Political
Science
4354
DR. ARNOLD LEDER
THE POLITICS OF EXTREMISM
Department
Of
Political Science/Texas State University
The online version of this syllabus can be accessed @ http://arnoldleder.com/4354.htm.
A condensed version of this syllabus for print as well
as password protected materials for this course can be
viewed @ http://www.arnoldleder.com/readings/index.html.
Scroll
to the section on "Terrorism". For the condensed print syllabus
in the section on "Terrorism" click on the link labeled "Condensed 4354
Print Syllabus". Password
and user name for access will be provided to students in the
course. For links to web syllabi for other
courses taught by
Dr. Leder see: http://www.arnoldleder.com/.
For a list of undergraduate courses in Political Science
by group, see: http://www.polisci.txstate.edu/courses/undergrad-courses.html.
Office: ELA 335
Office Hours: TBA & by
appointment
Texas
State University Academic Schedule
Texas State University Final Exam
Schedule
Schedule
of
Classes @ Texas State University
Selected Web Resources For Texas State
University
Texas State
University Library
Locating
Periodicals @ Texas State University Library
Citation
& Bibliographic Styles & Related Information
Selected
Web Resources For Political
Science
Portals
to the World Home Page (Library of Congress)
Internet
Political Science Resources-Extensive University Links/University Of
Michigan
TheWWW
Virtual
Library:International
Affairs Resources
The
Ultimate Political Science Links Page
Internet
Islamic History Sources/Fordham University (Comprehensive Site With
Links
For Many Aspects Of The Islamic Experience)
Links
To Sites On Terrorism (Library of Congress)
Note On Course & Syllabus Materials:
Students
may find books, articles, links, websites, and other materials provided
in this syllabus useful and of interest. Their listing in this
syllabus,
including those which are required and recommended, does not
necessarily
indicate endorsement of or agreement with any views or positions on any
issues found in these materials, websites, or on other sites to which
they
may provide links.
Note On Access To Articles: Access
to
articles through the Texas State University Library, @ Locating
Periodicals @ Texas State University Library
available to all
Texas
State University students, requires a valid User Name and a
Password.
Most of the links in this syllabus provide direct access to the article.
Password Protected Materials:
Some
materials on this web syllabus are password protected and are directly
accessible @ http://www.arnoldleder.com/readings/index.html.
These
materials are for student use. The password will be provided to
students
in the course.
Note:
Wikipedia
is used in several instances in this syllabus as a convenient reference on a variety
of matters. Students should be
aware of the dispute among academics and others with respect to the
reliability
and accuracy of Wikipedia and they should not assume that a Wikipedia
entry is the last word or most accurate information
on the subject. For an interesting
essay on Wikipedia, see: Stacy
Schiff/Know It All: Can Wikipedia conquer expertise?/The New
Yorker/July 31, 2006 (Note: See Naom
Cohen's NYT March 05,
2007 article,
also noted below, for a problem with Schiff's article.)
Schiff's article may be accessed @ Locating
Periodicals @ Texas State University Library
A valid Texas State University student ID and
user name are required.
For another view of the merits of Wikipedia, see:
Brock Read/Can
Wikipedia Ever Make the Grade?/The Chronicle Of Higher
Education/October
27, 2006
"As questions about the accuracy of the anyone-can-edit
encyclopedia persist, academics are split on whether to ignore it, or
start contributing."
See also: Noam
Cohen/A History Department (Middlebury College in Vermont) Bans Citing
Wikipedia as a Research
Source/NYT February 21, 2007
Naom
Cohen/A Contributor to Wikipedia Has His Fictional Side/NYT March 05,
2007
With Wikipedia,
what
you see is not always what you
get (with related links)/blog.foreignpolicy.com/node/3872/March 06, 2007
(Note the reference in this piece to the Stacy
Schiff article above in which Schiff interviewed a Wikipedia site
administrator and contributor called
Essjay whose academic credentials were, in fact,
fabricated.)
For information on self-interested editing of Wikipedia, see:
Katie
Hafner/Seeing Corporate Fingerprints in Wikipedia Edits/NYT August 19,
2007.
"... examples of insider editing came to light last
week through WikiScanner, a new Web site that traces the source of
millions of changes to Wikipedia, the popular online encyclopedia that
anyone can edit.
The site, http://wikiscanner.virgil.gr/,
created by a computer science
graduate student, cross-references an edited entry on Wikipedia with
the owner of the computer network where the change originated, using
the Internet protocol address of the editor’s network. The address
information was already available on Wikipedia, but the new site makes
it much easier to connect those numbers with the names of network
owners.
Since Wired News first wrote about WikiScanner last week, Internet
users have spotted plenty of interesting changes to Wikipedia by people
at nonprofit groups and government entities like the Central
Intelligence Agency. Many of the most obviously self-interested
edits have come from corporate networks".
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OVERVIEW OF COURSE
Course Title
INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM
Topics
I.
Conceptual Concerns: "Conventional", "Rancorous", & "Extremist"
Politics
II. Terrorism:
Definitions,
"Causes", & Dimensions
III.
Conceptualizing Terrorism: Strategic Choice; Product Of Psychological
Forces;
Fantasy; War; Culture
IV.
Religion & Terrorism: Radical Islam
V.
Suicide &
Terrorism
VI.
Women & Terrorism
VII.
Islam
in the West: Globalization, "Individualization", & Radicalism
VIII. Islam in Russia
IX.
Defeating
Terrorism: Terrorist Organization, Intelligence, Interrogation, &
Moral
Dimensions
X.
The Future Of
Terrorism
Note On Access To Articles: Access
to
articles through the Texas State University Library, available to all
Texas
State University students, requires a valid User Name and a
Password.
Most of the links in this syllabus provide direct access to the article.
Password Protected Materials:
Some
materials on this web syllabus are password protected and are directly
accessible @ http://www.arnoldleder.com/readings/index.html.
These
materials are for student use. The password will be provided to
students
in the course.
Course Description &
Purpose
This course is an undergraduate seminar on
international
terrorism. Theoretical literature, cross-national studies,
single-case
studies, and visits to selected web sites serve as the basis for
examination
and understanding of this phenomenon.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
COURSE ORGANIZATION & STUDENT RESPONSIBILITIES
Class Participation, Oral Presentations,
Exams,
Papers, Grades
1. This course will be conducted as a
seminar.
Students must attend every class meeting and be prepared to discuss
assigned
readings and other materials. Active participation in class
discussion
is essential. Course grades will be determined by oral
presentations,
class participation, and written papers.
2. Determinants of Course Grade: Oral Reports
&
Presentations 25%/ Seminar Participation 15%/ Essay Exams/Papers 60%
Attendance
1. Three (3) unexcused absences are
permitted.
Students with four (4) unexcused absences will have their course grade
lowered by one letter grade. Students who have five (5) unexcused
absences will have their course grade lowered by two letter
grades.
No absences beyond five (5) for any reason are permitted.
Any student who has more than five absences is likely to fail the
course
and, therefore, should withdraw from the course.
2. The instructor for the course is not
responsible
for bringing students who have missed class "up-to-date" on missed
material.
Each student has the responsibility to remain current with respect to
class
material.
************************************************************************************************
Academic Honesty Statement/Texas State University
STUDENT RESPONSIBILITIES
Please see: Academic
Honesty Statement for Texas State University @
http://www.txstate.edu/effective/upps/upps-07-10-01.html.
An
excerpt from this statement can be found at the end
of this syllabus.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
COURSE CONTENT
Required Books
-Paul
Berman/Terror And Liberalism (Norton 2003)
-Mia
Bloom/Dying To Kill: The Allure Of Suicide Terror (Columbia University
Press 2005)
-Ian
Buruma & Avishai Margalit/Occidentalism: The West In The Eyes Of
Its
Enemies (Penguin 2004)
-Bruce
Hoffman/Inside Terrorism (Columbia University Press 2006)
-Walter
Laqueur/No End To War: Terrorism In The Twenty-First Century (Continuum
2003)
-Walter
Reich(ed.)/Origins Of Terrorism:
Psychologies, Ideologies, Theologies, States
Of Mind (Johns Hopkins University Press 1990 & 1998)
Recommended Books For Additional Reading
On
Issues
Related To This Course:
(Please Note: These books are listed for the
benefit
and convenience of interested students. They are NOT required reading.)
Jean
Bethke Elshtain/Just War Against Terror (Basic Books 2003)
Joseph
Conrad/Under Western Eyes (Penguin - First Published 1911)
David
Cook/Understanding Jihad (University of California Press 2005)
*Jessica
A. Coope/The Martyrs of Cordoba:Community & Conflict In An Age Of
Mass
Conversion [During Muslim Rule In Spain 850-859]/(Univ. Of Nebraska
Press1995)
Joel
S. Fetzer, J. Christopher Soper/Muslims and the State in Britain,
France,
and Germany (Cambridge University Press 2005)
Fawaz
A.Gerges/The Far Enemy: Why Jihad Went Global (Cambridge University
Press
2005)
Philip
Jenkins/Images Of Terror;What We Can And Cannot Know About Terrorism
(Aldine
de Gruyter 2003)
Farhad
Khosrokhavar/Suicide Bombers: Allah's New Martyrs (Pluto Press
2005-Translated
from the original 2002 French editon)
Ami
Pedahzur/Suicide Terrorism (Polity Press 2005)
Olivier
Roy/Globalized Islam: The Search For A New Ummah (Columbia University
Press
2004)
Marc
Sageman/Understanding Terror Networks (University of Pennsylvania Press
2004)
(For an informative review of Sageman's book see: https://www.cia.gov/csi/studies/Vol49no2/Terror_Networks_Book_Review_9.htm
)
*Coope, The Martyrs of Cordoba, is
not about
terrorism. This overlooked, interesting book provides insight
into
the connection between religion and a willingness and even desire to
die
in defense of one's faith among radical Christians who feared
assimilation
into the flourishing Arab Muslim culture during the period of Muslim
rule
of much of Spain or al-Andalus.
Required Articles
Required articles are listed separately in each
section
of the syllabus.
Required Films/Videos
One
Day In September (1999) [1hr. 34 min.] Academy Award winning
documentary on the 1972 massacre of Israeli athletes by Palestinian
terrorists
at the Olympics in Munich.
The
Battle Of Algiers (1967) [French with English Subtitles - 2hrs. 1 min.]
The classic propaganda film justifying terrorism. This film has
inspired many terrorist groups and it has been studied by various
counter-terrorist agencies.
Recommended Films/Videos
My
Son The Fanatic (British 1997) [1hr. 27 min.]
For more on this film see: June
Thomas/The First 7/7 Movie: In the Wake of the London Bombings, a look
back at My Son the Fanatic/slate.com/July 18 2005
Excerpt from June Thomas essay on the film My Son
The Fanatic:
"After 9/11, the big question was why: Why do they
hate
us? In the days following 7/7, everyone seems to be asking how: How
could
apparently assimilated, British-born Muslims end up stuffing bombs into
their backpacks and murdering dozens of their compatriots in the Tube
and
on a London double-decker bus?"
Some possible answers are offered in Udayan
Prasad's 1997
movie My Son the Fanatic. Written by Hanif Kureishi (based on a
skeletal
short story he first published in The New Yorker), the film shows how
the
British-born son of Pakistani immigrants morphs from a
clothes-obsessed,
cricket-playing, music-loving accountancy student into a devout Muslim
who rails against the corruption and emptiness of Western society, much
to the uncomprehending consternation of his father."
Hate
(French w/English subtitles 1995 [1hr. 35 min.]
An intense, violent film that depicts the life of
angry,
disaffected minority youth in the suburbs of Paris. Offers some
insight
into the perspective of mostly Muslim rioting youth in France, although
the three young men on whom this disturbing film focuses are ethnically
African, Arab, and Jewish.
For more on this film see: Alan
Riding/Entracte (between acts): If only French leaders listened to pop
culture/International Herald Tribune/November 24 2005
Excerpt from Alan Riding essay on the film Hate:
"So life often imitates art. Yet with the recent
uprisings
in some French immigrant neighborhoods, this cliché came with a
new twist: art in the form of movies and rap music has long been
warning
that French-born Arab and black youths felt increasingly alienated from
French society, that their banlieues were ripe for explosion.
Certainly, anyone who saw Mathieu Kassovitz's
film, 'La
Haine', or 'Hate' a decade ago had no reason to be surprised by this
fall's
violence. At the time, Kassovitz's portrayal of a seething immigrant
Paris
suburb, even his choice of the word 'hate' for his title, seemed
shocking,
even exaggerated. Today, the movie could almost pass as a documentary.
In 'Hate', burning cars light up the soulless
space between
high-rise public housing projects as local residents protest the
beating
of a young Arab, Ahmed. Nearby, graffiti proclaim: 'Don't forget, the
police
kill.' Three angry and restless youths - a Jew, an Arab and a black -
visit
Ahmed in the hospital and are themselves beaten by the police. They
plan
revenge."
See also: http://www.sunderland.ac.uk/~os0tmc/contemp1/lahaine.htm
Chaos
(French w/English subtitles 2001 [1hr. 49 min.]
"Although comedy takes precedence in most parts of
the
film, it is the social commentary part that will spark the most debate.
France has the largest Muslim population in Europe, mostly from its
citizens
who are from its former colonies in North Africa. Culture clashes are
inevitable
when a burgeoning and mostly traditional Muslim society slowly
assimilates
itself within a Western society that lives by much different values. In
this film, Serreau tries to address the hot issue of traditional Muslim
society’s treatment of women, specifically the issue of fathers
'selling'
their teenage daughters into marriages with much older men. Melodrama
aside,
'Chaos' has a serious message to convey to its audience and it does it
with force and without fear".
Excerpt from: http://www.dvdtown.com/review/chaos/11612/1928/
For a Review Essay on Films Related to Islam in
the West
see:
Alan
Riding/On Screen, Tackling Europe's New Reality (Review of Films by
and/or
about Muslims In Europe-w/links to information on noted
films)/NYT/January
18 2005
Munich (Spielberg 2005 [2hrs. 44 min.]) See
reviews
below in "3. Dimensions Of Terrorism: Ethno-Nationalist &
Separatist
Terrorism; International Terrorism" in Section II.
Topics For Reading, Oral Presentations,
& Discussion
I.
Conceptual Concerns: "Conventional", "Rancorous", & "Extremist"
Politics
Lecture & Discussion
Readings: Joel Olson, "The Freshness of
Fanaticism: The
Abolitionist Defense of Zealotry", Perspectives
on Politics, Volume 5, Number 4, December 2007,
pp. 685-701. This article
can be viewed
@ http://www.arnoldleder.com/readings/index.html.
Scroll
to the section on "Terrorism" and look for the author and title of this
article.
This location is password protected. Password and user name for
access
will be provided to students in the course.
Abstract:
Zealotry or fanaticism is increasingly regarded as one of the
principal threats to liberal democracy in the twenty-first century. Yet
even as it is universally disparaged, zealotry is a severely
understudied concept. This article seeks to formulate a critical theory
of zealotry and investigate its relationship to democracy through a
close reading of the speeches of the radical abolitionist orator
Wendell Phillips. The American abolitionists were passionate democrats.
Yet many of them, such as Phillips, were also self-defined fanatics who
believed in using extremist language and tactics on behalf of the
slave. Phillips's speeches suggest a specifically political definition
of zealotry as a strategy that seeks to mobilize populations in defense
of a particular position by dividing the public sphere into friends
(those who support the position) and enemies (those who oppose it) and
pressuring the moderates in between. Through his defense of fanaticism
and his argument for disunion, Phillips articulates a democratic form
of fanaticism that challenges common pejorative associations of
zealotry with irrationality, intolerance, fundamentalism, or
terrorism. (boldface added)
Cass
R. Sunstein/The Polarization of Extremes/The Chronicle Review,
December
14, 2007, Volume 54, Issue 16, p. B9. This article is also
directly accessible @ http://www.law.uchicago.edu/news/sunstein-121407-polarization.html.
"... an experiment conducted in Colorado in 2005, designed to
cast
light on the consequences of self-sorting.
... In almost every case, people held more-extreme positions
after they spoke with like-minded others.
...
A key consequence of this kind of self-sorting is what we might
call enclave extremism. When
people end up in enclaves of like-minded
people, they usually move toward a more extreme point in the direction
to which the group's members were originally inclined. Enclave
extremism is a special case of the broader phenomenon of group
polarization, which extends well beyond politics and occurs as groups
adopt a more extreme version of whatever view is antecedently favored
by their members. Why
do enclaves, on the
Internet
and
elsewhere, produce political
polarization? The first explanation emphasizes the role of
information. (boldface added)
The final explanation is the most subtle, and probably the
most
important. The starting point here is that on many issues, most of us
are really not sure what we think. Our lack of certainty inclines us
toward the middle. Outside of enclaves, moderation is the usual path.
Now imagine that people find themselves in enclaves in which they
exclusively hear from others who think as they do. As a result, their
confidence typically grows, and they become more extreme in their
beliefs. Corroboration, in short, reduces tentativeness, and an
increase in confidence produces extremism. Enclave extremism is
particularly likely to occur on the Internet because people can so
easily find niches of like-minded types — and discover that their
own
tentative view is shared by others".
INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM
II. Terrorism
1. Defining Terrorism: An Overview
Readings: Hoffman, Chapter 1; Laqueur, pp. 138-149
and
Appendix, pp.232-238; Avishag Gordon, "Terrorism as an Academic Subject
after 9/11: Searching the Internet Reveals a Stockholm Syndrome Trend",
Studies
in Conflict & Terrorism, January-February 2005, Vol. 28:
45-59.
This article can be accessed @
Locating
Periodicals @ Texas State University Library.
A valid Texas State University User Name and Password are
required.
This article can also be viewed @ http://www.arnoldleder.com/readings/index.html.
Scroll
to section on "Terrorism" and look for the author and title of this
article.
This location is password protected. Password and user name for
access
will be provided to students in the course.
2. "Causes" Of Terrorism
Readings: Laqueur, Chapter 1.
James
Q. Wilson/What Makes a Terrorist?/City Journal/Winter 2004
Alan
Krueger/What Makes a Terrorist/The American/November-December 2007,
Vol. 1, No. 7.
Politicians, pundits, and religious leaders ascribe terrorism
to
poverty and lack of education. Economic research points elsewhere.
3. Dimensions Of Terrorism
a. Ethno-Nationalist
&
Separatist Terrorism
Readings: Hoffman, Chapter 2.
b. The Internationalization of Terrorism
Readings: Hoffman, Chapter 3.
c. Public Opinion: Old & New
Media
Readings: Hoffman, Chapters 6, 7.
d. Tactics
& Targets
Readings: Hoffman, Chapter 8.
Noah
Feldman/Islam, Terror & the Second Nuclear Age/NYT-Sunday
Magazine/October 29, 2006
Films/Videos:
One
Day In September (1999) [1hr. 34 min.] For remarks on the 1972
Munich
massacre, see Hoffman, "The PLO and the Internationalization of
Terrorism", pp. 65-71. On deception and
"pseudo-groups"
as a framework for examination of the "Black September" terrorist group
which carried out the 1972 Munich massacre, see Jenkins, "False Flags",
pp. 87-109. For specific remarks on the links between Arafat's
al-Fatah
group and the "Black September" group, see Jenkins, p. 97. [The Jenkins
materials cited here are available at the Reserve Desk Texas State
University
Library.]
See also: Alexander
Wolff/When the Terror Began/Sports Illustrated/August 26 2002
Munich (Spielberg 2005 [2hrs. 44 min.] )
See: Aaron
J. Klein/The History Behind Munich: Separating truth from fiction in
Spielberg's
movie/Slate/December 23 2005
David Brooks, "What 'Munich' Left Out", NYT, December
11,
2005 @
http://www.israpundit.com/archives/2005/12/what_munich_lef.php
This Brooks article can also be accessed @ Locating
Periodicals @ Texas State University Library.
A valid Texas State University User Name and Password are
required.
This article can also be viewed @ http://www.arnoldleder.com/readings/index.html.
Scroll
to section on "Terrorism" and look for the author and title of this
article.
This location is password protected. Password and user name for
access
will be provided to students in the course.
Edward
Rothstein/Seeing Terrorism as Drama With Sequels and
Prequels/NYT/December
26 2005
Leon
Wieseltier, "Hits-Washington Diarist", The New Republic, December
19 2005. The complete text of
Wieseltier's essay can be
accessed @ Locating
Periodicals @ Texas State University Library.
A valid Texas State University User Name and Password are
required.
For a wide ranging selection of links to both
positive
and negative views in the print media as well as in the "blogosphere"
on
Spielberg's film "Munich", see: http://www.keshertalk.com/archives/2005/12/munich_the_movi_2.php
The publishers of this blog, "Kesher Talk", describe the blog as "News
and views from a hawkish liberal Jewish perspective..." The views
expressed on the sites to which this blog links and its own views as
well
do not necessarily reflect any views held by the instructor for this
course.
The archival link to this blog's roundup of many different perspectives
on Spielberg's film is provided here for interested students.
III.
Conceptualizing Terrorism
1. Terrorism As Strategic Choice
Readings: Martha Crenshaw, "The Logic Of Terrorism:
Terrorist
Behavior As A Product Of Strategic Choice" in Reich, Chapter 1.
Films/Videos:
The
Battle
Of Algiers (1967) [French With English Subtitles - 2hrs. 1 min.]
Film Clip from "The Battle of Algiers"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XhfOVIueEdg
(02:16)
See also: Alan
A.
Stone/ReelTerrorism: Reconsidering The Battle Of Algiers/Boston
Review/February-March
2003
Philip
Gourevitch/Winning & Losing (Iraq&TheFilm"The
Battle Of Algiers")/The New Yorker/December 12, 2003
Charles
Paul
Freund/The Pentagon's Film Festival: A Primer for The Battle of
Algiers/Slate/August
27, 2003
Christopher
Hitchens/Guerrillas in the Mist:Why the war in Iraq is nothing like The
Battle of Algiers/Slate/January 2, 2004
Leslie
Camhi/Battle Cries: Fifty years on, a guerilla leader revisits the
fight
of his life/Village Voice/January 14-20, 2004
Links to Reviews of the film "The Battle Of Algiers":http://www.filmforum.org/films/algiers.html
Elisabetto
Povoledo/Gillo Pontecorvo, 86, Director of "Battle of Algiers" Dies/NYT
October 14, 2006
2. Terrorism As A Product Of Psychological
Forces
Readings: Jerrold M. Post, "Terrorist Psycho-logic:
Terrorism
As A Product Of Psychological Forces" in Reich, Chapter 2.
Walter
Laqueur/The search for a general theory of terrorism/(London)Times
Online/December
7, 2005
This article can also be viewed @ http://www.arnoldleder.com/readings/index.html.
Scroll
to section on "Terrorism" and look for the author and title of this
article.
This location is password protected. Password and user name for
access
will be provided to students in the course.
Recommended:
Joseph
Conrad/Under Western Eyes (Penguin - First Published 1911)
For remarks on the insights of Conrad's book, see:
Tom
Reiss/The True Classic of Terrorism/NYT/September 11, 2005
3. Terrorism As Fantasy & "Theater Of The
Mind"
Readings:
Lee
Harris/Al Qaeda's Fantasy Ideology/Policy Review August-September 2002
(For Lee Harris' views on how the West has perceived the terrorism
practised by radical Islam, in this syllabus see Edward Rothstein's
reflections on Lee Harris' recent book as well as Lee Harris'
article in the Summer 2007 issue of City Journal below in
Section c. of IV.)
Michael
Ignatieff/The Terrorist As Auteur/NYT Sunday Magazine November 14, 2004
Arthur Saniotis, "Re-Enchanting Terrorism: Jihadists
as 'Liminal Beings'", Studies in
Conflict
& Terrorism, November 2005, Vol. 28: 533-545. This
article
can be accessed @
Locating
Periodicals @ Texas State University Library.
A valid Texas State University User Name and Password are
required.
This article can also be viewed @ http://www.arnoldleder.com/readings/index.html.
Scroll
to section on "Terrorism" and look for the author and title of this
article.
This location is password protected. Password and user name for
access
will be provided to students in the course.
4.
Terrorism As Totalitarianism's War Against
Liberalism
Readings: Berman, Chapters I, II.
For more information on Paul Berman's book, Terror and Liberalism,
and The Rebel
by
Albert Camus whose ideas Berman examines, see:
Paul
Berman Interviewed @ The
Carnegie Council/April 15, 2003/cceia.org
by John
P. Diggins
"... Paul Berman, a writer ... recognized for his penetrating
philosophical perspectives on
a vast array of social and cultural topics. His latest work, (Terrror
and Liberalism (Norton 2003 Paper Reprint 2004) focuses
on a subject that is generating a great deal of
interest, as it
is the first book to address the political/philosophical dimensions of
the current conflict found in Islamic fundamentalism and on the War on
Terror."
Allen Barra/The rebel/Salon/November 01, 2004
"The rebel. The political right
and left
have been fighting for Albert Camus' legacy, but Europe's most
influential literary export remains stubbornly elusive."
Scott
McLemee/Fighting Words:Camus, Sartre, And The Rift That Helped Define
Them/bookforum.com/Spring 2004
For a negative critique of Paul Berman's book, Terror and Liberalism,
see:
Ian Buruma/Revolution
from Above (A review of Paul Berman's Terror and Liberalism)/New York
Review of Books/Vol. 50, No. 7, May 01, 2003
For a view of Paul
Berman's book that notes the similarity of Berman's
view of totalitarianism to the view of Hanna
Arendt, the political theorist, see:
Benjamin
Balint/Hannah Arendt 100 Years Later/Forward October 06, 2006
"Islamic
terrorism is the new totalitarianism. At least that’s the impression
one gets from some Western commentators these days. In Terror and
Liberalism, Paul Berman invoked totalitarianism in order to
explain
the strikingly modern ideology of Islamism".
For more on Hannah Arendt, see also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hannah_Arendt
(See note on wikipedia at beginning
of syllabus.)
For a critical review of Hannah Arendt's work, see: Russell
Jacoby/Hannah Arendt's Fame Rests on the Wrong Foundation/The Chronicle
Review December 08, 2006
The_Rebel
by Albert
Camus is
important in
the
development of Paul Berman's views in his book Terror and Liberalism.
For a discussion of the themes and ideas that inform The Rebel,
see:
Eamon's
Bookmark: The Rebel - Part I/Vol. II, Issue 2, June 2004
Eamon's
Bookmark: The Rebel - Part II/Volume II, Issue 3, July
2004
Eamon's
Bookmark: The Rebel- Part III/Volume II, Issue 4, August 2004
Eamon's
Bookmark: The Rebel - Part I/Volume II, Issue 5, September 2004
See also: Richard
Eder/Uncomfortable in His Skin, Thriving in His Mind/NYT June 25, 2008,
p. B8. A review of Albert
Camus, Notebooks 1951-1959, Translated by Ryan Bloom (Ivan R. Dee 2008).
For additional materials on Camus, see: Albert
Camus
"The split took place when Camus took issue with the absolutism of
revolutions. Seeking to realize their ideals, he argued, they end up
using violence and tyranny. It was an attack on Soviet Communism at a
time when Sartre and his followers were becoming its increasingly rigid
supporters.
... They insisted that overt repression, however
repellent, was the only way to fight the insidious structural tyranny
of colonialist capitalism. One must choose, painfully. No we mustn’t,
Camus rejoined: neither be killers nor victims.
... There was nothing convenient in Camus. He was closer to Milovan Djilas,
once a hard-line Communist, then jailed by Tito, and in the end
proclaiming his battle-won political credo: 'the unperfect society.'
... The vicious war between French forces and the F.L.N. — the
Algerian nationalists — was his own civil war.
... He writes to an Algerian friend, an F.L.N. supporter: “You should
not
ignore the shooting, nor justify that they shoot at the
French-Algerians in general, and thus entangled, shoot at my family,
who have always been poor and without hatred ... No cause, even if it
had remained innocent and just, will ever tear me from my mother, who
is the greatest cause that I know in the world.” (boldface added)
Paul Berman/Why Radical Islam Just
Won't
Die/NYT Week in Review/Sunday, March 23, 2008
"... radical Islamism is a modern
philosophy, not just
a heap of medieval prejudices. In its sundry versions, it draws on
local and religious roots, just as it claims to do. But it also draws
on totalitarian inspirations from 20th-century Europe. I wanted my
readers to understand that with its double roots, religious and modern,
perversely intertwined, radical Islamism wields a lot more power,
intellectually speaking, than naïve observers might suppose....
... Five years ago, anyone
who took an interest in Middle Eastern affairs would easily have
recalled that, over the course of a century, the intellectuals of the
region have gone through any number of phases — liberal, Marxist,
secularist, pious, traditionalist, nationalist, anti-imperialist and so
forth, just like intellectuals everywhere else in the world.
Western intellectuals without any sort of Middle Eastern
background
would naturally have manifested an ardent solidarity with their Middle
Eastern and Muslim counterparts who stand in the liberal vein — the
Muslim free spirits of our own time, who argue in favor of human
rights, rational thought (as opposed to dogma), tolerance and an open
society.
But that was then. In today’s
Middle East, the various radical
Islamists, basking in their success, paint their liberal rivals and
opponents as traitors to Muslim civilization, stooges of crusader or
Zionist aggression. And, weirdly enough, all too many intellectuals in
the Western countries have lately assented to those preposterous
accusations, in a sanitized version suitable for Western
consumption. (boldface added)
Even in the Western countries, quite a few Muslim liberals, the
outspoken ones, live today under a threat of assassination, not to
mention a reality of character assassination. Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the
Somali-Dutch legislator and writer, is merely an exceptionally valiant
example. But instead of enjoying the unstinting support of their
non-Muslim colleagues, the Muslim liberals find themselves routinely
berated in the highbrow magazines and the universities as deracinated
nonentities, alienated from the Muslim world. Or they find themselves
pilloried as stooges of the neoconservative conspiracy — quite as if
any writer from a Muslim background who fails to adhere to at least a
few anti-imperialist or anti-Zionist tenets of the Islamist doctrine
must be incapable of thinking his or her own thoughts.
A dismaying development. One more sign of the power of the
extremist
ideologies — one more surprising turn of events, on top of all the
other dreadful and gut-wrenching surprises".
5. Terrorism As Murderous
Occidentalism
Readings: Buruma & Margalit, pp. 1-99.
See also: Ian
Buruma/The Origins Of Occidentalism/The Chronicle Review/February 6,
2004
From the publisher's note
for Ian
Buruma & Avishai Margalit/Occidentalism: The West In The Eyes Of
Its
Enemies (Penguin 2004):
"Twenty-five years after Edward Said's Orientalism,
a whole field of study has developed to analyze and interpret the
denigrating fantasies of the exotic "East" that sustained the colonial
mind. But what about the fantasies of "the West" in the eyes of our
self-proclaimed enemies"?
For more on Edward Said's Orientalism
and critics of his book, see:
Charles P. Freund/2001
Nights:The End Of The Orientalist Critique/Reason/December, 2001
Keith
Windschuttle/Edward Said's "Orientalism Revisited"/The New
Criterion/January 17, 1999
Bernard
Lewis, "The Question of Orientalism", The New York Review of Books,
Vol.
29, No. 11, June 24, 1982.
This article can be accessed @ this
location.
From the first paragraphs of
above Bernard Lewis article: "Imagine a situation in which a
group of patriots and
radicals from
Greece decides that the profession of classical studies is insulting to
the great heritage of Hellas, and that those engaged in these studies,
known as classicists, are the latest manifestation of a deep and evil
conspiracy, incubated for centuries, hatched in Western Europe, fledged
in America, the purpose of which is to denigrate the Greek achievement
and subjugate the Greek lands and peoples. In this perspective, the
entire European tradition of classical studies—largely the creation of
French romantics, British colonial governors (of Cyprus, of course),
and of poets, professors, and proconsuls from both countries—is a
long-standing insult to the honor and integrity of Hellas, and a threat
to its future. The poison has spread from Europe to the United States,
where the teaching of Greek history, language, and literature in the
universities is dominated by the evil race of classicists—men and women
who are not of Greek origin, who have no sympathy for Greek causes, and
who, under a false mask of dispassionate scholarship, strive to keep
the Greek people in a state of permanent subordination.
The time has come to save Greece from the classicists and bring the
whole pernicious tradition of classical scholarship to an end. Only
Greeks are truly able to teach and write on Greek history and culture
from remote antiquity to the present day; only Greeks are genuinely
competent to direct and conduct programs of academic studies in these
fields. Some non-Greeks may be permitted to join in this great endeavor
provided that they give convincing evidence of their competence, as for
example by campaigning for the Greek cause in Cyprus, by demonstrating
their ill will to the Turks, by offering a pinch of incense to the
currently enthroned Greek gods, and by adopting whatever may be the
latest fashionable ideology in Greek intellectual circles.
...
Stated in terms of classics and Greek, the picture
is absurd. But if for classicist we substitute "Orientalist," with the
appropriate accompanying changes, this amusing fantasy becomes an
alarming reality. For some years now a hue and cry has been raised
against Orientalists in American and to a lesser extent European
universities, and the term "Orientalism" has been emptied of its
previous content and given an entirely new one—that of unsympathetic or
hostile treatment of Oriental peoples. For that matter, even the terms
"unsympathetic" and "hostile" have been redefined to mean not
supportive of currently fashionable creeds or causes".
Edward Said-Bernard
Lewis Exchange/The New York Review of Books, Vo. 29, No. 13, August 12,
1982
Edward
Said/Islam Through Western Eyes/The Nation April 26, 1980 (Posted
online January 01, 1998)
Martin
Kramer/Said's Splash-chapter
two (pp. 27-43.) of: Martin
Kramer/Ivory Towers on Sand: The Failure of Middle Eastern Studies in
America (Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 2001)
Robert
Irwin/Dangerous Knowledge: Orientalism And Its Discontents (The
Overlook Press 2006 -paperback edition 2008)
From Publishers Weekly:
"Almost 30 years ago, in his classic Orientalism,
the late cultural critic Edward Said published a scathing denunciation
of Oriental studies, blaming the field for the rise of Western
imperialism and racist views about Arabs and other Eastern peoples.
British historian Irwin (The Alhambra) fiercely condemns Said's
misinterpretation, offering both a brilliant defense of Orientalism and
a masterful intellectual history of the Orientalists and their work,
which opened windows on the world of Asia in general and Islam in
particular, providing the West with glimpses of the social and
religious practices of these cultures. Irwin surveys the history of
Orientalism from the Greeks through the Middle Ages to its height in
the 18th and 19th centuries. He chronicles the lives and works of the
men who introduced the ideas of Islamic and Asian culture to the West.
Many of these men were biblical critics whose command of Hebrew allowed
them to move easily to Arabic and to explore the Koran. In the 17th
century, the dragomans, or translators, moved the study of Islam
forward by providing translations of Turkish, Arabic and Persian texts.
Irwin's wide-ranging study splendidly captures a time when intellectual
polymaths traversed foreign territories in search of new and compelling
ideas".
From the Introduction to
Robert Irwin's book: "... that book (Edward
Said's Orientalism)
seems to me to be a work of malignant charlantry in which it is hard to
dsitinguish honest mistakes from wilful misrepresentations". (p. 4.,
hardcover edition)
See also:
Robert
Irwin/Edward Said's shadowy legacy/The Times Literary Supplement
(London), May 7, 2008
Tricky with argument, weak in
languages, careless of facts: but, thirty years on, Said still
dominates debate.
"So many academics want the arguments
presented
in Edward Said’s Orientalism
(1978) to be true. It encourages the reading of novels at an oblique
angle
in order to discover hidden colonialist subtexts. It promotes a
hypercritical version of British and, more generally, of Western
achievements. It discourages any kind of critical approach to Islam in
Middle Eastern studies. Above all, Orientalism licenses those academics
who
are so minded to think of their research and teaching as political
activities. The drudgery of teaching is thus transformed into something
much
more exciting, namely 'speaking truth to power'.
...
Said had a problem with languages. For example, when discussing the
writings
of Sir William Jones and Friedrich Schlegel, he was mysteriously
determined
to deny that Sanskrit, Persian, German and Greek all belonged to the
same
broad group of languages – a sort of club to which Arabic could not
belong.
Ibn Warraq, in discussing Said’s attitude to Orientalists, remarks that
he
was “particularly jealous of their mastery of languages”. German
scholars
dominated Arabic, Hebrew and Sanskrit studies in the nineteenth and
early
twentieth centuries, yet Said avoided any substantial discussion of
their
work. Some critics have argued that this was because the pre-eminence
of
German Orientalists did not fit his thesis about the interdependence of
Orientalism and imperialism in the Middle East, but others have
suggested
that it was because his German was not very good
...
Said died in 2003, and it is thirty years since he launched his assault
on
Western culture. Things may have moved on since then. As a last resort,
some
of Said’s nervous apologists have suggested this, hoping, perhaps, to
fend
off further criticism of his inconsistent methodology and shaky grasp
of
facts".
Gary
Kamiya/How Edward Said took intellectuals for a ride/Salon.com December
06, 2006
Maya
Jasanoff/Before and After Said/London Review of Books, June 8, 2006
Efraim Karsh and Rory
Miller/Did Edward Said Really Speak Truth to Power?/Middle East
Quarterly, Winter 2008, pp. 13-21.
See also:
David
Cannadine/Ornamentalism: How The British Saw Their Empire (Oxford Univ.
Press 2001)
"David Cannadine's Ornamentalism
is so
stimulating and original that it will now and forever after be read
hand in hand with Edward Said's Orientalism."
(boldface added) This is the comment
of Wm. Roger Louis,
Editor-in-Chief,
The Oxford History of the British Empire, Oxford University Press.
Reviews of David
Cannadine's Ornamentalism:
Sarah
Lyall/Was the Sahib, Then Just a Snob?/NYT August 25, 2001
His (David Cannadine's book Ornamentalism)
serves as a riposte of
sorts to Edward Said's highly
influential work ''Orientalism'' (1978), which argued that Western
attitudes toward the nonwhite world have traditionally been informed by
a manufactured notion of ''otherness,'' used both to interpret and
control it and to bolster the West's own sense of identity.
Mr.
Cannadine feels that Mr. Said's thesis is indeed valid, but only up to
a point. (boldface added)
Benjamin
Schwarz/A Bit Of Bunting/The
Atlantic,
November 2001
6. Terrorism As
Part Of A Cultural Template
Stanley
Kurtz/I and My Brother Against My Cousin/Weekly Standard, April 14,
2008, Vol. 013, Issue 29
A review essay on Culture
and Conflict in the Middle East by Philip Carl Salzman (Humanity
Books
2008). See also: Philip
Carl Salzman/The Middle East's Tribal DNA/Middle East Quarterly, Winter
2008, pp. 23-33.
From Stanley
Kurtz's article:
Is Islam the best way to understand the war on terror? Tribalism
may offer a clearer view of our enemies' motivations.
"Universal male militarization, surprise attacks on apparent
innocents
based on a principle of collective guilt, and the careful group
monitoring and control of personal behavior are just a few implications
of a system that accounts for many aspects of Middle Eastern society
without requiring any explanatory recourse to Islam. The religion
itself is an overlay in partial tension with, and deeply stamped by,
the dynamics of tribal life. In other words--and this is Salz-man's
central argument--the template of tribal life, with its violent and
shifting balance of power between fusing and fissioning lineage
segments, is the dominant theme of cultural life in the Arab Middle
East (and shapes even many non-Arab Muslim populations). At its
cultural core, says Salzman, even where tribal structures are
attenuated, Middle Eastern society is tribal society.
...
The swift and seemingly disproportionate resort to retaliatory force
against apparently trivial offenses is an effective technique for
suppressing future challenges. Most of the feuds Salzman describes,
however weighty and enduring, break out over seemingly petty and
inconsequential matters, like the mistaken appropriation of some palm
trunks. Rifle shots, intentionally off the mark, are used to
intimidate, as are calculated threats of murder. The careful use of
targeted force and credible threats against Western critics of Islamism
shows genuine mastery of the technique of deterrent intimidation. Here
as elsewhere, an overtly religious action is actually shaped by a
hidden tribal template.
...
The most disturbing lesson of all is that, in the absence of
fundamental cultural change, the feud between the Muslim world and the
West is unlikely ever to end. Tribal feuds simmer on and off for
generations, with negotiated settlements effecting only temporary
respites. Among the tribes of Waziristan, the saying goes: "I took my
revenge early. I waited only 100 years." The Western liberal template
takes an experience of peace under the lawful authority of a state as
the normal human condition. In this view, when peaceful equilibrium is
disturbed, reasonable men reason together to restore normalcy".
Philip Carl Salzman's
first-person statement on his book may be
read at @ http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/mesh/2008/04/culture_and_conflict_in_the_middle_east/.
"I argue that a major influence is Arab culture, grounded in
Bedouin culture—understanding
“culture” as cognitive frames which serve as “models of” the way the
world is, and “models for” action in the future. Two major
characteristics of Arab culture are particularist group loyalty, and
balanced or complementary opposition. These models serve well for
decentralized social control and security in segmentary tribal
settings, but are uncongenial to inclusive polities and universalistic
legal regimes.
...
Postcolonial theorists, inspired by Edward Said’s Orientalism,
take a harder line, arguing that no generalization about the Middle
East is valid, because such generalizations suppress the variety and
diversity of reality, essentialize where no essence exists, and imposes
disparaging interpretations in the service of imperialism and
colonialism. But my judgment is that these postcolonial arguments are
unsound and without foundation. First, all concepts and categories,
without which thinking is impossible, are abstractions, encompassing
the many variations of the unique individuals (whether trees, camels,
or cultures) included. So abstraction and generalization are not only not
the wrong things, they are the only things
possible. Second, all peoples and societies are not the same; they are
different, and differ significantly. Ignoring these indisputable
differences is not good manners; it is ignorance or denial".
See also:
Robert
Irwin/Edward Said's shadowy legacy/The Times Literary Supplement
(London), May 7, 2008 (revisited)
Return To
Beginning
Of Syllabus
IV.
Religion & Terrorism: Radical Islam
1. Religion & Terrorism
Readings: Hoffman, Chapter 4.
Bernard
Lewis, "The Roots Of Muslim Rage", Atlantic
Monthly, September 1990-reprinted @ this location. (pdf)
This Lewis article can also be accessed @ Locating
Periodicals @ Texas State University Library.
A valid Texas
State
University User Name and Password are required.
This article can also be viewed @ http://www.arnoldleder.com/readings/index.html.
Scroll
to section on "Readings on Islam" and look for the author and title of
this article. This location is password protected. Password
and user name for access will be provided to students in the course.
2. Radical Islam & Terrorism
a. Origins
Readings: Laqueur, Chapter 2.
Bernard
Lewis, "The Revolt of Islam", The
New Yorker, December 19, 2001- reprinted
@ http://www.aijac.org.au/updates/Dec-01/031201.html
Quintan Wiktorowicz, "A Genealogy of Radical Islam", Studies
in Conflict & Terrorism, February 2005, Vol. 28: 75-97. This
article
can be accessed @ Locating
Periodicals @ Texas State University Library.
A valid Texas State University User Name and Password are required.
William
Dalrymple/Inside the Madrasas/The New York Review of Books/December 1,
2005, Vol. 52, No. 19. Access to the
entire article
is restricted at this site. The entire Dalrymple
article as well as the entire
Wiktorowicz article can be
viewed
@ http://www.arnoldleder.com/readings/index.html.
Scroll
to the section on "Terrorism" and look for the authors and titles of
these
articles. This location is password protected. Password and
user name for access will be provided to students in the course.
Frank Hairgrove; Douglas M. Mcleod, "Circles Drawing Toward High
Risk Activism: The Use of Usroh
and Halaqa in Islamist
Radical Movements", Studies in Conflict &
Terrorism,
Volume
31,
Issue
5, May
2008, pages 399
- 411.
Abstract:
Kurzman (2004) argued that social movements research and Islamic
studies “followed parallel trajectories, with few glances across the
chasm that have separated them.” This article will illuminate one
influential process that has relevance to both these areas, the use of
small groups for the purpose or radical mobilization. Specifically, it
examines the impact of the use of small Islamic study groups (usroh
and halaqa)
for fundamental and radical Islamic movements. Although small-group
mobilization is not unique to Islam, the strategic use of these study
groups empowered by the Islamic belief system has yielded significant
returns in capacity building for high-risk activism.
The full text of this article by can be accessed @ Locating
Periodicals @ Texas State University Library.
A valid Texas
State
University User Name and Password are required.
Malise
Ruthven/How
to Understand Islam/The New York Review of Books/November 8, 2007, Vol.
LIV, No. 17
"Malise Ruthven reviews a series of recent books on Islam, among
them John Kelsay's Arguing
the Just War in Islam,
Hans Küng's Islam: Past, Present and Future and Michael
Bonner's Jihad
in Islamic History: Doctrines and Practice.
All three deal with the question of whether Islam is actually a
peaceful religion as Bush and Blair have insisted, or whether it
doesn't sound the battle cry from the start.
Ruthven fears the worst: 'Like it or not, these terrorist campaigns
were inspired by the example of the Prophet's struggle - his just
war- against the Quraysh, the pagan tribesmen of Mecca. In the
context
of the original conflict between the early Muslims and the Meccans, the
sources, including the Koran and the narratives of Muhammad's life,
suggest that 'fighting is an appropriate means by which Muslims
should seek to secure the right to order life according to divine
directives.' In militant readings of the Sharia, the historical
precedents are not so much interpreted as applied".
Source: http://www.signandsight.com/features/1588.html/Magazine
Roundup Tuesday, 2 October, 2007 (Scroll to 2 October, 2007).
From Malise Ruthven's review essay:
"... in a recent open letter to "Brother Osama," the prominent Saudi
cleric
Sheikh Salman al-Oadah makes a scathing attack on bin Laden for the
excessive violence and damage to Islam inflicted by his
campaign—including the "destruction of entire nations" and the
"nightmare of civil war" in Afghanistan and Iraq, with their impact on
the surrounding countries. But the sheikh's quarrel with bin Laden is
essentially about means rather than ends. The burden of his attack is
that al-Qaeda's methods—and the political fallout they engender—are
counter-productive. Even if the radicals take power somewhere in the
world, the sheikh writes, they will not have the experience or
competence to govern in accordance with Islamic law. ...
... The Sharia is not so much a body of law but a field of
discourse or
platform for legal reasoning. Recently, it has become an arena for
intellectual combat.
It is therefore open to question whether the hijackers and the
terrorists automatically put themselves beyond the bounds of Islam by
killing innocents, as statements by Bush, Blair, and dozens of Muslim
leaders and scholars suggest. With no churches or formally constituted
religious authorities to police the boundaries of Islam, the only
universally accepted orthodoxy is the Sharia itself. But the Sharia is
more of an ideal than a formally constituted body of law. While
interpreting the law was once the province of the trained clerical
class of ulama, any consensus governing its correct
interpretation has broken down under pressure of regional conflicts and
the influence of religious autodidacts whose vision of Islam was formed
outside the received scholarly tradition".
Matthias
Küntzel/Jew-Hatred and Jihad: The Nazi Roots of the 9/11
attack/Weekly
Standard September 17,
2007, Vol. 013, Issue 01
Jeffrey
Goldberg/Seeds of Hate/NYT Sunday Book Review January 6, 2008
A
German scholar argues that Muslim anti-Semitism can be traced to a
project of the Nazi Party. A review
essay on Matthias
Küntzel,
Jihad and Jew-Hatred:
Islamism, Nazism and the Roots of 9/11 (Telos Press 2007).
Read
the first chapter of this book.
Joshua
Muravchik & Charles Szrom/In Search of Moderate Muslims/Commentary,
Vol. 125, No. 2, February, 2008
"When we speak of moderate Muslims as a
counterweight to extremists, then, what we seek has nothing to do with
the ardor of their religious convictions. Rather, it centers on the
acceptance or rejection of pluralism. In this view, Muslims may still
hope and pray for the eventual recognition by all mankind of the truth
of Muhammad's message. (Christians and Jews do something similar.) But
they may not take up the sword to hasten the advent of that goal or
pursue disputes among or within countries by violent means. That
implies democratic methods and a spirit of tolerance.
... But if this explains what we mean--or ought to mean--by moderate
Muslims, where can we find them, and how can we tell the real thing?
... ... there are six questions to be asked of any such group.
Does it both espouse democracy and practice democracy within its own
structures?
Does it eschew violence in pursuit of its goals?
Does it condemn terrorism?
Does it advocate equal rights for women?
Does it advocate equal rights for minorities?
Does it accept a pluralism of interpretations within Islam?
... Any group that meets these six criteria seems to us to merit
support
and cooperation, and groups that go a long way toward meeting them
deserve at least a second look".
Tamara Cofman Wittes/Islamist
Political Parties: Three Kinds of Movements, Journal of
Democracy, Vol. 19, No. 3, July 2008 (pdf)
See also: Tamara
Cofman Wittes/Categories of Islamism/Middle East Strategy at Harvard
(MESH), July 30, 2008
For comments on Tamara Cofman Wittes' analysis of Islamist
political
parties, see:
Michele Dunne on Categories
of Islamism
Steven A. Cook on Categories
of Islamism
Lee Smith on Categories
of Islamism
b. Seyyid Qutb
Readings: Buruma & Margalit, pp. 101-149.
Frederick
W. Kagan/The New Bolsheviks: Understanding Al Qadea/aei.org November
16, 2005
Recommended:
Sayed Khatab, "Hakimiyyah and jahiliyyah in the
thought
of Sayyid Qutb", Middle Eastern Studies, July 2002, Vol. 38.
This article can be accessed @
Locating
Periodicals @ Texas State University Library.
A valid Texas State University User Name and
Password are
required.
This article can also be viewed @ http://www.arnoldleder.com/readings/index.html.
Scroll
to section on "Readings on Islam" and look for the author and title of
this article. This location is password protected. Password
and user name for access will be provided to students in the course.
Book
Notes: Terror and Liberalism by Paul Berman (C-SPAN, June 22, 2003)
The
Philosopher Of Islamic Terror (On Sayyid Qutb & Paul Berman's book
Terror& Liberalism-with links)/disinfo.com
Links
To Sayyid Qutb's Writings-"Milestones" & More online
Backgrounder
On Sayyid Qutb - Links
On Seyyid Qutb in America,
see: http://www.vagablogging.net/06-11/from-the-october-2006-issue-of-the-believer.html
See also: David
Von Drehle/A Lesson In Hate: How an Egyptian student (Sayyid Qutb) came
to study 1950s America and left determined to wage holy
war/smithsonianmagazine.com/2006/february
Michael
Scott Doran/The Saudi Paradox:The Schizophrenic Saudi State/Foreign
Affairs/January-February
2004
"Saudi Arabia is in the throes of a crisis, but its
elite
is bitterly divided on how to escape it. Liberal reformers seek
rapprochement
with the West while others side with an anti-American Wahhabi religious
establishment that has much in common with al Qaeda".
This Doran article can also be accessed @ Locating
Periodicals @ Texas State University Library. A valid Texas
State
University User Name and Password are required.
Bernard
Lewis/What Went Wrong?/The Atlantic Monthly/January 2002
The complete text of this Lewis article can be
accessed
@ Locating
Periodicals @ Texas State University Library.
A valid Texas State
University
User Name and Password are required.
c. Jihad: Theory, Interpretation,
& Practice
Readings: Berman, Chapters III, IV.
Mary
Habeck/Knowing the Enemy:Jihad and Jihadism/Australia-Israel Review
December 2006
Douglas E. Streusand/What
Does Jihad Mean?/Middle East Quarterly/September 1997
Mark
Gould/Understanding Jihad/Policy Review/February 2005
Irshad
Manji/Soldiers of Allah/NYT
Sunday Book Review January 6,
2008 - a review essay on John
Kelsay, Arguing the Just War in Islam
(Harvard 2007)
David Cook, "The Implications of Martyrdom Operations for
Contemporary
Islam", Journal of Regious
Ethics, Vol. 32, Issue 1, Spring 2004, pp. 129-151.
This article by David Cook can be accessed @ Locating
Periodicals @ Texas State University Library. A valid Texas
State
University User Name and Password are required.
David
Cook/Anti-Semitic Themes in Muslim Apocolyptic and Jihadi
Literature/Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs No. 56, May 01, 2007
Pete Lentini,
Muhammad Bakashmar, "Jihadist Beheading: A Convergence of Technology,
Theology, and Teleology?", Studies
in
Conflict & Terrorism,
Volume 30, Issue 4, April 2007, pp. 303-325. This article can be accessed @ Locating
Periodicals @ Texas State University Library. A valid Texas
State
University User Name and Password are required. (Note: Use the EBSCO
data base and save to your desktop as a pdf file.)
Abstract:
Although contemporary jihadist terrorists are most well known for
perpetrating operations that generate mass casualties, they also
conduct violent acts that yield fewer victims, such as beheading
hostages. Examining the religious and cultural contexts that surround
jihadist beheadings, developments in new media, and drawing on examples
from the Chechen Wars and the Iraq War, this article argues that
jihadists have employed this tactic for a range of reasons, including
obtaining ransom payments, hampering foreign investment, discrediting
transitional states, and recruiting supporters. It also suggests that
jihadists' beheading of their captives corresponds with aspects of
cosmic war, particularly on how religious terrorists' desires to please
a deity and secure a place of honor in the hereafter has devalued the
lives of both captor and prisoner. Consequently, contemporary jihadist
beheading is an outgrowth of the practice of terrorist hostage taking.
As this article goes to press (February 2007) UK authorities disrupted
a terrorist cell allegedly plotting to behead British Muslim soldiers
who served in Afghanistan and Iraq, and to broadcast the filmed
executions through jihadist websites. Journalists have described the
intended beheadings and their dissemination as "Iraq-style." There is
no doubt that jihadist beheading became more widely known as a result
of the Iraq conflict. However, the beheadings in Iraq were largely used
to recruit future jihadists and to demonstrate jihadists' strength to
their potential support base, the global Muslim community. In contrast,
the alleged UK beheading plot was aimed at striking terror into Muslims
living in the UK so that they would not support or serve their
government. Indeed the Iraq beheadings were intended to persuade, and
the UK plot was intended to dissuade. These alleged activities suggest
that contemporary jihadist beheading is not only an extension of
hostage-taking, it is also an independently evolving terrorist tactic.
Edward
Rothstein/Reconsidering the Role of the Warrior in our
Post-Enlightenment World/NYT August 06, 2007
Edward Rothstein's
reflections on Lee
Harris/The Suicide of Reason: Radical Islam's Threat to the West (Basic
Books 2007).
"... Harris argues that the modern view of how to vanquish
enemies is
based on false ideas: first, that history progresses; second, that it
progresses toward greater influence of reason; and finally, that
reason, through its powers, can overcome all opposition. Our smug
disdain for the warrior, he suggests, is based on a mistaken view of
the powers of modernity and the Enlightenment....
In Mr. Harris’s view these errors are affecting the crucial
confrontations now taking place between jihadists and Western liberal
culture. We keep straining, he says, to see terrorists as if they were
just slightly more extreme versions of ourselves, reflecting our own
convictions, as if the jihadist were advocating destruction in the name
of a version of liberalism.
... Harris suggests that the jihadist is more accurately thought of as
a
fanatic, a warrior of the old school, whose technique has been
remarkably successful over the centuries. Such warfare accepts no rules
other than fealty to the tribe and accepts no compromise other than
victory. Islam, he points out, has made 'permanent conquests in every
part of the world into which it has expanded with only three
exceptions: Spain, Sicily, and certain parts of the Balkans': three
areas where Islamic fanaticism was confronted with opposing fanaticism.
... Harris argues that by failing to characterize Islamist warfare
accurately, the West deludes itself, even employing another
Enlightenment idea — tolerance — to grant harbor to those who seek to
destroy it. And the West implicitly affirms that, in the end, reason
will triumph".
See also Ayaan Hirsi Ali's review essay on Lee
Harris, The Suicide of
Reason: Radical Islam's Threat to the West @ Ayaan
Hirsi Ali/Blind Faiths/NYT Sunday Book Review January 6, 2008.
She maintains that the West’s “fanaticism of reason” is no match for
the
fanaticism of radical Islam.
For a brief indication of Lee Harris' own expression of his views
on radical Islam, terrorism, and
the Enlightenment, see:
Lee
Harris/Mad Scientists: The disturbing lessons of the Doctors' Plot/City
Journal Vol. 17, No. 3, Summer 2007.
From Lee Harris' essay: "This
Enlightenment model, which has worked quite effectively in
Europe and the United States, as well as in other parts of the world,
has always relied on an advanced elite that brings learning to the
masses through universal secular education. Many have hoped that
Muslim
nations would adopt the same model, with the same results. A
minority
of Muslim technocrats, who had received Western-style scientific
educations, would help lead the Middle East into the modern era.
They,
too, would be eager to transcend their own narrow cultural
perspectives, and to join other like-minded men and women across the
globe.
... But if Westernized technocrats like the Glasgow terrorists and the
London bombers can enthusiastically embrace radical Islam, what group
is left that can bring about the modernization of the Middle East?"
For another view of radical Islam and reason, see: Riaz
Hassan/The Jihad and the West-Part I/Yale Global online/September 21,
2006
"Jihad is ultimately political action that can be influenced by
dialogue
and negotiations".
Mohammad
Ayoob/The Jihad and the West-Part II//Yale Global online/September 26,
2006
"Muslims could
benefit by removing the word 'jihad' from the vocabulary of politics".
d. Jihadis: The Near Enemy, The Far Enemy,
&
Internal
Debate
Readings: David C. Rapoport, "Sacred Terror: A
Contemporary
example from Islam", Chapter 7 in Reich (ed.) - See especially
Rapoport's
analysis of Abd Al-Salam Faraj, author of "The Neglected Duty",
referring
to jihad. Faraj coined the terms "near enemy" and "far enemy".
Recommended:
Fawaz
A.Gerges/The Far Enemy: Why Jihad Went Global (Cambridge University
Press
2005)
Steve
Coll/Young Osama:How he learned radicalism and may have seen
America/The
New Yorker/December 12 2005
Noah
Feldman/ Islam, Terror & the Second Nuclear Age/NYT-Sunday
Magazine/October 29, 2006
Peter
Bergen and Paul Cruickshank/The Unraveling: Al Qaeda's Revolt Against
bin Laden/The New Republic, June 11, 2008, Vol. 238, No. 4, 837, pp.
16-21
This article is also accessible at this location: http://www.peterbergen.com/bergen/articles/details.aspx?id=346.
See also: Lawrence
Wright/The Rebellion Within: An Al Qaeda mastermind questions
terrorism/The New Yorker, June 2, 2008
V.
Suicide
& Terrorism
1. An Overview
Readings: Hoffman,
Chapter 5; Laqueur, Chapter 4;
Bloom, Chapters 1 &
4.
Ariel Merari, "The Readiness to kill and die:
Suicidal
terrorism in the Middle East", Chapter 10 in Reich (ed.).
Yuki
Tanaka/Japan's Kamkikaze Pilots and Contemporary Suicide Bombers: War
and Terror/japanfocus.org September 25, 2005
Recommended Books:
Farhad
Khosrokhavar/Suicide Bombers: Allah's New Martyrs (Pluto Press
2005-Translated
from the original 2002 French editon)
Ami
Pedahzur/Suicide Terrorism (Polity Press 2005)
2. The Logic Of Suicide Terrorism
Readings:
Robert
A. Pape/The Strategic Logic Of Suicide Terrorism/American Political
Science
Review(pdf)August 2003/danieldrezner.com
The Pape article can also be accessed @ Locating
Periodicals @ Texas State University Library. A valid Texas
State
University User Name and Password are required.
For a critique of Pape's article, including a
challenge
to Pape's conclusion, see: Martin Kramer's remarks in his web log @
Political
Science Targets Suicide Terrorism. Bystanders: Take Cover!
"Robert Pape's analysis is solid. Just his data and conclusions are
flawed."
See also: Jonathan Kay, "Numbers Racket" - Review
Essay
on Pape's The Stratgic Logic Of Suicide Terrorism, Commentary,
September
2005.
This article can be accessed @ http://www.omnivore.org/jon/orwell/2005/Pape/Pape.htm
For another critique of Robert Pape's article and some additional
observations concerning factors contributing to suicide terrorism, see:
Scott
Atran/The Moral Logic and Growth of Suicide Terrorism/The Washington
Quarterly, Spring 2006, Vol. 29, No. 2. (pdf)
See also:
Scott
Ashworth, Joshua D. Clinton, Adam Meirowitz, and Kristopher W.
Ramsay/Design, Inference, and the Strategic Logic of Suicide
Terrorism/American Political Science Review April 23, 2008, Vol. 102,
No. 2. (pdf)
Abstract
In The Strategic Logic of
Suicide Terrorism, Robert Pape
(2003) presents an analysis of his suicide terrorism data. He uses the
data to draw inferences about how territorial occupation and religious
extremism affect the decision of terrorist groups to use suicide
tactics. We show that the data are incapable of supporting Pape
'sconclusions because he “samples on the dependent variable.”—The data
only contain cases in which suicide terror is used. We construct bounds
(Manski, 1995) on the quantities relevant to Pape's
hypotheses and show exactly how little can be learned about the
relevant statistical associations from the data produced by Pape's research design.
For comments on this critique, see: http://www.themonkeycage.org/2008/04/reassessing_the_strategic_logi.html
@ the Political Science blog http://www.themonkeycage.org/.
"To know whether X causes suicide
terrorism, we need to
know
how the propensity to use suicide terrorism varies with X. That is, we
not only need data on when suicide terrorism occurs, we need data on
when suicide terrorism does not occur — i.e., when groups
choose other tactics besides suicide terrorism. Analyzing only
instances when suicide terrorism occurred is not sufficient.
... Ashworth et al. conclude:
The data Pape collects do not speak to the correlates of
suicide terror, and the policy conclusions he advocates cannot be
justified by appealing to the data he collects".
For Robert A. Pape's reply to this critique, see:
Robert A. Pape/Methods and Findings in the Study of Suicide
Terrorism/American Political Science Review May 2, 2008, Vol. 102, No.
2. (pdf)
Abstract
Scott Ashworth, Joshua Clinton,
Adam Meirowitz, and Kristopher Ramsay (2008) allege that I have
committed the sin of sampling on the dependent variable by considering
only the universe of suicide terrorist attacks rather than the universe
of all imaginable instances when potential or actual terrorists might
have committed suicide attacks, and so cannot measure the effects of
any independent variables. They go on to describe a method that they
say I should have used, which is not of interest because the accusation
that is supposed to motivate this discussion is inaccurate.
The
main claim—that my work on suicide terrorism samples on the dependent
variable—is simply wrong. Indeed, the authors paid no attention to the
large portions of my recent book that explain what we know about
factors that make resort to suicide terrorist campaigns more or less
likely, and how we know it. Hence, this letter is mainly devoted to
updating Ashworth, Clinton, Meirowitz, and Ramsay on my work. I also
make a few comments about the general question of whether concerns
about “sample bias” should carry significant weight when dealing with
the complete universe of a phenomenon, as is the case in my work on
suicide terrorism.
Bruce
Hoffman/The Logic Of Suicide Terrorism/The Atlantic Monthly/June 2003
"The perceived randomness of suicide bombings is in
large
part responsible for the emotional suffering that they inflict on
society.
But the planners of these attacks use a strategy that is anything but
random:
they aim to relentlessly shrink to nothing the areas in which people
can
move freely".
The complete text of this Hoffman article can be
accessed
@ Locating
Periodicals @ Texas State University Library.
A valid Texas State
University
User Name and Password are required.
Bruce Hoffman; G. H. McCormick, "Terrorism,
Signaling,
& Suicide Attack", Studies in Conflict & Terrorism,
July-August
2004, Vol. 27, Issue 4.
This article by Hoffman and McCormick can be accessed
@ Locating
Periodicals @ Texas State University Library.
A valid Texas State
University
User Name and Password are required. This
article can also be viewed @ http://www.arnoldleder.com/readings/index.html.
Scroll
to section on "Terrorism" and look for the author and title of this
article.
This location is password protected. Password and user name for
access
will be provided to students in the course.
David Bukay/The
Religious Foundations of Suicide Bombings: Islamist Ideology/Middle
East Quarterly Fall 2006
Recommended:
David
Brooks/The Culture Of Martyrdom:How Suicide Bombing Became Not Just A
Means
But An End/The Atlantic Monthly/June 2002
The complete text of this Brooks article can be
accessed
@ Locating
Periodicals @ Texas State University Library.
A valid Texas State
University
User Name and Password are required.
Egyptian
Muftu's Opinions On Suicide Bombings & Jihad/Memri /October 01, 2003
Andrea
Elliott/Where Boys Grow Up to Be Jihadis (a small neighborhood in the
Moroccan city of Tetouan)/NYT Sunday Magazine, November 25, 2007
Many of the men involved in the
Madrid train bombings came from one small
neighborhood in the Moroccan city of Tetouan. A number of would-be
suicide bombers in Iraq are from there, too.
"Since the start of the war, a few thousand foreign jihadis
have
heeded the call to join militant networks in Iraq. Most are men in
their 20s. Typically, they fall under the influence of an imam who
helps them contact intermediaries for the insurgents in Iraq, the
American official told me. They go
off expecting to fight a heroic
battle but often find out after arriving in Iraq that they are to be
deployed instead on suicide missions targeting other Muslims, the
official said. Based on the accounts of captured fighters, even when
they protest, they are sometimes given no choice. 'At the end of
the
day, nobody cares about these kids,' the official said. 'They are Al
Qaeda precision-guided munition.' ...
The
numbers of foreign fighters entering Iraq have dropped substantially
since this spring, the official said, at least in part because would-be
jihadis have become more aware that the majority of suicide attacks are
aimed at other Muslims. Military officials also gleaned information
from the raid in September that indicates a shift: fewer jihadis are
coming from Saudi Arabia, while more are arriving from North Africa, an
estimated 40 percent of the roughly 60 to 75 fighters who land in Iraq
every month. The shift happened in the summer of 2006, when the first
men from Jamaa Mezuak began leaving for Iraq. ...
None
of them, it appears, left behind videos explaining their
decisions, as is common for suicide bombers in some Arab countries.
There are no posters in the neighborhood exalting them".
(Boldface added)
Katrin
Bennhold/A Grandfather's Suicide Bombing Puzzles Algerians/NYT December
18, 2007
"The case of Rabah Bechla casts doubt on
the practice of profiling. As a prominent Algerian journalist observed,
If a grandfather can blow himself up,
anyone can".
Michael
Slackman/In Algeria, a Tug of War for Young Minds [w/photos & links
to related stories]/NYT June 23, 2008
3. Case Studies of
Suicide Terrorism
a. Palestinian Suicide Bombing
Readings: Laqueur, Chapter 5; Bloom, Chapter 2.
Shaul
Kimhi and Shmuel Even/Who are the Palestinian Suicide
Terrorists?/Jaffee
Center For Strategic Studies/Tel Aviv University/Sept. 2003, Vol. 6,
No.
2.
Benjamin
T. Acosta/The Palestinian Culture of Martyrdom and Shahid: Providing
The Model For 21st Century Islamic Terrorism/asmeascholars.org/April
2008 Conference Paper
b. Suicide Attacks in Sri Lanka
Readings: Bloom, Chapter 3.
c. Kurdish Suicide Terrorism in Turkey
Readings: Bloom, Chapter 5.
VI.
Women & Terrorism
1. Women's Role in Secular & Religious
Terrorism
Readings: Cindy D. Ness, "In the Name of the Cause:
Women's
Work in Secular and Religious Terrorism", Studies in Conflict &
Terrorism, September 2005, Vol. 28: 353-373.
This article can be accessed @ Locating
Periodicals @ Texas State University Library.
A valid Texas
State
University User Name and Password are required.
This article can also be viewed @ http://www.arnoldleder.com/readings/index.html.
Scroll
to section on "Terrorism" and look for the author and title of this
article.
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will be provided to students in the course.
Anat Berko, Edna Erez, "Gender, Palestinian Women, and
Terrorism: Women's Liberation or Oppression?", Studies in Conflict & Terrorism,
Volume 30, Issue 6, June 2007, pp. 493-519. This
article can be accessed @
Locating
Periodicals @ Texas State University Library. A valid Texas
State
University User Name and Password are required. (Note: Use the EBSCO
data base and save to your desktop as a pdf file.)
Abstract:
Prior literature on women's participation in terrorism has
paradoxically interpreted this involvement as a sign of women's
newfound empowerment, and as an indication of ongoing gender
oppression. The study examines the hypothesis that Palestinian women's
involvement in terrorism indicates women's liberation. The data are
derived from in-depth interviews with fourteen women who were detained
or incarcerated in Israeli prisons for security offenses. The
interviews shed light on the women's pathways to terrorism, the roles
that they play in terrorist activity, and the aftermath of their
security offenses within Palestinian society and culture. The study
underlines the "no return" option and "no win" situation that
Palestinian women who embark on terrorist activities encounter. The
results demonstrate that although some women became involved in
terrorism due to the sense of liberation that it provided, the women
largely became disempowered in the aftermath of their offenses; rather
than receiving praise for their activism as they had expected, they
were shunned by others for their violation of gender expectations, and
failure to fulfill traditional gender roles. The social and personal
costs of involvement in terrorism for Palestinian women are analyzed,
and policy implications of the findings for theory and practice are
discussed.
Jolande
Withuis/Suffer, fight, become a saint/signandsight.com June 12, 2007
(An essay on women and terrorism.)
"Muslima terrorism – to
many this new word will sound like a
contradiction in terms. This is an erroneous and dangerously naive
response. The common association of women with peacefulness and harmony
is a myth. Although it is quite rare for women to carry out terrorist
attacks, the phenomenon is not new. (boldface added)
... Regardless of how different their respective cultures were,
politics
was traditionally the domain of men in all of the cultures. Women were
excluded and as they were also considered to have no interest in
politics, they had to prove, more than their male counterparts, their
commitment and loyalty to the cause. More than that: to be allowed to
participate at all, they also had to prove their courage, loyalty and
competence to those sceptical and sexist brothers-in-arms, and refute
the expectation that they would probably desert or fail. And there you
have it: the pathway to taking it one step further.
... Political and spiritual female
radicalism has a long tradition in which a pattern can be
distinguished. (boldface added)
... We should not overestimate the importance of the ancient texts in
order
to understand what is going on around us. The answer is not in the
texts of Islam, but rather in how they are interpreted and in how they
are used. It would be an illusion to think that we can find answers by
studying the Koran, and a misunderstanding that we cannot comprehend
anything without studying it. As a person radicalizes, the pure
doctrine unmistakably becomes an obsession, but never without
mediation: it always requires opportunistic interpretations and
teachers. Women do not have enough power to push through a new
interpretation as pure doctrine.
... Muslim fundamentalism is gender fundamentalism. Muslima
terrorism is complex in that it concerns a faith that focuses on the
global (and also smaller-scale) preservation of patriarchal power,
while at the same time there are women who want to use this patriarchal
faith to emancipate themselves, and who are even willing to resort to
acts of terrorism. Based on the same ambiguity it could be appealing
for their male brothers to "allow" their "sisters" to participate in
the jihad, i.e.: use the women to aid terrorists or even for suicide
attacks". (boldface appears in the essay)
2. Women in Jihad
Readings: David Cook, "Women Fighting in Jihad?", Studies
in Conflict & Terrorism, September
2005, Vol.
28: 375-384.
Anne Nivat, "The Black Widows: Chechen Women Join the
Fight for Independence - and Allah", Studies in Conflict &
Terrorism, September
2005, Vol. 28: 413-419.
These articles can be accessed @ Locating
Periodicals @ Texas State University Library. A valid Texas
State
University User Name and Password are required.
These articles can also be viewed @ http://www.arnoldleder.com/readings/index.html.
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to section on "Terrorism" and look for the author and title of this
article.
This location is password protected. Password and user name for
access
will be provided to students in the course.
Farhana
Ali/Rocking the Cradle to Rocking the World: The Role of Muslim Female
Fighters/Journal of International