![]() |
UNU Update | |
The newsletter of United Nations
University and its network of research and training centres and programmes |
||
|
Issue 12: October - November 2001 |
![]() |
|
OPINION – This interview with Albrecht Schnabel, academic programme officer with UN University's Peace and Governance Programme, appeared in Le Monde newspaper on September 25. These are his personal views. |
|
![]() |
|
"The West has nothing to
Q:
For about a decade, there has been a noticeable escalation in terrorist
violence. How do you interpret this phenomenon? A:
Personally, what surprises me the most is that there have not been more
terrorist attacks, especially during and immediately after the Gulf War.
That war was a turning point. To speak of “war” today is somewhat
naive. The real “war” started ten years ago in the Gulf. Horrified
at the continuous U.S. presence in his homeland, Saudi Arabia, and at
the continued military action against Iraq, bin Laden declared that he
would avenge what he saw as a war against Islamic peoples. It was then
that bin Laden formed his organization, after several Arab countries
decided to support the United States against Iraq.
This swing into the U.S. camp was interpreted as the end of the
Islamic world through a secularization of the states that were
progressively distancing themselves from orthodox interpretations of the
Koran. Bin Laden’s organization was one of the first to act on a
worldwide scale. Most others operate within the borders of their country
and attack their own government. Few of them are active on the
international stage and target a specific superpower or a “global
order,” as bin Laden does. Q: At present, what evidence do we have that bin Laden is the source of the attacks on the United States? A:
For the time being, there is no proof that Osama bin Laden organized,
financed or orchestrated these attacks. There are simply suspicions
based on two elements: first, his involvement in other attacks against
U.S. facilities, like the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, the
bombings of U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya in 1998 and the
destruction of the USS Cole in Yemen last year. Furthermore, bin Laden
published two declarations of holy war on the United States, in 1996 and
1998. He also announced his intention of bringing the war to U.S. soil.
These are the reasons why Washington has declared him to be the prime
suspect of the September 11 attack. In such a situation, it is crucial
for the United States to produce evidence of bin Laden’s involvement
before undertaking any action against him, Al-Qaeda – his organization
– the Taliban or Afghanistan. Q:
Suicide bombings have never reached such a level in the past. Do you
think we have entered a new phase? A:
The use of suicide bombing is not a new phenomenon in itself. This kind
of attack has the great "merit" – in the eyes of terrorists
– of radically severing links with the organization, as the success of
the operation depends on the death of the perpetrator. There is no risk
of arrest, interrogation, confessions, etc. If the German (Baader-Meinhof),
Italian (Red Brigade) or Japanese (Red Army) terrorist organizations did
not undertake suicide bombings, it is because these terrorists did not
want to die. They took risks, but they did not seek death. What is
different in the case of the bin Laden organization is that instead of
Palestinian or Sri Lankan terrorists, generally young, sometimes very
young, psychologically vulnerable men, who accept the fact that they
will die in the attack, quickly go into action after a brief training
period. We see highly trained individuals (pilots, in some cases), who
organized their action in minute detail over a long period of time while
they behaved completely normally in society. They are professional
killers who accept their own death as a result of their act. Here we
have indeed entered a new phase, for we will never know exactly how many
there are of them, and it seems that there is no limit to their
ingenuity in circumventing existing security systems. What’s more, the
impact of their operations in the United States could encourage others
to follow suit. Q:
Are there many organizations able to conduct attacks such as those that
we have just witnessed? A:
If we look at previous activity, including attacks against U.S.
facilities, capacity, financing, the will to act outside the country of
origin and the use of suicide attacks, a good number of terrorist
organizations around the world are able to undertake this type of
action. I believe it is not desirable to give their names, as it would
encourage them to act or confuse their abilities with their intentions.
The ability to undertake such actions – or even worse ones, as for
example the use of chemical or biological warfare – does not imply
that these organizations are about to do so. Q:
What motivates these terrorists to such a degree? A:
I think there is an overuse of indiscriminate ideas such as a conflict
of civilizations, for there are also regions like Libya and Iran where
relations between Islamic and non-Islamic communities have improved. Of
course, we can find religious or ethnic motives behind many terrorist
actions. But in the case of the actions perpetrated in the United
States, I am not sure that the motive is solely religious. Above all, I
believe these terrorists have a different notion of politics and the
social order. I am presently co-authoring a book on peace and democracy
in the Middle East, and I see that Western-style democratization and
Western political, economic and social systems cannot simply be
transferred wholesale anywhere in the world. To think so is naive. By
trying to impose Western values as universal ones, we trigger a reflex
of rejection. This
does not mean that democratization is incompatible with the social
systems or religion of these countries. But they aspire to a different
kind of democratization. The opening of political and economic systems,
responses to the globalization of markets and ideas, must likewise be
pursued in a gradual fashion. The shock treatments used until now have
only served to radicalize the opposition. On the contrary, we should
help these countries to initiate a indigenous process of opening.
Results may take time to appear, but the West has nothing to gain by
impatiently trying to impose its standards. These countries perceive
this impatience as arrogance, a colonial kind of pressure. The
dramatic events that have taken place in the United States should
encourage us to think, to consider that we have perhaps taken a mistaken
approach. There are problems that cannot be solved by force, and if we
wish to counter this upsurge in violence, we must face it in a different
way than we have done until now; ultimately, this way of acting could
stop support by some states for terrorist actions. It is a mistake to
marginalize those who do not play our game – those who do not
subscribe to exactly the same political, economic social and cultural
values as ourselves – by demonizing them. When we believe that the
actions of these states have no legitimacy, we refuse to face them as
negotiating partners. And yet this is what must be done before they go
on the offensive. Perhaps it is here that we should seek the roots of
what is happening and of the hatred for the United States. Q:
Specifically, how would you reorient the focus on the problems at the
origin of these terrorist acts of violence? A:
In our research on the management of insurgencies, we try to understand
why these movements resort to terrorist violence. As a theoretical base
for our thinking, we attempt to establish a delicate distinction between
those movements that have some legitimacy because they espouse demands
made by the general public and those that do not. The response of the
international community must be different according to each case. A
terrorist organization, whatever it may be, needs popular support to
hide, feed, finance and protect it. Without this support, it cannot
exist. In many countries under dictatorial regimes, these organizations
offer social services to people, and to a degree are well received by
the population even though it may not necessarily approve of the methods
they use. The
only way to eradicate terrorism is by attacking the ills that give rise
to it by cutting off the popular support it receives through policies of
assistance, and above all by intervening less in the internal affairs of
countries. Pressure on Israel to re-launch the peace process would also
be desirable. In short, there must be a demonstration of good faith, and
in this way some Islamic countries could be convinced to join the fight
against terrorism. In the case of bin Laden, the solution is not
necessarily to bomb Afghanistan, which will make victims of more
civilians in a population that already suffered during the war with the
Soviet Union and continues to suffer today under the Taliban regime.
Such an action will weaken the worldwide support that the United States
currently enjoys. Sending troops would not be a solution either – the
USSR was unable to beat Afghanistan. The only way is a political
solution, but this does not respond to the current expectations, the
desire for revenge expressed by U.S. public opinion and that of some of
its partners. Q:
If we follow your distinction between insurrections arising from
legitimate aspirations and those that do not meet such criteria, how
would you categorize an organization like that of Osama bin Laden? Bin
Laden’s political objectives cannot be considered as a response to
legitimate popular aspirations. He proclaims that he is at war against
U.S.-Western imperialism and that he defends the peaceful existence of
the Islamic world and its political, social and cultural order. In
reality, he does not represent the interests of the Islamic world as a
whole, but rather those of a small, extremist minority. I
believe that bin Laden’s hostility to the United States is based on
his personal opposition to its presence in Saudi Arabia and his
perception of Americans, who he sees as engaged in a struggle intended
to humiliate and destroy Islamic culture and replace it with the
Judeo-Christian culture of the West. To a great degree, bin Laden is
fighting a personal war. His extremist interpretation of Islam is not
that of the majority of Muslims. He also targets civilians, which
discredits him in the eyes of many Islamic states and societies that may
very well want the United States out of the region, but do not subscribe
to methods going against the teachings of the Koran. |
|
![]() |
|
![]() |
|
Copyright © 2001 United Nations University. All rights reserved. |