paid attention. The said dignity in the position is an intrinsic and
inevitable which must be based in any actions taken on peace. Indeed,
human inevitable dignity which is, in fact, the heritage of common
humanity, reinforces the soul of brotherhood and as effective bed-making
causes to provide peace and security in the world.
Pursuant to the approach, in the Declaration on enjoying scientific and
technological developments in favor of peace and mankind‖, adopted On
10 November of 1957 by the UN Assembly, it was insisted on not making
any limitation or prevention of using the provisions on human rights and
fundamental freedoms in the Universal Declaration on Human Rights as
well as the International first and second covenants on civil, political,
social, cultural and economic rights. Although the Declaration had
affirmed the right to peace for states by ―peace system‖ for the first
purpose of saving international peace and security, and respecting human
rights as a necessity for development of their friendship relations, till
1978 when the UN Assembly adopted ―declaration on the equipment of
societies for life in peace‖, this importance, the right to peace, was not
started in a given form and in a formal manner. The declaration in order
to implement the principle called states to insure to take international and
national policies for the purpose of achieving a life in peace, especially on
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the young generations, and in this relation, referred to the right to human
intrinsic life in peace as the first principle (Roche, 2003:3)
Following the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, it was trying to
insist on the global aim and slogan in other international documents. In
introduction of the international Covenant on Cultural, Social and
Economic Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political
Rights, both adopted in 1966, as the significant ones in the regard,
identifying intrinsic dignity and equal and inevitable rights of all
members of human family as just as the universal declaration on human
rights considered as the basis of freedom, justice and peace in the world.
In addition to it, the former document in article 13 states ―…….‖ And
article 10 of the international covenant on civil and political rights says
that ―…………‖
To this background for human dignity to provide the tranquil of justice,
freedom and peace was referred in other documents, too. It is the
substantial point that to insist certainly on human dignity and its priority
on the role of states shows the governance of human-based thought in
relation to peace.
2. Human Dignity; the Bright Shade of the Right to Peace
In the thought of global peace, human dignity appears as the fundamental
element without which peace, as such, will not be made. Although peace
as a perquisite to achieve totally to all human rights and values, namely,
respecting human dignity but if the lack of peace causes to defect all
human rights and non-respecting his dignity, the grass breach of the rights
and dignity will also be equal to the threat of peace and resulted in its
absence after a short time (Kirchner, 2004: 7)
Meantime, one of the fundamental bases of the right to peace can be
considered in the form of ―human dignity‖ and its practice in fact. On the
other hand, human dignity can be taken into account a base on which
peace and right to peace appear in the light of that and indeed by its
stability beyond the borders of international players, states, so that it can
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accounted human dignity as the background of peace on one side and as
one of the bases of peace on the other.
Conclusion: Dignity-based Peace
Peace is a word and indeed a notion derived from the appearance of
governmental borders among various nations. If human society is
considered in a face without arraying states and sovereignty, the save of
life and its continuance for it is the first aim to get it uses his reason. The
life and its continuance, prema facia, require respecting the dignity
belonging to human per se.
Therefore, since to save life and its continuance on the one hand and
human dignity on the other are as the necessities of stability of mankind
in the global world, when human societies are identified in the form of
states and recognized through identifying the borders, devoid of the
societies, they made an independent community with a single personality.
So, for providing the requirements of saving human life in the new
community, they must try to not only make its grounds and beds but also
lay aside the obstacles of its development. The whole thought of global
community to make the importance appears in the face of peace and
―world peace‖ in fact. Indeed, ―world peace‖ dominates in the light of its
world-based nature and shows its necessity. It is obvious that in the said
nature, it was insured the two natural aspects of human-based and statebased peace. So, their separation from together does not mean their
division of functions together (Nordenfel, 2004: 6).
As a result, in the position, when peace would be called to the name that it
was based on the dignity of human being. On the other hand, human
dignity will be happened only when it can first image to be a relative peace
in the human world. Also, as said in the essay, while peace is prema facia,
a human final aim but it is as a coin with two sides. On one side, it is only a
―device‖ to guarantee the being of mankind and respect human dignity. On
the other, it is as a ―result‖ to insure the life of humankind and respect the
dignity of his being. So, we can find a relation between both of them, in a
manner that there cannot be one of them without another.
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Resources
1. Beyleveld, Deryck and Brownsword, Roger, Human Dignity, Human
Rights
2. and Human Genetics, The Modern Law Review, Vol. 61, No. 5.
3. Human Genetics and the Law:Regulating a Revolution, Sep, 1998
4. Chalmers, Don and Ida, Ryuichi, On the International Legal Aspects of
Human
5. Dignity, in: perspectives on human dignity, edited by Jeff Malpas and
Norelle Lichiss, Springer Publication, 2007
6. Kirchner, Stefan, the Human Rights Dimensions of International Peace
and
7. Security: Humanitarian Intervention after 9/11, Journal of Humanitarian
Assistance, 25 October 2004
8. Nordenfelt, Lennart, the Varieties of Dignity, Health Care Analysis, Vol.12,
9. No.2. June 2004
10. Roche, Senator Douglas, the Human Right to Peace, the Simons Centre for
11. Peace & Disarmament Studies, Vancouver, April 2, 2003
12. Ronald Dworkin, Taking Rights Seriously (Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University
13. Press, 1977)
14. Ruth Macklin, ‗Dignity is a Useless Concept’, British Medical Journal 327
(2003)
15. R. Andorono, Dignity of the Person in the Light of International
Biomedical Law, medicina e morale, 2005/1:91-105, translated into Persian by
mohammad jafar saed (Ph.d), medical law, Vol. 1, No. 1, Summer 2007.
16. Abdollahkhani, Ali, the Theories on Security, publisher: Tehran Abrar
Ma‘aser institute on international studies, Vol. 1, First Published: Farvardin
1383.
17. Vakil, Amir Saed, Human Rights and International Peace and Security,
Majd Publisher, First Published: Esfand 1383.
18. Jonz, V. T., Masters of Political thought, translated into Persian by Ali
Ramin, Amir Kabir Publisher, Forth Published 1376.
19. Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm, Also Sprach Zarathustra, translated into
Persian by Daryoush Ashouri, Aghah Publisher, twenty-sixth published 1386.
20. Manochehr sane‘ee darehbidi , Lessons of Kant’s Ethics, Naghsh va Neghar
Publisher, Third Published 1384.
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21. Teriov, Theri and et all, Modern Security Studies, translated into Persian by
Davood Heidari, foreign affairs ministry publisher, first published 1373.
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Part III
Media; Cultures and Just Peace
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A Critical Approach to Amerivan Virtual Colonialism
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A Critical Approach to American Virtual
Colonialism
Prof. Saied Reza Ameli 
Introduction
Colonialism has experienced various phases. During the old colonialism,
material world was in control through territorial explorations, warfare,
hard power, and use of tactics of political colonialism. The old
colonialism rose in 15th century and expanded by the end of 20th century.
Although colonial powers claim that colonialism is beneficial for the
development of colonized nations, it has been mainly focusing upon
meeting interests of colonialist as well as spoiling political, cultural, and
economic sovereignty of the colonized territories. Steadily, management
of colonies became a complex dilemma for European colonialists,
particularly Britain. Raising public awareness played an important role in
de-colonization. In the next phase of colonialism, called neo-colonialism,
culture and thoughts of the nations were targeted. Through this new wave
of colonialism, the colonized nations were kept backward through
specific political and economic policies. The new way of colonialism,
which had begun after the second World War, still works as a way of
influence and hegemony. With the emergence of virtual space, new ways
of dominance were established. With vast potentials this new wave of
colonialism can be referred to as virtual colonialism.
Although the first colonialist countries were Portugal, Britain, France,
Spain and the Netherlands (the United States can also be considered a
victim of European colonialism) the United States has since played the
 Professor of Communications and American Studies, University of Tehran.
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leading role in neo-colonialism as well as virtual colonialism. Since
colonialism has primarily focused on intellectual metamorphosis of the
societies and individuals, in virtual colonialism, which applies soft power
mechanisms, the ultimate goal is to divest a user ability to think
independently, therefore making him/her as a member of American
cultural society. Meticulous study of eight leading global portals,
surprisingly all American and interactively engaged with American
political and security organizations, reveals that virtual space, as a milieu
for colonialism and divestment of users‘ independence is being employed
to get the users to join into American culture.
Being aware of the great potentialities embedded in the virtual space,
some institutions have managed to establish ―virtual empires‖ through
which they have managed to successfully exert their global cultural,
political, and economic hegemony. Needless to say, this hegemony has
provided the western countries, particularly the United States (as the
leading emperor), with enormous power. It is obvious that such
observation, are often labeled as ―conspiracy theories‖, and authors of
these thoughts are condemned as skeptics, exclusivists, and pessimists.
The point that should be of utmost importance is the nature of power and
hegemony. If we believe that hegemony exists, we must agree that
contemporary global power has achieved a dual-space capacity. Violent
apparatus and armies act on the first space while in the second space
(mind and virtual space), is being dominated by soft power that captures
the thoughts of individuals and societies.
Only through critical analysis can one thoroughly comprehend the covert
and overt facet of virtual colonialism, which is seen as the ground for
expansion of American hegemony through virtual empire. This school of
thought, i.e. critical studies, deploys a painstaking method upon which
intrinsic ongoing norms of a phenomenon are shattered. There have been
variously different critical studies traditions. In the 1930s, the world had
witnessed the rise of critical sociology in Germany, and consequently in
Anglo-Saxon nations in the 1960s. Social, political, and economic
changes in the West along with media empowerment and expansion of
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territory of soft power have prioritized necessity of applying critical
studies to account for capital system and prevailing liberalism. Habermas
(1984) has pointed to critical studies for information analysis. Using
genre, Bakhtin developed a speech classification that has surprisingly
strengthened analysis of others‘ speech (Paivarinta, 2001:212) and
founded a novelty analytical model that Paivarinta calls ―genre theory‖.
According to this theory, typology of genres and interrelationship
between the genres will provide a base for information analysis. In Left
tradition, critical studies seek for the flaw and shortcomings of capitalism
and, as a result, are consistent with postmodern theory that attacks
principles of modern system (James, 2008). In critical realism, the
existence of meaning in outside reality and moreover its comprehension
through scientific inquiry is accepted (Easton, 2010). Therefore, in this
approach, critical analysis is to decipher the meaning from the outside
phenomena.
Critical analysis transcends beyond the commonplace trends and facts; it
is an intellectual endeavor to see ―trans-variables‖ in place of being
immersed in immediate variables of an event, and to comprehend
thoroughly existing social dynamics. Critical thought is aimed at anatomy
of social, political and economic facts and moves beyond the current
commonplace knowledge about these facts. Throughout this book, our
critical analysis is focused on phenomena that require us to have a free
mind about the commonplace understanding of them. This in turn entails
a concentrated effort to analyze the long-term functions of these
phenomena in a detailed manner.
Emergence of critical thinkers like Adorno, Benjamin, Horkhaeimer,
Marcuse, and their next generation such as Habermas indicates violation
of current norms and attention to social obligations (kanerton, 2006).
Although critical thoughts, due to ideological links originated from
materialistic thoughts, could not be sufficiently persuasive, it benefited
from enormously destructive power. The power that is still visible among
postmodern schools but it led to intellectual anarchy because of not being
successful to develop an alternative. In fact, critical tradition is traced to
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Emanuel Kant (1724-1804) and Carl Marx (1818-1883) (Ingram, 1990:1).
This school of thought has been evolved in various intellectual structures
but the shared points of these schools are secularism and laicism.
Interestingly, justice and freedom on the one hand, and pleasure on the
other hand are the main concerns of this tradition (same, p: 275).
But the question arose here is whether justice, freedom and delight are
possible without relationship with God and are the anarchy and
inefficiency of the criticisms resulted from divine affiliations? The author
strongly believes that the track record of Western thought has shown that
diagnosis of the problem has not necessarily translated into solving the
problem in those societies. It merely acted as an alarm for the status quos
that it cannot create ―sustainable pleasure‖. In reality, sustainable pleasure
and thorough justice without ―divine and religious affiliation‖ can hardly
materialize. Therefore, in order to accurately analyze the shortcomings
and the flaws associated with the commonplace understanding of all
phenomena, one can devise a ―critical divine analysis‖ which is mainly
based on God‘s vision for humanity.
As analyzed in this book, although these flaws can be analyzed critically,
hegemonic attitude is generally originated in polytheistic look which
replaces God with individual, community, ideology, race and ethnicity to
dominate the world. This way of Godly approach to power is rooted in the
weakness of human being, which has brought about injustice, corruption
and prejudice. Critical analysis of eight virtual giant companies acting as
the main internet portal and sub-portals requires a detailed understanding
of the concept of power and its various forms such as covert and overt
power, soft and hard power, cultural and political power, and finally ―farranging‖ and ―close-ranging‖ power. In addition, in recent years the
forms, potentials, and ranges of power have expanded tremendously
through its dual-spatial nature. This makes it crucial for us to further
analyze the dual-spatiality of power. Moreover, in analyzing the anatomy
of virtual powers it is inevitable to meticulously examine the position of
Islamic Republic of Iran as well as the Iranian users vis-à-vis these
powers.
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The Concept of Power
In dictionaries, power is defined ―as the ability to do something… power
stands for the ability to achieve what one seeks‖ (Nye, 2008:38).
Consequently, leadership would be impossible in the absence of power.
Those who possess more power, in any relation, have more opportunities
to make or resist a change (Nye, 2008). In addition, power means the
ability to influence others‘ behavior in order to achieve desirable results
(Nye, 2008).
On the other hand, power might be construed as proliferation of an idea.
All processes orienting toward proliferation—at production, distribution,
and consumption—reflect power. For instance, proliferation of liberaldemocratic system along with French laic or English Protestantism or
American modernism features around the globe, points to the presence of
the Western socio-politico-economic culture in non-western countries.
Besides, proliferation of American and new European architecture and
urban design system, and, furthermore, western education system can be
correctly conceived as the expansion of the power of the West relative to
the East. Therefore, the concept of soft impact has gained precedence
over the idea of hard power and confrontation. The more the proliferation
and acceptance of ideas and outlooks, the stronger and more
comprehensive the hegemony of soft power would be.
Despite the fact that some argue that power is merely attainable through
exerting force, there are clearly other ways to achieve ones‘ desirable
results. First is to coerce someone to do something. Second and
diametrically different from the first is to persuade people to do
something through creating appropriate motivation and encouragement.
Thus, the concept of power is divided into two parts: soft power (by
implicitly luring people through influencing their values, culture, politics,
and institutions, organizing priorities) and hard power (through exerting
explicit military and economic force) (Nye, 2008:43). Thus, the common
denominator between hard and soft power is their final goal of
influencing others‘ behavior and proliferation of a specific model,
whereas their distinct features lies in the method and ways through which
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this final goal is materialized. In other words, there are two types of
power: a. the command power or changing what one does by force and b.
the co-optive power which translates into changing what people are
willing to do themselves (Nye, 2008). In addition, some argue that power
is about having potentialities and resources that could possibly determine
the results.1
Joseph Nye consider the following spectrum for power:
Figure 1: The Spectrum of Power (Nye, 2008)
On this spectrum, soft power tends to the end of behavioral pole while
hard power is positioned to the opposite end (Nye, 2008:47). In his key
work, Power Rules, he mentions different genres of power including:
power of ideas, power of leading, charismatic power, persuasive power,
and power of values (Gleb,2009). In addition, this book addresses various
definitions of power from different political schools. I view liberals as
tending to define power in terms of mutual understanding, leading,
communications, principles, values, persuasion and argument. They
usually see coercing others as an extremist action and turn to it as the last
resort.
On the other hand, American conservatives incline towards their personal
interests rather than universal principles. Conservatives also insist on
coercion and force than persuasive initiatives. They believe that American
way of life, politics, and economics is the most effective way and those
opposing it are either in error or have evil intentions. In their opinion, to
confront threats, military force and generation of fear work effectively.
Unlike the liberals, they are hardly concerned about representing a brutal
picture of themselves, and even moderate politicians possess a mix of
1.The defeat of the United States in Vietnam despite her resource as well as military
superiority may create serious challenges for this definition of power.
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different perspectives and lack any coherent ideology. They have hardly
made any significant progress in political discussions. Although this
group has failed to develop any coherent strategy, they emphasize on
rational pragmatism and truth. Their ideas are rarely welcomed by masses
of people (Glebe, 2009). Examining several American presidential
campaigns, I will assert that force exertion is costly and futile whereas
emphasis on values and dialogue has worked significantly, and that the
behavior of conservatives has significantly harmed the American interest.
According to Glebe, ―power is to force people to do something which
they are not willing to do. It is also resource and status management as to
exert psycho-political pressure‖ (2009:28). Thus, power can be exerted
through charisma, leading, values, persuasion, and similar methods since
there are plenty of shared interest and values in international affairs
among citizens of different nations. On the contrary, the nature of power
becomes harsher, more explicit, and more complicated when dealing with
governments, which possess the least commonalities amongst each other.
In the international scene, leadership and attempts to persuade is hardly
accepted and exerting force is often replied back by force itself. As a
result, power behaves differently depending on the various relations and
conditions it is applied.
Generally, western works on power are often ambiguous. One of the most
important traditional definitions of power is what Robert Dahl, professor
of political sciences at Yale University, develops. In his essay, The
Concept of Power, he asserts: ―A can influence B as long as it can drive B
to do something which was never done in absence of exertion of the force
by A‖. Here, A coerces B actively since B expects and fears pressure
from A. The central point here is exertion of pressure so as to alter rather
than persuade. Dahl also sees power as a mix of psycho-political leverage
with superiority in use of opportunities and resources. He firmly believes
that power holders need heed their reputations (Glebe, 2009:33).
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Soft and Hard Power
The concept of soft power or ―absorptive power‖ was first coined by
Joseph Nye. Advantage of this kind of power is its power of influence
which reduces the cost of remaining strong through convincing others ―to
like what we like‖. Soft power is absorption of others through the
mechanisms which are beyond physical force which highlights obligation
rather than cooperation. This absorption is exerted through both tangible
and intangible mechanisms. This does not mean that soft power will
always employ non-violent methods of convincing when challenged by a
hard power. Instead, in such situations the soft power could turn into
physical and explicit use of force.
Soft power is sort of social turning toward prevailing system‘s
expectations. Nye (2004, a&b) believes that soft power is the power to
change the demands and expectation of a society towards the direction
that is desired by the holder of the power and furthermore legitimize this
change in direction.
In short, soft power is an influential mechanism on changing the ―social
preferences‖.
The very distinction between hard and soft power lies in tangibility,
physical destruction, visibility, and being fearful of the holder of the
power. These are usually embedded in military power through use of
force and military weapons or physical colonial presence. Unlike hard
power, soft power does not possess visible components of influence and
force: it lures, tempts, and looks desirable. Soft power diffuses its
components in variously different ways and machines that are not explicit
and do not act overtly. Through the assistance of hard power, soft power
seeks macro and long-term goals. As a result, the virtual space has
provided new grounds for both the creation and use of the soft power.
This space has generated independent capacities for soft power and its
various links with the physical world. It includes some exclusive features
like cohesion, decentralization, digitalization, and easy accessibility
which have offered new capacities. Development of communication in
the virtual space has tremendously increased interactions between nations
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and peoples and in fact the second wave of globalization has been
occurring in this space.
As communication develops in this space—that is, ―ever-present
communication‖ or ―instant communication‖ along with unauthorized
accessibility in ―other spaces‖— time and physical space become
irrelevant to users (Ameli,2004,a). Actually, the intrinsic potentialities of
virtual space have made it possible for its users to always have
widespread present at all times. Dualization of virtual and physical armies
is seen as a new possibility that would stretch the reach of the armies of
the superpowers to all individuals and places possible, creating a virtual
empire.
As it was mentioned earlier, soft power lies in absorption. Since no one
accepts to be manipulated, soft power works so covertly (Nye, 2008:43).
Soft power is the ability to get people to help us achieve our ultimate
goals. Soft power is in never absolute and it firmly believes in efficiency
of education, mutual understanding, and communications (Nye, 2008:99).
In fact, democratic powers are not concerned about power distribution but
try to develop leading opportunities. They, however, are restricted to exert
explicit power. As a result, even in cases of police exerting power, they
try to create a persuasive picture of the event in order to legitimize the
action of the police for ordinary citizens and therefore convincing them
into cooperation with the police force. Likewise, they create, promote,
and manage the international free market and therefore control the world
through the global economy (Nye, 2008:130). Virtual powers also take
advantage of ―participation of people in power generation and
development for the powerful ones‖, and increase the information might
of the so-called superpowers through the attendance of millions of net
users on google.msn, yahoo, Wikipedia, facebook, and YouTube.
In the contemporary world, individuals are simultaneous members of
several communities. Therefore, they find it difficult to make concrete
decision. This is exactly the time actually that preferences can be
influenced and formed. In such times, revolutionary leaders like Gandhi,
provoke a peoples of nation to act collectively in the public interest
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instead of personal ones. On the contrary, opportunist leaders can create a
situation mixed with fear and hope where individuals are encourage in
seeking personal interests and therefore paving the way towards the
personal interests and goals of such leaders (Nye, 2008:62-64).
According to Michael Mumford and Judi Van Dom, pragmatist leaders
use both methods simultaneously (Nye, 2008:67). Later, Nye and Richard
Armitage developed the concept of ―smart power‖ which is a combination
of hard and soft power (Gleb, 2009:69). This point indicates that those
advocating soft power do not altogether refute use of military action.
Rather, they believe in the integration of soft and hard power in order to
maintain their control. In short, words and wars complement each other
(Nye, 2008:142). In order to lead through soft power, three ingredients
(skills) are required: emotional intelligence, communications, and
wisdom. Emotional intelligence is about self-control and discipline which
makes a country or the leader popular for the people. By communication
it is meant the ability of a country or leader to communicate effectively
with others. Finally it is through wisdom that a country or a leader can
create an appealing picture of a concept or an event that could attract
others (Nye, 2008: 72-74).
On the other hand, hard power also has important tools such as organizing
skill and political intelligence -- versus social intelligence-- which
eventually will integrate into soft power in order to constitute smart
power (Nye, 2008:83).
In Power Rules, Lezli Grebe argues that the gap between advocates of
hard and soft power lies in Jefferson and Hamilton perspectives which
could also be visible in Obama and McCane presidential campaigns in
2008 (Grebe, 2009:68). In general the countries that are successful in
creating and exerting soft power at the global scene are:
1. The countries whose prevailing culture and customs are closer to
universal norms.
2. The countries that are linked to more communicational channels.
3. The countries that have gained strong reputation because of their
effectiveness in both domestic and international affairs.
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Soft Power and Virtual Space
Virtual space acts as a tool for soft power and soft power is the reference
for generating virtual space. ―The end of the cold war is the start of the
soft war‖, in which the war has become tremendously equipped both in
the physical and the virtual worlds. Soft power acts in a field of
colonialism and fermentation, where ―countless users‘ are the main
generators of power for ―the enemies of humanity‖. In recent decades, the
world has witnessed ever-increasing technological advancements,
particularly in communication. From invention of radio and television to
the rise of 24-hour news networks broadcasting the latest news live and
across the globe, all have been making the world a small place by
reducing distances. As information technology advanced we have been
experiencing ―virtual feudalism‖ in which overlapping communities
constitute multilayered identity and citizenships. Whereas once
knowledge used to generate power, today the ―virtual feudalism‖ based
on information flow among various networks is the main producer of
power. Information flow has soared citizens‘ participation in social
management in democratic societies and has made management to be
more participative in nature and less command oriented (Nye, 2002).
Therefore, the more people are exposed to information flow, the more
separate cultural link to each other. Furthermore, various sphere of social
life such as household affairs, work, recreation, education, reality, and
fiction are all included in domain of influence of global information flow
(Adrian, 2007:12). These connections have not led to a centralized world.
Rather it has caused decentralization. Joseph Nye enumerates three
features for information: the flow, the competition, and the strategic
importance. Of course, the flow of information is influenced heavily by
the source of information. Furthermore, one who distributes information
faster and with more credibility, may gain and exert more power.
Governments also use information and its flow to acquire credibility and
power and at the same time undermine their oppositions (Nye, 2002:68).
The literature concerning the relationship between soft power and virtual
space and how various internet networks can work to exert power, is
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meager. Because of the significant impacts of these networks on societies,
and furthermore because of some recent major events, such as the
aftermath of Iran‘s 2009 presidential elections, it is highly crucial for
researchers to examine the dynamic and potentialities of soft power and
virtual space within which it operates.
Strategy and Instrument
In Superpowers of Soft Powers, Yasushi & McConnel (2008) has
compiled some articles which address different aspects of soft power in
the United State and Japan. Higher education, high culture, public culture,
public diplomacy, and civil society are instruments, which their role in
soft power has been examined in this book.
In the chapter on higher education, the book outlines how foreign
students‘ perspective and thoughts are enormously influenced by
American universities (2008:42). Upon returning home, these students
incline to establish organizations and institutions identical to those
experienced in the United States, particularly in educational and academic
fields. Their relationship with American way of thinking is kept through
graduate students societies, academic conferences, and unofficial
academic groups (Yasushi and McConnel, 2008:43). Today, social
virtual networks have made it easier for such links and relationships to be
maintained.
The establishment of Association of International Educators or NAFSA in
the United States in order to exchange professors and students between
American universities and other universities around the world indicates
the significance of this issue for the United States. American people are
primarily exposed to other nations‘ soft power. In another article, the role
of Japanese animations, children programmers, computer games and
some other cultural products on American children and teenagers has
been explored. These products have occasionally motiavated American
youth to learn Japanese language and travel to the country. In fact, during
previous decades there has never been such an enthusiasm. Furthermore,
Japanese products that are seeking success in American market often need
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to conceal their Japanese identity and be ―Americanized‖ (same,101). At
the end, globalization of Japanese public culture does not translated into
Japans‘ soft power because it does not link the Japanese public culture to
other aspect of Japanese society so as to generate interest towards the
country itself (same, 105). In reality, of three ingredients the Nye sees
necessary for the establishment and maintenance of soft power-- that is,
culture, political values and foreign policy (same, 102), Japan only enjoys
the first one.
Non-governmental organizations can be seen as one of the most robust
instruments of exerting soft power. Their soft power usually is not limited
to geographical borders, but is international. In spite of the fact that these
bodies introduce themselves as independent from governments, in
practice they act in favor of some governments. Katsuji & Kaori divide
NGOs into religious, Donontisti, and Wilsonist groups. The prominent
feature of the third group is that it sees its philanthropic purposes
consistent with American foreign policy, and majority of American
NGOs are classified as such (same, 265-266). Most of these NGOs
possess considerably large budgets and occasionally receive financial aids
from governments. Information technology advancements contribute to
the expansion of these organizations around the world. But some
networks have emerged which are not sub-divisions of NGOs but work
actively and are able to draw a considerable range of people from a very
wide geographical area. Some of these networks basically act in virtual
space. It is hard to understand the main motives and interest of NGOs
(same, 268).
Virtual social networks are important tools to exert soft power. In an
article addressing the role twitter in Iranian post-elections events in 2009,
the impact of twitter has been evaluated as strong as that of CNN during
Persian Gulf War. Furthermore, it may be correctly hypothesized that the
request of U.S. Department of State from Twitter to postpone their regular
maintenance during Iranian events, is entirely in agreement with the
purpose of toppling Iranian government, which had also been sought after
by previous Neo-conservative government. Furthermore, it is not far from
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truth that U.S. Department of State used the communications on Twitter
as a source of intelligence on events in Iran (Burns & eltham, 2009: 305).
In fact, Twitter is an efficient alternative to radio and television networks
which were previously used to carry out the plans of the United States in
other countries. Twitter and similar social virtual networks have yet
another advantage: through the volunteer role of people in such networks,
these networks cannot anymore be accused of propaganda machinery of
the United States.
Explaining some methods to which twitter users resorted in order to
advocate protests in Iran, Burns and Eltham (2009) argue that this method
was not successful to change the Iranian government and even alter the
result of election since it hardly overcame the governments‘ apparatus.
The United States did not show enough enthusiasm to support Iranian
protesters with military assistance or providing weapons because it was
not willing to leave public diplomacy in favor of covert operation. It is
moreover possible that the United States government which has been
working to advance its intelligence operations in Iran has viewed the role
of Twitter in organizing protesters in the aftermath of Iranian presidential
elections in 2009 as an interesting case study that needs to be examined in
more details. Examining the Iranian case in detail, Burns and Eltham
point out the inefficiency of soft power and social media technologies to
compete with hard power (same, 306). In fact, this example reveals
apparently the complementary role of soft and hard power and that is why
both genres of power need to be deployed simultaneously in order to
achieve the desired objective. In short, close study of Twitter‘s role in
Iranian presidential post-election unrests, underlines inefficiency of sheer
use of soft power (Burns & Eltham, 2009:306). In reality, soft power
facilitates the ground for using hard power in order to enhance its
efficiency as decreasing the severity of its application.
Virtual games are of other methods that soft power can be exerted
throughout the virtual space. Capacities of online games, or Massively
Multiplayer Online Games, along with numerous online participants is
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seen as a rich ground to exert soft power. Adrian believes that these
games are effective through three ways:
1. ―one-to-many-player network‖ or designer‘s influence on the players.
In fact, designers‘ opinions and values are exerted in the design of the
game and are conveyed to the players.
2. ―Many-to-many- player network‖ which includes interactions between
players through chartroom, email, personal and public messages, and
other platforms.
3. ―one-to-many player network‖ or player‘s relation with the community
of players in which a player can express his/her own values and ideas
through different methods such as determining personal features of
appearance in the game environment such as the Avatar(Adrian,
2007:15).
Virtual world of the games have offered a milieu for exertion of soft
power as well as public diplomacy in which concepts such as war, peace
and so on can be conveyed.
Soft Power through Virtual Empires: Determinations in Free
Frameworks
Latest statistics reveal that more than 206 million internet websites are
active (Netcarft, 2010). This number indicates the existence of extremely
massive amount of data in virtual space. Despite the free appearance of
virtual space, it does not denote equal access to the data for the users
because users have to choose a few specific websites among the extremely
many websites available to them. This fact leads to promotion of the status
of the search engines like Google, yahoo, binge (msn) because it is the
search engines that offer you a limited number of websites among the
millions available, with certain ranking and pre-programmed algorithms
which determine the ranking rules. This can be inferred as ―soft filtering of
power‖ or determination within the free frameworks of information.
Although the engines never prohibit you from entering any other
websites, they automatically create a virtual distance between you and
some websites ─and make you closer to those having higher ranks─
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through their ranking algorithm. Nye believes that power does not merely
belongs to information generators, but the central power is held by those
editing the gigantic amount of information and creating a distinction
between credible and non-credible information (Nye, 2002). The huge
amount of current information in the space as made it to difficult judge
over information credibility. The most valuable capital of these search
engines lie in their legitimacy because users select their desirable engines
with their confidence to them which is largely based on their neutrality,
speed, efficiency, comprehensiveness and etcetera. In reality, the engines
act as users‘ agents in the virtual space. Thus, ―legitimacy‖ is seen as
central component of the rise and fall of virtual empires in the near future.
It is through legitimacy that these search engines gain tremendous degree
of soft power over their users because they can direct the flow of
information on various issues such as politics, economy, and culture.
Therefore, despite the free nature of virtual space, the search engines can
covertly lead their users toward the discourses that are consistent with
various predefined objectives of the search engines.
Successful social network sites are other central components of virtual space.
These empires like facebook, my space, and twitter intend to form social
communities whose citizens are users from all over the world with various
nationalities. Surprisingly, the Facebook empire possesses over 500 million
members. These virtual communities have various cultural, social, and
political values. Facebook has managed to redefine the concepts such as
―friend‖, ―relationship‖, and ―family‖, as well as the culture of routine daily
activities such as greeting. Although users make significant contribution to
create these communities, the principles and discourses dominating these
virtual communities influence their members in creating their own identity.
In the mean time, private companies and enterprises are vastly superior to
their governmental counterparts. Governmental companies may be easily
accused of prejudice and hegemony, whereas private companies,
seemingly, do not show any ideological tendencies and instead, pretend
seeking transmission of cultural and political values for economic profit.
Besides, private sector benefits from mechanisms that attract audiences
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and influence their preferences. As mentioned earlier, these features are
highly helpful n absorbing users and acquiring legitimacy. Its superiority
in terms of soft power also continues in real world. Mathew Freezer, in
the tenth chapter of ―superpowers of soft power‖, points to several
failures of U.S public diplomacy in Middle East unlike Hollywood, as a
notable private sector. Private sectors‘ advantages over its governmental
counterpart in virtual space is far more than what Freezer stated about the
real world because bias and invidious in virtual space, which intrinsically
must be free and accessible, is rarely tolerated. So majority of virtual
empires are owned by private sectors, and are seemingly free and neutral.
Many virtual empires like Google, Yahoo, Facebook, Twitter, and so on
belong to the private sectors of the United States and seemingly there is no
relation between them and the government, although it sometimes happens
that some news on governmental interference on their policies are leaked.
Sometimes, even some of these empires act against current U.S. policies.
However, too much attention to comprehend to their relationship with the
U.S government will lead to overlook more important point. These empires
play the key role in transmission of fundamental Anglo-Saxon culture such
as ―liberalism‖, ―democracy‖, ― freedom‖, ―human rights‖, pluralism‖,
individualism‖, ― free trade market‖, and so on and they never need any
financial assistance from the United States government. Moreover, some of
the empires like MSN and Amazon transmit the U.S. popular culture to the
users through advertisements and informing over cinema, music, sport,
literature, and even how to cook various American dishes.
Nowadays, some values like ―democracy‖, ―freedom‖, ―human rights‖,
―and ―pluralism‖ have all become universal. This indicates that the United
States has been relatively successful in soft power absorption through
both real and virtual spaces. As argued earlier, this soft power takes
complementary role for the U.S. hard power to meet its goal. In order to
comprehend the nature of the U.S. virtual dominance which is mainly soft
in nature and managed by private companies, a detailed analysis of U.S.
virtual empires is required, which is carried out below.
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Bibliography
1.Adrian, A. (2007). The Soft power of Virtual Reality, Int. J. Liability and
Scientific Enquiry, Vol. 1, Nos. 1/2, p.10–17. 2007.
2.Ameli, S. R. (2004,a/1383). ―Simultaneous Communication Technologies and
Dual Globalization of Culture‖, ―teknolozhiha-ye hamzaman-e ertebatat va du
fazaei shodan-e farhang‖. Didgah quarterly. No.1, Vol. 1.
3.Ameli, S. R. (2004,b/1383). Globalizations: ―Concepts and Theories‖,
―mafahim va nazarie-ha‖. Arghanoun quarterly, 24 (4): 1-55.
4.Burns, A., & Eltham, B. (2009). ―Twitter Free Iran: An Evaluation Of
Twitter‘s Role In Public Diplomacy And Information Operations In Iran‘s 2009
Election Crisis‖, Record of the Communications Policy & Research Forum
2009, p. 298-310.
5.Easton, G. (2010). Critical Realism in Case Study Research, No. 39, pp. 118128.
6.Gelb, L. H. (2009). ―Power Rules: How Common Sense Can Rescue American
Foreign Policy‖, Hapercollins E-Books, 2009.
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teaching of accounting theory, Critical Perspectives on Accounting, No. 19, pp.
643-676.
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9.Nye, J. (2002). The Paradox of American Power. Oxford. Oxford University
Press.
10.Nye, J. (2004). Power in the Global Information Age, London: Rutledge.
11.Nye, J. S. (2002). The Information Revolution and American Soft Power,
Asia-Pacific Review, Vol.9, No 1.
12.Nye, J. S. (2008). The Powers to Lead. London: Oxford University Press.
13.Paivarinta, T. (2001). The Concept of Genre Within the Critical Approach to
Information Sytems Development, Information and Organization, No. 11, pp.
207-234.
14.Yasushi, W., & Mc Connell, D. (2008). Soft power superpowers: cultural and
national assets of Japan and the United States, East Gate.
Culture- Means of Mass Communication terrorism; an up-to-date trilogy
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Culture- Means of Mass CommunicationTerrorism; an up- to- date trilogy
Dr. Stergios Katichoritis 
Abstract
The paper begins with the definition of the concepts Culture, Media
and Terrorism. Culture is defined as the cultural activity with the
spiritual and material projects, values, traditions, customs and
aesthetics that shape our way of life.
The term of Media of Mass Communication is defined as the official
source of information concerning both real and unreal, virtual reality.
The definition of terrorism is presented as the systematic use of
violence, exercised by organized groups with political, religious and
ideological motivations.
We live in a world, grounded in material culture that builds a model of
life based on the degree and the capability of consuming industrial
products. Consuming capitalism and the collapsed Marx theory
underlined those social systems with sets of values based on total
human components. The diffusion of this concept, sometimes referred
to as a new ―religion‖, has detracted spirituality from human social
evolution.
An efficient means for the development of this new religion is the
financial power that directs the media to formulate such a fictional
consciousness. On these conditions, it is clear that the anger of
destitute and oppressed people can lead to organized actions of
violence and aggression. This conclusion should be severely doomed,
since it brings about inequalities in favour of people with financial
power and it also restrains the upgrade of humankind‘s spiritual
values. The new culture that would reject the materialistic consumerist
 BA in Philosophy; PhD in Sociology; Doctor at the Panteion University of Athens;
Former Perfect of Achaia; Former Vice- Perfect of Western Greece.
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perception will not arise by means of violence and darkness, but
through the divine light of mind and perception.
1. Definition Approach
To start with, please allow me to present my personal views on each
separate part of this trilogy.
A. Culture: In the Greek language, the term was first presented in the
ancient times. From the derivation point of view, it is considered to share
the same origin with the words citizen and city (politismos- polis- politis).
It is preceding to the term civilization, which arose in the linguistics much
later, that is around in the 18th century, in the sense of cultivation in the
fields of agriculture and animal breeding.1 The term evolves and prevails
under the concept of personal refinement and spiritual development in the
19th century. This development is achieved through education, principally
aiming to fulfil values and ideals both on national and individual level.2
In the Greek perception, the meaning of the term ―culture‖ is to a great
extent dual. In more detail, on the one hand the term refers to the political
pursuit with material and intellectual goods in the frame of social
activities. On the other hand, the word ―culture‖ is related with the mental
cultivation of values, tradition and knowledge. These principles determine
the way of every level of social life.
Culture is an evolving definition, which can be directly influenced by
social and geographical qualities such as tribe, nationality, religion,
language and every other factor governing and expanding social
coherence.
It is commonly accepted and proved within the years that when we use
the term ―culture‖, we usually refer to a non- static, vulnerable and mostly
1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture ―... the concept first emerged in eighteenth- and
nineteenth- century in Europe..‖
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture ―...it came to refer first to the betterment or
refinement of the individual, through education, and then to the fulfillment of aspirations
or ideals.‖
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developing term. It is a fact that during their ―existence‖, the different
types of civilisations were either faded, dismissing their identity to a
narrow or total extent or they were simply transformed under the view of
social change.
Nonetheless, the fact that several civilisations, in any structure they
endured through the years, passed their intellectual accomplishments on
later culture or social generations remains indisputable. Examples of such
culture models were the Greek civilisation, the Chinese, the Persian as
well as the Roman civilisation.
This statement becomes reinforced through the assumptions the experts
drew, after the end of the Word Summit for setting and broadening the
concept of Culture strategies in 1982, in Mexico. This Summit, known as
MondiaCult3, came to the conclusion that Culture in its wide sense,
represents nowadays a body of spiritual, material, intellectual and
emotional features. This body constitutes a fundamental attribute of a
society or a social group, regarding its system of values, tradition, religion
systems as well as the set of arts, linguistics and movements of thought.
B. Media of Mass Communication: People are determined by their
internal need for communication. However, it was this specific need that
allowed the Mass Media to obtain immense power.
The technological breakthrough both in the conventional and the
electronic Press set new conditions in people‘s daily life. Mass Media
comprise the contemporary ―Janus‖, the ancient Roman God of two faces;
the one representing evil and the other goodness. This is justified since
they are tightly related to not only the powers of progress and salvation
but also at the same time to the forces of oppression and brutality.
Unfortunately, these days information passes through the filters of
propaganda of commercial interests and the dominant economic forces of
each state. This results to the distortion of the factual truth and even
worse to the deliberate formation of civil moral sense.
3. http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0004/000493/049367eb.pdf
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The value system of an organized society is indeed synonymous to its
financial foundation. Nonetheless, this social feature cannot be regarded
as the primary cause of the above effect. What many of those embracing
Marx‘s theory did not perceive, is that objective reality is not
automatically reflected in the consciousness of the individual, based
only on its economic value. This, sadly led to the depreciation of the
intellectual and psychological mechanisms, involved in the formation of
human convictions. This lack of appreciation created the illusion that only
the material base of the society, as well as the equal distribution of the
produced wealth, forms the ideological mechanisms of the construction.
The question, set in our times, is in which ways and forces the Means of
Mass Communication should be utilised by the people of spirit and
growth, before they become imprisoned by the conservative power of a
solely consuming society.
C. Terrorism: A current definition for this type of behaviour conduct is
the premeditated and deceitful reaction or pressure, exercised by
organised groups. Their motives are usually financial, religious, political
or any alternative ideological ones, supported by the systematic use or the
threat of use of violence. This violence is openly addressed either to
individuals, social groups, decision-making mechanisms or properties.
However, most of the times, the ultimate aim is the functioning conditions
of a government or a political regime so as to extract political, ideological
and financial profits.
Research has indicated that contemporary terrorism is presented mainly in
two patterns; firstly, as a result of the conflict between the Eastern and the
Western civilisation. Secondly, as the outcome of socio- economic
inequalities, derived from the imperialistic policy of the West at the
expense of the East.
Historically, terrorism failed to overthrow the Eastern regimes in target
and this comprises in fact a threat to the established order and authority.
Under the view of this failure, since terrorism contributes to the political
establishment of the totalitarian governments, the latter will install
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terrorism to the extent this activity is necessary for the fulfilment of their
goals.
Definitely, the most interesting side of terrorism is its psychological
effect, being organised by the Mass Media, fabricating an alternative
reality full of specifically targeted transmissions and subterfuges. Under
this framework, every taken measure for confronting terrorism becomes
justified.
In general terms, the scenario of terrorism produces social injustice and
disparities between the wealthy West and the deprived East.
This scenario validates the extravagant amounts spent on armament
programmes so as to furnish the West against the threats coming from the
East. It moreover legalises steps taken by governments against potential
or even inexistent threat with the form of firm legislative frames,
repressive practices and preventive actions.
It has been fairly stated that the entire responsibility for the phenomenon
of terrorism leans against the vast socio- economic inequalities on a
global rank. On the other hand, the West bears the responsibility of
expanding the threat of terrorism. This ongoing menace will seize up to
an end merely when the financial harassment of Eastern countries by the
West is brought to an end.
2. The unfortunate trilogy of a civilisation in transition
A. The Frame of Consuming Culture
The consuming way of life, with the continuing pursuit of material
products of use, determines the natural components of the Western
lifestyle. This lifestyle is further underlined through its cultural entities
which rule a gradually increasing number of civilisation models around
the earth.
These civilisation models expand in millions of people. However, this
development comprises neither a viable nor an essential part of the human
nature.
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Consuming, as a cultural value, is booming in a spectacular pace year by
year. This flourishing entails the increase of pressure on the natural
function of the planet itself. Sadly, its capacities are concrete and it can no
longer support the enormous expansion of human demands.
Everything leads to the assumption that Plato‘s ―Kingdom of Ideas‖ has
been substituted by the ―Theory of Existence‖ and the ―Spindle of
Necessity‖ as well as by ―Being and Time‖ of Martin Heidegger. It is a
fact what Oswald Spengler claims in his book ―The Decline of the West‖,
that is Western civilisation, captured in its materialistic cover, is
condemned and the reversion is highly unlikely. It is indeed being led
towards destruction, on circular stages, through the promotion of the
technological evolution.
It is time we referred to the socio- economic and geopolitical field of the
present technological consuming culture, on the occasion of the current
financial crisis. In so doing, we should take into consideration the taste of
death well- hidden behind the innocent face of the use of goods and
services as well as behind the technological prosperity of the markets.
Never before the national states faced their position in the geo- economic
and global power system being redefined in such an unexpected way.
This was initially achieved through the drastic raise of the oil and food
industry prices and later through Stock Exchange subsidence and
bankruptcy. In 2008, within 8 days, we encountered radical changes in the
system. Specifically, we witnessed:
A world change under the frame of financial collapse of not only longeternal, multinational business colossus but also in the sense of economic
failure of entire state units.
The introduction of new social variables with principal victims the social
cohesion, the social state, the labour relations and the Social Insurance
conditions.
The dissolution of the neoliberal ideology and the need to go back to
the security offered by the conventional form of the State.
The inflation of the immaterial capitalism seems to have been demolished
under the pressure of the current conditions.
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It has been attested that the accumulated pressure occurred, mainly
because the ‗oil era‘ is reaching the end. We are already at the threshold
of a new energy policy era and the international players aim to
concentrate more and more monetary surplus values. In so doing they will
ensure their sovereignty in the next day of the new economic reality,
while the game cost leans against the shoulders of the people.
We live in a world of constant technological progress. This constant
progress will be the generic cause to determine the future, since the
conclusion of the financial crisis we are experiencing is yet unknown.
The global financial problem of the last few years can be considered
neither metaphysical nor odd. As an outcome, it is interconnected to the
fluctuations and changes during the course of the capitalistic system. The
humanity has witnessed several similar fluctuations since the beginning of
the Industrial Revolution in 1760 with tremendous results. Nevertheless,
the current fluctuation appears to be the most hazardous one.
It‘s interesting to make a short reference to these fluctuations;
1760: the Industrial Revolution becomes a fact on the sparkle of the
British technological achievements in the field of metallurgy and
fabrication. This change led to collisions during the process of
colonialism with tens thousands of victims.
The age of steel and steam- engine; it brought about enormous conflicts
among the Great Powers of that time with hundreds thousands of victims.
Accomplishments in the field of Electricity and gas- engine machines
signal the next fluctuation. During this era, United States of America
along with Germany dominates over the
British. People witness the First World War with millions of victims.
Biochemical and jet medicine as well as nuclear power and Computers
Technology are the features of the next stage of advancement. The
universe is set back on the track of World War II with 50 million victims.
After World War II, we observe the establishment of two new systems,
known either as the capitalistic world or the communist.
There were two great difficulties for these new- born worlds:
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The first one, from the practical point of view, was the so- called Third
World and the way this part of the continent participated in the worldwide
production process along with the political systems of governance.
The second problem was the sentiment of religion that people shared,
mainly the Christian and Islamic part of the populations.
In the first part, west capitalism was the power which took the
responsibility for ―enslaving‖ people, especially through Soviet
propaganda. The latter promoted a new religion formation ―Marxism‖ in
order to realise this project.
Imam Khomeini is very well- known for his views.
1.13th Communist Party Conference, 1924; the struggle against people‘s
religious bias needs to come to an end. This will be done by closing the
churches and the mosques and by promoting propaganda against faith in a
material way of expression.
2.Komsomol magazine, June 1942; the most effective way on the battle
against religion is exercising extensive propaganda concerning the
material and scientific view of the universe.
3.Komsomol magazine, October 1942; the Communist Party should not
maintain a solid attitude towards religious matters. As a Science
proponent, it will carry on with the Propaganda as religion is brought
against scientific advancement.
It becomes obvious that the nature of the above perception is in conflict in
all levels; a conflict that blends in time religions, nations, states, societies
and countries smashing every single of their original components. It is the
new blood hunter, wishing to lead the world.
Concluding, in the new upcoming era there will be no aspect of our life
that will remain unaffected. The fallouts will not contain purely economic
dimensions but they will introduce alternative lifestyles.
Nevertheless, we aspire that, beyond the Crisis, a new beginning is about
to be launched.
The oil era seems to be coming to an end. Besides, even the stone - age
never seized because there were no more stone supplies. It ended because
in the new transition they were impractical.
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In times of stock market aggressions, derived from the immaterial
capitalism the globalisation has induced, the philosophers, incapable of
influencing the course of events, have abandoned the Means of Mass
Communication. As Hegel has cited, “… when philosophy paints grey
onto grey maybe a form of life has got older wand we fail to breathe life
into it once again. The owl of Athina, the bird of wisdom, flies only when
the night has become to fall …”
We take a great deal of pride in Natural Sciences, the struggles and the
accomplishments of the West civilisation; from the Greek times to the
Renaissance, from Descartes to Newton and the vast scientific and social
acquisitions, from establishment of Democracy and the Social state to
development of Pharmacy and man‘s opening to the planetary system
and space.
However, we have to point out that we ended up considering technology,
material and consuming as ultimate ideals. We failed to perceive that
these can be forces which keep the reins of progress and need for constant
profit; forces that constrain the art of poetry in favour of technology,
politics instead of Philosophy and materialism instead of esprit.
B. The Means of Mass Communication to the service of material
cultural imperialism
In modern societies, the participation of citizens‘ majority in politics is
not feasible without Media‘s support. This is due to Media‘s ability to
allow the exchange of views on a public level, open dialogue and public
exercise of practice. History has proven that in cases where the Means of
Mass Communication were controlled, principles as freedom of speech
and democracy have been abolished. The functional role of publicity has
been consolidated in the Constitutions, protecting the fundamental right
of free and public expression; that is the institution of political parties, the
Parliament and the Press. Under the frame of this problematic, the Media
plays a critical role in the formulation of the public opinion.
Media‘s contemporary profile is accredited to the technological
achievements and the transition of social conditions. Their leaping and
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multiform growth evidently indicates the integrating Community of
Informatics. Hence, industrial societies and the traditional means of
production belong to the past. The swift transfer of the workforce‘s
employment from the primary and secondary sector of services, along
with the steady increase at the production of manufactured goods and
services of information technology, are the principal elements of the
American and EU economies. The production of industrial and energy
commodities has been displaced by data processing.
Social processes have been directly influenced and moderated, by the
development of the Media and Information Systems.
Many scientific fields, such as Sociology, Political Sciences and
Psychology have conducted several important studies regarding Media
influence and the formation of Information Community. A rather
interesting theory belongs to Janes Beniger, which supports the existence
of a Control Revolution, driven by the Media, in the developed countries.
The Control Revolution consists of a compound and rapid procedure,
during which the product (information) is collected, restored,
disseminated and transmitted. This procedure is directly connected to the
prevailing technological and economic circumstances, which could by
default affect the social control.
These social changes in the Means of Mass Communication and the
technology of telecommunications contribute to the increase of the
enforcement of political and financial control by the upper class. Prior to
this development, the control of general social activities was based upon
interpersonal relations. Upon the establishment of bureaucracy
mechanisms in the Media organisational units, control embraced a
totalitarian meaning. This new context facilitates the upper class to be in
charge of the social structures and functions in a much wider level than in
the past.
At this point, the word control represents a more generalised sense; that
is, the intended influence through a determined target. It includes the
entire scale, from the absolute control to its weakest form, any possible
influence which could be exercised on the level of conduct.
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The information transfer, its processing and the control constitute
indispensable components of Cybernetics, a new science field defined by
Norbert Weiner. According to Weiner, Cybernetics depends on the
absolute space of Control and the theory of transition, either concerning a
machine or an animal.
The information process and the dissemination procedure are requisite
elements of the control function. Therefore, in case authorities wishes to
maintain the control in every level need to align itself with the
development of information processes.
The new era of the Capitalistic system depends largely on its cultural
growth and strengthening. Cultural imperialism is another aspect of the
political, economic and military imperialism. The latter intentionally uses
the Media, especially Television, as the driving force for penetrating its
ideological standards. In so doing, it aims to shape a particular citizen
model which corresponds exactly to the contemporary requirements of
capitalism. This citizen has to be indifferent, passive, alienated, consumer
and mostly atheist.
During the interwar period, until World War I, the Media and mainly
radio are used by fascistic and authoritarian regimes in great success.
Later in the years, television grew to be the effective weapon used by
dictatorships of the Third World.
In the West, the Means of Mass Communication are used in a much
discreet and tactful way, without dismissing though their primary
objectives. The social layers which happen to question this role have
limited if not zero possibilities of intervention in the Media‘s structure
and operation.
C. Terrorism; a hazardous, atrocious and illicit conduct
The 11th September of 2001 is the day, when the entire world believing in
the US domination, collapsed along with the World Trade Centre. It is
unquestionable that this incident consisted a historical turn page and has
been imprinted in people‘s minds.
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George Bush, President of the USA at the time, went on declaring the
world war against terrorism.
Below a chronological course of events which intervened from 9/11 until
nowadays is cited:
1.2001: The United States invades Afghanistan, as the country agitating
the terrorists.
2.2004: The United States invades Iraq, under the same charges along
with the so- called WMD pocession.
3.The announcement of Osama Bin Laden‘s Death.
Since 9/11, there have been enormous efforts to relate the phenomenon of
terrorism to a religion conflict mostly between Christianity and Islam.
Under this framework, ―war against terrorism‖ acquires different features
and dimensions. The war is now defined as ―the Clash of Civilisations‖.
However, this new frame is way far from reality. The ―Clash of
civilisations‖, a theory proposed by the political scientist Samuel
Huntington, supports that the principal source of conflict, during the Post
Cold War era, will be people‘s cultural and religious identities. Despite
Huntington‘s efforts, it is impossible to adopt neither the claim that
terrorism constitutes culture, nor that it is a product of dispute between
Christianity and Islam.
First and foremost, currently there is neither a solid Christian world nor a
concrete Islamic one. The majority of the West populations show limited
interest towards Christian principles. This indifference has led to a new
tendency towards material and secular humanism of new dimensions.
In older times, terrorism was used by groups uninterested or even hostile
to every form of religion. The only new element nowadays is the
development of terrorism, in means of technology, which is extensively
used in a further religious aspect.
Obviously Islam rests closer to Christianity compared to Hinduism,
Buddhism and the traditional Chinese or Japanese religion groups. This
occurs as the latter depend on completely different philosophical
conditions and system thoughts. Both Islam and Christianity are followed
by religion layers which date back to Abraham‘s traditions. The common
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points regard in general the mutual concession of God‘s existence, the
conviction about humanity‘s common origin, the faith in the name of
prophets who were God‘s representatives on earth, faith in Resurrection
of the Dead and in the Final Judgment. Many forms of religion expression
are parallel; pray, charities, Advent, faith confession, celebrations and
honour respect. Moreover, the perception of God, the Saint Trinity, Jesus‘
divinity and all its stemming dimensions. In social perception, the
differences mainly focus on woman‘s position and significance as well as
freedom under the boundaries religion sets. Besides, this explains the fact
that people belong to different types of religion. For centuries, the
Orthodox population has lived together with Muslims in peace, despite
the differences. In many cases, this coexistence is the leading factor for
peace and stability, with the absence of conflicts and terrorist actions.
There have been moments in history that human alliance was related to
the violent enforcement of the one or the other religion. Such belief has
no longer reasonable grounds. Violence brings about only violence,
harassing the true meaning of religion. Proactive approach and productive
dialogue will avert hostilities in Christian- Muslim relations. Koran cites
in chapter 49; ―Oh Humans! You have been created by one (sole) man
and one (sole) woman; your creation led to the creation of populations,
tribes and nations. The most virtuous among you will be the honoured in
the eyes of Allah‖. We need to resist to the immense repulse, being
widespread in several parts of the world, through acts of love and
supreme virtue. In the modern pluralistic society, the only safe way out is
to empathise each other particularities and respect every person‘s dignity
and religious choices.
The financially developed countries of the West should seriously take into
consideration the radical changes in the behaviour of the underprivileged
part of the planet. In the 20thcentury plenty of them become re- orientated
towards communism, which coincides to the historical materialism. It
promotes important religious axioms, such as social justice, brotherhood
and equality. On the other side of the world, in Asia and Africa, Islam
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puts people‘s faith on the far right of religious spectrum. Thus, this might
result in another form of conflict.
Western wealthy societies bear the responsibility to become fair and just,
recalling their Christian tradition and origins. If they persist in remaining
indifferent, we will witness severe collisions in different parts of the
planet.
Conclusion
It should be taken as granted that a probable disintegration of our
―culture‖, will lead to the economic, political, social and moral collapse
of the States as well as the entire existence of the planet in its current
shape.
If we wish to avoid such a demolition, the dominating models in the value
system of this culture need to be reformed. This will offer the people a
new sense of existence, satisfaction and social pretention through limited
consumption products.
There is the primary need to establish a fruitful dialogue among the
involved religions. Everyone, in sincere consciousness, has to follow the
rules of coexistence and tolerance and those dictating cooperation in
matters of a just society and love.
There is no doubt that an entire new era emerges. Perhaps, under the
twilight of this new history, we face a fresh new veil of the luminous
dawn.
Authoritarian Media and Terrorism –Al Jazeera az an Example
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Authoritarian Media and Terrorism –
Al Jazeera as an Example
Abdul Hussein Sultan 
The Historical Relationship between Media and Terrorism
The relationship between terrorism and media dates back to God‘s
creation of man. Cain and Abel were the sons of Adam. When God
accepted Abel‘s sacrifice but not Cain‘s, Cain became angry and
threatened to kill his brother. Abel reacted with tolerance, saying ―If you
do stretch your hand against me to kill me, I shall never stretch my hand
against you to kill you, for I fear Allah; the Lord of the universe" (Quran,
5:28). Despite his brother‘s tolerance, Cain committed the first offense
and terrorist act on earth by killing his brother. When the Quran‘s verses
came down they condemned this criminal action; with God saying ―So
the Nafs (self) of the other (Cain) encouraged him and made fair-seeming
to him the murder of his brother; he murdered him and became one of the
losers‖ (Quran, 5:30). The Divine media revealed the seriousness of
terrorism and violence against people and society, saying that that
whosoever transgresses against one human being transgresses against the
whole human race: ―if anyone killed a person not in retaliation of murder,
or to spread mischief in the land - it would be as if he killed all mankind‖
(Quran, 5:32).
The inter-related relationship between media and terrorism has continued
throughout history to this day. In every stage of history there have been
terrorist actions that have been supported and justified by the media,
especially when the media is controlled by tyrannical and repressive
authorities. An example of this is when the Umayyad dynasty led an
 Editor of Ad-Dar, a daily newspaper published in Kuwait.
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extensive propaganda campaign against Imam Ali (A.S.). They used their
authority to force prayer leaders to curse and insult the Commander of
Believers (Imam Ali) from their podiums at Friday prayer for a period of
70 years. In these times podiums in mosques and poetry were the most
successful popular media. Both were controlled by the ruling authorities.
Here it would be relevant to recall an anecdote. Muawiyah (the first
Umayyad ruler) was attending prayer. When the speaker finished he was
about to step down from the podium without cursing Ali, but Muawiyah
got his attention and told him that he hadn‘t finished his speech because
he hadn‘t yet cursed Ali. The speaker obliged by saying ―Muawiyah
asked me to curse Ali. The curse of God be on him‖ leaving ambiguity as
to who was meant by ―him‖. Muawiyah said ―I swear I‘m not sure if you
cursed me or him!‖
Due to their aggressive media campaign, the Umayyad regime succeeded
in creating a negative atmosphere and hostility towards Imam Ali (A.S.).
This started a chain of crimes against the pure imams, including the
Commander of Believers Imam Ali (A.S.), who was assassinated in his
chambers in Kufa. The unjust media campaign continued unabated. After
the Umayyad began their caliphate they committed crimes in the city of
Altaf. This was followed by the Husseini mass massacre in Karbala,
which was also an effect of the disinformation spread by the Umayyad
media, led by Yazid Ibn Muawiyah, who circulated that Imam Hussein
was anti-authoritarian. Yazid used the media to make sure that the people
of Syria didn‘t realize the value of Imam Hussein (A.S.) and thus did not
defend him. Obaid Allah Ibn Ziad and Alshamr Ibn Zel-Gaushan
contributed to the media campaign by lobbying the people of Kufa to
fight against Hussein and his family. Following this was the invasion of
Medina as well as other battles and crimes, even against unarmed
civilians. The media justified these inhumane crimes, using the mosque
podiums to repress the public and silence opposing voices. This went on
until the fall of the Umayyad state.
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Contemporary Media
The media continued to play a strategic and influential role throughout
history until the present day, and has always been pivotal in guiding
public opinion and trends and the formation of public attitudes and
behaviors. It does this through news and information communicated via
modern mediums. This makes the media, in all its different forms and
with all its different resources, capable of bringing about fundamental
changes in both individuals and communities, through knowledge,
awareness, enlightenment, formation of public opinion, and dissemination
of information and data to the public.
The media has become an essential part in the formation of people‘s
beliefs and attitudes, in addressing them and influencing them. This
makes it necessary to consider to take into account the circumstances of
each community and its environmental, cultural, and social values, in
order not to prejudice its unique identity. Neither should the media ignore
the other segments of societies (minorities) or exclude them from
expressing their views and opinions. Thanks to the information and digital
revolutions, the world has become more accessible, via small devices the
size of a handbag or that can fit inside a pocket.
These days media has become the language of the time; it cannot be
ignored or dispensed with. Therefore it should be understood and wellhandled as a tool for social and political communication, without being
against it. The information tools of modern media have become more
responsive to the circumstances and challenges of the political and social
arena. They are open to all possibilities in the light of the tremendous
advancements and developments that the world has achieved, as well as
innovations in the quality of news and information transmitting.
Media, however, can also be dangerous. It can be used to fabricate news,
photos, or videos, use unreliable anonymous sources and ―eyewitnesses‖,
overly repeat emotional scenes, set up fake calls, hosting ―canned‖
strategic analysts, manage the conversation in such a way that cuts an idea
that one would want to finish, asking questions that have pre-agreed
answers, etc. Perhaps most dangerous of all is presenting trusted figures,
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whose objectivity is also trusted, while they are in fact part of the media
and simply used to attract a wide audience. One would be surprised if one
knew that these figures are playing a deceptive role rather than acting on
their own independent judgment.
The influence of media is not only due to owning modern tools and using
them successfully, but also due to using these tools to present issues
objectively. This is what most media is missing these days. Instead, media
policies and goals depend on what is needed in the media market to
promote their product and hence reach the widest audience. This is what
leads the modern, and especially the Western, media to play a role in
promoting terrorism, and is what creates the relationship between
terrorism and the media. Terrorists create the event, and media markets is.
This raises a lot of questions about the nature of the relationship between
terrorism and the media. For example the media adopt terminology and
labels that impose on the minds and instincts of the audience. It is not
surprising to learn that broadcasters and presenters of a television
channels live in luxury and some of them make 30-40 thousand dollars
per month.
The Relationship between Terrorism and Media
The unprecedented spread of the phenomenon of terrorism in the world is
in part due to the advance of global media and the ease of dealing with it
on an individual and a collective level. Can terrorism live and spread
without support from the media? Does media coverage feed terrorist
operations and encourage those who stand behind them to commit more
of these actions? And does the media help in spreading the culture of
terrorism and as a result contribute to the increase in the rate of violence
and terrorism? Any person, party, or country who has a political project
must first have a form of media!
There is no doubt that the phenomenon of terrorism is today a global
concern. It has serious implications on the security and stability of
societies and nations. It is clear that terrorism is an organized criminal
activity that aims to create an atmosphere of fear and terror by threatening
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to use violence against individuals and private and public property. This
dangerous phenomenon aims to destabilize order and stability in
communities, affect politics, and hurt national economies through the use
of violence and the killing of innocent civilians in order to create a state
of general chaos.
Terrorism is the ―unlawful use of violence to create a state of public
intimidation in order to achieve political objectives. Others classify
terrorism as ―organized violence directed against society or even the
threat of such violence by groups that have an organized nature, aimed at
creating a state of chaos and threatening the stability of society in order to
control or undermine it. These groups do not discriminate between
civilian and non-civilian targets in getting their political goals‖.
What terrorism aims to do is create an atmosphere of chaos, intimidation,
and malicious rumors, to destabilize the public order, and to raise doubts
and concerns in the public and turn them against the political authorities
under the pretext of their inability to protect the security of the public.
Terrorists tend to be armed with various media in order to promote their
goals and reach their objectives. They use their media to mislead the
security forces on the one hand, and to influence and control public
opinion on the other, through publicizing terrorist operations as they carry
on. Publicizing such news helps them to achieve their goals and
objectives. Terrorists see media coverage of their crimes as an effective
indicator of the effect of their actions, to the extent that failure to attract
sufficient media attention is the mark of a failed operation.
Hence the importance, to terrorist organizations, of the use of the media
to promote and support their terrorist actions and ideology. They spread it
through their ongoing attempts to get their existence and actions under the
spotlight of the media.
Psychologists and researchers believe that terrorists might stop their
operations if they knew that they would not be covered by the media or
have the numbers of casualties publicized. This belief is based on the
grounds that psychological warfare only works when the event is
transmitted to the public. This has been described by former British prime
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minister Margaret Thatcher. She stated that free publicity is like oxygen
to terrorists – something they can‘t live without, and gives them strategic
and tactical gains.
Media supports terrorists – purposely or inadvertently –by giving them a
halo that they do not deserve, considering that the goals that are wanted
by both the media and the terrorists are fame, power, and influence over
people‘s minds.
This idea was explained by Professors Bruno Frey and Dominic Rohner
of Zurich University, Switzerland in their work Blood and Ink: The
Common-Interest Game between Terrorists and the Media (2006). They
state that both the meida and the terrorists benefit from terrorist actions.
Terrorists get free publicity for their actions, and the media benefits
financially because reports published about terrorism increase the number
of newspaper readers and television viewers. As a result the media
increases their sales and value, as well as the value of their advertising.
This prompted David Broder, a reporter for the Washington Post, to
suggest denying terrorists access to any forms of media covering terrorist
attacks. (This is especially important for prominent advertising agencies
that have a monopoly on major advertising partners, i.e. the media. It is
also important for research centers that rate newspapers according to how
popular they are and the affiliation of these newspapers to a political
project).
Interviewing terrorists is considered by them as a prize or reward for their
criminal acts, as it gives them an opportunity to speak to the public about
the reasons and motives that prompted them to act. This could lead to
understanding of these reasons and thereby increase the chances of the
occurrence of more terrorist actions. For example a lot of the people
arrested for terrorist actions in Iraq said they had been influenced by what
was broadcasted on satellite channels to get involved with the groups that
conduct bombings and suicide attacks.
Repeatedly broadcasting tragic scenes and exaggerating the damage done,
in addition to the views of the terrorists that are intended to create fear, is
dangerous and can have very negative repercussions. These negative
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repercussions only serve to further the goals of the terrorists. This is
amplified by the competition between different medias to be the first to
broadcast events related to terrorism. Being the first to give a press
release attracts readers and viewers. This makes clear the ability of
terrorist organizations to adapt and take advantage of the media and
means of advanced communication in order to further their own
operations and criminal agenda.
Al Jazeera
One of the most prominent examples of the negative relationship between
media and terrorism is Al Jazeera.
The Arab media in general is weak and unprofessional. The main reason
behind this is that all Arab media is controlled by Arab rulers, which
means that the media is necessarily a follower of the regime and
dedicated to their official point of view. Hence it is non-democratic, nonindependent, and controlled. Independence is one of the most important
conditions of success for a free media, yet the majority of the Arab media
is only a mouthpiece of the state, controlled, and unable to compete with
the free and independent Western media.
The most prominent example of this is Al Jazeera. If we reviewed the
history of the founding of this channel, the methods of financing it, their
methods of dealing with events, particularly inIraq, and the culture and
behavior of the staff of the channel, we will find objective reasons and
clear facts that indicate and confirm the prejudice of this channel and its
relationship to individuals, organizations, countries, and regimes that are
essentially partners in terrorism. We should not forget the relationships
between some of the staff of this channel and Israel, Saddam Hussein‘s
regime, Qaddafi‘s regime, Abdullah Saleh, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, and
other actors of global connections, including leaders of Arab countries
with tense situations.
If we take the issue of Iraq as an example, the involvement of Al Jazeera
in terrorism against Iraqis is clear and certain. This was confirmed by
Saad al-Shuli, deputy director of the channel, in one of the media
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conferences held in Amman, Jordan, when he said: ―This channel [Al
Jazeera] has dealt with intelligence in Saddam Hussein‘s terrorist
regime‖. He justified this deal with the weak justification that it allowed
him to obtain certain information and access to Iraq. Furthermore Al
Jazeera is known to have dealings with the dictator regime in Baghdad, as
evidenced by one of the documents issued by the Ministry of Culture and
Information, found after the fall of Saddam Hussein‘s regime. The
document confirmed the support of Saddam Hussein‘s regime to Al
Jazeera to the order of 50 thousand euros per month, in a secret and
urgent letter that was signed by the former Minister of Culture and
Information, Mohammad Saeed al-Sahaf.
Al Jazeera was and continues to be a hotbed of terrorism, and it has been
doing this using different styles, modes, and formats, as are reviewed
below:
First, Al Jazeera broadcasted early all videos showing terrorists
slaughtering hostages; it was in fact the first channel to broadcast the
video of terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi slaughtering an American
contractor working in Iraq. This was followed by broadcasting the bodies
of American civilians killed in other areas of Iraq. This shows Al
Jazeera‘s devotion to the culture of killing and terror, and demonstrates
how it became the first promoter of terrorism in Iraq after having
promoted it successfully in Afghanistan.
Second, hosting Islamic extremists, chauvinist-nationalists, and enemies
of the new Iraq to talk about the culture of slaughter, describe terrorism as
an action of resistance, and justify under flimsy slogans that have nothing
to do with Islam. Long before the fall of the fascist regime, some
nationalist military extremists had even suggested targeting oil pipelines
and infrastructure of the country, which is what happened later.
Third, disseminating and promoting takfiri fatwas issued by men who
have nothing to do with the real Islam. After the fall of Saddam Hussein‘s
regime Aljazeera witnessed presentation and discussion of many of the
fatwas, some issued by scholars of countries that sponsor terrorism. These
fatwas justify acts of sectarian terrorism in Iraq, killing unarmed civilians
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and innocent people in mosques, churches, Shiite mosques, religious
processions and funeral gatherings under the pretext of Jihad.
Fourth: The clear manipulation of terminology, as Al Jazeera has created
a dictionary of its own concerning Iraq, targeting the unity and security of
Iraq and its people. This dictionary includes terms such as "Sunni
Triangle", "Shiite south", "Kurdish north", "so-called Governing
Council", and other terms that are trying to divide Iraq along political,
sectarian, or ethnic lines and to question all political entities and the Iraqi
state.
Fifth: attacks on religious symbols in Iraq. Al Jazeera has followed a
clearly sectarian policy. Since April 9, 2003, Al Jazeera has attempted to
incite sectarian strife in all its programs, the most recent example being
hosting Fadel al-Rubaie, Ba'athist and former ally of Saddam towards the
end of the regime, on its notorious show ―Opposite Direction‖. In this
show Fadel al-Rubaie publicly offended Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani. The aim
of this piece was to incite sectarian strife and pave the ground for civil
war.
Sixth: the duplicity in reporting Arab news and events, and the
falsification of facts, leading to lack credibility. Objectivity, and
impartiality. While Al Jazeera was covering the revolutions in Egypt and
Tunisia, it deliberately ignored events in Bahrain, especially after Saudi
forces falsely and slanderously swept the Bahraini land under the
Peninsula Shield. The forces of the Peninsula Shield committed
massacres against civilians and infringed on religious shrines such as
mosques and Shiite mosques, burned the Quran, and other terrible crimes
against humanity. Al Jazeera did not pay attention to any of these crimes.
The enormous material potential that Aljazeera has allows it to have an
active presence on the internet and other media information networks and
thereby promote its destructive ideas and recruit young people into their
ranks. This confirms that the media has become a dangerous weapon that
benefit terrorists, who are now able to send messages that have a direct
negative effect on individuals and communities. In one survey conducted
in Iraq that questioned whether media was playing a role in fueling
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terrorism, the results showed that 80% of respondents stated that the
media absolutely plays this role. Another disadvantage is that terrorist
groups can exploit the media to express their demands in a way that
encourages those from poor or neglected social groups to turn to terrorism
as an option. In addition, conflicting information about terrorist attacks
spreads confusion, and can lead to sympathy for the terrorists. The media
may also play a role in transferring instructions to active or sleeper
terrorist cells or establish new contacts with allied groups.
Confronting Terrorist Media
Attention is being focused on confronting terrorist media in order to resist
extremist ideology and prevent its influence on public opinion,
particularly the youth, and thereby prevent the influx of new blood to the
artery or terrorism. The fight against terrorism, therefore, does not depend
only on security measures, but also on a comprehensive strategy that
promotes a culture of dialogue and rejects the culture of violence. This
requires a focus on the wording of the news so as to ensure delivery of the
truth and not falsely impact the psyches of citizens. There have also been
voices calling for the need to reconsider the content presented by the
press and media, and to replace it with a new focus on countering the
spread of the phenomenon of terrorism and violence. There needs to be a
concerted response to media that destructively influences the minds of
young people and threatens the security of people and their communities.
Destructive information on the internet needs to be dealt with through
legislation to ensure the closure of sites that promote violence and
extremist ideas, particularly sites that are attributed to Islam and thereby
provide a distorted image of the true religion. Some speak of the existence
of satellite channels and internet sites that show how to make explosives
and carry out terrorist operations. These channels and sites falsely give
out advice that they claim is based on Islam, but is in fact alien to it. This
trend requires opening media spaces where scholars and leaders of
thought and opinion can highlight the image of an Islam calling for
tolerance, moderation, justice, and advocacy with wisdom and beautiful
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preaching and discussion about what is best, away from extremism and
violence. In addition contacts, courses and joint workshops should be
established between the representatives of official bodies and media
representatives on how to deal with terrorist media to ensure public
interest. For example, in response to terrorists fabricating facts, how can
the media fill the information gaps in such a way that they terrorists
cannot take advantage of it? This requires staying as far away as possible
from the excitement of publishing terrorism-related news. This also
requires caution in disseminating information terrorist incidents, and
refraining from displaying or describing the terrorist crimes in a way that
could encourage others to commit them, that shows the terrorists as
heroes, or that justifies their motives.
On the other hand there is a need to expand media coverage that
promotes popular participation and voluntary contributions from
individuals and civil society organizations in addressing the phenomenon
of terrorism and extremism and that educates citizens about the dangers of
terrorism and its negative effects on security and stability. In other words,
the media‘s role should be to raise awareness about the dangers of
terrorism.
We must also reduce the number of scenes presenting blood, violence,
destruction, and murder, in order to prevent the habitual viewing of such
scenes. Here one can not overlook the importance of coordination with
the security services in relation to the publication of the facts of terrorist
events, taking into account the impact of such publication on public
opinion, so as to take away the opportunity from terrorists to monopolize
the media focus as they seek. In addition one must face the psychological
effects of terrorism.. Coverage should be focus less on the details of the
terrorist action and the official and public reactions, and more on how to
help the reader or viewer form a national opinion and turn this position
into a positive action. This can only be done through an active,
professional, trusted media that has earned both popularity and credibility.
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Conclusion
In conclusion we raise the idea of forming a team of international media
experts that would discuss ways to raise media awareness of the dangers
of terrorism. Such a team would give international media the opportunity
to build a broad base of international public opinion surrounding terrorist
ideology and crimes, and strengthen efforts to eliminate or reduce
terrorism. May God help us in this task.
Terrorism in Misusing Religion for Violence
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Dr. Hans Ucko 
Following the killing of Osama Bin-Laden, we are again reminded of the
tragic interconnection between religion and violence, not only that the
world's most well-known terrorist is dead but that his death in many
circles was celebrated. That terrorism is violence is a truism. We also see
that religion is used to nurture terrorism and violence. Terrorism can
come dressed in religious language and discourse in many communities
and contexts around the world. The intention of this paper is to plead or
argue that people committed to a religious tradition with intent stand up
against any attempt to justify terrorism and violence with the help of
religion. There are so many expectations that people of religion are
unequivocal against terrorism and that they and preferably together in a
global alliance against terrorism are constructive in fostering an education
that religion is never used as a tool for conflict but an instrument of
peace-making.
Following the death of Bin-Laden there were in some American Christian
circles, a dangerous language of triumphalism. Hearts were filled with
pride and the killing was hailed as an enormous victory. Dismayed by the
quasi-sports-victory tone of the celebrations that arose in the USA -chanting "U-S-A, U-S-A" as if it was a celebration of a victory in
football, the US rabbi Arthur Waskow wrote a piece entitled ―How to
address the death of a mass murderer?‖, where he said: ―The Torah
describes Moses and Miriam leading the ancient People Israel in a
celebratory song after the tyrannical Pharaoh and his Army has been
overwhelmed by the waters of the Red Sea. Later, the Rabbis gave a new
overtone to the story: ―The angels,‖ they said, ―began to dance and sing as
 A minister of the Church of Sweden and a member of the World Council of Churches
(WCC).
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well, but God rebuked them: ―These also are the work of My hands. We
must not rejoice at their deaths!‖
Stories like these are needed, when the voices of triumphalism and
indignation are ringing, using religious imagery to pit one religion against
the other. One is good; the other is evil. One represents God, our God; the
other speaks for another god. We have heard it in many places and we
hear it increasingly with other words today in many places of Europe,
when Muslim immigrants are the focus of attention: ―Islam has attacked
us. The God of Islam is not the same God. Their God is not our God, the
Son of God of the Christian or Judeo-Christian faith. It's a different God
and we believe it is a very evil and wicked religion.‖
There are, thanks God, sensible people who hope that the killing of
Osama Bin-Laden would become a turning point in the so called war
against terrorism.
A call to soul-searching
I don't know if our time is more violent than other times. Through the
advances in communication, travel, global trade and large-scale
migrations we are however made aware of conflicts in a way that is new
to us. Acts of terror have through media a way of making violence heard
and seen in a way that was maybe less common before. Although there
certainly is an increase of conflicts since the end of the Cold War, it is the
particular situations of civil conflict and unrest, where religious traditions
and affiliations are mobilised to lend legitimacy to the claims of
conflicting parties that is to be addressed here. Religion, together with
ethnicity and nationalism, serves as an identity marker in order to define
group membership and draw lines of distinction. Religion may not be the
cause of conflict but it has proved to be an intensifier of conflict and in
public perception, conflicts are easily perceived as religious conflicts. The
events of 11 September exacerbated this situation. The attacks were
perceived as expressions of a confrontation between militant Muslim
fundamentalism and western (Christian) culture - or as a conflict between
Christian and Muslim civilisations. They seemed to validate the thesis of
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a ―clash of civilisations‖. The language of ―jihad‖ and ―crusade‖ gained
broad currency. Through all of this, religions were suddenly thrust into
the centre of global politics.
The most difficult terrorism is the one that is tinged with religious
undertones. Here the terrorist makes him/herself the particular emissary
of God and one dismisses moral or ethical considerations, because one
thinks oneself to be beyond it. Such acts of terrorism capitalising on a
reading of our religious traditions destroy not only the intended victims
but destroy also slowly religion in our world or rather contribute to
defining religion as a tool for exclusion and hate of the other.
Confronted with these developments, many political and economic actors
on the global scene have begun to look for help in managing the
dangerous dynamic of violence. There are appeals to religious
communities and their leaders for initiatives of moderation, moral
orientation and reconciliation. Most religions have been implicated in
actions of war or the use of violence for religious purposes. But so far,
there has been very little self-critical reflection about these features in the
history of religions. We now need a commitment to look into the heart of
religion and address the role of religion and violence in our religious
traditions. The issue of violence in its various manifestations and the
question how there could be an interreligious co-operation towards
building a culture of peace and reconciliation is more and more important.
When addressing the question of religion and violence, particularly as it
comes across in many acts of terror, it is essential that we as people
committed to a religious tradition not become defensive or apologetic,
only lifting banners or slogans with the ideals of our religions. It is true
that Islam is literally the religion of peace. It is true that Om Shanti,
shantihi is the emphatic Vedic blessing. It is true that Jesus greeted people
with the gift of peace, ―Peace be upon you‖. It is true that there is an
absolute emphasis on compassion and ahimsa in Buddhism. It is true that
Judaism has given the world the word and concept shalom. It is true that
in many cases, based on their ideals, religions seek to contribute to
building peace. However, we know that they are also involved in
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situations of violent confrontation. There is, in the religious field, a
surprising coexistence of love and violence, of affirmation of
inclusiveness and practices of regrettable exclusion. Religions are more
than often legitimising violence. There are groups within our religious
families who seem to need violence to affirm their own beliefs. Christians
cannot run away from the effect of religious language such as ―Onward
Christian soldiers‖, and acts such as the Crusades, the Holocaust or
apartheid. Hindus cannot run away from the role of religion in the caste
system. Muslims cannot run away from their responsibility in relation to
those who in the name of Islam encourage suicide bombings and other
acts of terror. Jews cannot run away from Jewish self-definitions that God
supports the rights of Jews to all of Palestine and a forced transfer of the
Palestinian people. We have to ask penetrating question about the role of
religion in violence and terrorism. Religions are no innocent bystanders.
I will now for the sake of illustration and maybe as an example for other
religious communities focus on the history of Christianity in relation to
violence. There are many instances of violence in both the Bible and
throughout Christian history. Although the Bible begins with the
affirmation that God saw the universe that had been created as ―very
good‖, we discover already in the beginning of the Bible the human
predicament in terms of alienation between God and human beings, and
between human beings and nature (Gen.3). This chapter is immediately
followed by the story of the brutal murder of Abel by his brother Cain.
Cain, the murderer, is the one who begins human civilisation under the
protection of God.
But violence is also attributed to God: ―Then the Lord saw that the
wickedness of humankind was great in the earth, and that every
inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually. And
the Lord was sorry that he had made the earth, and it grieved him to his
heart. So the Lord said, ―I will blot out from the earth the human beings I
have created - people together with the animals and creeping things and
the birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them‖ (Gen. 6.5-7).
This attribution of violence to God is to continue in much of the rest of
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the Bible. The devastation brought on Egypt, the conquest of Canaan,
including the genocidal acts of wiping out whole tribes is all depicted as
acts done by or supported by God.
Within the first few books of the Bible we come across the many
dimensions of what is generally covered by the word ―violence‖:
Violence as a human response arising from jealousy, fear, or hatred
(Cain and Abel)
Violence as judgement or punishment (The flood and the destruction of
Sodom and Gomorrah)
Violence as structured oppression (The Hebrews under the Egyptians)
Violence as part of a liberation struggle (Events connected with the
Exodus)
Violence in war and conquest (The occupation of Canaan)
Violence as part of maintaining law and order (punishments related to
the breaking of the social laws)
Violence as part of religious duty or practice (The sacrificial system)
Christian thinking has particularly focused on the concept of ―sacrifice‖.
Christian theology, in the theory of Atonement, claims that Jesus had to
die a violent death in order to placate God's anger over the sins of
humankind. Jesus ―sacrificial death‖, ―shedding of blood for our sins‖,
and ―paying the price of sin‖ etc. are common themes in Christian
hymnody, piety and theology and leave us with the question of the
relationship between this fact of violence and the will of God.
Christ is described as an innocent victim, a scapegoat, who through his
vicarious suffering assures the peace of the community: ―Upon him was
the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed‖ (Is
53:6). This sacrificial interpretation of the meaning of the violent death of
Jesus has continued to shape Christian thinking especially in the form of
the medieval doctrine of atonement by Anselm of Canterbury.
Another area where violence plays a major role lies in the way some
biblical imagery and theology depict the problem of evil in terms of
violent and ongoing ―battles‖ between good and evil, light and darkness,
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God and Satan. Hence, the eschatological vision in the Book of
Revelation presents a cosmic battle between the powers of evil and good,
in which the powers of evil, after a violent struggle, are conquered,
overcome, subdued and eventually abolished by God and God's angels.
Power, conquest, and domination take the centre stage in these images.
Violence is also present in Christian images of mission and evangelisation
of the world. Military language like ―conquering the world for Christ‖,
―deployment of missionaries‖, ―mission strategy‖, ―soldiers of Christ‖,
and ―evangelistic crusades‖ are still very much in use in some sections of
the church. The word crusade was one of the first words used by
President Bush to capture the response to come of the US to the attacks of
September 11. There is no way around it: parts of the history of the
church are written in blood. The burning of heretics, Inquisitions,
Crusades, Holocaust, Slavery, and the ruthless violence that accompanied
the establishment of Christianity in Latin America, Africa, and Australia
are all part of the history of Christianity.
There is, as we all know, another stream within the Bible that resists
violence as being against God's will. God is loving, forgiving and
compassionate (Ps. 103). God demands righteousness and justice in
human affairs. Clear and unambiguous prohibition of killing is part of the
Ten Commandments. There are detailed provisions against social and
economic violence in the form of relentless advocacy for justice,
especially in favour of the poor and the oppressed. All the eschatological
visions in the Old Testament deal with the cessation of violence and a
state of reconciliation between nations, between God and human beings.
Although Jesus is also presented as saying that he has come ―not to bring
peace but a sword‖ (Mtt.10. 34), and reproaches the unrepentant cities in
harsh language (Matt.11. 20-24), the bulk of New Testament witness
presents Jesus as one who advocated radical non-violence. ―Put your
sword back into its place; for all who take the sword will perish by the
sword‖ (Matt.26.52).
There is nevertheless an ambiguity in relation to violence, which has
influenced Christian discussions on violence. Are there situations in
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which some measure of violence is justified? Some are very clear that, in
accordance with Jesus' own teachings, violence is not justified under any
circumstance. Within the mainstream of the Church, ―the historic Peace
Churches‖ (mainly the Mennonites and the Quakers) have adopted the
pacifist position of rejecting war and violence for any reason. The idea of
the Just War has constantly re-emerged and has influenced the
discussions and jurisprudence on the conduct of modern wars.
Another area of intense Christian discussion is on the use of violence to
resist evil. Is there a ―positive‖ use of violence, for example, by an armed
contingent of the United Nations, to prevent massacre of innocent
peoples. The tragedies in Rwanda and Bosnia, for example, are cited as
instances where limited and well-directed violence or armed intervention
would have saved the lives of thousands of innocent victims. There are,
however, many Christians who believe that any use of violence would
only breed more violence, and maintain that we should work harder on
developing measures to predict, prevent, and manage conflicts and on
finding peaceful ways of resolving conflicts. Many groups have arisen
within the Christian fold that put greater emphasis on ―Conflict
Resolution‖, ―Peace Making‖ and ―Prevention of Conflicts.‖
Is there a legitimate use of violence? How do we look upon liberation
struggles? Some opt for non-violent resistance, as advocated by Gandhi
and by Martin Luther King Jr., others insist on allowing the oppressed to
decide on the nature of the struggle that is appropriate in a given situation.
Many liberation struggles were born in acts of terror and the liberation
leaders were referred to as terrorists. Nelson Mandela was once called a
terrorist by his enemies but is today considered a very much respected
world leader also by most of his former adversaries. One can at the same
time be called terrorist by some and liberator by others. It lies in a way in
the eyes of the beholder.
We share with each other, irrespective of our religious tradition the
dilemma of violence in the very heart of our religious traditions. During
my time in the World Council of Churches I was involved in a multifaith
project called ―Thinking Together‖. This was a group of Jews, Christians,
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Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists, who had chosen to work together on
those issues that are problematic in our religious traditions and especially
so in a world of religious plurality. One such issue is the question of
religion and violence and the involvement of our religious traditions in
situations of violence. I would like to refer to some of the participants in
the group, a Buddhist monk, a Hindu scholar, an imam and a Jewish
educator, all of them honestly and admirably self-critical in relation to
religion and violence. Their statements have direct repercussions for any
consideration on the concept and reality of terrorism.
The Sri Lankan Buddhist monk Deegalle Mahinda said: ―Both in theory
and practice there is in Theravada Buddhism no space for professing
violence since the basic tenets of Buddhism are completely against
imposing pain on oneself or others. And yet, there are examples in
Buddhist scriptures of the sanctioning of violence.‖ There is the story of
―the Sri Lankan king Duããhagãmani, who killed Elãra and was
remorseful. A group of eight holy monks came to comfort him. The king
Duããhagãmani confessed that he had slaughtered millions. The monks
said: ―From this deed arises no hindrance in thy way to heaven. …
Unbelievers and men of evil life are not more to be esteemed than beasts.
But as for you, you will bring glory to the doctrine of the Buddha. Cast
away care from your heart, O ruler of men! Thus exhorted by them the
great king took comfort‖. The Sinhala community in Sri Lanka
reinterprets this myth. Such nationalist readings demonstrate the
pervasive power of the myth in the present conflict in Sri Lanka.‖
The Hindu scholar Anant Rambachan said: ―The most famous Hindu of
all times, Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948) is widely perceived, especially in
the West, as embodying the Hindu worldview and ethos. Gandhi made
ahimsa (non-violence) the cornerstone of his philosophy and practice and
spoke of it as constituting the essence of Hinduism. In the light of
Gandhi's significance, many were surprised and bewildered when, on
December 6, 1992, thousands of Hindu volunteers broke through police
cordons and demolished the Babri mosque in the holy city of Ayodhya in
North India. Many were armed with tridents, the traditional iconographic
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weapon of Shiva and were led by Hindu holy men chanting “Jai Shri
Ram‖ (Victory to Ram). … More recently, we continue to witness the
outbreak of violence between Hindus and Muslims in the state of Gujarat,
precipitated by the tragedy at the Godhra railway station when Muslims
set ablaze a train with Hindu passengers. … Religious chanting and the
invocation of the name of God accompanied many of the acts of violence
perpetrated by Hindus upon their Muslim neighbours. … while Gandhi
championed the ethic of ahimsa, there are ancient traditions within
Hinduism, which sanction violence under certain circumstances, and that
ahuimsa and himsa (violence) have coexisted uneasily in Hinduism for
centuries.‖
South African imam Rashied Omar said. ―Terrorist violence is never far
from popular understandings of Islam. Even conventional academic
perspectives regard the political agenda's of Islamists (or rather ―Islamic
fundamentalists‖ as they are pejoratively described in the literature) as
having a predilection for violent paths to social change. According to this
view, it is the religious dimensions, namely Islam that is the primary
source of the contemporary terrorist violence. In direct opposition to this
perspective, apologetic Muslims categorically deny that Islam has
anything to do with terrorist violence. In their view, all violence in which
Muslims are implicated is a debasement and vile distortion of the true and
noble teachings of Islam.
As with all received understandings, there are elements of truth in both of
these formulations. The first one largely understates the contemporary
socio-political and economic conditions under which Islam is implicated
in violence, and the second one ignores the fact that virtually all Muslims
accept that Islam is not a pacifist tradition and allows for and legitimates
the use of violence under certain conditions, the definitions of which may
differ from one Muslim scholar to the other. It is here that a large measure
of the problem lies. Under what conditions does Islam condone the use of
violence? This critical dilemma is not unique to Islam. All religious
traditions agonize about the question of what might constitute a ―just war‖
and it becomes particularly acute in situations of deadly conflict.
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Just war is always evil, but sometimes you have to fight in order to avoid
the kind of persecution that Makkah inflicted on the Muslims (2: 191; 2:
217), or to preserve decent values (4: 75; 22: 40). Jihad denotes any effort
in pursuit of a commendable aim. Jihad is a comprehensive concept
embracing peaceful persuasion (16:125), passive resistance (13:22; 23:96;
41:34) as well as armed struggle against oppression and injustice (2:193;
4:75; 8:39). Moreover, jihad is not directed at the other faiths. In a
statement in which the Arabic is extremely emphatic, the Qur'an insists,
"There must be no coercion in matters of faith!"(2: 256). More than this,
the protection of freedom of belief and worship for followers of other
religions has been made a sacred duty of Muslims. This duty was fixed at
the same time when the permission for armed struggle (jihad al-qital) was
ordained (22:39-40).‖
Deborah Weissman is a Jewish educator. She said: ―… all of our
traditions must develop or employ a more peaceful hermeneutic for
interpreting our classical texts. … I personally believe that the peaceful,
more humanistic texts must be given greater weight than the violent,
exclusivist or anti-humanistic ones. My reasoning is that in order to be
aggressive or racist, one doesn't need divine revelation. Violence and
racism unfortunately seem to have been woven into the fabric of human
life for millennia.‖ … I personally think that serious hermeneutic and
educational work must be devoted to developing new understandings of
the concept of the Chosen People. …we ought to be a chosen people, as
example, not as exception. .... One of the problems of having been victims
for so long—and I direct these remarks at both Palestinians and Jews—is
that it becomes difficult for us to recognize that we are also victimizers,
and to assume moral responsibility for our actions. Paradoxically perhaps,
it is much more comfortable to think of ourselves as victims. Victimhood
gives one a sense of self-righteousness and surely promotes national
unity. But it also obscures our culpability for unjust behaviour.‖
There is a need for a new thinking in relation to religion and violence to
become more aware of the complexity of the concept of violence and its
manifold expressions in personal, social and religious life. The thirst for
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―power,‖ that goes with violence, has been an abiding temptation to
religious traditions, and Christianity for its part has succumbed to the lure
of power, both in its theological expression, ecclesial structures and its
mission practice. It should, therefore, engage in an honest selfexamination to understand how it has imbibed, consciously or
unconsciously, structures of domination, power, exclusion, and
discrimination in its teachings, practices and structures. I think there is in
Christianity today a conscious effort to look more closely at itself in
relation to religion and violence.
We cannot eradicate violence but we can focus on unmasking the logic
and dynamic of violence. Often violence presents itself in religious
language, in mythological terms, associating violence with the powers of
the sacred. We have a common task to work through interreligious
encounter and in dialogue, towards mutual commitments to withdraw any
moral or ethical legitimisation in support of violence as a means in
response to conflict or in the pursuit of political, economic, cultural and
even less religious ends. The unholy alliance between religion and
violence must be broken for the sake of life for all. The struggle against
the ―spirit, logic and praxis of violence‖ includes more than the
development and application of ways of peaceful non-violent means of
resolving conflicts. It is a moral and spiritual struggle in which the
religious communities have to take the lead, beginning with the critical
assessment of their own involvement in the emergence of a culture of
violence. This offers itself as a possibility for interreligious cooperation. I
believe that the time has come to call forth an old ecumenical principle
and apply it to our multi-religious reality: ―That which we can do
together, we should not do separately‖. This principle would be given
new life, when we look upon it as a challenge for a concerted effort by
people of different faiths to overcome the spirit and logic of violence,
which through the ways of terrorism in many communities around the
world today seems to have the upper hand. Religious communities need
to today actively to challenge those who hijack religion to bolster their
visions of destruction.
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Modernities, Networks and Terrorism
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Modernities, Networks, and Terrorism
Dr. David Hovhannisyan 
1. I would define terrorism as violent acts intended to deter, neutralize or
eliminate opponents, and used in the struggle for power (political,
economic, informational, etc.) by means of influencing the media space of
the attacked society.
2. In the past, terrorism was different: it was local, and pursued local,
specific goals. Even the Marxist terrorism, with its global ideology, was
worshiped by local groups, which were the bearers of a common ideology
and strategy. At the same time, some Islamist movements, such as the
Muslim Brotherhood, Hizb-u-Tahrir, or Daawa wa-Talib, are global in
nature, but prefer to remain non-violent, and focused on local
interventions.
3. The succession of recent events such as the massive uprisings in
Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Bahrain, the intervention by Saudi Arabia into
Bahrain, military actions of NATO against Libya, the announcement of
Osama bin Laden‘s death by the U.S. administration, new waves of
migration and resulting problems, as well as the continuous unstable
situation in Iraq and Afghanistan make an impression that the
international media space due to the mentioned acts of violence has been
plunged into chaos. I can hardly recall another time which witnessed so
many mutually-contradicting conspiracy-saturated publications. Quite
often these seemingly insightful publications do not explain anything.
Obviously, we are facing a new reality, where all the established
institutions and the state order itself, as well as all
international organizations, starting with the UN and ending with regional
international structures are being questioned.
 Yerevan State University.
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4. At least three cases of military intervention in independent states
(Yugoslavia, Iraq, and Libya) have demonstrated that the use of force was
not only supported but also sharply condemned and that the perception of
military actions taken by the international coalition was far from being
unequivocal. This indicates that the system of governance and
management in today's world is not entirely relevant
to modern global processes. It is obvious that this kind of precedents may
be treated as a constant threat to those countries that seek to pursue
policies consistent with their perceptions of national security. Again, the
indifference to the fact of introduction of foreign military forces into the
territory of independent Bahrain is
worth mentioning, where the Shiite majority protested against the Sunni
minority harassment.
5. Without a doubt, the idea of blameworthiness of dictatorial regimes
that hold power in their hands, using all the means at their disposal to use
force against the citizens of their countries, gives hope that the level of
state violence will be much lower than now.
However, it is also clear that the mechanisms for determining the
justification for military action against the individual states /regimes are
still very imperfect and inefficient. In addition, the international
evaluation of certain events that take place during the procedures, which
are designed to ensure the relevance of ongoing processes and their
compliance with the norms enshrined in the constitutions and laws, often
provokes criticism and accusations of double standards. While
independent non-governmental organizations have an enormous influence
on public opinion and the media space, such a policy pursued by the
world's centers
responsible for decisions of global significance is likely to become an
anachronism.
6. From our point of view, the analysis of all the above processes and
characteristics should take into account the fact that the current stage of
globalization processes is characterized by ―the simultaneous existence of
several modernities and a variety of modernities‖.
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According to Alberto Martinelli, this means that ―today's global world
exists in a huge variety of cultural traditions and institutional structures‖.1
And this in turn takes for granted the existence of traditional regulatory
systems, which are customary for abovementioned ―cultural traditions and
institutional structures‖. Any attempt to destroy them leads to resistance
and struggle, and their very destruction turns into a chaos.
Even the fact that these models are outdated can not justify the desire to
destroy them. S. Eisenstadt believes that ―many of the movements that
developed in non-Western societies articulated strong anti-Western or
even antimodern themes, yet all were distinctively modern‖. 2 According
to him, the existence of multiple modernities is also caused by the
existence of different programs of modernity and
various social actors who interpret these programs. In my opinion, these
―different programs of modernity‖ are adaptation models generated by
different cultural systems to match the modern civilization system. These
models, in turn, give rise to the globalization projects or generate models
accompanying other globalization projects.
7. However, in the light of the development of well-known tendencies
which determine the principal trends in world politics, it is probable that
currently the most pressing issues are those connected with combining the
world community‘s efforts in the war against different types of
international terrorism. This task is very important, especially for the
South Caucasus region, which has been used as a conduit for combatants
and weapons, and where there is also a risk of various types of
fundamentalist ideologies hostile to traditional forms of Islam spreading.
Regardless of whether we recognize the existence of such terrorism or
not, we still witness explosions and deaths all over the world, people
continue to live in an atmosphere of fear and uncertainty, and none of the
relevant institutions is able to solve these problems. On the one hand, new
communication technologies allow every individual to be freer and more
1. A.Martinelli. Global modernization. Rethinking the project of modernity. SAGE
Publications, 2005, p.137.
2. S.N.Eisenstadt. Democracy and Modernity, Leyden, ed.J.Brill, 1992, p.55.
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independent. Today people are able to easily obtain necessary information
and to both plan and implement their personal projects. On the other
hand, however, the same conditions make it possible for each and every
individual to resort to violence and intimidation either all alone or via the
network of those sharing his or her views – intimidation of those who do
not share his/her views and resist their implementation.
8. It is quite clear that changes in the way that American society relates to
the realia of the modern world are linked to 11 September, as a result of
which they have started the very serious process of reevaluating their
system of values and, in particular, to bid farewell to the last remnants of
their isolationist approach to determining relations between America and
the rest of the world. On the other hand, the actions of the shahids3 have
raised a number of questions in American intellectual circles relating to
the universality of the values being regarded by them as fundamental. In
this way, both of the dominant principles which have, up till now, taken it
in turns to determine American society‘s approaches to the ―United States
— rest of the world‖ system of relations have been called into question.
Attempts of the Obama administration to somehow revive and combine
these approaches have so far been unsuccessful.
9. The new challenge posed by a concept is difficult to define as world or
international terrorism has been personified by the Bush administration in
the shape of a certain ―al-Qaeda‖ organisation (the real al-Qaeda differs in
terms of its characteristics from the myth that has been created under the
name ―al-Qaeda‖) — and a ―Terrorist number one‖ identified as Osama
bin Laden (the real person known as Osama bin Laden, of course, differs
from the myth that has been created), thus creating a goal and at the same
time a target for their actions. In my opinion, the reason why the US
adopted precisely this approach in a situation that demanded a quick
response and a demonstration of the new administration‘s readiness for
any type of challenge — apart from specific reasons connected with the
time, place and participants in the action — was a fundamental difference
3. The Arabic word for witnesses, the term is used in Islam to refer to ―martyrs‖ — tr.
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between the system, structure, and function of the State and the system,
structure, and functions of networks, which include the system defined as
―Wahhabism‖ or ―Radical groups‖. This system‘s ―all-embracing‖,
universal character can be observed in the list of names given to the
system by its ideologues at various stages of its development — ―Green
Internationale‖, ―World Islamic Congress‖, ―World Islamic Front‖, etc.
The principal characteristics of the ―allembracing systems‖ (networks) —
their universal system of values,
their reliance on mystical, religious principles of community and their
rejection of national [principles]; and the branching and ―borderless‖
nature of their structure which does not have a centre and, therefore, has a
very flexible leadership and is well protected against external threats —
are fundamentally different from the system and structure of the State.
The functions of these two systems are also directly opposed: the State is
called upon first and foremost to protect its
borders, territory, society and citizens, while the network has as its goal
the infiltration and erosion of borders and of those concepts on which
borders rest.
10. At the same time, it is patently evident that international illegitimate
systems can only effectively be combated by legitimate systems of the
same quality and level aimed at protecting the norms of international law
and the rules of social intercourse in the world community. A system that
has the same characteristics and
attributes, [but] which relies on the law and the support of the states and
organisations that established it, can vie with an underground network
systems. It would appear that reinterpreting the tasks and functions of
international and regional organisations will be one of the determining
principles of modern politics.
11. ―War against international terrorism‖ is an expression that dates back
to the Bush administration. By the time Barack Obama became the 44th
president of the United States, not only American intellectual circles but
also the country‘s ordinary citizens were aware that the only real world
power since the end of the Cold War appeared to find itself in a very
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unenviable situation, and this was primarily due to the fundamental
ideological and strategic miscalculations. Even Zbigniew Brzezinski was
forced to recognize this paradox: ―Even the most powerful superpower
can lose the right way and put its leadership under threat if its strategy
and understanding of the world would be wrong‖.
The consequences of ideological mistakes cannot be promptly eliminated.
To achieve this, one should rethink the past and develop new ideological
principles, put them into circulation and ensure their promotion in order
to formulate the new vision and new strategy for the most preferred
future.
All this requires time and willingness to pass through a deep reflection.
Barack Obama won the election because he met the expectations of
Americans, and most importantly, he met the aspirations of the elites to
gain time which they needed to rethink the situation and to find possible
ways out of a serious crisis.
It should be mentioned, however, that even the existence of all the
necessary prerequisites is not enough to seamlessly change the core
ideological principles. Such a policy was likely to be rejected by the
bearers of the values on which the neoconservative ideology was based,
including such key values as the uniqueness of the American way of life,
conviction that the American social model is the only possible pattern for
all other nations, the primacy of the vital interests of America, etc. It is
noteworthy that this ideology in one way or another formed the basis of
foreign policy pursued by some of Obama's predecessors and played a
consolidating role for business groups actively involved in energy and
military industries.
The foreign policy program presented during Barack Obama‘s election
campaign showed that the new administration will seek to dissociate itself
from the Bush administration's foreign policy including elimination of
conflict zones in the relations with European allies, and declared a policy
of ―reset‖ toward China and Russia, and the planned withdrawal of troops
from Iraq, and a softer rhetoric in relations with Iran, and clearly
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articulated the US policy of rethink with regard to the immediate
geographical environment.
At the end of May 2010 Barack Obama unveiled a new national security
strategy (NSS). It is the constitutional duty of every occupant of the
White House, and the content of this document traditionally defines the
strategic priorities of the country in the coming years.
In the published document, the expression ―war against international
terrorism‖ is missing. According to influential American analysts, such as
Stephen Biddle, Larry Garrett and Paul Stairs, this fact indicates the most
positive aspect of president Obama‘s re-evaluation of political intentions
of his predecessor.
Another crucial innovation noted by all observers is that under the new
head of state, America departs from the practice of individual actions in
its foreign policy, and deviates from Bush's go-it-alone approach.
Note that the ―Bush doctrine‖ provides the right to wage a ―preemptive
war‖ against any country or terrorist group deemed a threat to the United
States. The basic principle of the doctrine of Barack Obama was the idea
that the U.S. cannot and should not confront today's threats alone. This is
about the settlement in Iraq and Afghanistan, where the US continues to
keep its troops, as well as about the situation caused by the nuclear
programs of Iran and North Korea and the Middle East conflict
settlement.
Commenting on the provisions of the doctrine, Obama said: ―The United
States must strengthen existing alliances, build new partnerships and
promote human rights worldwide as it pursues a strategy of global
leadership… We are clear-eyed about the shortfalls of our international
system. But America has not succeeded by stepping out of the currents of
cooperation. We have to shape an international order that can meet the
challenges of our generation.‖
Thus the following concept was formulated as a basic principle of the US
new military and political doctrine: as opposed to the concept of "preemptive war," the threats to U.S. security should be deterred based on
―multilateralism‖,
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―consistently working with partners to identify threats‖. Recent events
have shown that the declared national security strategy has not been fully
incorporated.
Delivering the commencement speech at the U.S. Military Academy at
West Point, Obama said the United States would continue to pursue a
significant goal - the defeat of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan.
Not so long ago, the U.S. leadership has stated that the leader of al Qaida
is destroyed. Does it mean that the threat from al-Qaeda today is
insignificant and, thus the American troops would be withdrawn?
12. The death of Osama bin Laden symbolizes the end of the war against
terrorism designed to signify not only the start of presidential campaign,
bat victory of America over the "dark forces", but also the victory of the
state over the network, in other words, over a pole of world power - over
the periphery. However, the whole course of social and technological
development demonstrates that things go the other way around.
13. In light of the above, the need for all the countries of the South
Caucasus region to collaborate in the area of the anti-terrorist struggle —
which should naturally lead to a fairly serious re-evaluation of the values
in the region — becomes apparent.
Imperialism and Preventing the Media Activities Against Terrorism
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Imperialism and Preventing the Media
Activities Against Terrorism
Mohammad Hassan Akhtari 
Counter cyber attacks we must achieve a level to produce hardware and
software. Imperialism of U.S. and Israel is preventing the independent
media such as the Iranian media, to cover the real news and
developments. From his point of view, although the independent media
were successful in triggering the Islamic awakening and consciousness,
but due to the imperialistic policies, the results are not so satisfactory.
Emphasizing on the fact that today the living situation of the people are
severely affected by the propaganda of western media, he says: «due to
unequal competition between media, information flow does not have the
real transparency. Following is our interview with him about imperialistic
media and their role in the global terrorism.
The role of media in dealing with terrorism and the global peace
The role of media in confronting terrorism could be analyzed in two
ways: first the question is what role the media can have in this case and
second whether the current media of the world are dealing correctly with
terrorism?
In this aspect, we can say that there is no doubt about the huge role of the
media in many issues related to people and governments. Media have a
great deal of impact on all facets of human life. In other words, with a
broader look across the world we can say that all classes and social
groups and their activities are covered by the media. Today media is a
tool that provides many of the communities with a power to influence the
everyday life of people.
 Secretary General of the World Assembly of Ahl al-Bayt (AS)
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Therefore, the media is playing the major role in many of the issues raised
in different societies. This leading role is extremely important. One can
even claim that many moral, political, social, scientific and economic
issues are influenced by the media and they can be eventually transformed
into a new state because of the media.
So the key role of media in dealing with concepts like terror and terrorism
can not be denied. We must bear in mind that one of the main functions of
the media is the power of enlightenment. Terror and intimidation in the
community is the direct consequence of a phenomenon like terrorism
which can only be treated by this enlightening role of media, resulting in
the eventual awareness of society.
The function of the media in the establishment of peace and
justice
The media can support the efforts to combat terror and make peace in the
community. Peace and justice are issues that have been respected in
different cultures for a long time. All the people are speaking about peace
and its fruits for the society. Media is one of a few tools that can
strengthen the foundations of peace and justice in the communities, so I
believe that the mass media can be helpful in creating the individual and
collective peace in the community.
To what extent have the media realized their function in creating peace
and justice and to fight against terrorism?
What I said was all about the inherent capabilities of the media. But it is
not clear how much the dominant media in the world are using these
capabilities. In other words they have not been able to use all inherent
capacities to realize their goals. In some cases they didn‘t want to apply
all these capabilities and in some other cases they have not been able to
apply them.
This failure is caused by many limitations such as political pressure and
inhumane orientation. Today many people are criticizing the media
because of the problems they have in terms of impartiality. So they are
not working properly. The highest volume of complaints is found about
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the widespread television and radio stations that are very famous among
the people, but many of the audiences are not satisfied with the way they
are covering the news. Unfortunately, the global media, especially those
having good properties and equipments, are under the influence of
imperialism related to the United States and Israel.
In fact the big powers of the world are completely monitoring and using
the media for their special purposes and it prevents the media from using
their capacity for counter terrorism programs.
Today, we see that many hegemonic powers are committing the worst
crimes in different parts of the world and the media are keeping silent.
There is no place in the media for the demands of millions of innocent
Muslims who are suffering different atrocities. It is only a small sample of
silence in the media dominated by the imperialism. Regardless of this,
there have been destructive wars by international imperialism in the past
hundred years around the world that damaged the life and property of
millions of innocent people, but again, it was not noticed in the global
media in a proper manner.
For example in the case of Palestine, the cameras were going to show the
miseries of the Palestinians, but the media keep silent on the issue and the
Palestinians were introduced as criminals who are trespassing the
territory of Israel!!
Therefore there is always a kind of vacuum in the coverage of the news
about Palestine in all the media dominated by the imperialism.
What about Iran's domestic media? are they somehow influenced by the
imperialism of the media and is there any special role for them to play?
We have seen that only a number of independent media are standing
against imperialism and they try to broadcast the real news about
Palestine and the Israeli atrocities. The media in the Islamic Republic of
Iran are in this category. However, these independent media activities
again are not tolerated by the imperialism and there are always many
problems. Satellite televisions are switched off, reporters are prevented to
cover the news and developments, the offices are shut down in different
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parts of the world, all these are the problems and limitations for
independent media.
In today's world, Islamic media and the few other independent TV
channels, are suffering the imperialism pressure and therefore they can
not participate in a fair competition. However, Iranian media have been
able to play a good role in awakening the Islamic movements, including
their impact on the world opinion during U.S. invasion of Iraq or the
Israeli invasion of Lebanon and Gaza.
Sometimes we see that any picture from the Palestinians, even the pitiful
conditions of their life is not tolerated by the hegemonic media. Why are
they criticized for publishing these images?
This is because they don‘t want the oppressed Palestinian people to gain a
face and reputation for their struggle for freedom. When the independent
media broadcast scenes of oppressed Palestinians, there may be more
anger and criticism toward the imperialist media.
In fact, media officials in such a situation start to deny anything and this
denial can not be continued for ever.
Generally speaking, because of imperialism, the big role that the media
are playing today in many issues, is totally deceitful and unfair.
The Islamic principles to deal with terrorism and peace
By referring to the holy Quran, we realize that the Islam is the religion of
tolerance, safety and peace. Islam means obedience to God›s commands
and decrees and consequently it will be useful for intellectual and
physical mobility of the community.
In the Islamic teachings, peace and friendship are among the fundamental
values and it is based on tolerance and patience towards Muslim and other
people. Quran tells Muslims to behave in a peaceful manner with others
(Muslims and non-Muslims). Hazrat Ali (AS) addresses Malek Ashtar
and says: "The people who are beside you including Muslim or nonMuslims are your brothers and you should always be with the oppressed
people".
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Islamic commands and teachings in fighting with terrorism and
establishing peace are very extensive. Islam challenges any corruption
among the population. Indeed corruption is an obvious example of the
terrorism in the society which paves the way for the violation of peace.
Let us not forget that God sent the prophets, with the aim to promote
peace and friendship among the people. Islam says men are equal in terms
of humanity. Prophet Muhammad describes the people as the components
of a body and Saadi also expresses the same meaning in his famous poem
which is now on the entrance of the United Nations.
In the provisions of Islam, there has been always an emphasis on the
kindness and friendship toward family, fellow citizens, neighbors and
people in general. The Word of God and his Messenger always emphasize
on the kindness and assistance to each other, and also on the justice as the
biggest necessity for the human society which has been always introduced
in the Islamic faith as one of the characteristics of the Muslim society.
God does not like those violating the rights of others. Islam condemns any
infringement of the privacy and property of people. This is aimed at
establishing peace and justice in the society.
What do you think about the cyber terrorism and what tools and solutions
does exist to deal with such a crime?
Retaliation has been introduced as the main strategy to avoid the
repetition of such crimes and it is also mentioned in the holy Quran.
Muslims are recommended to retaliate in cases where they have been
attacked.
In general, according to Islam, countering any action should consider the
type of action and to respond to it in an appropriate manner. In other
words, in retaliation to the enemy, there must be an assessment of the
tools and equipments of the enemy. Accordingly, to counter any terrorist
act in the cyber space, such as computer viruses, information theft or
other instances of cyber crime, the tools and methods must be analyzed
in a proper way.
The type of retaliation is also different; sometimes it is a counterattack,
and sometimes preventing the enemy from conducting the next attack.
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But in general we should not allow the enemy to contemplate the next
conspiracy. In the electronic environment there must always be a kind of
preparedness to deal with the enemy, and in the cyber space it is just the
same.
All this rational ideas are confirmed by the religion. One of the important
factors in the cyber war is the self-sufficiency in terms of producing the
software and hardware. Having these facilities is essential today for the
development of the society.
Today we are importing equipment from different countries to satisfy our
needs and to be able to participate in cyber space. These equipments are
designed by the enemy and due to lack of self-sufficiency; we are faced
with problems such as cyber terrorism. If we want to have a safe place in
cyber space it is needed to achieve a level in which we are able to produce
the needed equipments. As long as we are using the hardware and
software made by the foreigners, this problem will not be solved.
We can describe the cyber terrorism as a new concept which is the result
of new technological developments, used by people in an ungracious
manner. He believes that the consequences of cyber warfare are much
more devastating than the classic wars.
Inter-Religious Dialogue and Global Peace
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Dr. Ignatios S. Stavropoulos 
Not just today, but always, religions have constituted one of the pillars of
the culture of every nation and tradition. Even in modern secular states,
religion and believers often influence the development of legislation.
The global community is becoming a great neighbourhood where people
and religious traditions interact directly with great ease. The traditions of
Muslim believers come easily to Europe and America. At the same time,
the traditions of Christians and Jews spread to traditional Islamic
countries of the East.
This communication is effected on two levels. The first is the personal
level, that is direct contact between people. This means the organisation
of international enterprises, the performance of mixed marriages, other
social contacts, and various celebrations, all with the peaceful
participation and coexistence of people of a different faith - religion. The
second level of communication is institutional. Representatives of
different religions or denominations, and of course the religious leaders of
different faiths, including Jews, Christians, Muslims, now come into more
direct contact and are impelled to start a dialogue.
Inter-religious dialogue is now happening and represents the hope of
many who believe and fight for tolerance and peace between peoples.
These dialogues can create a trend, but cannot (and should not) be an
instrument of power for the domination of one over the other. It is
essential for the international community to establish the belief that the
trust and acceptance of others does not require the renouncement of one's
faith, tradition and the religion of their fathers. The religious culture of a
 BA (Div), Athens University; PhD, (Sociology) Panteion University. Secretary
General, Metamorfosis Greek Orthodox Monastery, Nafpaktos, Greece.
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people is the culture that God gave to us all. It is a shared resource, such
as water and air, and we need to protect it, as we strive to protect the
environment.
The basic principles of religions include, among else, faith in One God,
love for man who was created eternal and moral teaching. Especially the
holy books of monotheistic religions, such as the Holy Bible of the Jews
and the Christians and the Holy Koran of the Muslims found moral
teachings affecting the lives of millions around the world.
Islam is the geographical and spiritual neighbour of Eastern Orthodox
Christianity. These two religions have many internal - theological and
external - ritual differences. However, it is not possible for the one world
to abolish the other, and theologians, lawyers, and intellectuals cannot
abolish our differences.
Nonetheless, we can all unite to protect common goods. As we all want
the progress of the young generation, we say no to drugs and yes to the
protection of the family, so all we can say yes to peace and no to
terrorism. We can all say no to war, yes to peace.
We live in an era when the need for religious dialogue has matured. The
current need for coexistence in ―our common home‖, our planet, and the
easy, thanks to technology, direct communication, bring us all closer,
regardless of the religion of our cultural identity. A deeper knowledge of
the different ―other‖ decisively helps in understanding, peaceful
coexistence, and cooperation in solving common problems.
We should no longer justify, in the name of the true God and our religion,
any war, any injustice, aggression, violence or terrorism. The Creator of
the universe, the true God, who created the world out of love, did not
create it to be destroyed by man.
The current critical conditions of cultural and social transition, but also
the intellectual and economic crisis, impel all those who believe in the
true God to work hard together to achieve mutual understanding, mutual
acceptance and ultimately a peace of nations.
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There is a common guideline and that is the word of God. The sacred
Scriptures meet in the following text of the Holy Quran. This states:
“It is He Who sent down to thee (step by step), in truth, the Book,
confirming what went before it; and He sent down the Law (of Moses)
and the Gospel (of Jesus) before this, as a guide to mankind, and He sent
down the criterion (of judgement between right and wrong)”.
The moral message of truth, which is one and unique in every religion,
dictates now more than ever the need to first find the inner peace of our
heart, which reconciles us with God and fellow man, and then outer
peace, which eliminates all terrorism, fear and wars.
The road to peace is the sacred obligation of the faithful and their
religious imperative. The time is now!
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Media Terrorism as a Western Weapon
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Hassan Abedini 
Introduction
Media Terrorism is a weapon used by western liberal democratic media to
propagate waves of Islamophobia worldwide. The media of Islamic
World can combat this phenomena only by training the skilled manpower,
accessing modern software and hardware equipment and reflecting the
truth.
The word terrorism is among the words that are encountered with
direction and semantics crises and many various definitions in different
political, international media and international law have been prepared for
it based on various exemplifications since it was coined.
Media Terrorism was first coined in 1980s in the media affiliated to
western liberal democracy after ‗Anwar Sadat‘, the then president of
Egypt, was killed by ‗Khaled Eslamboli‘ who was a radical Muslim, to
make the thoughts of the world pessimistic towards the Islamic World by
propagating waves of Islamophobia and opposition to Islam. However the
same media did not use the subject of Terror in the 1990s in their news
when ‗Yitzhak Rabin‘ the then president of the Zionist Regime was killed
by a radical Jewish named ‗Yigal Amir‘.
However, the previous century was somehow the year of terror and horror
due to occurrence of various terroristic incidents; from the assassination
of the Austrian crown prince by a young Serb before the First World War
to the terror of Gandhi by a radical Hindu, which are all described as
terrorist incidents.
Various terrorist events have occurred till now, such as the explosion of a
chemical bomb in a Japanese subway station by a radical Buddhist, or the
massacring of a group of Korean people in one of the universities of that
 A media expert and a member of the Cultural Committee of the Conference.
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country by a radical Korean. These are all terroristic incidents but the
western media use the word only for Muslims and Islamic World to
increase propagating waves of Islamophobia and opposition with Islam.
You might have heard this famous expression of Hollywood cinema:
―Not all Muslims are terrorists but all terrorists are Muslims.‖! A negative
propaganda is deeply inherent in this short and seemingly simple
sentence, that the Islamic World is interlinked with terrorism and points
the finger of accusation at Muslims all over the world.
The Western Media and Terrorism
After the Soviet Union was dissolved, western liberalist scientists such as
‗Samuel Huntington‘ and ‗Michel Fokoyama‘ mentioned the Islamic
ideas as contradictory and opposing point to western liberal thoughts in
their analyses and described Islam as the future challenge to western
civilization in works such as ‗The War of Civilizations‘ and ‗History
End‘. This viewpoint was gradually developed by the western neoconservatives and found an executive status when they entered the
political and military arena in George W. Bush‘s Administration in the
form of attaching Iraq and Afghanistan and ultimately the western media
could inspire public opinion that Islamic thought is a serious threat to the
western liberal democracy and should be repulsed.
Is the war of civilization between Islam and the West inevitable as
western neo-liberalists claim, or the policies based on the theory of
civilizations conflicts has halted the discourse amongst civilizations?
From the religious standpoint, the war between The Good and The Bad
has always existed and will always exist, however the subject is different
in the West regarding Islamic thoughts. We should keep in mind that both
western and eastern blocs could estimate each others‘ power of
extermination during the Cold War and until the Soviet Union was
dissolved. Both of them were aware of each others‘ hardware and
software capabilities however the balance was upset after the dissolution
of the Soviet Union and after the Islamic World was considered the new
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opposing and conflicting point to the western liberal democracy, due to
unawareness of the West about Islamic world.
Today, Muslims might hold weak hardware and assets but stand at a
higher position in religious beliefs and thoughts and are superior in terms
of faith and strong belief and the Islamic thought is progressing on the
basis of this faith and belief. Therefore the western liberal democracy is
endeavoring to ruin Islamic thought in the minds of the people by
employing Media Terrorism weapons, news and reports, movies and
television serials, computer games and caricatures.
Thus, we cannot expect conformity between Media Terrorism and the
professional morality principles in the field of media.
Exploiting media terrorism to counter one idea, one person or one group
can be achieved in the form of media techniques and obviously the more
surreptitious they are, the more effective they will be. These are the
instances of psychological operations and the soft war which was
implemented by the western world along with the hard war during the late
years of twentieth century.
Media Terrorism and its Impacts
Media Terrorism naturally has no real basis and it is founded just on
demolition, therefore the reality is revealed and the addressees realize the
truth. We should keep in mind that one can deceive a group of people by
lies for a specific period of time but it won‘t work to dominate over all the
people and forever and it should be warded off. It is possible to counter
Media Terrorism by training experts in the field of media software and
hardware and by accessing modern technologies and programmed media
productions. I believe that having access to satellite transmitters is so
important. For example, if we invest seriously now on launching
telecommunication satellites, we can express the truths for the world
public over satellite channels without interruption.
In western view, after the Second World War the world was based on
three axes of accessing atomic bomb, development of western liberal
democracy culture and the free economy; however, after the dissolution
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of the eastern bloc, these axes changed. Today, the world is based on
three axes of replacing the religious and theological thoughts with humanbased thoughts, stable development based on globalization and media
pervasive relations. I shall remind here that the last axis, that is the
pervasive media relations, plays more of a key role than the other two
axes. As we could earlier identify the important targets of the West and
East blocs according to their missile arrangements during the Cold war,
today we can identify the target points of psychological operations by
looking at the satellite arrangement. Today, Middle East is known as the
Islamic World centroid and is naturally the center of the target in which
the Islamic Republic of Iran is located right in the middle, a country that
has promulgated pure Islamic thought or in other words the Islamic
Revolution in the last three decades. The proof to this claim is the
development of the satellite Persian channels.
Some Concluding Remarks
Waves of awareness have been flowing in the Middle East for years and
no one can deny it. Despite efforts by the liberal democracy movement
led by the United States to maintain their puppet governments, the
movement of Islamic advocacy and Islamic resistance is spreading and is
getting stronger day by day. Today, Islamic groups participate in
parliaments in Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon and Palestine. Thus, the
Islamic movements throughout Middle East Islamic countries such as
Tunisia and Egypt would dominate over dictators such as Mubarak and
Ben Ali, if the there weren‘t the surreptitious pressures of the United
States of America. As a matter of fact, the western media, following the
same media terrorism, try to job, food and freedom as these countries‘
demands, whereas the truth is that they demand Islamic justice. Never
forget that Islam is a producing culture and supreme and transcending
thought.
Media Terrorism is based on obscuration and unrealistic news; however
the western liberal democratic ideology constantly looks for challenges
since it is not compatible with Islamic thoughts. It observes how the
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Islamic veil of a Muslim woman or girl residing in Europe or the United
States or the establishment of a mosque in a western country turns to a
controversial issue in the liberal democratic media; while such a thing
does not exist in Tehran, the capital of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Several churches exist nearby in Vali Asr Sq. right in downtown Tehran,
for the minority Christian community and this demonstrates the peaceful
relation that exist in Islamic thought. Therefore, the Islamic World Media
just need the truth to be disseminated and that‘s adequate to counter
media invasion.
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Terrorism as a Result of Fall of Spirituality
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Part IV
Just Peace as a Solution against
Terrorism
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Ayatollah Mohammad Ali Taskhiri 
The spirituality is the only way to save today's humans. Any abuse in the
rights of others results in a serious threat to peace. From this perspective,
terrorism is primarily considered as one of the threats to the global peace.
Definition of peace and terrorism
As a generally summarized definition of a just peace and also the concept
of terrorism, we could say that a peace is a state in which the minimum
rights of both conflicting parties are met carefully. Of course,
compromise or better to say the state of peace is the basic step to meet the
minimum rights of the parties, resulting in other steps, including
cooperation to achieve long term goals.
Terrorism is any move that threatens the political, economic and legal
security and abuses the rights of others. It is a move against humanity and
if we want to achieve a just and peaceful environment, we should deal
with all the inhumane and inconsistent movements which are against
peace. I believe that every move which is aimed at the destruction of
humans and can lead to tension and conflict between them, such as
Nazism, Zionism, and apartheid must be challenged seriously. Terrorism
is also one of these movements against humanity and human values, so
we must fight these perceptions and attitudes to pave the way for a just
and peaceful dialogue.
If we identify the principles and framework of just and peaceful dialogue,
the appropriate approaches would come out automatically. Framework
and principles can be summarized in the following categories: 1) seeking
the truth and moving based on reality because the infrastructure of the
discourse is basically the move to recognize the truth, 2) respecting others
 Secretary General of the Islamic Religions Approximation Assembly.
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and accepting diversity of ideas in the communities, 3) peaceful behavior
with others, 4) arranging an space for the dialogue free of stress and
pressure, 5) having an organized methodology for the dialogue to run a
healthy discourse; in other words, one must avoid tensions and conflicts
in times of dialogue.
Accordingly, I believe that these are the implementation strategies for
establishing a just and peaceful environment and the most important
factor is the expansion of rationality in all areas such as system of
thought, behavior and inclusion.
The next important factor is to give priority to dialogue rather than
physical confrontation. In Quran we have a full course of healthy
dialogue that can be modeled for the just and peaceful environment.
Accepting diversity and plurality can also pave the way for such an
understanding.
The fourth point which I mentioned in the previous question, is the need
to remove all anti-human ideas such as Nazism, Fascism, Zionism,
apartheid and the like that are purely anti-human. I believe that the most
destructive way and style of thinking is to preach relativism in morality,
because the man, who believes in relativity, can not believe in any
absolute moral value and someone who does not believe in absolute
values, can justify and commit any treason.
Generally, great divine religions such as Islam, Christianity and Judaism
have the high moral grounds to save man from the destructive tendencies,
because all religions are against sedition and division, they are against
degradation of security, discrimination and also relativity. But it is Islam
in particular, that has the religious vision which can set clear goals in this
regard. Islam has a great and comprehensive stance in terms of dealing
with rationality and acceptance of diversity and plurality of ideas. I
believe Islam is the most complete religion regarding justice and peace
that can finally provide a robust foundation for peace.
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The impact of national cultures on removing the obstacles of
peace
Do not forget that culture has the highest impact. Terrorism is rooted in
many factors. For example, ignorance or cruelty that might induce a
terrorist movement. Prejudice to an idea and method can result in
extremism and finally lead the individual to a terrorist act. The fall of
Spirituality is another factor paving the way for a terrorist act, i.e. when
there is less or no impact of spirituality on the individual he gradually
becomes a savage and starts mass killings of other human beings. We
must take spirituality into consideration in order to deepen the attitudes of
people and restore their human nature. Any return to human nature which
manifests itself in the behavior is a kind of blocking to the terrorist
movements. So the best way to combat terrorism and to push the
individual and society toward justice and peace is to emphasize on
spirituality and education of the people.
Humans are bound to their nature and it makes them emotional. Of course
emotions are shaped in accordance with natural requirements, but
sometimes there are barriers that separate man from his natural behavior
and lead him to the diversion. One of these obstacles is the lack of
rationality in balancing between human needs and how they are satisfied.
Sometimes the man›s internal needs are blind and to satisfy them we must
apply reason ad rationality in order to separate their positive effects from
the negative ones. Because reason is the power which can create a balance
between human needs. Of course, reason alone can not have this control,
unless it is affected by the revelation. Revelation plays the director role in
this regard and is responsible for the rationality. Rationality itself is the
director of human needs. Therefore one of the most important causes of
the deviation is the lack of reason in satisfying human needs.
Analyzing the existing international norms
Unfortunately, the international law and its enforcement organizations
have failed to reach a unanimous front against terrorism. Perhaps one of
the reasons behind this failure is the lack of understanding about
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humanity and the spirituality of the religions, is a broad and decorated
process which confirms with the desires and interests of superpowers.
Since these organizations have not correctly recognized God›s principles
and positions they have resorted to the political superpowers who wish to
maintain their position and prevent the international community to
achieve legal standards in terms of combating terrorism.
International conventions are under the heavy influence and impact of
secularism. They did not follow the normal route and were led away from
revelations. They focused only on the humanity of the human beings and
didn‘t regard him as the servant of God on the planet; therefore, they
failed to achieve that ideal goal. The failure to achieve justice and peace
is the mere result of adherence to human interests and escaping from the
religion and spirituality.
International organizations have had some positive effects in terms of
universality and harmony between nations and governments which can
not be denied at all, but the fundamental flaw in the system is their
defiance from the God›s laws under the pretext of secularism and human
situation. On the other hand, these organizations are dominated by those
superpowers that only take care of their own interests and use these
organizations to realize those goals and interests. For example, United
States claim to be against terrorism and also claim to be the supporter of
freedom and human rights, but U.S. is the main sponsor and supporter of
the dictators. It also violates human rights. These superpowers have dual
standards in terms of such issues. Sometimes they claim to be the
supporter of democracy, but they provide full support for those who
violate the principles of democracy. They perpetrate terrorist acts and run
prisons in which there is no sense of respect for the human beings. They
regard themselves as the harbinger of anti-terrorist movement in the
world, but they violate the basic facts in this regard.
This is one of the main causes of alienation with the nature of human
being. When people are distanced from religion and humanism becomes
the main idea, the human being considers himself as the God which
results in many challenges and problems. God addresses Prophet (PBUH)
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in the Quran and says: «did you see the man who was praying his own
passion. Can you guarantee him?) (Verse 43, Chapter Forqan). In fact,
those people who pray themselves instead of God, they can not be guided
at all.
Governments and achieve a just and lasting peace
If the governments seriously try to achieve peace, they must be under the
direction of sharia law and revelation. They must recognize sharia and
what it decrees about humans in order to not to abuse the right of others.
God says in the Holy Quran: « work together in the way of goodness and
piety and don‘t cooperate in aggression and sin, because Allah›s
punishment is severe) (Verse 2 Chapter Maedeh). If all governments pay
enough attention to this principle, we can hope to achieve that goal.
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Just Peace as the Solution of Terrorism
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Prof. Syed Hussain Kamaluddin Akbar 
Terrorism as a word has been derived from the Latin word terror, which
means great fear. It is different from all other crimes in that its purpose
and objective is to put the people in a state of terror and to pressurize
government to act in a direction or not to act in that direction.1
At present, we are in the age of terrorism because the present age has
witnessed terrorism to such an extent that its parallel has not been seen in
the human history. Probably the modern civilization and its very nature
are responsible for such type of approach. On one hand the
industrialization and technological development, transportation,
communications are responsible for growth of terrorism, while on the
other hand sophisticated weapon like heat seeking missiles which can be
fired from light shoulder launchers are now relatively easy for various
terrorist movements. The more dangerous thing is chances of access to
biological chemical and nuclear instruments of destructions. The
advancement of science and technology are turning all modern societies
into potential victim of terrorism.
At present, we are in the age of terrorism because the present age has
witnessed terrorism to such an extent that its parallel has not been seen in
the human history. Probably the modern civilization and its very nature
are responsible for such type of approach. On one hand the
industrialization and technological development, transportation,
communications are responsible for growth of terrorism, while on the
other hand sophisticated weapon like heat seeking missiles which can be
fired from light shoulder launchers are now relatively easy for various
 Professor in the Faculty of Law, University of Allahabad (India).
1. H.O Agarwal, International law & Human Rights (Allahabad, 2008) is" Ed.,p.633.
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terrorist movements. The more dangerous thing is chances of access to
biological chemical and nuclear instruments of destructions. The
advancement of science and technology are turning all modern societies
into potential victim of terrorism.
The world has seen many wars and carnages. These acts took away the
lives of both armed and unarmed, military personnel's and civilians. The
terrorist do such type of illegal activates indiscriminately and innocent
and unconcerned persons are subjected increasingly to daily risk
anywhere in the world. More over the purpose of the terrorist groups is to
make the media as their agent for intimidation and black mail. Sometimes
the terrorist have the support of the state government or political groups
existing in any state system. State policy may also hamper efforts to deal
with terrorist and terrorism. Imprisonment of the terrorist inspires the
terrorist groups to use terrorism as a weapon for their release.2
The world seems so helpless before this problem. The highest body of the
international community at present is the United Nations but because of
ideological and political differences among member states, has been
unable to take appropriate and effective measures to check terrorism. The
vested interest of the developed countries and their dual standards were
also the obstacles in the way to reach a universal consensus on the
definition of terrorism and possible strategies to get a proper solution of
the problem.
Effect of Globalization on Terrorism
Globalization has converted the problem of terrorism from regional
phenomenon to a global phenomenon. Global terrorism is viewed in
cultural, economic and religious terms linked to globalization. Naturally
the terrorism has become deadlier, more difficult to combat than it was in
the past. One should not forget that terrorism is a weapon of the weak
conducted by minority of individuals who promote an extremist ideology
and it often fails to create political change.
2. Probably of this reason Osama Bin Laden was killed in US Operation in Pakistan.
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Sometimes the terrorism is divided into local terrorism and global
terrorism.
Global terrorism which can also be described as International terrorism,
which is connected with the problem of globalization of terrorism
requires the effect of these activities in two or more states. Since the
interest of more than one state is involved therefore International Law is
concerned with global terrorism.3 Global Terrorism may be caused either
with or without violence in time of peace or in time of armed conflict.4
Western States do not agree for the inclusion of governmental acts within
the scope of International terrorism but the third world countries and Non
Aligned countries are of the view that International terrorism includes the
acts States as well.5
In late nineteenth and early twentieth century terrorism has rarely an
impact beyond national borders but the late twenty century and the first
decade of the twenty first century are witnessing the problem of
globalization of terrorism. Globalization has improved the technical
capabilities terrorist and had given them global reach but it had not
altered the fundamental fact that terrorism represents the extreme view of
the minority of the global population. In other words globalization has
changed the scope of terrorism but not its nature.
Characteristics and Features
1. Definitions of Terrorism vary widely but one thing is common and that
is the use of violence.
2. The violence takes many form and often indiscriminately targets non
combatants.
3. The purpose of terrorism may vary depending upon the ideology of the
terrorist group.
4. Historically the term terrorism describes the State violence against the
citizens during the French Revolution but it is not uncommon in pre
3. H.O Agarwal, International Law & Human Rights (Allahabad,2008),p 633.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
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Islamic period and in the regime of Ommayads and Abbasids. Even in the
reign of Hazrat Ali the war of AI Jamal and Guerilla warfare of Muawia
by making the combatants groups to cause terror in the territories of
Hazrat Ali, similarly the whole movement of Kharijites.
5. Over past half century the terrorism has come to mean the use of
violence by small groups to achieve political change.
6. In the modern context terrorism may be defined as the use of violence
by sub-state groups to inspire fear by attacking civilians to draw wide
spread attention to a grievance provoking a server response or wearing
down their opponents morals to achieve political ends.
7. Broadly the terrorist may be classified into four categories although it
is not perfect division:
A. Left Wing Terrorism: This group is encouraged by the philosophy and
ideology communist movement.
B.Right Wing Terrorism: It has drawn inspiration from Fascism.
C.Ethonationalist / separatist terrorism: It was developed especially in the
immediate post World War II years influents by the wave decolonialization.
D. Sacred Terrorism: It is based on religious ideology or agenda.
8. Realists suggest that the political violence used by the terrorist groups
is illegitimate on the basis that States monopoly on the legitimate use of
physical force within its own boundaries or outside it. The earlier
category is where a country fights terrorism within its own political
boundaries and though it's also necessary to consider these acts of
government against the citizens or immigrants of that country but it
usually does not arouse so much hue and cry nor that much destruction.
The other group is where one powerful nation or a group of them calls a
state rogue state or terrorist state and attack it on grounds of fighting
terrorism. The invasion of Iraq in 2003 by United States is justified by the
US on grounds that the country possessed weapons of mass destruction
and if it is not checked now the world will face irreparable damage, but in
course of time the US and Allied forces had failed to justify the charges
levied against Iraq, and the total destruction damaged the credibility of
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US as claimant of global champion for individual right and freedom.
As we have observed earlier the attempts to fight terrorism have failed so
far. For global peace and for antiterrorism attitude the two kinds of
moralities need to be studied closely, one the morality of means and the
other the morality of the end. The terrorist think that the means are
immaterial if the end is justified. Definitely it is to be opposed but the
same standard may be applied in case of the states and governments
having the political power and having the support of the International
bodies. Therefore, the states should also not be justified in achieving
justice at the cost of unjust means. Until this attitude of justifying all
kinds of acts by the state or a group or groups on the basis of the
importance or holiness of their ends is abandoned we cannot have global
peace.
Peace and Justice
Peace like so many other universal values is mostly experienced in a
relative sense, but in absolute sense peace leaves no room for injustice.
Sometimes the peace is created artificially by compelling the oppressed
class not to raise their voices against the oppressors; naturally it is not the
peace in proper sense. We may use the peace for many different purposes
in different senses but actually peace is that where everyone in the society
and every nation in the international community get his due share, neither
he is a oppressor nor he is an oppressed. There shall be a rule of law at the
individual level, national level and international level. The best solution
was provided in the famous "Document of Instructions" given by AIi-lbnAbi Talib to Malik Al Ashtar Al Nakhai, when he was appointed as the
Governor of Egypt and surrounding areas.
Do justice for Allah and do justice towards the people as against yourself,
your near ones and those of your subjects for whom you have a liking,
because if you do not do so you will be oppressive and when a person
oppresses the creature of Allah, then instead of His Creature ,Allah
becomes his opponents and when Allah is the opponents of a person He
tramples his plea ;and we will remain in the position of being at war with
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Allah until he gives it up and repents. Nothing is more inductive of the
reversal of Allah's bounty or for the hastening of His retribution than
continuance in operation, because Allah hears the prayers of the
oppressed and is on the lookout for the oppressor.6
Just Peace
It is submitted that peace leaves no room for injustice but to differentiate
it from the relative sense in which peace is used we will use the term just
peace to denote absolute peace. The idea of just peace calls for
consideration from two angles, one is the analysis of the concept of just
peace and other is the justification or reason behind the propagation of
just peace. It is not sufficient to know what just peace is and how it can be
achieved. It is also equally important to ask whether it is actually
desirable? And does it have moral grounds? The international community
makes the concept of justice as a tool to support their political and
economic interests. Particularly the developed countries are more
involved in this kind of approach for example their concept that the Arab
Countries cannot have democracy because by very nature the democracy
does not suit them and therefore, the people of Arab countries are to be
controlled by a dictator otherwise there would be total anarchy and chaos
in the society. Ironically the same community of nations supports the
concept of democracy for another country with much zeal and fervor.
There is no justification of divergent views on a universally accepted
norm for different nations. On one side the International community
accepts that all human beings irrespective of their nationality, gender,
color, religion, cast or any other point of distinction have a right to live
peacefully and the democracy is best means to support human freedom
human rights and promotion of society. On the other hand in practice the
same community encourages and protects the kingship in the Arab world.
Similarly these nations are supporters of sovereignty of nations but for
their vested interest they often ignore the sovereignty of the weak nations.
6. Nahjul Balagha, "Peak of Eloquence" tans.sveo Ali Reza,p.535.
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Our approach is all the humans are equal as members of human
community. Today in a civilized world no one calls anyone else less
human than himself, but what it means to be human? Whether just to be a
particular type of body and some needs of that body makes a person
human like hunger thirst sexual desire, need to have rest, aversion from
pain, desire for pleasure and attempts to preserve one's life. There is
nothing especially human about these except that we cook our food we
rest on bed we have more types of entertainment than animals and that
our societies have more complex relationship than' those of animals.
When we look at animals and humans they have much the same qualities
except one very major difference -that is, the animals used to live earlier
in the same way as they are living today, there is not much difference in
their life style except some minor changes caused by climatic changes .:
But as humans we have made a lot of material progress with time but on
both positive and negative sides. There is a tendency in humans to get
better from what they are. It might be better in the sense of money are
bodily pleasure or in sense of studies or in sense of moral uplifting or in
some other field. Humans are in doubt with this desire that animals totally
lack. Animals are content with getting their immediate needs fulfilled.
Even in the case of those animals that are marked by their skills of
planning for the future, no sign any of any progress is seen over the long
period of history. Definitely ants save their food for future and probably
they have been doing it since they came into being, but none of them tried
to freeze it so that it can be used for a longer period of time than their
ancestors were doing.
The reason to distinguish human from other creatures is to know the real
nature of humans for a proper solution of just peace. The animals are
governed by their instincts, their love, aversion, relationship and strife all
are dependent on their instincts and all their activities are balanced by the
nature itself. Neither they increase their power nor do they form groups
and sub groups associations or nations to exploit others and their
resources. Once their urge is satisfied the animals stop all type activities
in that direction, it may be constructive or destructive. Sometimes the
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animals fight in groups but after the end of it, no group tries to punish the
other. After the Second World War the two important cities of Japan
Hiroshima and Nagasaki were completely destroyed by atom bombs of
United States to teach a lesson to Japan. This is a great problem that
having intellect and a memory given by that intellect, the human may act
constructively and destructively both. Unlike animals they are not
governed by nature and their activities are not balanced by nature. The
humans sometimes may create imbalance in the nature.
So the most striking feature the humans have is that all humans have a
desire to get better or rather a need a, natural urge to get better, if that
desire is not fulfilled we are reduced to the status of the animals or below
that. Quran says:
"Many are Jins and men, We have made for Hell, they have hearts
wherewith they understand not, eyes wherewith they see not and ears
wherewith they hear not, they are like cattle-nay more misguided, tor
they are heedless (of warning).7
Since there is no ground to say that one has more right to be human than
any other we have to accept that we all have a right to lead this life the
way a human life demands. and is it is possible to achieve this end
without having freedom? There is an old story that a boy wanted to see
the city so his master sent him to the king with a note having instructions
that give this boy a cup full of water and send him to see the city but,
there shall be a guard behind him with a naked sword and if a single drop
spills from the cup tell him he will be executed on the spot.
When the boy came back from his journey, the teacher asked him,"How
did you find the city?" The student replied angrily "How could I see
anything with the fear of the naked sword on the back of my neck." What
was taken away from that boy? Was he tied? Were his eyes closed?
Nothing but the fear of death took away from him his freedom to look
around and be conscious of his environment which suggests that freedom
never means literal freedom. It should always be real freedom. Freedom
itself is the basic need of the humans as well as the way to fulfill our
7. 7:179.
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needs. It is the greatest human value because without freedom the idea of
justice and peace has no existence. The human society is just in the true
sense of the word when there is a real freedom. Justice does not mean the
enforcement of certain orders on the violation of some rule or law. It is a
very narrow way of looking at justice. It actually means giving to him
what rightfully belongs to him. In just society people have their freedom
and since they have freedom they can lead a life desirable as human life.
Hence there is a little or no rule for strife. In this idle situation the actual
peace will work in the society from within and not peace that is enforced
from outside.
Thus it is imperative for 'Just Peace' that it is not imposed from outside.
And it is equally important that all sections of society are made aware of
it and efforts are made to ensure that 'Peace' start taking roots from most
basic unit of society and upwards. Thus there is a need to ponder on how
to effectively inculcate and embrace the concept of 'Peace' from most
basic level of society. 'Peace' being a universal value like 'Freedom',
'Justice' etc should have same meaning and should deliver same results
for all humans alike, but unfortunately in a world of diversity, our
differentiators are more explicit and tend to weigh more than our
similarities and thus end up delivering different meanings and deliver
different results for same universal values. Hence there is a need to find a
common denominator which applies equally to all humans, which
transcends all differences, which glorifies diversity with a sense of unity.
This common denominator is value of humanity. We as individuals may
differ with each other on thousands of identities, but our human identity
still binds us together. Perhaps one of the reason why injustice and
consequently the problem of terrorism seems so unsolvable today, is that
our society has regrettably surrendered or ignored its prime identity of
being a Human. We value all identities which make us diverse, and then
use these diverse identities as a means to chaos, prejudice and bias.
Although it was never willed to be like that. Nature willed in diversity, a
beautiful spectrum, like a blooming spring garden, with a variety of hues
and aroma.
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Thus the question that needs to be asked is why have we as humans been
so aloof from our human identity? Why we don't want to bond with
another human based on humanity and prefer the differences we have
based on our other identities. Why we don't understand that vested
interests have always and will always continue to exploit this weakness of
our in causing strife and chaos. It is this tendency that. All injustices
perpetrated on the face of this earth are causality of this ignorance. It is so
evident today to notice the extent of damage done to the international
society as a whole. One of the best ways to tackle this issue is to take
refuge in teachings of True Religion. Religion proposes to lead humans
on the path of humanity. Prevalence and preservation of true religious
principles in a society can be a good step towards bringing us back to
humanity and restoring the balance of 'Peace' based on 'Justice'. But as
with all methods there is a caveat here too, misuse of religion is a grave
problem which can exponentially worsen the state of society and thus
should be heavily guarded against.
Coming back to the question of diverse identities, we are all born and
brought up with different identities given to us by our surroundings. They
no doubt have great value as the Quran says (the verse about diversity and
its purpose).
So Allah has made these diversities to make this world more beautiful but
when these identities are pressed too hard they create an imbalance.
Whether it be the ethnic identity, national identity or religious or any
other identity when it is highlighted as the greatest value than people
sharing these identities are lead to believe that they are superior to others
who lack these identities. There is no way to justify why it is better to
take pride in ones love for ones country as superior to ones love for ones
religion or the latter to ones caste or sect or that too ones family? all of
these are identities that fill the human canvas with color and if a human is
ripped of them then the picture will be colorless. But before being
anything else he is a human and that is his greatest identity. Imam Ali a.s.
said at a place
"Treat others with respect for he is either your brother in faith or your
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equal in humanity".8
This statement shows that Islam finds all humans having equal value
Unless we educate our masses that before anything we are humans and so
is our neighbor or any other being we cannot break these fragrnents that
give rise to injustice. These injustices coupled with exploitative
tendencies and vested interests in a long run give rise to specter of
terrorism. Not only the coming generation needs to be raised with this
idea but our generation has to unlearn
our narrow values and must learn this greatest value.
For removal of injustice an establishment of a just society we have two
different kind of solution, one which is given by the modern International
Law and the other provided by the
Islamic shariat.
Legal Control on International Terrorism
The number of attempts have been made to control International
Terrorism within an outside the League of Nations and the United
Nations. There is always a great problem as pointed out by W.
Friedmann:
"Both the League of Nations Covenant and the United Nations' Charter
representing a society of the nations that is aware of the need for
International Organizations but unwilling to surrender the essentials of
national sovereignty are compromises.".9
After the establishment of the United Nations few conventions have been
concluded for the suppression of specific forms of International
Terrorism, e.g. in case of air craft high jacking,10 acts against
Internationally protected persons,11 taking of hostages,12 conventions to
ensure the safety and security of United Nations' and associated
8. Nahjul Balagha, "Peak of Eloquence" trans. Syed Ali Reza, p.537.
9. Legal Theory (London,1967),5th Ed.,p 577.
10. Tokyo convention 1963;Hague convention 1970;Monterial convention 1971.
11. Convention of General Assembly,(Dec.13th 1973)enforced on Feb 20,1977.
12. General Assembly Resolution 34/116 dated Dec. 7 1979.
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personals,13 convention for the suppression of terrorist bombing,14
convention for the suppression of the financing of the terrorism,15
convention for the suppression of acts of nuclear terrorism .16
The General Assembly has repeatedly expressed its deep concern about
all forms of terrorism which in danger are take innocent human lives,
jeopardize fundamental freedom and seriously impaired the dignity of the
human beings the Security Council in resolution17 declared that one of the
most serious threats to International Peace and security in the 21st century
is the act of terrorism and this the challenge to all states and humanity.
General Assembly in a resolution on human rights and terrorism stated
that terrorism creates an environment that destroys the freedom from fear
of the people. All these measures to check terrorism either at national
level or at International level have been proved insufficient and in
effective.
The Approach of Islamic Shariat
The cannon law of Islam covers all aspects of our life. International Law
in Islam is also the part of Islamic shariat it is a kind of relationship
among the states. The foundation of shariat is justice and therefore,
International relationship should also be based on justice. For Muslim
society justice is not only necessary for this worldly life but it is the basis
of the life of the next world. Therefore, Islam encourages the formation of
a just society in which everybody will be protected and his rights are to be
honored. Quran therefore condemns those people who disturb the world
peace order. Quran speaks:
"When it is said to them 'Make not mischief on the earth' they say 'we are
only once that put things right"'18
"Of a surety, they are the ones who make mischief but they realize
13. General Assembly Resolution 49/59,Dec.9,1994.
14. General Assembly Resolution 51/164,Dec.5 1997.
15. General Assembly Resolution 54/109,Dec 9,1999.
16. General Assembly Resolution of April 13,2005, came into force on July7, 2007.
17. Resolution No 1377 adopted on November 12, 2001. 18.2:11.
18. 2:11.
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(it)not".19
The word "Fasad" or mischief has very wide canvas and includes all kinds
of terrorism in it. There isa difficulty which is pointed out by Quran that
when it is asked from mischief creators 'Mufsid" that don't disturb the
order of peace in this earth or in the universe they argue that we are the
reformers. It is provided in Quran how the reformers will be identified
from the mischief creators. It is on the basis of Aqal or reason. It means
the reformer is that person Who is certain about the truth of his massage
and program and therefore, he invites others to accept is program on the
basts of Aqal and reasoning. On the other hand the mischief creators who
hare Mufsids in the eyes of Quran compel others to accept their massage,
mission or program on the \ basis of their personalities, power, fear etc.
Therefore, the terrorists of all kinds are to be placed in the class of
Mufsids.
When Moses (A.S.) was sent as the Prophet to eradicate cruelties,
inequalities, exploitation etc, the holy Quran narrates:
"And remember we rescued you from Pharaoh~ people who afflicted
you with the worst of punishment, who slew your male children and saved
alive your females; in that was a momentous Trial from your lord".20
Although Moses (AS) was sent as a reformer but the allegation against
him was
"Said the chiefs of Pharaoh's people 'wilt you leave Moses and his
people to spread mischief in the land and to abandon thee and thy gods~
He said "there mail children will slay; (only) there females will be saved
alive. And we have over them (power) irresistible. ".21
We have a clear guideline for just peace in Islamic Shariat and it is totally
based on concept of justice mercy and endeavor to reform. Therefore first
of all the Muslim community and Muslim Nations will present an ideal
Society based on real justice . Then we hope the other will also try to
follow it. The prophet of Islam followed the Rules of Islam not on the
19. 2:12
20. 7:141.
21. Quran:7:127.
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basis of reciprocity as the moral International Society thinks. Our modern
International law suggest that we will follow the human rights and good
relations with the other nations and human beings if they reciprocate
otherwise we will be barbarous to them in Islam the ideal set by the
prophet and after him his best disciple Hazrat Ali against his enemies in
various important battles shows that Islam demands justice not on the
basis of reciprocity but because justice is the spirit of human life and
universe and our religion Islam has no existence without peace and
justice.
Education, Just Peacs for Preventation of Terrorism
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Education, Just Peacs for Prevention
of Terrorism
Prof. Massimo De Santi 
1. Introduction
Footsteps from Defence to Attack through Terror methods is what we use
to call as Terrorism.
This sort of mankind has its roots in our past. We can say that in the
history of human beings a great part of inventions were created just to
reach this goal: we all know about the famous scientist Archimede with
his mirrors that fired enemies army ships. What we have to decide is
where the war begins and where the terrorism takes war-place. Also war
is a typical human behaviour, we don‘t have another similar one in
animals and nature world. We can say terrorism manipulates fear, the
human anguish, to gain partial or global power and control. Every sort of
animals, not only wild beasts, use typical defense mechanism when they
have to face something dangerous or something they think it is. This
behaviour is always directed toward the other, to the attainment of
submission or to obtain the enemy‘s escape. When the human beings
discovered the fire, used it to scare them. Animals can be aggressive for
their biological aspects instead of humanity. Men are aggressive as
animals , but they can get more aggressive just for the teaching, for a
Culture reason, that‘s why we can commonly talk about a sort of
anthropological aggressiveness. That‘s the line we have to cross: to
struggle violence culture as a method that had caused conflicts during all
the history of populations. We have to smuddle through this point for an
 Professor of Nuclear Physics at the University of Pisa, Italy, and Director of the
International Committee of Education for Peace.
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evolution of the world. The UNESCO, the international UN agency for
education and culture of people, in the 1991- Siviglia declaration (Spain)
resumed that the biological aspect doesn‘t ―charge humanity for war‖ as
like “in human beings minds wars born‖. That‘s why a culture of
peace has to start in our brains. Men invented wars, men can invent
also peace, first of all with the beginning of a process that recognizes our
responsibility.
Today in war we use intercontinental missiles launched from thousand
miles to stun or frighten populations or radar invisible airplanes that can
wound everywhere without being identified. All these weapons are used
to spread fear. Terrorism becomes something invisible. That‘s the
difference between animals and human beings: animals use to scare in a
way that has to be as clearer as possible, for human beings fear gets
bigger and bigger when you can not see the danger, can not see from
where it arrives, or when. In this sense terror turns from an individual
dimension to a global one. That‘s why today we can gather that
―terrorism‖ is something universal, international in its aspects. We have
lots of historical examples, as Japanese ―Kamikaze‖ during the II World
War, terrorist attacks used in the civil wars, the US launch of atomic
bomb that in a while magnified fear power not only for Japan but for all
mankind. In the end, with the beginning of the third millennium, the US
Twin Towers outrage opened a new scene in terrorism strategy and in the
history of humanity.
Also the UN never find an international definition for the word
―Terrorism‖.
2. Terrorism Roots
Gathered that terror mechanism starts in our brain and spreads in our
history, our times, is a first important step in understanding terrorism
that‘s why war and terrorism are used to reach economic, social, politic,
religious and cultural goals. Therefore now this word has some different
aspects:
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 Individual terrorism
When a person behaviour is like animals ones threatening others with
words, weapons, or using body strenght to frighten and submit other
people.
 Social terrorism
When a group of people is organized to dominate other groups or society
aspects through some coercitive ways to maintain them in a condition of
inferiority, under control, often applying the Ancient Roman method
called ―Panem et Circensem‖ (―Bread and Circus‖-Weaning-) to
brainwahed them, stopping their faculty of criticism thinking and
submitting them to their power.
 National and International Terrorism
Every nation is structured with its system of State Laws keeping peoplecontrol, also putting down riots, or some opinions not allowed to their
rules, including a kind of psychological terror and fear between society
members. All those aspects have been applied not only inside a state
government but to a higher, supernational level, to extend a kind of
culture, religion, economy, including the history of Colonialism
conquering natural and mineral resources of other regions and states.
Colonialism was and still IS a real sort of terrorism, that today goes on
with new kinds of sophisitcated and untrustworthy domination strategies
dangerous for people life and for their inalienable rights. In modern kinds
of terrorism there are some importants aspects I‘d like to introduce:
3. Economic and Social Aspects
Social and economic parameters of a society obviously condition people
quality of life, their ways of thinking and in their neuronal faculties.
When a society is organized to maintain power in a few hands and a
person is discriminated by his social, racial and familiar situation there
are all the conditions to increase hunger and hate, a fight for the power
and the conquest of rights. Sometime also great process of civilization
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and right evolution like the French Revolution can develop and
degenerate into a real terror system, as we know ―the terror dictatorship‖
of Marat and Robespierre in France immediately after the 1789, even if it
did‘t last for long time.
This is a development that we often find in Modern History events.
When alienated and exploited classes rise again the system sometimes
comes out a situation nor better then the previous one. The crossing line is
that every revolution ha s to include a truly democratic process. Today we
can see how injustices and marginalizations, the confinement in a
―ghetto‖ dimension are real also in those states so called ―democratic‖,
and can degenerate into violent form of roughhouse and terrorism. The
important things is that these nations have in their history, traditions,
Ethics and Laws inalienable rights written and accorded by a division of
the powers that maintain their societies in situations more equilibrate
than other countries ones.
4. Ethics and Religious Aspects
Religion during human history process has been used to gain power and
dominate other populations. In the name of the Lord many people has
been killed and submitted. I think for example to the Christian Crusades,
their massacres as the one taken place in Magonza, lots of violences to
convert and destroy other kinds of culture, the Inquisition Court, and real
war processes. The word ―Peace‖ is written in religious texts but the
corrupted power system can often turn it into terroristic strategies. There‘s
a concept that‘s basic in every path of peace and it‘s that kind of Ethic
that made possible the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, signed in
Paris, December 1948. In that vision of the world one of the worst kind of
terrorism is the Western concept of ―humanitarian war‖ –a true
contraddiction in words- that involves several countries or entire areas
against ethnic or national groups of people.
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5. Terrorism Prevention
In the preface of the UN Bill adopted in 1945, June 25th is underlined that
UN are born to prevent wars and to guarantee peace, social equality and
safeness all around the world. Sixtysix years‘ve been passed, we can say
this high and great aim has not been realized yet.
Today, local conflicts and wars are spreading more and more and we are
under risk of a planetary nuclear war. After the years of the two opposite
block (US and Soviet Repubblic) and their end, trust between nations
became more fragile and conflicts and terrorism now overwhelmed lots of
world areas across the five continents. Today Un is not controlling the
uprising of these tragic events, and the use of national army and weapons
is not the right answer. That means no UN neither Nations can defeat
terrorism.
We have at this point to come back and analyze terrorism roots, searching
for its hidden reasons through a global vision of what cause it: economic,
social, environmental, cultural and religious factors. Terrorism is an
universal problem and that‘s why we have to prevent and struggle it
standing together as a unique community, the human one.
Terrorism is a mortal trap that involves lots of countries and populations,
destroyes people lives and culture models, and it‘s a real threat for the
evolution of the world. We are crossing a point of no-return, we have so
many weapons, nuclear weapons, mass destruction weapons: the spark
that could cause a catastrofic war to break out may explode everywhere.
Defeat terrorism and, most important, prevent it, means first of all
fighting against ourselves, trying to respect and learn different culture and
men different from us, not imposing our model of living, laws, economic
systems. Often war is seen as a natural solution against people we can not
understand, we haven‘t the will to recognize and respect in their civil and
social rights, as in their way of conceiving a society and nation. We have
lots of wrong ideas and prejudims, it happens when we don‘t ―know‖
anthropologically a population features.
The beginning if this new millennium have been the scene of so much
illusions: I‘m thinking above all to the Westerners project to fight Islamic
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terrorism by war, as in Iraq and and in Afghanistan as well, without really
learning and understanding reasons of this social phenomenon. Many
terrorism attempts had been place after these politic of war, Middle East
keeps on burning, quite every day we can see terroristic attacks in a game
that seems to be with no end.
The best way to defeat terrorism is in its PREVENTION. That‘s the
direction that UN, an the international community should take, through a
planetary program financed and declared by UN, realized in every
country in collaboration with UNESCO, UNICEF, humanitarian
organizations and local and international NGO.
This kind of project takes patience studies, coherence, care, diligence and
a serious political, social commitment. That‘s the only road we have to
walk to stop terrorism. We have to promote an interreligious and intercultural dialogue between populations, if we want to stand up for peace,
breaking the circle of innocent pacific citizens killed by bombing and
terroristic attacks and finally making this world we‘re leaving in a safe
place.
In the name of the children of the world, our future, with no differences of
religion, skin colours, or ethnical, we have to promote a Pedagogical
Revolution, a Planetary Education, a Peace- Psychopedagogy if we want
to live together in our planet, in a world where nation will not lift up
sword again nation and where our children will never have to learn war
anymore. In our brain we should have written as an unforgettable memory
the knowledge of an ethic respect for everyone and every culture and
population of the Earth.
Conclusion
Every kind of terrorism can be defeated only by social justice and world
peace. Social justice methods have to be enforced without any
colonialism but only with the development and the exstension of
inalienable rights as the ones written in the Declaration of Human Being
Rights initialed in Paris, 1948, December the 10th and with an
international cooperation that ―walks the talk‖ in a serious way.
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We can have Peace only through culture, learning, experienced education
and respect for the ―Others‖, and loving our children and teens more than
our enemies , stopping the murders of that future that terroristic thought
sentences to death.
There is no hope with self-centered attitude.
International ethical consciousness citizens participation in the decisionmaking process produces Life and Future.
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On Just Peace And Peace Education
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On Just Peace and Peace Education
Prof. Alicia Cabezudo 
What is peace?
The concept of peace linked to Ethics in contemporary peace research
literature and peace education is defined broadly rather than narrowly (see
Figure 1). Peace is considered conceptually on a variety of scales and
levels from the personal to the global.
Rather than defining peace negatively, as the interval between wars or
outbreaks of physical violence, peace is defined in a positive and
integrated way. It is taken to denote not only the absence of open
hostilities but also the presence of peacemaking processes and conditions
likely to ensure a secure, durable peace. It implies a state of well-being
and an active process in which justice, equity and respect for basic human
rights are maximized and violence, both physical and structural, is
minimized. The concept of Peace is tightly interlinked with human rights,
justice and solidarity - we are now talking on JUST PEACE.
A broad rather than narrow concept of peace is taken as the basis for
discussion here and basically as the upper value for an ethical work where
Peace must prevail over all. The concept is defined ―holistically‖. It is
seen not only as the absence of direct violence but as a state and active
process of well-being and security in which human rights are respected,
the environment is protected, and basic human needs in food, shelter and
education are met.
A historical overview on the definition of peace
The idea of peace has evolved significantly through history: the Greeks
used the word eirene to designate the periods where there were no wars
 Professor, PhD in Education and Social Sciences.
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between the Greek cities. This concept of peace, then, referred to the
peace they had among them, as they could use that word while they were
in war with the Barbars.
Similarly, at times of the Romans, pax meant the state of security and
legal order inside the territory of the Roman Empire. Pax, was used for
describing the times when there were no rebellions against the roman
system, even if there were wars with the Barbars. Understood in modern
standards, pax would mean the absence of rebellion to an occupation.
Despite nowadays some countries still use the concept of peace as it was
considered by the Romans, it has since then evolved significantly.
In opposition to peace defined as the ―absence of‖ (absence of war,
violence, etc.), the actual concept of peace is defined in positive manner,
as ―the presence of‖ (justice, etc.). The first historical examples around
the Mediterranean Sea that related the concept of peace to positive values,
were shalom and salaam, that linked peace to justice, and to fair
economical relations between people. Both concepts, with some nuances,
are also linked to the relation with God.
In the sixties, the concept of peace defined in positive terms is taken up
again. At that time, the peace researcher Johan Galtung relates it to many
positive values as horizontal and cooperative relations between people,
state of law, social welfare, etc.
Still today, peace is defined differently according to cultures: while in
Asia cultures influenced by Hinduism and Buddhism emphasise a lot
more in the personal level (to be in peace with oneself), Western cultures
share a concept more oriented to society.
And why is it important to have a clear concept of what we mean by
peace? Usually peace is considered as an unreachable utopia, and is
described in very abstract terms. If, instead, peace is defined in more
concrete terms, with specific examples of what peace should be and what
peace should not be, then it is a good start to begin walking that way.
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Figure 1: Defining Peace in opposition to Violence
PEACE
Broad definition of ―Peace‖ as an
ethical value. JUST PEACE.
The concept is defined ―holistically‖.
It is seen not only as the absence of
direct violence but as a state and
active process of well- being and
security in which human rights are
respected, the environment is
protected, and basic human needs in
food, shelter and education are met.
Narrow definition of ―Peace‖
- ―The gap between wars‖
- Absence of war
- Absence of terrorism
- Absence of physical
violence
- Absence of corporal
punishment, etc.
Structural violence (indirect)
“Physical” violence (direct):
war, terrorism, physical
torture, street bashings,
corporal punishment, domestic
violence, child abuse, etc.
Cultural violence: religious
intolerance, fundamentalism,
racism, sexism, poverty, ecological
imbalance, etc.
VIOLENCE
The definition of peace that will be referred in this chapter is "the process
of accomplishment of justice in the different levels of the human relation.
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It is a dynamic concept that makes us arise, confront and solve the
conflicts in a non-violent way and that has the aim of obtaining harmony
of the person with itself, with the nature and with the other people1‖.
This definition remarks the idea of the dynamism of peace that, just like
democracy or justice, can always be improved. Note also that the
definition highlights the importance of arising, confronting, and solving
conflicts.
The purpose of Peace Education
The goals and purpose of peace education are often misunderstood. The
most common misperception is that peace education is simply education
about peace, in which content such as peace movements and leaders from Mahatma Gandhi to Martin Luther King - are delivered as a special
course or program of study. Teaching about peace is absolutely
beneficial, particularly in a world where history is most often viewed
through a lens of violence. However important it is that we teach about
peace, it is even more relevant that we teach for peace, or better yet
toward peace. There is a wide consensus amongst peace education
practitioners and theorists from around the world that peace education is
education both about and for peace. An education for peace is overt in its
intentions to understand, confront, resist and transform violence in all its
multiple manifestations.
All societies educate their members toward social purposes. Peace
education seeks to transform society by changing the goals sought by
education, particularly as guided by public policy. The social purpose of
achieving a culture of peace is one that calls for the renunciation,
delegitimation, reduction and ultimate elimination of violence in all its
multiple types and forms.
The characteristics of Peace Education
Peace Education has two characteristics: comprehensive and holistic.
1. Seminario de Educación para la Paz-APDH. Educar para la paz. Una propuesta
posible. La Catarata. Madrid, 2000.
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Why Comprehensive?
In the work for peace education it is emphasized the comprehensive
process in which content, methodology and process are comprised and
call for reflection upon the following statements:
How you come to know?
What it is that you know?
How you will use or act upon that knowledge in the world.
There is a strong interrelationship among purpose, content and process.
The ―how we come to know‖ part is the process, or in educational term it
might be described as the pedagogy. The above statement alludes to the
idea that the ―how we learn‖ is as relevant as the ―what we learn‖. Such
thinking illuminates the importance of the learning process in the
development of active and critically engaged learners.
Betty Reardon defines comprehensive peace education as ―a generalized
approach to education for global responsibility in a planetary nuclear age;
it operates at all levels and in all spheres of learning, includes all fields of
relevant knowledge, and is a lifelong, continuous process‖ (Reardon
1988, 74). A comprehensive approach to education begins with the open
identification of its social purposes and the values it comprises. Content
and process are then determined so as to be consistent with the social
purposes. In Betty Reardon‘s definition, global responsibility comprises
the social purposes of the education, all fields and spheres of learning
comprise the content, and the ―how we learn― is defined as an active,
malleable and continuous process. The emphasis on content comprising
―all levels and all spheres of learning‖ is also of special relevance to
comprehensive peace education. Drawing from all fields and disciplines
of knowledge, peace education seeks to learn from as many perspectives
as possible in addressing complex social realities and conflicts.
Peace education is based in such values as democracy, nonviolence,
community, cooperation and social justice. Philosophically it embraces
difference and diversity and also recognizes and values the autonomy of
the individual learner. In consistency with these values peace education
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learning is often pursued through critical, reflective learning modes. In
such learner-centered methods authentic values are autonomously
developed by and within the learner, not inculcated by instructors. It is a
process oriented learning in which emphasis on how to think and does not
dictate what to think. Emphasis is given to capacitating learners with
relevant skills and knowledge for active engagement in civil and political
society. With what issues and to what degree a student is engaged is
ultimately of his or her own choice.
Why Holistic?
Peace education recognizes the complexity of the human experienced,
personally, interpersonally and as an extension of self into society and the
world at large. The obstacles to peace are recognized as multiple and
interrelated. As we become aware of this, we come to realize that there is
no simple approach to educating for peace, and that the pedagogy of
peace education must provide for experiences in multiple modes of
thinking and learning. A holistic perspective helps learners to observe
both the direct and indirect relationships between forms of violence at all
levels as well as the values, practices and necessary conditions needed to
overcome them.
The importance of such thinking is in the ability for ―expressing global
awareness in terms of holism, which can link the individual directly,
rather than through stages, to the wider environment‖ (Aspeslagh and
Burns 1996, 11). Conflicts and forms of violence which reveal themselves
in local contexts are almost always related to larger social phenomenon.
The Aims of Peace Education
Educating for Peace should aim to:
 Help to understand some of the complex processes leading to violence
and conflict at the individual, group, national and global levels, and be
aware of some of the ways in which these conflicts may be resolved.
 Cultivate attitudes that lead to a preference for constructive and nonviolent resolution of conflict.
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 Help to build the personal and social skills necessary to live in
harmony with others and to behave in positive and caring ways that
respect basic human rights.
 Develop ―human learning communities‖, in people - children,
youngsters and adults - are encouraged to work together cooperatively to
understand and find solutions to significant problems.
Proposing General Contents
The content of peace education is typically chosen to address the specific
manifestation of violence within a particular site - school, home or
community. This list identifies several overarching values concepts that
can be used as frameworks for the delivery of peace education content
(Brenes, 2003)
 Human Rights, Duties and Responsibilities
 Democracy and Civic Participation
 Nonviolence and Conflict Transformation
 The Relations of Power, Social Change and Continuity
 Disarmament and Development
 Global Civic Culture / Global Citizenship/Global Solidarity
 Globalization and Interdependence.
 Multicultural and Intercultural Societies
 The Mass Media and the TICS in the Present World.
 Ethnic and Religious groups all over the World.
 Spirituality and Interfaith learning
 Ecological Sustainability / Environmental Justice
 Economic and Social Justice
 Rights of the Children
 Gender inequality
 Building Futures , constructing Culture of Peace
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Core values and skills for enhancing Peace Education
A peace perspective relates closely to teaching about and teaching in
peace.
Human values are internalized sets of belief or principles of behavior held
by individuals or groups. The values which follow are chosen because
they are deemed to be universally acceptable and desirable, based on what
is best described as ―international humanism‖ and are embodied in such
Charters as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Rights of the
Child, on Women‘s Rights, etc. which are reproduced on the project‘s
website.
Consistent with such values are attitudes which should be nurtured in the
learning process and which themselves strongly influence the process,
quality and outcomes of both learning and assessment.
In keeping with the general philosophy of Peace Education, it is not
expected that the values listed should be delivered dogmatically; rather
the learners should be encouraged to examine the context and
implications of their own values and those of others to arrive at a set of
values best create a climate of peace.
Likewise, the attitudes we wish to see developed begin with the
individual and then, though reflection, are examined at group level, in the
community, at national and ultimately on a global scale. Two vital
components in this process of acquisition are the role of community
service and the willingness to take action.
In the following matrix you will find the main themes to be approached in
Peace Education and the values to be enhanced related to each theme.
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Human
rights and
democracy
Co-operation
and solidarity
Preservation
of cultures
Self and
Others
Internationalism
Protection of
the
environment
Dignity
Love of peace
and harmony
Respect for
the family
and all its
members
Selfawareness,
reliance,
esteem and
discipline
Awareness of
the rights and
duties of
citizenship
of people and
nature
Aspiring to
inner peace
Interdependence
Appreciation
of one’s own
culture
Respect and
empathy in
our
relationship
to others;
loving and
caring
Equality among
nation
Appreciation
and
commitment
to maintain
and improve
the
environment
for the
survival of all
species
Freedom of
thought,
conscience
and belief
Justice
Conflict
resolution by
peaceful means
Appreciation
of the
world’s
cultural
heritage and
human
achievement
Moral
courage
Harmony
between
nationalism,
regionalism and
internationalism
Promotion of
a sustainable
environment
Freedom of
religious
practice
Protection of
the peoples’
rights
Mutual
understanding,
co-operation and
respect among
individuals and
societies
Sensitivity to
social and
cultural
change
Openmindedness,
trust,
tolerance,
equanimity
and
reconciliation
Awareness of
global issues
and their
peaceful
resolution
Participation
Culture of peace
and co-operation
Equality
Interdepenence
Inquiry and
creativity
Spirituality
Mutual
respect for
the
religious
observance
of others
Equality of
treatment
of religion
by the state
Freedom of
speech and
expression
Freedom of
belief
Table 1. Categories of values related to main general contents
It is expected that linked to specific themes and enhancing values as we
see in the above matrix the learner will develop the skills necessary to be
a proactive and effective peacemaker. These can be summarized under the
headings of thinking skills, communication skills and personal skills. We
propose the following especially significant for Peace Education:
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Thinking skills
Critical thinking
Information handing
Creative thinking
Reflection
Dialectical thinking
Communication skills
Presentation
Active listening
Assertiveness
Negotiation
Non- verbal communication
Social literacy
Personal skills
Co- operation
Empathy
Adaptability
Self- discipline
Responsibility
Respect
Self- respect
Global concern
Open mindedness
Vision
Social responsibilities
Table 2. Expected skills
Peace education will not achieve by itself the changes necessary for
peace. Rather, it prepares learners to achieve the changes. It aims at
developing awareness of social and political responsibilities, guiding and
challenging people to build their own learning from individual and
collective actions. It encourages them to explore possibilities for their
own contribution to resolving the problems and achieving better
conditions for living their lives by themselves and with others.
Peace Education can definitively help to provide the requisite inspiration
and direction to move beyond a culture of violence to envisioning and
working towards a better world for all where culture of peace and JUST
PEACE prevails.
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Recommended Bibliography:
1.Adams, D. (2002). Moving from a a Culture of War to a Culture of Peace . In
the Newsletter of Fellowship of Reconciliation, September /October .
2.Adams, D. & True, M. (1997 ) . UNESCO‘s Culture of Peace Programme:
An Introduction . In International Peace Research Newsletter . Volume 35,
Number 1. (15-18)
3.Aspeslagh , R ( 1998 ) . Educating for a Peace Culture. In Three Decades of
Peace Education Around the World . An Anthology ., ( 321-338 ) London:
Robin Burns and Robert Aspeslagh Ed
4.Bjerstedt, A (2002 ) . Peace Education and Teacher Training. Views
expressed 1994 and 2002. In Peace Education Miniprints. No 104 . (2 -21)
5.Boulding, E ( 2000 ) . Information, Communication and Learning . In
Cultures of Peace. The Hidden Side of History (211-232). New York: University
Press Syracuse
6.Cabezudo, A & Haavelsrud, M ( 2007) . Rethinking Peace Education . In J.
Galtung & C.Webel (Eds.) Handbook of Peace and Conflict Studies (279-296) .
New York: Routledge
7.Freire, P. & Faundez, A (1989). The pedagogy of Asking Questions (34-43).
The Need to start where the People are .(87 – 96) . Reinventing Education Towards a National Popular Culture.(76-82). In Learning to Question. A
Pedagogy of Liberation. Geneva: WCC Publications
8. Galtung, J ( 1998 ) . Conflict Theory and Practice: a perspective . (14-19 ) ,
Conflict Outcomes and Conflict Processes (22-27) , Comments on Conflict
Theory and Practice: a perspective (25-27) . In UNDP/UN Ed . Conflict
Transformation by Peaceful Means
9. Haavelsrud, M. (1996) .Education in Developments. Tromso: Arena
Publishers
10. Haavelsrud, M. ( 1995) . The Substance of Peace Education . In
International Educator, Vol 10, No3. (29-33)
11. International Schools Association (1998) .Education for Peace.A
Curriculum Framework K-12 . Geneva: Inter.Schools Association
12. Krieger, D & Ong, Carah . (2005) .Hold Hope, Wage Peace.Santa Barbara:
Capra Press
13. Odora Hoppers, C. (2006) .Diversity Tolerance and Justice / Human
Rights and the Human Rights Approach . In Knowledge, Democracy and Justice
in a Globalizing Wordl .Paper presented at the Nordic Research Association
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Conference, Orebro University -March 2006
14. Reardon, B ( 2006 ) . Human Rights as Education for Peace . In
G.Andreopoulos and R.P. Claude Ed Human Rights Education for the TwentyFirst Century , (21-34) . New York :
15. Reardon, B & Cabezudo,A. (2002) .Learning To Abolish War. Teaching
Toward a Culture of Peace. NYC: Hague Appeal for Peace
16. Reardon, B . (2000) Peace Education: A Review and Projection. In Bob
Moon, Sally Brown and Miriam Ben Peretz, eds. International Companion to
Education,NY. Routledge.
17. Salomon , G & Baruch , N .(2002). The Nature of Peace Education: not all
Programs are created equal. In Peace Education .The Concept, Principles and
Practices Around the World (3-13)
18. UNESCO ( 2005) Draft International Implementation Scheme . Education
for Sustainable Development: promoting values . In the UN Decade of
Education for Sustainable Development 2005-2014 (14-10 )
19. United Nations (1999). Programme of Action on a Culture of Peace .a)
Resolution A/RES/53/243 -October 10th 1999
20. United Nations (2005) . International Decade for a Culture of Peace and
Non-Violence for the Children of the World, 2001-2010 . Resolution
A/RES/59/143 - February 25th 2005
21. Wintersteiner W., Spajic-Vrkas, V. & Teutsch R. Eds (2003) . Peace
Education in Europe. Visions and Experiences. Munster/ New York/ Munchen/
Berlin: Waxmann
The State of Divine Justice in the Face of Terrorism
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The State of Divine Justice in the Face of
Terrorism
Prof. Ahmed Rasim Al- Nafees 
It goes without saying that there is no agreed-upon definition of terrorism
within the arena of international politics, despite the general consensus on
the conviction that it is necessary to fight it.
Brian Whitaker‘s article, published in the Guardian on May 7th, 2001,
discussed this problem, saying ―the definition of terrorism is closely
linked to self-motivation and there is no general agreement on the specific
definition of the term‖.
From the viewpoint of the U.S. administration, Whitaker says: ―terrorism
is planned violence practiced against noncombatants by groups that do
not represent states or are underground in order to have political influence
on the public‖. ―International terrorism is practiced against citizens of
several states or within the borders of several countries‖.
The author raises questions concerning the definition, one of which is the
meaning of ―non-combatant‖. Does it include combatants on their
vacation, like the American soldiers who were killed in a nightclub in
Berlin in 1986?
The author also wonders about the reason for the inclusion of the attack on
the battleship USS Cole in Aden. It is included on the list of terrorist acts,
despite being an action taken against a warship carrying fighters, not tourists.
He also wondering about the significance of a paragraph included in the
definition of terrorism, which says ―an attack on any facility or military group
is considered as a terrorist act when there aren‘t any military operations
announced or declared‖. This contradicts the definition given at the start,
which limits terrorism to hostilities directed against non-combatant targets.
And why are attacks on armed Zionists settlers included in this definition?
 Professor at the Mansoura University, Egypt.
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Why – asks the writer – is any attack on the settlers considered a terrorist
attack, while the attacks of armed Israeli settlers are not?
Why is Israel's brutal way of dealing with the Palestinians included in the
human rights file and not within the terrorism file, despite obvious similarities
between terrorist groups and the crimes and acts perpetrated by Israel?
The writer then states his point of view about the American stand of
overlooking state terrorism and putting the burden entirely on terrorist
groups. The writer goes on to say that this is the opposite of the definition
in the Oxford Dictionary, which states ―terrorism is ruling through
aggression‖. Meanwhile, aggression for the continuation of ruling
remains legalized and codified.
The writer his point of view at the end of the article: ―the terrorism that they
are talking about is violence perpetrated by those they don‘t like‖. I say that
the American definition of terrorism is ―Any violence perpetrated by
whomever this administration doesn‘t like, regardless if it is right or not‖.
The definition of terrorism
In our point of view, terrorism is aggression with a special nature.
It is not aggression waged by a country on another country or a tribe on
another tribe. In these cases, the other country or tribe has the opportunity
to defend itself. There are international and human laws, customs control,
and legislation concerning the use of force, the rights of prisoners, the
prevention of targeting non-combatants, reducing human loss of life, and
preserving heritage. Legislation commits warring states to make these
pledges both before and after the fighting.
The definition of aggression is every action that aims to take the rights of
others or to prevent them from claiming their usurped rights either by
force or by fraud and deception. The Quran says, ―Fight in the way of
Allah those who fight you but do not transgress. Indeed. Allah does not
like transgressors‖ (Quran, 2:190).
The above definition includes acts of treachery performed by some
countries or their intelligence agencies and that are outside the framework
of international law. For example the shooting down of Iranian civilian
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aircraft by the U.S. Navy stationed in the waters of the Gulf. The U.S.
warship "Vinson" launched sea-to-air missiles towards an Iranian civil
plane carrying 290 passengers, mostly women and children, in July 1988.
Pieces of the plane and bodies fell over the waters of the Gulf.
This incident followed on the deaths of more than four hundred Iranian
pilgrims. Saudi security forces killed pilgrims in the holy city of Mecca on
Friday, the sixth of the month of Dhu al-Hijjah in 1407 Hijri, or 1987 in the
Roman calendar. More than a hundred and fifty thousand pilgrims were
protesting in the streets of Mecca, chanting slogans of Islamic unity. It was
called the Protest of Innocence. Saudi security forces blocked the main road
in front of the march and began a brutal offensive attack using firearms,
stones, and sticks. They killed more than four hundred pilgrims from Iran,
Lebanon, Palestine, Pakistan, Iraq and other countries. They also wounded
nearly five thousand pilgrims and arrested hundreds, especially the
wounded, women, and the elderly who had been unable to escape.
Terrorism goes against all values and standards. It is a model of treachery
and betrayal in terms of targeting non-combatants and infiltrating into
places where people are peaceful and unable to defend themselves. In the
end aggression has a definition, even if this definition is still unknown
and being researched.
Terrorism is aggression against moral, community agreed-upon,
legitimacy. It may also extend to be aggression against international
legitimacy and international humanitarian law.
Terrorism is as old as history itself, but modern terrorism is linked to the
West‘s desire to mobilize the world, using force against resistance or
anybody who seeks to escape their political and military siege. They
accuse others of terrorism in order to attack and eliminate them.
Contradictory Concepts
We mentioned at the beginning that the definition of terrorism is subject
to considerations that are defined exclusively by a group of the strongest
countries in the world. These countries can gather enough votes in the
Security Council and decide to wage a war on this or that country under
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allegations of possessing weapons of mass destruction or accusations of
being related to terrorism. This strategy has clearly manifested itself in
the past few decades.
Although international law is clear in its emphasis on the right of peoples
in occupied territory to resist the occupier and force them to leave, the
occupying countries can claim that the occupation is the implementation
of UN resolutions. This is the case in the occupation of Iraq. They can
also claim that Palestinian resistance is an act of terrorism, although until
now the world does not recognize the right of in the acquisitions of the
West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
International law, then, is law that can be interpreted in different ways,
especially as mechanisms of enforcement are almost wholly owned by the
major states. This is what the global system is. In this system the major
countries are the judge, jury, and police who carries out the provisions issued
against the countries they don‘t like, and leave the countries they like immune.
Because the imposition of concepts through generalizing them has
become an integral part of the mechanisms of international politics, it has
become necessary for leaders of the Islamic world to contribute in the
formulation of concepts. This must be done through participation in the
debates. They must insist on right terminology and it‘s correct use, for
terms such as resistance and liberation movements, and not accept the
attempts of the West to impose their vision and will on us.
In addition, our belief in the state of divine justice that without a doubt is
coming, leads to the promises of the inevitable progress of the Islamic
nation. It will be at the forefront of leadership and be a pioneer in the
world. This faith requires us to consolidate the concepts of true justice
brought to vulnerable people, their rights and the respect owed to them.
We know elaborated stories and news told about Imam Mahdi. The age
appears to underline that he will ―fill the earth with justice after it was
filled with injustice and oppression‖. This is a clear sign of the
globalization of justice - it will not remain limited to the territory of one
of the regions of the land. It will be facing the globalization of oppression
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and injustice, which is a feature of the global system that is led by the
forces of global arrogance.
Now it becomes clear that the world is eager for new global leadership
that rationally assesses the balance of justice between people and puts an
end to the double standards. Especially after that the leadership of the
current world powers has increased the tension in the relations between
states and peoples through its insistence on granting the aggressors
immunity from any accountability. This is highlighted in the scandal of
the Goldstone report, which accused Zionists of crimes committed against
humanity and the excessive use of force. They insisted on pursuing their
opponents through international courts, including the trial of the killers of
former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.
The leadership of the global system that is about to become antiquated and
will be replaced by the leadership of the system of Divine justice. The
current leadership condones crimes of genocide practiced by its friends for
the sake of oil interests, despite the fact that these friends are convicted in
multiple incidents of terrorism, 9/11 being the most important one. This
leadership mobilized the world to falsely accuse and assassinate Rafik
Hariri, for no other reason than that he opposed the Zionist occupation and
American hegemony over the Arab and Islamic world.
Mahdism and Denunciation of Terrorism
The Mahdioa messianic approach is the approach of Ahlu-elbait, the
prophet‘s household, peace be upon them and their way of understanding
Islam and dealing with others, even when the others are combatant enemies.
Terrorism, as noted above, combines two unfavorable characteristics: the
first is treachery and disregarding covenants and conventions, and the
second is the shedding of sacred blood on the weakest suspicion.
There is no doubt that the Mahdoa approach or the approach of the
household of the prophet (peace be upon them) emphasizes respect for
covenants and conventions. The Almighty said ―And the covenant of
Allah fulfill. This has He instructed you that you may remember. And,
[moreover], this is My path, which is straight, so follow it; and do not
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follow [other] ways, for you will be separated from His way. This has He
instructed you that you may become righteous‖ (Quran, 6:152-153).
―And fulfill the covenant of Allah when you have taken it, [O believers],
and do not break oaths after their confirmation while you have made Allah ,
over you, a witness. Indeed, Allah knows what you do‖ (Quran, 16:91)
Imam Ali bin Abi Talib, stresses the meaning of this: ―When held between
you and the enemy is an agreement, or you give him a promise, make it
your custom to fulfill your promise, and watch that you be honest… It is
not ordinance of God Almighty that most people, upon meeting, break up
according to their own liking, and disperse their views. Maximizing the
fulfillment of covenants is necessary; the polytheists among themselves
without the Muslims are likely to be treacherous. Free yourself, for it is not
pleasing to God to be ignorant. God says to be merciful‖.
The second reprehensible is shedding blood without a legitimate reason.
This is a moral sin –―Do not kill the soul which Allah has forbidden
except when by right he was killed because he used his authority to
oppress rather than guard. Even then, do not be extravagant in his murder
(Night Journey 33).
Imam Ali bin Abi Talib said: ―Beware of shedding blood and resolve
arguments otherwise. It is something to curse, of the greatest
consequence, and leads to the likely disruption or demise of grace, when
blood is shed without a right).
Islam believes in the definition terrorism by Alsutin University: treachery
and blood shed unjustly separates us from him (peace be upon them).
What is absent from Islam is the belief and actions taken by the West and
by Wahhabim, in which terrorism is defined by their political goals and
opportunism, rather than moral principles that benefit all people.
People who listen to the holy Imams and follow the Quran are now on a
continuous rise, and their victory is certain.
The World Needs a Just Mechanism to Face International Terrorism
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The World Needs a Just Mechnism to Face
International Terrorism
Sheikh Hasan Ali Al-Triki 
A linguistic not on the Arabic translation of the word terrorism:
Before starting on my ideas, I would like to point out that the word
―terrorism‖ has been mistranslated into Arabic as "erhab" )fear), when in
fact a more accurate translation in Arabic would be "erab" (terrify), as the
English word ―terrorism‖ is derived from ―terror‖.
I think that this error in translation was intentional. It was desired to
translate the English word ―terrorism‖ into Arabic in a way that would
differ from the following verse of the Quran, which says ―And prepare
against them whatever you are able of power and of steeds of war by
which you may terrify the enemy of Allah and your enemy and others
besides them whom you do not know whom Allah knows. And whatever
you spend in the cause of Allah will be fully repaid to you, and you will
not be wronged‖ (Quran, 8:60).
―Terrifying‖ is mentioned in this verse as a positive thing: the use of force
needed to deter an enemy, especially in defense or as a resistance to
abuse. The word as used here does not indicate aggression or attacking
others. The word terrorism, on the other hand, has a very negative
connotation. The Arabic translation of terrorism therefore became Erhab
(fear), and is used to mean assault and aggression on others in order to
create an atmosphere of terror.
Why Does the World Need an International Just Organization?
An Arab TV channel hosted a show called ―the Industry of Death‖. They
promoted it by saying ―If terrorism is an industry, then who makes it?
Who finances it? And who markets it?‖When it asked this, answers would
 Head of Muslim Association of Britain.
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immediately come to my mind. If we do a bit of research into terrorist
groups we will quickly discover who stands behind their industry!
If we research their funding, we will realize the countries that fund them!
If we research their promotion, we will see what channels are promoting
terrorism, as well as the countries that stand behind them. These channels
broadcast the criminal acts of terrorist groups moments after they occur,
and some of them obtain the rights to broadcast terrorist actions
exclusively.
The final analysis will show that those who are behind terrorism are the
same ones that scream at the world about fighting terrorism.
The United States of America, Britain and the other arrogant countries are
what make terrorist organizations and groups like al-Qaeda and the
Taliban and MEK (khalq), etc. They create them in order to use them
against their opponents, such as the former Soviet union, the so called
rogue states, and others. Those organizations and groups were used by
these countries to their fullest extent.
I think there is no need to mention that these countries are the main
sources of terrorism in the world (the Zionist entity) and have supported,
sponsored and defended it for the past six decades of the last century.
The major powers did and still use these terrorist groups and fund them in
one way or another, either directly or indirectly through its allies in the
region like the Saudi, Qatari and former Egyptian regimes and other
traitor Arab former regimes. These powers were promoting terrorist
organizations and groups through some of the Arab channels that are part
of the U.S. -Zionist project like Al Jazeera, Alarabiya Alhurra , and
others. These channels broadcast crimes of these groups minutes after
they occur, sometimes under the pretext of having the first scoop, and
terrorist groups send recording to that channel exclusively!!!
Most people are aware of this reality, but they cannot do anything to
change it, as no one can accuse, judge, or punish such major countries.
Those powers have fortified themselves with a combination of factors that
prevent them from being judged or punished for their crimes of creating
and supporting terrorist organizations and groups.
The World Needs a Just Mechanism to Face International Terrorism
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Some of the main factors that protect the major terrorist makers and
sponsoring countries are the following:
1. Capitalist Economic System:
The major powers have fortified themselves with the capitalist economic
system, a system that now dominates the global economy and the
resources of people. It has become an economic empire. This ultimately
results in two groups of countries; rich countries (advances) and poor
countries (backward), the latter being easily controlled and occupied.
Examples of the dominance of the great powers, through the capitalist
economic system, on people‘s resources are:
A.The price of a barrel of Coca-Cola is higher than the price of a barrel of
oil, and sometimes even the price of a barrel of some types of mineral
water imported from the West is higher than the price of a barrel of oil!!!
B.Western countries that import oil from the East are benefiting more
from the oil than the producing countries!
C. The money made from the oil of underdeveloped countries in the East
goes into the reserves of Western banks. Yet when Eastern countries go to
borrow from the bank, the banks charge them high interest rates, even
though they are borrowing from what should have been their own money!!!
2. The International Legal System
The major powers are protected by international organizations (the UN
and its Security Council) through an international legal system that is
designed for the sole purpose of protecting these powers and their
interests, as well as the interests of their allies.
The clearest example of this is when the United Nations and the Security
Council can‘t make the Zionist entity abide by even one resolution. The
binding resolutions only seem to apply to Arab and Islamic countries!!!
In addition the right to veto any project belongs to the major powers
sponsoring terrorism and their ally the Zionist entity.
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3. Extensive Information and Media System
The major powers are also supported by one of the most powerful media
systems in the world. They have a wide range of satellite channels,
websites and newspapers. This media system promotes terrorism on the
one hand, and works to hide the crimes of these super powers on the
other. It sometimes brainwashes people and falsifies facts.
Having strong economic, legal and media systems is very important.
When these three systems are strong, even small states like Qatar can
successfully intervene and influence world affairs disproportionately to
their geo-political size. Not to mention the powerful military system
owned by the major powers.
Conclusion
What is the solution? How can free people face global terrorism?
We believe that the solution lies in a number of practical steps that free
people can do:
1. Fair economic system
Free nations should seek cooperation with humanitarian organizations to
find a good economic system for the liberation of people from the yoke of
economic slavery and economic dependence to the terrorist-sponsoring
powers.
2. Impartial legal organizations:
Form legal systems and international humanitarian organizations that are
independent, free, fair, and just as an alternative to the unfair and unjust
organizations owned by the major powers.
3. Honest media
Work towards forming objective and honest channels of communication
that are capable of competing with the media of the major powers, and
that are capable of gaining supremacy by the power of truth and
righteousness.
May peace and God's mercy and blessings be upon you.
Relogious Tolerance Some Observaions in the Context of Islam-West …
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Religious Tolerance
Some Observations in the Context of Islam–
West Encounter
Prof. Muhammad Suheyl Umar 
Soiling one‟s tongue with ill-speech is a sin
The disbeliever and the believer are alike creatures of God.
Humanity, human respect for human reality:
Be conscious of the station of humanity. …
The slave of love who takes his path from God
Becomes a loving friend of both disbeliever and believer. 
Thus sang the sage, Iqbal the poet-philosopher, in his magnum opus, the
Javid Nama (Pilgrimage of Eternity). He was not the sole spokesman. In
the years immediately before and after the First World War, the western
world was hearing to three poetic voices. The first was Tagore; 1 the
second voice was of T. S. Eliot;2 the third voice was that of Iqbal.3 In the
 Director of Iqbal Academy, Professor of Islamic Thought at the University of
Islamabad.
 Javīd Nāma in Kulliyāt i Iqbal, (Persian), Iqbal Academy Pakistan, Lahore, 1994, p.
672-673.
1. He received the Nobel Prize of Literature in 1913. The Preface written by W. B. Yeats
to the anthology of Tagore highlighted the mellowness of his voice and the
representation of the Indians as a humble and harmless race.
2. Whose ―Love Song of G. Alfred Prufrock‖ appeared in 1915. It was a view of
pessimism and boredom.
3. His Secrets of the Self appeared in Persian the same year, although his Urdu poem had
been common recitals in India for more than ten years by then. His book was translated
into English in 1920. It was clear that out of these three new voices, his was the voice
that the west was going to ignore. Ironically, this was the only voice in that age which
was inviting its listeners to get real, and do something to change the world to a better
place.
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late stage of secular modernity, when Iqbal pondered over the problems
of his age, melancholy had become a collective mood. Melancholy used
to afflict individuals who felt rejected and exiled from the significance of
the cosmos. By Iqbal‘s day it had turned into a cultural malady deriving
from a world that has been drained of all meaning and which had come to
cast doubt on all traditional sources– theological, metaphysical, and
historical. The dominant mood of Iqbal‘s time was ―A desperate search
for a pattern.‖ The search was desperate because it seemed futile to look
for a pattern in reality. In terms of its mindset or worldview the modern
world was living in what has been called the Age of Anxiety, and Iqbal,
feeling the pulse of the times, was trying to look beyond symptoms to
find the prime cause. Through his studies and observation of the modern
world Iqbal had come to realize that there was something wrong with the
presiding paradigm or worldview that his age had come to espouse. What
was that which generated the feeling that something had gone wrong with
the world and the Time was again out of joint? East and West both
seemed to face a predicament!
Iqbal was seriously thinking about the grave question.
I am no longer concerned about the crescent and the cross,
For the womb of time carries an ordeal of a different kind. 4
In Iqbal‘s view, the crisis that the world found itself in as it swung on the
hinge of the 20th century was located in something deeper than particular
4. I am... kind. By ―the crescent and the cross‖ is meant the historic confrontation
between Islam and Christianity that took the form of the Crusades in the Middle Ages.
Iqbal is saying that, unlike many other Muslims, who remain mentally imprisoned in the
past, allowing their thought and action to be determined by certain crucial events of
former times, he is more concerned about the momentous developments taking place in
the present age. Iqbal does not specify what he means by ―an ordeal of a different kind‖
(fitnah-i dīgarī)—whether he means a particular major development, like communism, or
whether he uses the singular ―ordeal‖ in a generic sense to refer to several major and
decisive developments taking place on the world stage. The main point of the verse, in
any case, is that the issues of the present and the future have greater claim on one‘s
attention than issues belonging to a past that may have no more than historical or
academic importance. In the second hemistich, ―the womb of time‖ is a translation of
damīr-i ayyām, which literally means ―in the insides of time.‖ See M. Mir, (ed.), IqbālNāmah,, Vol. 5, No. 3-4, Summer and Fall, 2005, p. 3-6.
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ways of organizing political systems and economies. In different ways,
the East and the West were going through a single common crisis whose
cause was the spiritual condition of the modern world. That condition was
characterized by loss– the loss of religious certainties and of
transcendence with its larger horizons. The nature of that loss is strange
but ultimately quite logical. When, with the inauguration of the scientific
worldview, human beings started considering themselves the bearers of
the highest meaning in the world and the measure of everything, meaning
began to ebb and the stature of humanity to diminish. The world lost its
human dimension, and we began to lose control of it. In the words of F.
Schuon:
The world is miserable because men live beneath themselves; the error of
modern man is that he wants to reform the world without having either
the will or the power to reform man, and this flagrant contradiction, this
attempt to make a better world on the basis of a worsened humanity, can
only end in the very abolition of what is human, and consequently in the
abolition of happiness too. Reforming man means binding him again to
Heaven, re-establishing the broken link; it means tearing him away from
the reign of the passions, from the cult of matter, quantity and cunning,
and reintegrating him into the world of the spirit and serenity, we would
even say: into the world of sufficient reason.5
In Iqbal‘s view, if anything characterizes the modern era, it is a loss of
faith in transcendence, in God as an objective reality. It is the age of
eclipse of transcendence. No socio-cultural environment in the preModern times had turned its back on Transcendence in the systematic
way that characterized Modernity. The eclipse of transcendence impacts
our way of looking at the world, that is, forming a world view, in a farreaching manner. According to Iqbal‘s perspective, Transcendence means
that there is another reality that is more real, more powerful, and better
than this mundane order. The eclipse of transcendence impacted our way
of looking at the world, that is, forming a worldview? It was an issue of
the greatest magnitude in Iqbal‘s opinion. He was convinced that
5. F. Schuon, Understanding Islam, reprinted, Suhail Academy, Lahore, 2004, pp. 26.
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whatever transpires in other domains of life– politics, living standards,
environmental conditions, interpersonal relationships, the arts– was
ultimately dependent on our presiding world view. This is what was
wrong with the presiding paradigm or worldview that his age had come to
espouse. In Iqbal‘s view, Modern Westerners, forsaking clear thinking,
allowed themselves to become so obsessed with life‘s material
underpinnings that they had written science a blank cheque; a blank
cheque for science‘s claims concerning what constituted Reality,
knowledge and justified belief. This was the cause of our spiritual crisis.
It joined other crises as we entered the new century–the environmental
crisis, the population explosion, the widening gulf between the rich and
the poor.
The Man who saw a thorn and spoke of the garden?…6
That science had changed our world beyond recognition went without
saying, but it was the way that it had changed our worldview that
concerned Iqbal. More importantly, the two worldviews were contending
for the mind of the future. The scientific worldview is a wasteland for the
human spirit. It cannot provide us the where withal for a meaningful life.
How much, then, was at stake? That was the fundamental question; and it
surfaced again and again throughout his prose and poetry. The
overarching question that occupied Iqbal at that time related to the view
of Reality; of the WORLDVIEWS: THE BIG PICTURE. It was of great
consequence to ask as to WHO WAS RIGHT ABOUT REALITY:
TRADITIONALISTS, MODERNISTS, OR THE POSTMODERNS
(which he anticipated)? The problem, according to his lights, was that
somewhere, during the course of its historical development, western
thought took a sharp turn in a different direction. It branched off as a
tangent from the collective heritage of all humanity and claimed the
autonomy of reason. It chose to follow reason alone, unguided by
6. Armaghān i Hijāz, in Kulliyāt i Iqbāl, Persian, Iqbal Academy Pakistan, Lahore, 1994,
p. 860.
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revelation and cut off from its transcendent root.7 Political and social
realms quickly followed suit. Autonomous statecraft and excessive
individualism in the social order were the elements that shaped a
dominant paradigm that did not prove successful.8 Iqbal struggled with
the conflicts that existed between the scientific and traditional
worldviews. There were five places where these contradicted each other.
According to the traditional, religious view spirit is fundamental and
matter derivative. The scientific worldview turns this picture on its head.
In the religious worldview human beings are the less who have derived
from the more. Science reverses this etiology, positioning humanity as the
more that has derived from the less; devoid of intelligence at its start,
evolving and advancing to the elevated stature that we human beings now
enjoy.
The traditional worldview points toward a happy ending; the scientific
worldview does not. As for the scientific worldview, there is no way that
a happy ending can be worked into it. Death is the grim reaper of
individual lives, and whether things as a whole will end in a freeze or a
fry, with a bang or a whimper is anybody‘s guess.
This fourth contrast between the competing worldviews concerns
meaning. Having been intentionally created by omnipotent Perfection–9
or flowing from it ―like a fountain ever on,‖– the traditional world is
meaningful throughout. In the scientific worldview, meaning is minimal if
not absent. ―Our modern understanding of evolution implies that ultimate
7. See Martin Lings, ―Intellect and Reason‖ in Ancient Beliefs and Modern
Superstitions, rpt. (Lahore: Suhail Academy, 1988, 57-68; F. Schuon, Gnosis Divine
Wisdom London: J. Murray, 1978, 93-99; S. H. Nasr, ―Knowledge and its
Desacralization‖ in Knowledge and the Sacred (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press,
1981, 1-64; Huston Smith, Forgotten Truth (San Francisco: Harper San Francisco,
1992), 60-95. Also see his Beyond the Post-Modern Mind, Wheaton: Theosophical
Publishing House, 1989).
8. See René Guenon, ―Individualism‖ in Crisis of the Modern World, (Lahore: Suhail
Academy, 1981, 51-65. Also see Social Chaos‖ in the same document.
9. less anthropomorphically described in Plotinus‘s wording
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meaning in life is nonexistent.‖10 Science acknowledges that ―the more
the universe seems comprehensible, the more it seems pointless.‖
In the traditional world people feel at home. Nothing like this sense of
belonging can be derived from the scientific worldview which is the
dawning of ―the age of homelessness.‖
Iqbal realized that an age comes to a close when people discover they can
no longer understand themselves by the theory their age professes. For a
while its denizens will continue to think that they believe it, but they feel
otherwise and cannot understand their feelings. This had now happened to
his world.
Even today, when traditional peoples want to know where they are– when
they wonder about the ultimate context in which their lives are set and
which has the final say over them– they turn to their sacred texts; or in the
case of oral, tribal peoples (what comes to the same thing), to the sacred
myths that have been handed down to them by their ancestors. Modernity
was born when a new source of knowledge was discovered, the scientific
method. Because its controlled experiment enabled scientists to prove
their hypothesis, and because those proven hypotheses demonstrated that
they had the power to change the material world dramatically, Westerners
turned from revelation to science for the Big Picture. Intellectual
historians tell us that by the 19th century Westerners were already more
certain that atoms exist than they were confident of any of the distinctive
things the Bible speaks of.
This much is straightforward, but it doesn‘t explain why Westerners
aren‘t still modern rather than Postmodern, for science continues to be the
main support of the Western mind. By headcount, most Westerners
probably still are modern, but I am thinking of frontier thinkers who chart
the course that others follow. These thinkers have ceased to be modern
because they have seen through the so-called scientific worldview,
recognizing it to be not scientific but scientistic. They continue to honour
science for what it tells us about nature or the natural order/natural world,
10. As John Avis and William Provine have said,
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but as that is not all that exists, science cannot provide us with a
worldview– not a valid one. The most it can show us is half of the world,
the half where normative and intrinsic values, existential and ultimate
meanings, teleologies, qualities, immaterial realities, and beings that are
superior to us do not appear.11
In his second lecture, ―The Philosophical Test of the Revelations of
Religious Experience‖, in The Reconstruction of Religious thought in
Islam Iqbal has made a very perceptive remark:12
There is no doubt that the theories of science constitute trustworthy
knowledge, because they are verifiable and enable us to predict and control the events of Nature. But we must not forget that what is called
science is not a single systematic view of Reality. It is a mass of sectional
views of Reality– fragments of a total experience which do not seem to fit
together. Natural Science deals with matter, with life, and with mind; but
the moment you ask the question how matter, life, and mind are mutually
related, you begin to see the sectional character of the various sciences
that deal with them and the inability of these sciences, taken singly, to
11. This important point is not generally recognized, so I shall spell it out. The deathknell to modernity, which had science as its source and hope, was sounded with the
realization that despite its power in limited regions, six things slip through its controlled
experiments in the way sea slips through the nets of fishermen:
1. Values. Science can deal with descriptive and instrumental values, but not with
intrinsic and normative ones.
2. Meanings. Science can work with cognitive meanings, but not with existential
meanings (Is X meaningful?), or ultimate ones (What is the meaning of life?).
3. Purposes. Science can handle teleonomy– purposiveness in organisms– but not
teleology, final causes.
4. Qualities. Quantities science is good at, but not qualities.
5. The invisible and the immaterial. It can work with invisibles that are rigorously
entailed by matter‘s behaviour (the movements of iron filings that require magnetic
fields to account for them, e.g.) but not with others.
6. Our superiors, if such exist. This limitation does not prove that beings greater than
ourselves exist, but it does leave the question open, for ―absence of evidence is not
evidence of absence‖.
12. Muhammad Iqbal, The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam, (referred to as
Reconstruction, here after), Iqbal Academy Pakistan/Institute of Islamic Culture, Lahore,
1989, p. 26.
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furnish a complete answer to your question. In fact, the various natural
sciences are like so many vultures falling on the dead body of Nature, and
each running away with a piece of its flesh. Nature as the subject of
science is a highly artificial affair, and this artificiality is the result of that
selective process to which science must subject her in the interests of
precision. The moment you put the subject of science in the total of
human experience it begins to disclose a different character. Thus
religion, which demands the whole of Reality and for this reason must
occupy a central place in any synthesis of all the data of human
experience, has no reason to be afraid of any sectional views of Reality.
Natural Science is by nature sectional; it cannot, if it is true to its own
nature and function, set up its theory as a complete view of Reality.
Where, then, do we now turn for an inclusive worldview? Postmodernism
hasn‘t a clue. And this is its deepest definition.13 The generally accepted
definition of Postmodernism now that Jean-Francois Lyotard fixed in
place decades ago in The Postmodern Condition is, ―incredulity toward
metanarratives‖.14 Having deserted revelation for science, the West has
now abandoned the scientific worldview as well, leaving it without
replacement. In this it mirrors the current stage of Western science which
leaves nature unimaged. Before modern science, Westerners accepted
Aristotle‘s model of the earth as surrounded by concentric, crystalline
spheres. Newton replaced that model with his image of a clockwork
universe, but Postmodern, quantum-and-relativity science gives us not a
third model of nature but no model at all. Alan Wallace‘s Choosing
Reality delineates eight different interpretations of quantum physics, all of
13. Ernest Gellner defines Postmodernism as relativism–‖relativismus über Alles‖
(Postmodernism, Reason and Religion)– but relativism is not an easy position to defend,
so postmoderns do everything they can to avoid that label; Clifford Geertz‘s ―antiantirelativism‖ is a case in point. The T-shirts that blossomed on the final day of a sixweek, 1987 NEH Institute probably tell the story. Superimposed on a slashed circle, their
logo read, ―No cheap relativism‖. By squirming, postmoderns can parry crude
relativisms, but sophisticated relativis is still relativism. Postmoderns resist that
conclusion, however, so I shall stay with their own self-characterization.
14. Jean-Francois Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition, Minneapolis, Minnesota
University Press, 1984, pp. xxiv, 3ff.
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which can claim the support of physics‘ proven facts.15 A contemporary
philosopher described the situation as “the Reality Market Place”– you
can have as many versions of reality as you like.
Another analogy can pull together all that we have just said and
summarize the difference alluded to in these remarks. If we think of
traditional peoples as looking out upon the world through the window of
revelation (their received myths and sacred texts), the window that they
turned to look through in the modern period (science) proved to be
stunted. It cuts off at the level of the human nose, which (metaphysically
speaking) means that when we look through it our gaze slants downward
and we see only things that are inferior to us.16 As for the Postmodern
window, it is boarded over and allows no inclusive view whatsoever. In
the words of Richard Rorty, ―There is no Big Picture.‖ This analogy is
drawn from the works of one of the traditionalist writers, namely, Huston
Smith, who is by far the easiest to understand. It is fascinating to note that
Iqbal not only mediates between these conflicting views in exactly the
same manner by pointing out to the shortcomings and achievements of all
the three paradigms objectively but– and that is remarkable– uses the
same analogy. Smith or Iqbal never met or read each other! Iqbal agrees
that there is a Big Picture and his writings give us to understand that the
Postmodern view of the self and its world is in no way nobler than the
ones that the world‘s religions proclaim. Postmoderns yield to their
dilapidated views, not because they like them, but because they think that
reason and human historicity now force them upon us. Iqbal would argue
that it is not necessarily the case and the present predicament is the result
of a tunnel vision that we have adopted but which really is not the only
option for us. Here is Iqbal‘s depiction of the conceptual shift that the
enlightenment project and modernity‘s world view had brought in the
human thought, the damage that it had done to the academia. Cultures and
15. Alan Wallace, Choosing Reality, Boston and Shaftsbury, Shambala, 1989.
16. No textbook in science has ever included things that are intrinsically greater than
human beings. Bigger, of course, and wielding more physical power, but not superior in
the full sense of that term which includes virtues, such as intelligence, compassion, and
bliss.
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their world-views are ruled by their mandarins, the intellectuals and they,
as well as their institutions that shape the minds that rule the modern
world are unreservedly secular. The poem is addressed to our present day
intellectual mandarins, the leaders of the academia.17
To the Schoolman
The Schoolman is an architect
The artefact he shapes and moulds is the human soul;
Something remarkable for you to ponder
Has been left by the Sage, Qā‟ānī;
“Do not raise a wall in the face of the illuminating Sun
If you wish the courtyard of your house to be filled with light”
What does the metaphor of ‫( خورشید‬the illuminating Sun) in this analogy
try to convey which, in the parallel analogy used by Huston Smith, is
depicted by the stunted/slanted window of Modernity that resulted in a
truncated, tunnel vision and the Postmodern window, boarded all over,
thus precluding the possibility of any world view what so ever! And this
is intimately connected to our initial remarks about (‫)فتنہ عصر ِ روان‬,
the
ٔ
challenge posed by the modern age of secular modernity and materialism,
which Iqbal, like Rūmī, takes up.
The most important question that concerned Iqbal in this period related to
the conceptual shift that the enlightenment project and modernity‘s
worldview had brought in the human thought, the damage that it had done
to the academia, and the means of repairing the ills. Iqbal‘s contemporary
discourse was marked by incredulity. Incredulity toward metaphysics.
There was no consensual worldview. The incredulity took many forms
that grew increasingly shrill as they proceeded. Minimally, it contented
itself with pointing out that ―we have no maps and don‘t know how to
make them.‖ Hardliners added, ―and never again will we have a
consensual worldview! In short, Iqbal‘s contemporary discourse was
filled with voices critiquing the truncated worldview of the
17. ―Shaykh i Maktab‖ Kulliyāt i Iqbāl, Urdu, Iqbal Academy Pakistan, Lahore, 1994, p.
494
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Enlightenment, but from that reasonable beginning it plunged on to argue
unreasonably that world-views (or grand narratives) are misguided in
principle. Wouldn‘t we be better off if we extricate ourselves from the
worldview we had unwittingly slipped into and replace it with a more
generous and accurate one that shows us deeply connected to the final
nature of things? Iqbal contemplated.18 He had realized that a world ends
when its metaphor dies, and modernity‘s metaphor– endless progress
through science-powered technology– was dead. It was only cultural lag–
the backward pull of the outgrown good– that keeps us running on it.
Already at the opening of the last century, when Postmodernism had not
yet emerged on the scene, Yeats was warning that things were falling
apart, that the centre didn‘t hold. Gertrude Stein followed him by noting
that ―in the twentieth century nothing is in agreement with anything else,‖
and Ezra Pound saw man as ―hurling himself at indomitable chaos‖― the
most durable line from the play Green Pastures has been, ―Everything
that‘s tied down is coming loose.‖ T. S. Eliot found ―The Wasteland‖ and
―The Hollow Men‖ as appropriate metaphors for the outward and the
inward aspects of our predicament.19 Poetry of first magnitude or great
poetry itself works as a bridge and with inevitable particularities always
carries an aspect of universality. It brings you face to face with questions
that are truly perennial human questions and not just Muslim or Christian
or Hindu questions; who am I? What does it mean to be human?? Where
have I come from? Where am I going? What is this universe and how am
18. The views about the prevailing human predicament converged. Fresh ―infusions‖
were needed. The opinions about the nature and origin of these fresh ―infusions‖ that
could rectify or change it for the better were, however, divergent. Some of Iqbal‘s
cotemporaries tried to find an alternative from within the dominant paradigm. Others
suggested the possibility of a search for these fresh ―infusions‖ in a different direction:
different cultures, other civilizations, religious doctrines, sapiential traditions. What
could it be?
19. It is not surprising, therefore, that when in her last interview Rebecca West was
asked to name the dominant mood of our time, she replied, ―A desperate search for a
pattern.‖ The search is desperate because it seems futile to look for a pattern when reality
has become, in Roland Barth‘s vivid image, kaleidoscopic. With every tick of the clock
the pieces of experience come down in new array.
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I related to it? Great poetry may seem grounded in a certain particular
idiom or a specific universe of discourse but it always opens out onto the
universal.
While Iqbal‘s cotemporaries were lamenting the state of the world with its
shaky institutions and rudderless situation with the dominant mood of
melancholy, without suggesting a viable alternative, Iqbal had a message
of hope. The conclusion is that if for the survival of humanity it is
necessary for man to respect his fellow-men; in the same way it is
necessary for him to learn to respect religions other than his own. It is
only through the adoption of this moral and spiritual approach that,
borrowing Iqbal‘s phrase, ―man may rise to a fresh vision of his future.‖
And this brings us to the opening point of our discourse, ―Be conscious of
the station of humanity‖ which is intimately related to the question of the
―Other‖– religious, cultural, political– which, in turn, subsumes the issue
of ―tolerance‖ that we wish to address in this paper from the point of view
of Kinship of Thought between Islam and the West. It, however, calls
for a few remarks of a different order as our point of departure.
I would allow Robert Whittemore to make the point. He had observed: 20
Examine Western philosophy from an Islamic standpoint and one
characteristic of it is inescapable: from Thales to Wittgenstein Western
thought has been for the most part invariably insular, insufferably
parochial. European and American thinkers, in so many ways so diverse,
20. In his 1966 article, referring to Iqbal, Robert Whittemore, ―Iqbal‘s Panentheism‖ had
remarked, if we seek through the pages of most modern European and American
philosophy for a mention of his name, Iqbal is unknown even to the compilers of
philosophical dictionaries and encyclopaedias.
(One prominent exception was
Hartshorne & Reese‘s Philosophers Speak of God (Chicago, 1953), pp. 294-97. The
situation has changed since. In the last few decades, Iqbal has been studied by a number
of scholars in the West. And, to be sure, he is now being mentioned and discussed in
philosophical encyclopedias, dictionaries, and handbooks published in Western
countries. For example, in Robert L. Arrington‘s edited volume A Companion to the
Philosophers (Oxford: Blackwell, 1999), Iqbal is one of the eight philosophers included
in the section on Islamic and Jewish philosophers, and he is in respectable company in
Diané Collinson, Kathry Plant, and Robert Wilkinson‘s Fifty Eastern Thinkers (London:
Routledge, 2000).
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have been from the time of their Greek forebears virtually as one in their
provincial assurance that such ontological, cosmological and theological
speculation as is worthy of their notice is a product of their Western
culture.
The philosophy of Sir Muhammad Iqbal (1877-1938) affords a notable
case in point. In the world of modern Muslim thought he stands alone. His
Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam aspires to a place akin to
that occupied by al-Ghazali‘s Ihya Ulum al-Din (―Revivification of the
Religious Sciences‖). His philosophical poetry is regarded by many
Muslim scholars as a worthy postscript to the Diwan and Mathnavi of
Jalaluddin Rumi.‖
This echoes the views expressed earlier during the century by the French
metaphysician René Guénon as a prelude to his masterly study
Introduction to the Study of Hindu Doctrines.21 Guénon had termed it
―The Classical Prejudice‖ leading to ―intellectual myopia‖. The attitude
manifested itself in a different mode after the advent of Modernity when
the Western cultural imagination turned away after its encounter with the
stunning variety of cultural worlds that appeared for the first time in the
Age of Discovery. This inward turn sparked the appearance of all sorts of
imaginary realities and was responsible for the withdrawal of the Western
thinkers of Enlightenment from the whirling world of cultural values into
an utterly imaginary world of ‗objective‘ forms of knowledge. 22 It was
21. René Guenon, ―The Classical Prejudice‖, Introduction to the Study of Hindu
Doctrines, Sophia Perennis, Hillsdale, NY, 2004, p. 19. The book was originally written
in French and appeared in its first English edition in 1925.
22. Those interested in learning more about some of the criticisms we have in mind
might begin by looking at the books cited by Lawrence E. Sullivan in his masterly study,
Icanchus Drum: An Orientation to Meaning in South American Religions (New York:
Macmillan, 1988), pp. 884-85. What he says in the passage leading up to the suggested
reading applies also to Western perceptions of Islam: ―One of the great disservices to our
understanding of South American religions [read: Islam] has been the perception of
tribal peoples [read: Muslims) as slavishly dedicated to an unchanging order revealed in
the images of myth and handed down unquestioned and unmodified from one generation
to the next.
This attitude accompanies the evaluation of ‗myth‘ as a banal and inane narrative. Tribal
peoples (representing ‗archaic‘ modes of thought) childishly cling to their myths,
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specifically a Modern phenomenon as, during the Middle Ages, despite
the outwards conflicts and even protracted wars, intellectual exchange
had continued at a deeper and more meaningful level. In this regard it is
useful to investigate how the West engaged with the idea and practice of
tolerance as it had manifested in other religions and cultures and how
does it relate to the historical trajectory through which it became
established in the West.
Tolerance– Religious and Secular
Tolerance is a multi-faceted concept comprising moral, psychological,
social, legal, political and religious dimensions. The dimension of
tolerance addressed by this essay is specifically religious tolerance, such
as this principle finds expression within the Islamic tradition, and how it
came to be enshrined in the Western thought after the Enlightenment.
Further to that we would try to look at the shared legacy of the idea that
suffered a diverse destiny in the West. Religious tolerance can be defined
in terms of a positive spiritual predisposition towards the religious Other,
a predisposition fashioned by a vision of the divinely-willed diversity of
religious communities. If the diversity of religions is seen to be an
expression of the will of God,23 then the inevitable differences between
infantile fantasies, whereas mature contemporaries jettison myths with the passage of
‗historical time‘ and the entrance‘ into ‗modernity. ‗It would be fascinating to study
these and other justifications proffered for avoiding a serious encounter with the reality
of myth [read: Islamic thought) and symbolic acts.... This is, however, not the place to
carry out a history of the ‗modern‘ ideas of myth and religion. It is enough to suggest
that the Western cultural imagination turned away when it encountered the stunning
variety of cultural worlds that appeared for the first time in the Age of Discovery.
Doubtless this inward turn sparked the appearance of all sorts of imaginary realities. The
Enlightenment, the withdrawal of Western thinkers from the whirling world of cultural
values into an utterly imaginary world of ‗objective‘ forms of knowledge, and its
intellectual follow-up coined new symbolic currency. These terms brought new
meanings and new self-definition to Western culture: ‗consciousness/unconsciousness,‘
‗primitive/civilized,‘ ‗ethics/mores,‘ ‗law/custom,‘ ‗critical or reflective thought/
action.‖
23. The fundamental message of the Qur‘an as regards all previous revelations is one of
inclusion not exclusion, protection and not destruction. Arguably the most important
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the religions will be not only tolerated but also celebrated: tolerated on
the outward, legal and formal plane, celebrated on the inward, cultural
and spiritual plane. As is the case with secular tolerance, here also one
will encounter a positive and open-minded attitude, one capable of
stimulating policies and laws of a tolerant nature towards the religious
Other, but the root of this attitude derives from a principle going beyond
the secular domain: the tolerant attitude emerges as the consequence of a
kaleidoscopic vision of unfolding divine revelations, a vision which
elicits profound respect for the religions of the Other, rather than
reluctantly, begrudgingly or condescendingly granting mere toleration.
Tolerance born of a divinely ordained imperative cannot but engender
respect for the religious Other. But the converse does not hold: one can be
tolerant in a secular sense outwardly and legally, without this being
accompanied by sincere respect for the religion of the Other. Moreover,
the purely secular approach to tolerance carries with it the risk of falling
into a corrosive relativism of the ‗anything goes‘ variety. It can lead to the
normativity and particularity of one‘s own faith being diluted, if not
sacrificed, for the sake of an abstracted and artificial social construct.
The Islamic tradition, in principle as well as in practice, provides
compelling answers to many questions pertaining to the relationship
between religious tolerance and the practice of one‘s own faith. The
lessons drawn from the Islamic tradition reveal that tolerance of the
Other is in fact integral to the practice of Islam– it is not some optional
extra, some cultural luxury, and still less, something one needs to import
from some other tradition. This being said, one needs to take note of an
irony: the essential sources of the Islamic faith reveal a sacred vision of
diversity and difference, plurality and indeed of universality, which is
unparalleled among world scriptures; the practice of contemporary
verse in this regard is: ‗We have revealed unto you the Scripture with the Truth, to
confirm and protect the Scripture which came before it ... For each We have appointed a
Law and a Way. Had God willed, He could have made you one community. But that He
might try you by that which He has given you [He has made you as you are]. So vie with
one another in good works. Unto God you will all return, and He will inform you of that
wherein you differed‘ (5:48).
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Muslim states, however, not to mention many vociferous extra-state
groups and actors, falls lamentably short of the current standards of
tolerance set by the secular West. In consequence, it is hardly surprising
that many argue that what the Muslim world needs in order to become
more tolerant is to learn to become more modern and secular, and less
traditional and ‗visionary‘. This kind of argument, however, ignoring and
belittling the vast treasury of ethical and spiritual resources within the
Islamic tradition, will succeed only in making Muslims more, rather than
less, intolerant, by provoking defensive backlashes. But we would come
back later to the issue of this apparently more intelligible demand that we
must pass through an Enlightenment, voiced by the late Dutch politician
Pim Fortuyn when he wrote that ―Christianity and Judaism have gone
through the laundromat of humanism and enlightenment, but that is not
the case with Islam.‖24
A more fruitful approach would be to encourage an honest
acknowledgement by Muslims that, as regards the practice of religious
tolerance, the secular West has indeed set high standards, albeit at the
price of a corrosive relativism, a price which is becoming increasingly
apparent to many with the passage of time. Instead of being seen as
contrary to the Islamic vision, however, such tolerant codes of conduct
can be seen as formal expressions of the universal principle of tolerance
inhering in the vision of Islam itself. In this sacred vision the plurality of
paths to the One is viewed as a reflection of the infinitude of the One;
tolerance of diversity and difference on the human plane thus flows as a
moral consequence of this divinely willed plurality, becoming thereby not
24. Fortuyn‘s religious views are detailed in his book Against the Islamisation of our
Culture, published in 1997 (cited in Angus Roxburgh, Preachers of Hate: The Rise of the
Far Right, London, 2002, 163) to celebrate Israel‘s fiftieth birthday. He believed that
Islam, unlike his own strongly-affirmed Christianity, is a ‗backward culture‘, with an
inadequate view of God and an inbuilt hostility to European culture. He called for
massive curbs on Muslim immigration, and for greater stress on Holland‘s Christian
heritage. A prominent homosexual activist, Fortuyn also condemned Islam‘s opposition
to same-sex marriage. Cited in Angus Roxburgh, Preachers of Hate: The Rise of the Far
Right, London, 2002, 163.
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just a social ethic, but also an expression of the wisdom of the One, being
ordained first ‗from above‘, and then here below. Tolerance within the
framework of a divinely ordained schema expresses both an obligation
and a right: a moral obligation to permit people of different faiths to
manifest their own specific ways of embodying and radiating these
universal values, and the spiritual right to benefit from the specific
manifestations of these universal values oneself. This accords with the
very purpose of diversity as envisioned by the Qur‘an: „O mankind, We
have created you male and female, and We have made you into tribes and
nations in order that you might come to know one another. Truly, in the
sight of God, the most honoured amongst you is the most pious amongst
you‟ (49:13).
The Prophet was asked: ‗which religion is most loved by God?‘ His
answer can be seen as a succinct commentary on the above verse. Instead
of referring to such and such a religion, he highlights the key character
trait which should be infused into the soul by all religions, or by religion
as such; whichever religion is most successful in producing this trait
becomes ‗the most beloved‘ religion to God: ―The primordial, generously
tolerant faith‖ (al-hanafiyya al-samha). This strongly authenticated
saying highlights the centrality of tolerance to the religious endeavour as
such; it also implies, as does verse 49:13, the absolute equality of all
believers, the sole permissible hierarchy within humanity being that based
on intrinsic piety, not on such extrinsic factors as gender or affiliation to
tribe or nation, race or religion. Given this view of equality on the human
plane, and the Islamic belief in universal and cyclical revelation–no
community being deprived of authentic divine revelation and guidance–
intolerance of the Other is reprehensible both morally and spiritually.
Tolerant Islam or the Liberal West? Which came first?
Before directly addressing the principle and practice of tolerance in Islam,
let us ask ourselves the question as to what is the provenance of the
secular concept of tolerance in the West, for this provides some
important–and ironic–lessons in this domain. In 1689 John Locke, one of
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the founding fathers of modern liberal thought, wrote a famous text, ‗A
Letter Concerning Toleration‘. This letter is widely viewed as
instrumental in the process by which the ethical value of religious
tolerance was transformed into a universal ethical imperative, as far as
individual conscience is concerned, and into a legal obligation, incumbent
upon the upholders of political authority, as far as the state is concerned.
It is evident from this letter that Locke was deeply struck by the contrast
between tolerant ‗barbarians‘– the Muslim Ottomans – and violently
intolerant Christians. The contrast was compounded by the fact that
Muslims exercised more tolerance towards non-Muslims than Christians
did to each other, let alone non-Christians. In his letter, Locke ruefully
reflected on the absurdity that Calvinists and Armenians were free to
practice their faith if they lived in the Muslim Ottoman Empire, but not in
Christian Europe: would the Turks not ‗silently stand by and laugh to see
with what inhuman cruelty Christians thus rage against Christians?‘
Locke passionately proclaimed the need for ‗universal tolerance‘,
whatever one‘s religious beliefs, and, indeed, in the prevailing Christian
climate, despite one‘s beliefs. Following on logically from this secular
principle of tolerance was the right for non-Christians to live unmolested
in the state of England, and be accorded full civil and political rights:
‗…neither pagan nor Mahometan nor Jew ought to be excluded from the
civil rights of the Commonwealth because of his religion.‘ This strict
separation between religion and politics, church and state, so often
viewed only as part of the evolutionary trajectory of western
secularization must also be seen in the light of the historical interface
between mutually intolerant Christian states and denominations, on the
one hand, and a vibrantly tolerant Muslim polity, on the other. The
current unquestioned right of freedom of religious belief and worship in
the Western world is thus not simply a corollary of secular thought; it is a
principle inspired, at least in part, by the influence of Islam.
The spectacle of Muslim Ottoman tolerance was something to which
Christendom was used: ‗Better the turban of the Sultan than the mitre of
the Pope‘, was a well-worn saying among Eastern Orthodox Christians,
/
533
acutely aware of the fact that their rights were more secure under the
Ottomans than under their Catholic co-religionists. Ottoman conquest was
followed almost without exception by Islamic tolerance of the conquered
peoples. ‗Tolerance‘, according to (Reverend) Dr Susan Ritchie, ‗was a
matter of Ottoman policy and bureaucratic structure, and an expression of
the Ottoman interpretation of Islam, which was in most instances
stunningly liberal and cosmopolitan.‘ She argues convincingly that this
Ottoman tolerance decisively influenced the process leading to the
famous Edict of Torda in 1568, issued by King John Sigismund of
Transylvania (which was under Ottoman suzerainty), an edict hailed by
western historians as expressing ‗the first European policy of expansive
religious toleration.‘25 It is thus hardly surprising that Norman Daniel
should allow himself to make the simple–and, for many, startling–claim:
‗The notion of toleration in Christendom was borrowed from Muslim
practice‘ (emphasis added).26
Ottoman tolerance of the Jews provides an illuminating contrast with the
anti-Semitism of Christendom, which resulted in the regular pogroms and
‗ethnic cleansing‘ by which the medieval Christian world was stained.
Many Jews fleeing from persecution in central Europe would have
received letters like the following, written by Rabbi Isaac Tzarfati, who
reached the Ottomans just before their capture of Constantinople in 1453,
replying to those Jews of central Europe who were calling out for help:
‗Listen, my brethren, to the counsel I will give you. I too was born in
Germany and studied Torah with the German rabbis. I was driven out of
my native country and came to the Turkish land, which is blessed by God
and filled with all good things. Here I found rest and happiness … Here in
the land of the Turks we have nothing to complain of. We are not
oppressed with heavy taxes, and our commerce is free and unhindered …
every one of us lives in peace and freedom. Here the Jew is not compelled
25. Susan Ritchie, ‗The Islamic Ottoman Influence on the Development of Religious
Toleration in Reformation Transylvania‘, in Seasons—Semi-annual Journal of Zaytuna
Institute, vol.2, no.1, pp.62, 59.
26. Norman Daniel, Islam, Europe and Empire (Edinburgh, 1966), p.12.
534
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Global Alliance
to wear a yellow hat as a badge of shame, as is the case in Germany,
where even wealth and great fortune are a curse for the Jew because he
therewith arouses jealousy among the Christians … Arise, my brethren,
gird up your loins, collect your forces, and come to us. Here you will be
free of your enemies; here you will find rest …‘27
At the very same time as the Christian West was indulging in periodic
anti-Jewish pogroms, the Jews were experiencing what some Jewish
historians themselves have termed a kind of ‗golden age‘ under Muslim
rule. As Erwin Rosenthal writes, ‗The Talmudic age apart, there is
perhaps no more formative and positive time in our long and chequered
history than that under the empire of Islam.‘ One particularly rich episode
in this ‗golden age‘ was experienced by the Jews of Muslim Spain. As has
been abundantly attested by historical records, the Jews enjoyed not just
freedom from oppression, but also an extraordinary revival of cultural,
religious, theological and mystical creativity. Such great Jewish
luminaries as Maimonides and Ibn Gabirol wrote their philosophical
works in Arabic, and were fully ‗at home‘ in Muslim Spain. With the
expulsion, murder or forced conversion of all Muslims and Jews
following the reconquista of Spain–brought to completion with the fall of
Granada in 1492–it was to the Ottomans that the exiled Jews turned for
refuge and protection. They were welcomed in Muslim lands throughout
north Africa, joining the settled and prosperous Jewish communities
already there.
As for Christians under Muslim rule in Spain, we have the following
interesting contemporary testimony to the practice of Muslim tolerance,
from within the Christian community itself. In the middle of the 10th
century embassies were exchanged between the court of Otto I of
Germany and court of Cordoba. One such delegation was led by John of
27. Quoted in S. A. Schleifer, ‗Jews and Muslims—A Hidden History‘, in The Spirit of
Palestine (Barcelo

final english - Islamic World Peace Forum

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