Terror and democracy

The course of history has many examples of popular movements that appeared due to conditions related to oppression or occupation. If we leave aside the moral aspect of a struggle, on both sides, one can see that these movements are not stopped by the force of guns, except in the case of genocide which would mean the annihilation of the whole population that is resisting (examples can be seen in both the early American history with the ‘Indians’, or the Spanish experience with the Incas).

At the time of the conquest of the Americas, the term terrorist did not exist yet in order to justify the killing of these people however a substitute was there and the discourse relied on the soullessness of the indigenes which represented the moral justification of their killing. In the same logic the term terrorist is being used to justify the killing of populations that defy the dominant force. I believe that this is part of the dynamics of power and discourse.

What appears in recent times is the parallel discourse of democracy, which appears to be paradoxical with the logic of terrorism as it is present in reality. However, when we look closely at these movements that are termed terrorist (Al Quaida is however an exception and more about that later) we can see clearly that they take their power from popular support, which in political terms is itself the essence of democracy even though the form in which the ‘election’ is done is not always a classical one. Movements that are termed terrorist are often liberation movements that were born from their own societies, of course all examples of such movements also present a strategic relation between them and the power that defies the dominant power (the Vietcong and their relations with both China and USSR for instance) This however does not make them tools in the hands of their strategic allies (the Guevara example is perfect in this sense) since they after all rely primarily on their popular infrastructure.

The clash between the two discourses that were promulgated by the same dominant power – democracy and the war against terrorism – has made possible absurdities such as the case of Hamas in the Palestinian elections and Hezbollah in Lebanon. In the case of Hamas, after elections under the supervision of international powers, and a highly claimed honesty from the part of these same powers, the population proved the theory that says that Hamas is indeed a popular movement. The Palestinians voted Hamas, putting forward the clash between the concept of democracy and the right of people to decide their destiny on one hand and that of fighting terrorism as another absolute value on the other. This case made clear that terrorism is nothing but a political tool and judgment which should be defined firstly then have the definition criticized secondly. Instead of reconsidering their judgment the dominant powers went on with an explicit strategy to undo the misdeeds of democracy – thus proving that interests go beyond any of the ascribed goals they proclaimed and nourishing even more resentment from those they regard as terrorists (not Hamas as an organization but Hamas as a population) and giving them even more reasons to act accordingly to fight this dominant power (and thus be even more terrorist than before – since the amount of terror is basically measured by the successfulness of their fight against the dominant power, regardless of the moral aspect of it). This however did not make the people who voted Hamas change their minds on the contrary it made them even more conscious about the necessity of Hamas if they really want freedom or any kind of independence from the dominant power.

When one looks at such movements not simply as a group of people who have a weird hobby of killing other people and themselves along the way, but as having a cause that they believe is worth more than their own lives (which is anyway a hell to live), one can start understanding the dynamics that can make these people resist until their cause is achieved or until their total annihilation not as guerillas but as people.

Al Quaida on the other hand is not a movement that was born to liberate, or achieve a certain identity (it was not a popular uprising), it is a creation made by Saudi money, American planning and Pakistani infrastructure to fight a war against the Soviets, like many of the American creations of the Cold war (the Contra, the Algerian Islamists…). For a more detailed history of Al Quaida a good book is ‘The Clash of Fundamentalisms’ by Tariq Ali.