Is There Anything More to Think About Terror?

I wrote last week of terrorism, but just a little thinking can lead to a lot of reading, which then can lead to a lot more thinking, on this topic. Last week, for example, Time magazine put out a list of the greatest recent ideas in various areas. At #4 on this list of so-called revolutionary ideas was the research of a fellow named John Horgan, who has been studying why some terrorists stop performing acts of terrorism in order to cook up new ways to get people to stop committing acts of terror. Sounds like a sensibly promising avenue of study. But the very short article on Horgan’s study of former terrorists didn’t say that Horgan has yet concocted any practical actions or programs for turning terrorists into happy suburbanites. In fact, the article was a bit disheartening because Horgan has discovered that most ex-terrorists haven’t actually come to be any less radical in their thinking. They’ve just given up acting on their radicalism. To me, that finding suggests that when conditions become ripe, these ex-terrorists might see the “good” sense in terrorizing once again. Radicalism doesn’t end; it just goes dormant, or so it seems. Still, I hope Horgan’s study leads to success in ending terror.

And then this week Time had a review of yet another book on how people become terrorists (there have been dozens of such books published before and since 9/11). This one is by a criminal forensic psychiatrist named Marc Sageman (good nickname for a thinker, don’t you think?). The book is entitled Leaderless Jihad. Sageman thinks that terrorists are, generally speaking, not exactly “arseholes,” the view of that British historian I discussed last week, but rather scrupulously morally outraged. To put it bluntly, people who commit acts of terror are pissed off, and justly so, to some extent -- at least in Sageman’s eyes. They’re pissed off about America’s policies toward the various Islamic countries of the Middle East and Africa, before and after 9/11, and before and after the current five-year-long Iraq War. (My accompanying photo is a shot of a display area in the Chicago Merchandise Mart, a cathedral of American consumerism. A teeny part of the society those bomb-happy radicals are so justifiably pissed off about, no doubt.) Sageman thinks America should, as a first step, get EVERY last American soldier out of every Islamic country. He seems to think this would make for a big first step toward the end of radical Islamic terror. Well, there’s another idea to think about.

But then I have started to get more than a little dizzy as I have been uncovering all the discussion and diversity of opinion about terrorism, its causes and its cures. How diverse is it? Well, here’s an indication. I quickly hunted down on the web a massive summary report on the causes of terrorism entitled The Psychology of Terrorism. The report is a straightforward, numbered list of books, essays, research studies, and other reports on the causes and cures of terrorism. It’s just one big long list. One study after another. The report offers a narrative description of each document, most of which were written in the last 20 years. Now, here’s the rub: there are 324 items on the list. 324 separate and detailed and lengthy writings from all sorts of thinkers and researchers about terrorism’s causes and cures. This report can be found at:

http://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/208551.pdf

You can draw a rather sobering conclusion about stopping terrorism just by looking at the size and extent of this report: none of these 324 studies, written by thoughtful, earnest, caring men and women of all sorts, has done a damn thing to stop terrorism. Why even bother thinking about it? And yet, I do keep thinking about it. Maybe I will be the hero who will synthesize all this knowledge and hit upon the one cogent and effective social policy that brings an end to terror.

I’m kidding. I’m not that stupid. Or am I? I do keep thinking about this, don’t I?, as though my thinking actually meant something.

Finally, soon to lecture here at MSU is Fawaz A. Gerges, an Oxford University scholar who holds the Christian A. Johnson Chair in International Affairs and Middle Eastern Studies at Sarah Lawrence College in New York. This learned fellow spent a whole year in 2007 as a Carnegie Scholar living in the Middle East, where he interviewed activists, civic leaders, and mainstream and radical Islamists to figure out what to do about terror. Gerges is writing two books on Arab and Muslim politics, Islamists and the so-called Jihadists. He has written a bunch of books on this subject, such as Journey of the Jihadist: Inside Muslim Militancy (2007); The Far Enemy: Why Jihad Went Global (2005); and America and Political Islam: Clash of Interests or Clash of Cultures? (1999). This learned, brilliant, caring man (presumably) hasn’t yet done a damn thing to stop terrorism that I can see. Boy oh boy, that’s discouraging.

You, my readers -- few, though loyal, as you are -- you know, when you give it just a moment’s thought, that my excogitating will contribute nothing to the understanding of this subject. But such is a life of reflection. Who knows why I feel this mysterious need to write on topics that are so large and complex. But it’s what I’ve been thinking about. And write I must.