Terrorism and the Politics of Social Change: A Durkheimian Analysis 9780754678229, 2010005234

Table of contents :
Cover
Contents
Foreword
Introduction
1 War and Violence: Understanding the Breeds
2 Terrorism: Understanding the Heavens
3 The Heavens Described
4 Making the Man – Terrorism Charted and Defined
5 Terrorism in the Modern World
6 Durkheim, Sociology and Understanding Terrorism
Conclusion
Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

TERRORISM AND tHE POLItICS OF SOCIAL CHANGE

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Terrorism and the Politics of Social Change A Durkheimian Analysis

JAMES DINGLEY University of Kurdistan, Kurdistan, Iraq and

Visiting Research Fellow at Queen’s University Belfast

First published 2010 by Ashgate Publishing Published 2016 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business Copyright © 2010 James D James Dingley has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Dingley, James, Ph. D. Terrorism and the politics of social change : a Durkheimian analysis. 1. Terrorism. 2. Social change. 3. Durkheimian school of sociology. I. Title 303.6'25-dc22 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Dingley, James. Terrorism and the politics of social change : a Durkheimian analysis / by James Dingley. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 1. Terrorism--STerrorism-Religious aspects. 3. War and society. 4. Political violence. 5. Imile, 1858-1917--Political and social views. I. Title. S HV6431.D554 2010 303.6'25--dc22 ISBN 9780754678229 (hbk) ISBN

2010005234

Contents Foreword

vii



Introduction

1

1

War and Violence: Understanding the Breeds

7

2

Terrorism: Understanding the Heavens

31

3

The Heavens Described

59

4

Making the Man – Terrorism Charted and Defined

85

5

Terrorism in the Modern World

113

6 Durkheim, Sociology and Understanding Terrorism

141



169

Conclusion

Bibliography Index

183 193

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Foreword Lieutenant General Robin Brims Formerly British Army and Rector University of Kurdistan-Hawler

Dr James Dingley adds a most thought provoking analysis of terrorism and terrorists from a sociologist’s perspective. Clearly laid out this book is ideal for both a newcomer to the subject or an experienced analyst of the subject. It builds upon the knowledge and understanding of terrorism and terrorists from both an academic and practical perspective. Dingley has more than just a lifetime’s academic perspective but the personal experience of writing this book whilst living in Northern Ireland and Iraq. His own experience of living in these troubled places adds greatly to the authority of his work. He has also travelled widely. He has tested his ideas on those who are involved in terrorism; and we are all involved as will become evident when reading this book. I spent a great deal of my time as a soldier dealing with terrorism and terrorists. I am sure that I made many mistakes in my assessments. And at times we military people have struggled to pass on our insights and to policy makers and commentators. In these circumstances it has been a pleasure to discuss and debate ideas with Dr Dingley. All terrorist violence is for a purpose. We must do all that we can to prevent the violence. The best way is to understand the purpose of the violence from the point of view of the terrorist. Terrorism and the Politics of Social Change provides a way for us all to analyse and understand the terrorists’ purpose. Robin Brims January 2010

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Introduction The aim of this book is simple, to try to put terrorism into some kind of sociological and historical context, something which rarely happens since most of the literature is dominated by politics and international relations in terms of narrative and analysis and psychology in terms of motivational behaviour. This, I believe, is a major mistake since none of these disciplines are properly equipped to understand terrorism by themselves, indeed, I take my cue from Louise Richardson (2005) and say that terrorism is above all a social phenomenon and must be primarily understood on the social level. However, few sociologists seem to be prepared to engage in a serious analysis of terrorism, or any study of armed combat (Dingley, in Christiansson, 2007). Meanwhile, history is replete with war and armed conflict, whilst violence and conflict in society has not been so well served, despite the occasional classic, such as Rapoport’s Fear and Trembling (1984), which are far too few. There thus seems to be a kind of intellectual hole in the study of terrorism that desperately needs filling and this book is an attempt to begin that task. It starts from the premises that terrorism is neither new nor primarily political, it is a social phenomenon that springs from social impulses and imperatives, further, that history records that terrorism, or the kind of violence it represents, is deeply rooted in human society. Thus sociology is the best place to begin the study of terrorism, closely allied to the study of social history. In particular, it is social change and development, usually impelled by the economic, that instigates terrorism, which represents a traditional way of revolting against changes in culture and socioeconomic relations that traditional societies displayed. Violence was a social norm in the past and still is in many contemporary traditional societies, by which I mean primarily rural-peasant ones as against modern industrial ones. The building block of this (my) sociological approach is deeply rooted in classical sociology, with its emphasis on structure, system and function (postmodernists will not approve). The general thesis is that change in the structure (of social relations, which define society and community along with shared culture) will often lead to a violent reaction since structural change is deeply upsetting to men’s (it mostly is) sense of social and psychology security. In addition, man is a social animal, a product of society and so society is an important part of him, its structure, culture, relations, values and norms also become those of the individual thus creating a symbiotic relationship between man and society. Structure in particular, gives order, place, purpose, and direction to men’s lives and their cosmos and so meaning and individual identity. Change in society therefore implies change in the individual, harm to the society implies harm to the individual



Terrorism and the Politics of Social Change

(material and non-material loss) and if the society as a whole is threatened with complete disruption of its relationships, bonds and obligations that will also affect the individual in the same way. Death of society implies death of the individual, at least in part at the psychic or consciousness level. Change is deeply threatening and anxiety provoking for many men, especially those whose socio-economic and political position and status is tied to playing specific roles in the structure of relations. Thus throughout history men have revolted violently against change, because it can pose such major threats, also for often illiterate and uneducated peasants violence was frequently the only means to express their outrage. Another important aspect of my analysis is the traditional sociological and anthropological understanding of religion as a metaphor for society, especially in the Durkheimian tradition which so strongly influences me. Here religion is society, it is the only thing that exists over and above man – God, the creator – the structure of relationships which impose an understanding of the cosmos and provide us with life at the social, psychic and consciousness level. Man is a social animal, a social product. Society also gives us major life enhancing opportunities, it provides us with care and support when we are growing up, it provides us with knowledge (cognitive and moral, objective and subjective) via socialisation, which in turn helps to give us our personalities and sense of being, place and purpose. Society also provides the structure that exists over us and constrains and determines our relations, of who we know, of what we can do and how, just as it provides us with opportunities, roles and functions in life. In brief, at one level one may say that society gives us life at anything beyond the mere animal existence level. Outside of our society, with its values, norms and structures to which we are attuned from the cradle we feel lost, anxious, unable to cope and make a living, we have no context for our own identity, sense of being or knowing where we are going. Hence when we lose society, as radical change can often imply, we lose part of our ability too live; we also lose religion and the religious dimension to our lives and this in turn becomes a loss of or attack upon God. This is one reason why nationalist and religious disputes are so strong and frequently violent. If one does not speak the language of a society, or understand its rules and regulations and how they are applied one will have a great deal of difficulty performing even the most basic of tasks in it. If one is not a native of a society one will not feel secure in terms of rights to live, work, own property or make claims on the state, especially where they relate to ideas of authority and legitimacy. It often takes a long period of time to become a citizen of another country (nation or society) and even longer to really understand how it works, its peoples culture operates and the meanings it contains. And it takes even longer, sometimes several generations, to feel that one really belongs and is part of, with inherent rights and duties. Not the least important aspect of this is the ability to earn a living – don’t speak the language you can’t do the job; at a more complex level, if one does not have the cultural skills, e.g. of science, then one will not be able to work effectively in an industrial economy, except at the lower levels.

Introduction



Such social dependency is even more marked in traditional peasant societies, where men are more emotively attached to their land because they work it on a daily basis, live in it and off it and are dependent on local knowledge and group derived skills learnt over many years and passed on from generation to generation. There is a rooted-ness to peasant society and a communal dependence and group integration, where men live in close-knit communities with strong social ties and obligations. Such communities inhabit a very small and confined world, often semi-isolated and so more inward looking and intense whereby they feel a very strong attachment to their small world and know every minute detail of it. This creates a strong emotional attachment to social forms, especially for relatively unworldly and uneducated peasants, so that when anything occurs to disrupt their social world it is very intensely felt and experienced as a threat. Such a threat is modernity, whose implications are for the total overthrow of traditional social relations and the undermining of traditional communities, and it will be noted most terrorism emanates from traditional societies. Thus to change society or when society is forced to undergo change, as the industrial revolution forced Europe to do in the 19th century, is to invite serious reactions, often violent, against the change agents, identified as anti-religion because disruptive of social relations. And this is well illustrated in social history, now sadly out of fashion, which not only records the violent reactions of peasant workers against factory work but also the violent reactions of peasants against change even in peasant society and all pre-modern societies were intensely religious. Violence, even religious violence, is not new or mindless, frequently it is an attempt to preserve a status quo that men feel very comfortable with and which has been ordained as sacred. From this one may also analyse much terrorist violence as religious acts related to sacrilege and sacrifice, purification rituals and symbolic acts aimed as much at the terrorists own community (to stir their consciousness/emotions) against the intruder as it is directly aimed at the intruder. Another aspect of this book, which goes hand in hand with my emphasis on structure, is my emphasis on the rule of law and the importance of law that increased with the rise of the Enlightenment and modern civilisation. The law rarely entered into men’s lives before the modern (industrial) age. Hence violence or clerical mediation was often the sole way to resolve disputes, or to enforce what laws there were. Pre-modern society was a very violent place, contrary to Romantic imaginings, as well as religious and violence was an accepted part of life, crime and punishment. However, since 1648 (Treaty of Westphalia) there has been a gradual development of law and law enforcement agencies to not only control violence but to remove it out of society, thus war and soldiering became removed from society and took place in a separate space. This again is important for an understanding of terrorism, since terrorism reintroduces violence back into society, indeed often directs it against society itself, which helps to give it its unique character. Ironically, as society has become more modern and secular so it has become less violent and religious, whilst most terrorism emanates from traditional societies where religion still plays a major role in the community. However, this is



Terrorism and the Politics of Social Change

explicable from a sociological (and anthropological) perspective, which is why a sociological contribution to terrorism studies is so needed. Having identified the lack of a sociological analysis in terrorism studies, I must emphasise, is not to be critical of or dismiss non-sociological contributions, merely to point out the lack of an adequate sociological contribution. In addition, any sociological analysis I can produce merely builds upon the work of other disciplines. As Isaac Newton once observed about his physics, ‘If I have seen further than others it is because I am standing upon the shoulders of giants.’ We should all feel the same way about our work, we are merely adding another dimension or piece to the picture; in sociology’s case a long overdue addition. Even those we disagree with are important stimuli to new thoughts and insights. So this book is not a critique of existing terrorism studies but an addition to it that tries to add a historical and sociological perspective and analysis. The book is arranged in six chapters and a Conclusion that attempts to chart the history of non-state violence as an inherent part of society as a response to changing social relations and the steady rise of law as an attempt to remove violence from society and to make it more civil. At the same time the rise of civil society also led to an increasingly rule and law bound world, which also led to a more constrained use of violence in a distinctly separate military sphere. This in turn at least coincided with, if it was not actually a positive part of, the Enlightenment, which is an important aspect of my analysis since I positively link the rise of modern terrorism with the Romantic reaction against the Enlightenment. Terrorism is a return to the past by traditional societies under threat from the modern, which is not to imply that the past was totally bad or the modern is totally good, but is to link terrorism with the violence of traditional societies, i.e. it primarily relates to specific socio-economic conditions and not individual psychological states or political systems as such. Finally, in Chapter 6, I try to place terrorism and terrorist acts into the social theoretical context of a Durkheimian analysis, hopefully to show how social theory and Durkheim’s in particular can assist in understanding terrorism by adding to the current level of understanding of it. Most famously Durkheim equated society with religion and so enables us to interpret religious acts in a non-metaphysical manner, which in turn provides not just a material explanation for violence but insights in to how to respond to it. Further, Durkheim’s most famous work was probably Suicide, where he interpreted what must seem like a highly personal act as a very social act, i.e. it was a response to social conditions, milieu and forces which acted on men. In addition, a major statistical category he utilised in developing his thesis was the different rates of suicides between different religious groups, along with different types of social milieu likely to induce suicide. This, it appears to me, offers much more fruitful insights and avenues for analysis of suicide bombing than any psychological or political analysis; thus we may look at social change, interpreted as an attack on God, inducing an anguish within an individual that will impel them to acts of political suicide to assuage the Gods and recall their community to the truth as witnessed by the martyrs of old.

Introduction



However, this is only a beginning, a proper and exhaustive sociology of terrorism (and all political violence) still waits to be attempted and this book seeks only to help start a process. For the author it is a process not only brought about by an intellectual curiosity to understand the subject matter over nearly 20 years (long before it became fashionable) but also as someone whose home is Northern Ireland and who is currently living and working in Kurdistan, Northern Iraq. Thus I can claim a certain personal involvement and interest in wishing to understand why people I know and like from different communities and backgrounds spend so much time in violent opposition to each other. In addition, I can also claim to have been bombed at least three times and have known several other victims of terrorist crimes, which gives me some personal insights. For the record, I have met many terrorists (or ex-terrorists) over the years, from Northern Ireland, Iraq, Turkey and probably some from other backgrounds whose terrorist roles I was not aware of at the time. Oddly enough I liked most of them on the purely personal level, despite their crimes, although some I found obnoxious – usually because of an arrogant self-righteousness and sense of superiority that entitled them to ignore anything but their own views and beliefs. My abiding impression was of rather lost souls, slightly inadequate and politically hopelessly naïve and unrealistic, trying to grapple with problems that were far bigger than their limited intellects could cope with, but sincere (although that does not excuse their crimes). I have also met and worked with members of the security forces from many different countries, including being a NATO instructor. Once again, most of them I liked and found them much more open to debate and discussion than many academics and very receptive to new ideas and analysis of the terrorism they had to cope with, in addition to which they were invaluable sources of information and insights to me in my research. Indeed, most of the security forces I met found terrorism rather inexplicable and had great difficulty in understanding what it was all about. But they also had to clear up the mess after a terrorist incident, which often left a rather hard edge to their opinions of terrorists. But otherwise, a bit like me, they were rather bemused by the terrorists they met or had to deal with since they did not find them unlike-able at the personal level and accepted that they were not driven by personal greed or gain, in fact they were often normal decent people and even quite moral. In part this book attempts to explain the conundrum of the ‘ordinary decent terrorist’ (perhaps an apocryphal story, but it was often claimed by the police in Northern Ireland that criminals accused of terrorist involvement would respond by claiming that they were not terrorists but just ‘ordinary, decent criminals’) by posing him as an agent of society, carrying out a social role and not a personal one. By removing the terrorist from the ideological baggage of individualism and free market assumptions of economic man we can get an alternative picture of him as a social agent which may offer far better insights into the why’s and where-fore’s of terrorism. Modern western man, too, is a product of society and semi-mystical beliefs, e.g. free market economics, and has his own blinkers to be removed just as much as the terrorist; when studying the other we also need to study ourselves.



Terrorism and the Politics of Social Change

This implies a critical analysis of our own societies and their values, which does not necessarily mean dropping them but simply recognising their weaknesses and how alien and sometimes offensive and destructive they can seem to others – which is why they attack us. In addition, one also has to remember that there are often real injustices in the world and that sometimes the terrorist has a point – one thinks especially of the plight of the Palestinians (who would have paid any attention to their plight had they not resorted to terrorism?). But ironically few of the real injustices call forth violent reactions, it is where the injustices are more metaphysical and subjective and amongst relatively free and well fed people that we find most terrorism arises. In addition, terrorist leaders are often very well educated, even the troops they lead into battle are rarely illiterate: it takes some education and reasoning ability to form and organise a movement, it requires managerial skills to maintain and equip it and it requires strategic skills to lead it. The cases of real injustice, quantifiably assessed, usually involve those without the skills to fight back and who are so down trodden as to be abjectly passive. Terrorism, I will argue, is rarely a problem of injustice as such, more a problem of social change and the displacement of relatively free and educated men trying to cope with a world that threatens them. And this is the message I will try to convey in the coming chapters.

Chapter 1

War and Violence: Understanding the Breeds

Nature and Nature’s laws lay hid in Night: God said, Let Newton be! And all was Light. Alexander Pope

Newton and Pope may have more significance for the study of terrorism than is generally recognised since both were pillars of the Enlightenment, that crucible of the modern world. For one of the cornerstones of this analysis of terrorism is that it is fundamentally a reaction against the Enlightenment tradition, its values and precepts. This is even more pertinent for any social theory analysis that utilises Durkheim, since Durkheim, like Marx and Weber, was a great defender of the Enlightenment, who waged a constant struggle to provide a rational and scientific basis for society (alternatively ‘nation’ and religion, Dingley, 2008). Throughout I will argue that terrorism is fundamentally a reaction to the world as revealed and re-organised by science (as a culture, way of thinking and analysing both the natural and man-made world and not just something carried out by men in white coats in a laboratory) and science is the great hand-maiden of the Enlightenment. Science is primarily method, a way of perceiving, interpreting and understanding the world based on reason and rationality, empirical evidence and testability; as such it eschewed traditional religio-magic interpretations of the world that emphasised mysticism, dependence on priestly castes and the submission to priests and swordsmen (Gellner, 1990). Consequently it decried mysticism and knowledge shrouded in superstition, folklore, arcane ritual and dependent on divine revelation and promoted clarity of thought through illuminating reason and evidence. The Enlightenment shifted knowledge to men as individuals, here on earth and it provided the means whereby men could know for themselves without priestly intermediaries, so ushering in ideas of individualism. It has reshaped the world, particularly the western one, man’s understanding of it, his place and being in it and has brought vast benefits in terms of improved health, welfare, standards and conditions of living and material comfort and affluence. Science has greatly reduced death rates and infant mortality and has led to the progressive freeing of whole groups from women and slaves to working poor and minority ethno-religious groups from servitude in defined roles and places as well as poverty and ignorance. It has led to the ability to control and direct our own environment previously unknown, has led to massive increases in productive capacity and wealth and has freed men from a dependency on nature and natural orders to a world which men themselves create in pursuit of their own liberty.



Terrorism and the Politics of Social Change

But many find this disadvantageous. First the more we have the more we want and the more our sensitivities are developed the more sensitive we become, very often to the defects in and abuses of the Enlightened tradition that has provided us with the ability to critique the Enlightenment and its abuses. The great example here must be the Nazi’s for although their politics were the exact opposite of the Enlightenment they were happy to use the products of it, science, to pursue un-enlightened ends. Science is but a tool in the hands of men who are far from perfect or even enlightened, science merely provides us with the means, how we use it is another matter requiring enlightened attitudes, values and politics. Nor has progress been a simple linear development, the early decades of industrialisation (‘the appliance of science’) in most societies were often ones of appalling slum living and deteriorating health and welfare in the new urban conurbations that accompanied industrialisation. Further, the new cities had usually sucked in their new inhabitants from small (socially and psychologically) cosy villages, with close knit social networks, defined being, place, role and status and a degree of local autonomy. This contrasted with the problems of mass alienation, anomie and socially fragmented living that confronted the new urban ‘huddled masses’. Such masses were often poverty stricken due to below subsistence level wages (Gregg, 1965, Cole and Postgate, 1961) and initially had no health, social security or welfare systems to assist in either daily life or the periods of mass unemployment that frequently confronted them. At least in their villages they had been part of a close community with a benign church and (more or less) occasionally paternalistic landlords as well as their own familial support networks. Life in the new industrial cities was frequently grim, lonely, brutish and relieved only by its shortness and if this is no longer the case in the West it is, at least partly, because we have been able to export such problems out to the third world. And governing this was the new ‘dismal science’ of economics, of abstract laws that dictated ‘scientifically’ that things had to be, since that was what science had revealed as the true order of things – economic laws of the market. In addition, industry made many of the old trades redundant and craftsmen, previously of high status and relative affluence in their communities, could be made redundant over night and lose everything. Meanwhile, the old elites equally found themselves losing out: if not necessarily reduced to poverty religion particularly suffered as science provided a whole new knowledge base that replaced it and the old nobility found their economic dominance, and hence social and political, challenged. Religion suffered badly as the churches ability to know, explain and interpret the world was replaced by science and priests and churches declined in importance in the affairs of men. Meanwhile, aristocrats and gentry might retain their lands and incomes but these failed to match up to the new wealth of industry which forced states to cede political power to them, or face the threat of revolution. And whilst land was relatively fixed in terms of productive power industry displayed a potential to grow beyond bounds far surpassing aristocratic resources.

War and Violence: Understanding the Breeds



In the early stages of industrialisation only a relatively small group appeared to prosper – the new middle classes, whose large fortunes, opulent and arriviste life styles often jarred heavily with the losses of the newly dispossessed. They also began to develop new cultural habits and tastes in politics and social organisation, such as democracy, individual values and liberal reforms and emphasised a society in which movement, geographic and socio-economic, were key factors, thus undermining old ideas of stability and order in relatively fixed and enclosed collectives for one of individual mobility and change, which reflected their new found aspirations. Consequently, there was much to be resented and disliked about the Enlightenment in its own western cradle and nursery. Thus one should not be too surprised if the same thing applies when globalisation takes the process out to the rest of the world, which is very much the case. Whether one is looking at the modern sweatshops of Indonesia and India or the massive social dislocation in Algeria, caused by its rapid Soviet style industrialisation in the 1960s and 1970s, or the influx of ‘decadent’ westerners in to contemporary Islamic societies, one is seeing a repeat of European socio-economic history, with the added humiliation that the new is not even indigenous but a western import. Further, many of the beneficiaries are not even natives of a country as profits get repatriated abroad and perhaps only a few of the local elite, often perceived as corrupt, appear to gain any benefit. This is not to say that the Enlightenment, which is what is implied by westernisation, could not be potentially useful and beneficial, as has been the case in western society, just that as things are currently arranged they are not. Indeed, western, enlightened, ideals and ideas seem not only harmful and loss inducing but even oppressive to many, since it is an alien culture and way of life imposed upon them by foreigners. And it is this, I will argue via Durkheim, which is the core of the terrorist imperative, of violent revolt and resistance against the (enlightened) new; a modernity that displaces and causes great social harm. Terrorism is thus, in the first instance a social problem arising from social and cultural change, impelled by economic, which has its expression in the political. As such this shifts the focus away from psychological and psychiatric efforts at explanations of terrorism, usually found wanting (Horgan, in Silke, 2003). Indeed the idea of terrorists and terrorism as signs of the abnormal will be rather stood on its head, for the logic of resistance to social change is that normal men (it usually is) are resisting the abnormal. Normal here refers to men well adjusted both in themselves and to their usual social circumstances having to resist the encroachments of the new, or abnormal to them, circumstances disrupting their normal lives, society and culture; violently disrupting their collective being with alien ideas of individualism and rational-economic self-interest. In addition, in pre-modern society violence is much more part of the normal than it is in modern society. Historically speaking the modern western world is almost uniquely nonviolent. Thus the terrorist may well be far more normal, for their environment, than we might care to think. In addition, they may be more rational in their response

10

Terrorism and the Politics of Social Change

to our encroachments than we care to believe, since for them to ward off change (modernisation) is to protect vital vested interests; to react violently is to repel that which does violence to the normal. Too often terrorism is analysed and discussed solely from the perspective of the western victims of it or the groups against whom it is directed, invariably western or pro-western. This is not unreasonable since if ‘we’ are the likely victims we will want to know how to respond and protect ourselves as we go about our normal business (and I would also argue, along with Durkheim, that western scientific method enables us to achieve a better analysis of events than non-scientific explanations). However, we often fail to grasp the fact that terrorism is also in the mind of the terrorist and not just us, it is what they do and how and why they do it; their understanding of their acts are equally important for a proper understanding and adequate response. Simply seeing terrorism from ‘our’ perspective alone leads us down the road of building bigger and more costly Fortress America’s or Britain’s since we fail to see or understand the causes and so fail to prevent the acts and imperatives to them in the first instance. Fortress America or Britain may seem like a good idea as long as we can stay within the fortress, yet we cannot. We have to import goods and materials from outside the fortress, we have to trade and exchange with the outside world, we have to go to their world and invite them back in to our world to do business, think only of our dependency on ‘their’ oil. Further, this constantly places us on the defensive and leaves the initiative to the terrorist, making us bigger and more vulnerable targets. Fort Sahara, in the middle of the dessert, crammed full of legionnaires and miles away from anywhere quickly became an easy target for Arab tribesmen to lay siege to and storm. This was one reason why Britain and France led the world in anthropology, as imperial powers they found it much more cost effective and beneficial to understand their ‘revolting’ tribes and subjects (Anderson, 1992, Gellner, 1981) than simply building forts that were constantly being cut off and overrun. Plain tales from the Raj The above points were graphically brought home to me by my own peregrinations around the outposts of Empire, including, but not implying anything, Northern Ireland, where I live and work. In a recent trip to a NATO conference on terrorism in Ankara I became engaged in several lengthy conversations with a large Pakistani delegation of senior police and military concerning operations up on their North West Frontier (the infamous Khyber Pass region that connects Pakistan with Afghanistan) which I had recently visited. The police were most forthcoming about their primary source of intelligence on local tribes, who were most likely to cause trouble and violence, why and how to respond to them. ‘Simple’, said one superintendent, ‘I go to the old ledgers the British kept on all the tribes, their customs and habits and start from there’. Another military officer was equally

War and Violence: Understanding the Breeds

11

forthright about new recruits for the army; which tribes provide the right martial spirit and are not likely to slink off with their new found weapons. Since virtually nothing had changed in the social and cultural nature of their tribal society since the British had left their records still made admirable reading since they were detailed, concise, accurate and usually beautifully written in neat copper plate in leather bound ledgers. In addition, the British were regarded as having kept as good a peace on the frontier and controlled the tribes as well as anyone and were well remembered as rather successful rulers (as long as they didn’t make the fateful error of invading Afghanistan). Hence, why re-invent the wheel? The point is simple: British rule was successful because it knew, eventually, its limitations (including Afghanistan) and also because it made detailed anthropological type studies of the local tribes and forces of disorder and violence. The British made the effort to know and understand the people they were dealing with (the contemporary equivalent of the terrorist) and so knew how to make allowances, not to provoke, how to respond, who to respond to, what to respect and when to leave well alone, even to empathise with violent tribes so as not to induce incidents and start uprisings. This was done by having regular officers or commissioners stationed amongst the local population for many years at a time, who developed a detailed knowledge and by recruiting heavily amongst the local population and drawing on their expertise (Raj rule was mostly regarded as a joint effort rather than simply a British one). Many of the officers of Empire provided the basis for anthropology and even became anthropologists in their own right, and later became effective resistance leaders against the Japanese during the war (Bayly and Harper, 2005). The above takes on even more significance when one recalls that Pakistan is now regarded as on the frontline of counter-terrorism, often involving the same tribes and people who confronted the Raj. Up on the Khyber Pass there is a Pakistan Army base where a plaque records all the invading armies that have come that way, beginning with Alexander the Great, and left that way! But the local population lives on as it has done for over 3,000 years, unchanged and untroubled by the ebb and flow of outside forces; life continues as it always has done and, no doubt, as Allah wills, will continue to do for many thousands of years yet. Why should they change? Why should they conform to new fangled western ideas of liberal democracy or market economics? They have lived without them since time immemorial and have seen off any number of new invaders and ideas, as cultures come and go. The British learnt to leave well enough alone and the Pakistani security forces seem to have maintained a winning formula with equal success, something which needs bearing in mind before western governments get too involved in the region or try to chivvy the Pakistani government into more energetic counter-terrorism in the region. ‘We’ are invading their territory, we are the abnormal wanting to change their normal, that suits them fine, and impose alien ways and ideas.

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Terrorism and the Politics of Social Change

A similar point can also be made regarding Northern Ireland. In my own discussions with police, army and government in the Province there has been a constant referral to basic British, i.e. ‘mainland’ Great Britain, lack of knowledge about the Province and who and what they were dealing with. Thus, when direct Rule began in 1972 (Hennessey, 1997) none of the UK national parties even organised in the Province, which had its own devolved ‘home rule’ government. Thus mystery and ignorance reigned supreme amongst those trying to rule a divided society plunging into anarchy. And even in the 1990s the situation was not much changed: several members of the local intelligence services informed me in private interviews how Sinn Fein felt they could run rings around the government during the ‘peace process’ negotiations due to the government’s intense lack of knowledge and understanding of the Province (Dingley, 2000), which may help explain a lot of Unionist animosity to the Belfast Agreement (1998). But to continue the travelogue: there was (it was blown up in 2009) a very good five star western hotel (Pearl-Continental) in Peshawar, the last big city before the Khyber Pass, and as one enters the lobby one is confronted with a large notice instructing guests that the ‘Carrying of Firearms in the Premises is Prohibited’. Not even in Belfast or Londonderry have I seen the equivalent. The point is, as a brief stroll around Peshawar and outlying districts will confirm, the carrying of firearms is quite normal for all men, indeed one is almost improperly dressed if one is not armed, it is the Pearl Continental which is abnormal, because it caters for westerners. This is a violent world both because of the nature of tribal feuds and personal honour and prestige matters in which violence is part of an individual males self-esteem and status and the conduct of individual and tribal disputes since time immemorial. It is also because men live very close to nature and live by hunting or killing their own domestic animals. Blood letting is normal and part of everyday life, indeed fresh poultry for ones dinner from the local open market are so fresh they come kicking, clucking and wings flapping (the purchaser is presumed to know how to do the necessary). Blood letting is normal and close to the surface of everyday life and this extends to humans as much as to animals, something that is also true of most rural societies. Finally, as I left Peshawar to go up the Khyber Pass I passed a very large mud fort and glimpsed through an open gate the most opulent looking inner mansion which seemed to be made of white marble and had many new top of the range cars parked in its forecourt. This obviously belonged to a very rich and powerful local lord, for even in the west such opulence and wealth would have stood out. I enquired of my host, a most charming Cambridge educated academic, who could possibly own such a magnificent palace, ‘oh’, he said, ‘that belongs to the biggest heroin smuggler in the region’. How did he know, I enquired, rather naively. ‘Well’, he said ‘he is my cousin’. After which he informed me that he would be delighted to introduce me to his cousin and take me for tea with him the next time I was in Peshawar, but could not do it that day since he would have to make an appointment as his cousin was such a busy man, but he would definitely want to meet me.

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What struck me most was the normality of the entire situation. It was normal for them, everything about it was normal. In the entire region the only alternative to scraping a living with a herd of goats was smuggling heroin, or smuggling anything for that matter. Heroin was a very lucrative trade, his cousin made a lot of money out of it and so helped support his extended family and community, he provided work, security and income for many more and helped to boost the local economy, so providing even more employment. His wealth and power also helped keep the local peace and supported charity works and he was highly respected by everyone in the region, where ‘scraping a living’ was more than just a folk saying given the barren landscape. We, in the west, might recoil at the idea of drug barons and smuggling but they did not for very good local reasons. They are making a normal response to their normal conditions and taking advantage of whatever opportunities come along in their normal way. Western morals and values are irrelevant, even positively harmful to survive in their environment. They were not evil, deranged or morally bankrupt, in fact quite the opposite is the case, as anyone who has experienced their local hospitality and strong codes of honour, good manners and conduct will know. Nor am I saying that they are necessarily right or wrong, just that the normal for them is different and so they acquire different habits, values, cultures and understandings of the world attuned to survival in their environment. This environment is essentially pre-industrial and not enlightened, thus enlightened ideas and forms are not relevant to their survival, hence when such values and ideas, let alone social and political organisation begin to invade their world they become a threat, something to be violently resisted. A similar attitude closer to home is reflected in Harnden’s (1999) reflections on a violent dispute between rival republican groups along Northern Ireland’s rural border with the Republic of Ireland where he witnessed a fracas between them in a car park (cross border smuggling is very lucrative for republican terrorist groups). Harnden wonders if the real problem is just that these are intensely localised, rural collectives who simply wish to get on with their normal ways, resolving disputes as they had done for centuries and equally objecting to any interference from London, Dublin or Belfast. In other words, these are simply men, like feuding Afghan tribes, who wish to be left out of the modern world and do their own thing, be it smuggling or resolving local land disputes via fisticuffs rather than crown courts or whatever. This, I will argue, is the root of terrorism, whether in Ireland, the Basque Lands, Indonesia, Algeria, Russian Caucuses, Turkey or wherever. It is the violent response to violence being done to the local socio-economic system and culture, or as I shall later put it – the collective. Violence is met with violence because violence, in largely rural, ill-educated or illiterate societies, is often the only known method of response, it is culturally normal and able to have the kind of emotional impact to compensate for a lack of ability in the articulation of grievances, again normal in pre-modern society. Violence also has a kind of primordial recall and instinctive-ness to it that takes men back to un-thought out ways of naturalness,

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i.e. non-scientific. This is well illustrated in the hunt in traditional Basque society (Zulaika, 1988), where success depends on an instinctive ability of the huntsman to ‘feel’ and ‘think’ like his prey and have an intuitive feel for it and then kill it almost as part of the ritual sacrifice necessary for the renewal of life. This is something that the rational-efficient man of Weber’s bureaucratic world (Weber, 1964) or Durkheim’s functional specialist in an advanced division of labour (Durkheim, 1984), i.e. modern western man, would find difficult to empathise with, yet he must if he is to comprehend terrorism and effective responses. A brief history of violence There has probably never been a period of peace and tranquillity in the whole of human history. Most of human history is made up of violence as a normal feature, until very recently. We actually live in peculiarly peaceful times, at least in the west, and this is one reason why terrorism has such a dramatic impact – we have achieved such an abnormally peaceful world, even if it is partly at the expense of exporting our wars out to third world proxies. However, this should not make us forget that the 20th century saw two of the greatest wars in history (World Wars I and II) whilst colonial wars continued to abound throughout all the European Empires, indeed any history of the British Army in India seems to be simply a catalogue of wars, insurgencies and revolts of greater or lesser importance (Holmes, 2006), whilst a general history of the British Army would indicate scarcely a year in which they were not involved in some violent campaign (Barnett, 2000). It is not just British history but world history that shows an almost constant resort to violent conflicts, some of which we would now regard as war and some as sub-wars. War and violence seem to dominate and permeate the history and being of man. As the military historian John Keegan has written: Warfare is almost as old as man himself, and reaches into the most secret places of the human heart, places where self dissolves rational purpose, where pride reigns, where emotion is paramount, where instinct is king. ‘Man is a political animal’ said Aristotle. Clausewitz, a child of Aristotle, went no further than to say that a political animal is a warmaking animal. Neither dared confront the thought that man is a thinking animal in whom the intellect directs the urge to hunt and the ability to kill. (Keegan, 1994, p.3)

Violence, war and conflict is almost part of mans make up, which is why we need to maintain some perspective when dealing with terrorism. In addition we must also remember that firm distinctions between war and other forms of violence are relatively new, although violent conflict over things such as religion or between states are also as old as the hills. States regularly engaged in warfare to secure borders, more land, fend off intruders and exert internal control. Meanwhile, within

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traditional states there were no police forces to maintain order and legal redress to resolve disputes was only realistic for a small elite until into the 20th century throughout the west. Most states ruled largely by force, whether against internal or external opposition, and the vast majority of men lived in small self regulating communes where disputes would be settled by any number of informal means. In biblical times crucifixion was a common form of punishment for ordinary criminals and those who revolted against the state, whilst well into the 20th century capital punishment was common enough throughout the west and regarded as community events well into the 19th century. In biblical times the Romans had trained professional armies whose ruthlessness and efficiency made them pre-eminent throughout the known world, indeed we get our modern word ‘decimate’ from the Roman habit of killing one in ten prisoners from amongst captives, to set an example. But the Romans kept a peace of sorts, which was almost unique in an age of constant violence, and when their empire declined it was almost a return to normality when the ‘dark ages’ set in and men were subject to Gothic, Vandal, Hun, and other incursions on a regular basis until the 11th century. Meanwhile, Muslim invasions of the Iberian Peninsular and southern France caused major scares in Christendom, something that was repeated throughout the Balkans and Central Europe after the fall of Constantinople (1453), which illustrates particularly well the terrors of contemporary warfare: … the morning unfolded in scenes of terror. … sights ‘terrible, pitiful and beyond all tragedies’ … according to Kritovoulos, the generally pro-Ottoman Greek writer. Women were ‘dragged violently from their bed chambers’. Children were snatched from their parents; old men and women who were unable to flee their houses were ‘slaughtered mercilessly’, along with ‘the weak minded, the old, lepers and the infirm’. The newborn babies were hurled into the squares. Women and boys were raped … (Crowley, 2005, p.219-20)

This was common enough during medieval warfare, indeed even during later wars, such as the Peninsular, the storming of Badajoz (1812) by the British was marked by scenes of indescribable horror, rape and wanton slaughter being the least of them (Urban, 2003, chapter 17) and it took three days to restore order at the point of Portuguese bayonets, fresh British troops and the gallows. However, these were still men from mostly rural or very poor urban backgrounds, whose mindsets were forged in a cruel, deprived and, by our standards, depraved world in which men lived closely with animals, which they slaughtered for their own food, and at a time when anaesthetics and modern medicines were unknown; pain and violence were thus accepted in a way not known to modern man. It was also an age when one could still be hung for stealing a sheep and English law retained the death penalty for over 200 offences. As Hobbes had observed in the 17th century, life was ‘poor, lonely, nasty, brutish and short’ and remained so until well into the 20th century for all but a few.

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Further, until the industrial revolution the vast majority of men lived in rural areas and very close to nature which not only involved the hunting and killing of prey but also the slaughter and cleaning (plucking, gutting etc.) of ones own livestock. Further, men often lived in the same buildings, usually above the livestock, so as to gain their warmth during the winter. Outside of the west this is still the case for the overwhelming majority of men, as can be witnessed firsthand in rural Turkey or in the Himalayas, and even in Europe it is not unknown in the more remote districts such as the Basque Lands where ‘baserria’ culture dominates (Zulaika, 1988). It was also the case that the everyday implements used to slaughter animals were also the same used in conflict, either in local conflicts or major battles. In the days before standing armies Kings or Lords merely recruited for the campaign and men turned up with their everyday appliances of hunting and slaughter, such as bows and arrows or staffs with knives attached to them, as their personal weapons. There were no professional soldiers, men simply applied in battle what they did in ordinary life, thus making civil and military skills interchangeable. A modern example of this is the interchange of agricultural implement and fighting weapon of the kukri (a kind of hatchet cum hunting knife) issued by the Army to the Ghurkhas (the last of the old Indian Army regiments still in British service). The kukri is also easily available in all the local markets in Nepal in many different shapes and sizes quite simply because they are used first as an everyday agricultural tool and only as an instrument of war when conflicts erupt (quite frequently). I know this from personal experience since I purchased several different kukris in local markets in Kathmandu and had their history and use explained to me by Ghurkha soldiers who told how they were common farm implements to them. However, militarised and handed out through ritual ceremony they have become the regimental symbol of ferocious fighting men. Meanwhile, a lord had probably trained from boyhood to use sword, horse and lance as the practical means to ensure his feudal landed rights and enforce his status and this was probably the only life he knew. Consequently, for most of society life knew little difference between civil and military after the Romans and before the rise of gunpowder. As Keegan observes on the Battle of Agincourt (1415): What went on at Agincourt appals and horrifies the modern imagination which, vicariously accustomed though it is to the idea of violence, rarely encounters it in actuality and is outraged when it does. The sense of outrage was no doubt as keenly felt by the individual victim of violence five hundred years ago. But the victim of assault, in a world where the rights of lordship were imposed and the quarrels of neighbours settled by sword or knife as a matter of course, was likely to have been a good deal less surprised by it when it occurred. … the medieval world was one in which the distinction between private, civil and foreign war could only be irregularly enforced. (Keegan, 1991, p.115-6)

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Life in the middle ages was brutal and savage, violence was normal, sadism almost an accepted norm, the public torture of miscreants an enjoyed public spectacle as were deliberately designed slow and painful executions, such as hanging, drawing and quartering. Society was thus very violent (Hale, 1998, chapter 3) to such an extent that one might easily claim that terror was the norm and that this was how order was maintained. The very violence of society was something that helped encourage the rise of the state, since a strong state with a monopoly of violence and law making helped to limit violence. Indeed, the monopoly of violence is a major part of Weber’s definition of the state (Giddens, 1987, p.18-20) precisely because a centralised authority provides security and safety via its control of violence and imposition of order. This in turn was part of the efficacy behind the rise of nationalism (linked as it was to the idea of the people and democratic control of the state on their behalf), security and protection from violence on behalf of the people; if the ‘people’ controlled the state they could direct its monopoly use of violence for their own security and not just that of an elite. At the time of Agincourt modern ideas of nation were almost non-existent and the concept of the state was very rudimentary. These were ideas that only began to establish themselves after the Treaty of Westphalia (1648) that brought to an end the Thirty Years War (1618-1648) and the religious wars of the 16th and 17th centuries in general. These wars had been marked by a brutality and horror that shocked even those hardened times, it being estimated that Germany lost between 30-50 percent of its population during the war, and left an economic devastation that took hundreds of years to recover from (Anderson, 1998, p.63-76). Religion had always been important in men’s lives for a variety of reasons, not least as a source of legitimacy for authority and the use of violence (part of the just war tradition that went back to St Augustine of Hippo in the 4th and 5th centuries). Religion also played the role of a balancing, pacific power against that of institutionalised violence; as the voice of God it alone could say when violence was not only just but proportionate. The Church in Europe was also the only literate body that could draw up laws and codes of behaviour for general application and so standardise through laws and morality to provide an order and stability able to contain and direct the use of violence. Hence, when men fought over religious disputes they could become particularly vicious, as both the Thirty Years War and the English Civil War demonstrated. Also, as will be discussed later, violence often goes to the heart of what religion is about, both are deeply linked at the symbolic and ritual level (the shedding of blood makes holy). On behalf of God any amount of blood letting can be justified. The very viciousness of the violence of the religious wars thus gave a major impetus to state development as a stable monopoly of violence, to ensure that it was not unleashed in the uncontrolled forms of the past and that a level of order was maintained, thus law and order became pre-eminent concerns of the state. States were concerned for their own welfare to prevent the violence which had caused such devastation, when whole towns and cities were put to the sword, rape

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and plunder. In addition, as trade expanded both within states and internationally so too there was a greater interest in state monopoly and central control and direction of violence both within and between states. An international order was required so that merchants could trade in security and everyone else enjoy the associated benefits of economic development. Further, international trade was increasingly associated with colonies for both markets and raw materials, which required state violence to gain and protect and provide clear parameters in international trading relations. Concurrently the means and methods of violence increased enormously in the form of gunpowder and firearms, which made state control over violence even more vital to maintain order. Gunpowder massively increased the violent potential of force and it also required less skill to use. Whereas it took many years to train an archer effectively it only took a matter of days to train someone to use a musket and nearly anyone could light the fuse to a barrel of gunpowder. Cannon and muskets empowered less skilled men with far greater force. (Guy Fawkes, perhaps the first English terrorist, attempt to blow up Parliament in 1605 stands as a good example of the potential of gunpowder to affect political stability.) However, firearms of all kinds and gunpowder were expensive to make, requiring great skill and resources, something which the state could effectively monopolise and very effectively did, thus concentrating great power in its own hands. However, the resources necessary to do this also required great wealth, increasingly derived from trade as well as land, and so new groups entered into the state, thus helping to extend its reach and interests and give it a new stability. Trade required a new political stability at home so that men could venture safely abroad to conduct their business there, it required professional navies to protect sealanes and armies to conquer and hold territory in distant lands, this required long term planning and stability to reap the benefits, all of which led to an increasing regularisation and order of violence and force under a single, regularised state. Standing armies and navies, in which states invested vast sums now became a necessity, and given their potential power and force they now needed to be regularised to ensure their permanent loyalty and functional efficiency in doing their job. Thus violence, at least political, slowly became more ordered and routine and sucked out of daily life in to professional forces, in addition the nature and type of violence of the professional military also became more distinct from that of civil life. Warships became distinct from merchant ships only when they began to mount cannon. Regular uniforms, formal drill and marching in step were all innovations of the 17th century designed first to increase command and control on the now larger and more destructive gunpowder battlefield but also to mark out the professional soldier from the civilian world, thus marshalling violence and keeping it more controlled and removed from ordinary life. Political violence became increasingly ordered and routine as a consequence. At the same time such ordered violence enormously increased the states ability to impose order and increase its own power and authority over society, once again helping to lay the foundation

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for national identities by focusing law and order and legitimate violence around a single permanent state (Anderson, 1998, part 2). Such developments are important in understanding our own responses to violence, since a major impetus behind the rise of the state and its monopoly of violence was to produce a more orderly world with less violence. Violence after 1648 was increasingly removed from society to become the prerogative of the state to direct it, and permanent or standing armies and navies to implement it. Even here there was a growing desire to limit and control even the violence between standing armies as men entered the Age of Reason, or Enlightenment. Standing armies and navies were far too expensive to risk in all out engagements, hence fighting wars and battles to their logical conclusions were generally avoided until necessary and with a good chance of winning. War increasingly became the art of manoeuvre, marching and counter-marching whose aim was often to avoid battle or when faced with an inevitable clash of arms not to pursue it to the bitter end: War in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries reflected the dynastic (and later, Enlightenment) ethos of reason, moderation, and calculation. It was highly regulated and institutionalised in the form of strict etiquette, standardised tactics, uniforms and formal rules of the game. (Holsti, 1996, p.3)

Battles and sieges of the 18th century became increasingly calculated affairs in which generals and admirals could usually predict the inevitable outcome of an engagement, consequently they would put up enough of a display of resistance to satisfy honour and then agree the inevitability of one side winning, the ‘winning’ side would then permit the ‘losing’ side to quit the field under honourable terms and in an orderly fashion (Anderson, 1998, Duffy, 1998). The aim, in the Age of Enlightenment, was often to limit bloodshed and unnecessary violence. This was partly due to the fact that Enlightened military tactics (the science or art of war) were known and shared by all, the technology was the same on all sides, as was the training, and most of the officers involved saw themselves as belonging to the same universal strata of gentlemen. War was fought for strictly limited raison d’etat whose costs and benefits could be calculated as easily as the military tactics and resources could. War was not a trial of will and character between peoples’ or ideologies as with modern nations, it was rationally limited partly by an universal code of conduct (Christian gentlemen), partly by a shared military knowledge, limited objectives (usually dynastic or commercial) and also by the memory of the horrors of the religious wars (when men did fight for a religious ideology) and also by the slightly more recent memories of the costs of Marlborough’s victories: Some battles of the period were indeed remarkably bloody. At Blenheim in 1704 more than 30,000 men of the 108,000 engaged on the two sides became casualties, and at Malplaquet five years later the anti-French allies had a quarter of their forces killed or wounded. (Anderson, 1998, p.136)

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Such casualties seriously affected attitudes to war and violence in an age of costly armies and limited resources and were not to be seen again until the Napoleonic Wars and the rediscovery of ideology (democracy and nationalism). Only outside of Europe did the old barbarism seem to remain, and even then it shocked participants (Duffy, 1998, p.287-8). But the Age of Enlightenment was also one of a growing liberal conscience in which attitudes to violence and war shifted, partly due to post-Reformation attitudes to life and new concepts of government and politics. War was increasingly seen as more of an aberration, a product of poor government and failing administration, which combined with new enlightened attitudes, such as in science, philosophy and reformed theology, which stressed the individual, to seek better ways of resolving disputes between states and men in general (Howard, 1989, chapter 1). As Howard, observes this was the age of not only the Enlightenment but also the rise of the liberal conscience, which implied restraint on the part of actors. In particular restraint on the part of the military was regarded as increasingly virtuous, for economic, political and ethical reasons. This was an age when ‘the pleasures of the imagination’ (Brewer, 1997) began to influence educated sentiment and sensibilities. There was a growing emphasis on order and civility in all walks of life, which is reflected in the orderly style and layout of Georgian towns and cities (as opposed to the medieval urban sprawl) and a concern for refinement in polite manners, behaviour and attitudes to violence, even if at first restricted mostly to the higher ranks of society (Sennett, 1993). Such refinement is important, for it is where many contemporary attitudes, especially liberal ones, emanate from and so help us to understand our own attitudes to violence, since it was this period that first began to seriously codify the conduct of war. The concern for order, science and liberal ideas of democracy were intimately linked, and still are, since they all evolved around the core idea that progress was linked to order, science revealed the order of God’s universe and science liberated men from un-Enlightened superstition and enabled him to progress. Such progress also utilised reason and restraint, the very opposite of the passions violence unleashed, thus it is science with its concern for understanding order and laws that provides the basis for both peace and the liberty (liberation) of the individual (Porter, 2001). Wars were still fought and the battles when fought were bloody but began to acquire the characteristics with which we morally and socially identify it today. War became increasingly disciplined, drilled and controlled both in its military conduct and in its separation from civilian life, for whereas feudal warriors were ‘gloriously undisciplined’ (Howard, 1977) the new men-at-arms, post-1648, were expected to be disciplined and self-controlled. This derived directly from the enlightened attitudes of the age which in turn evolved around the rediscovery of the classic texts of Roman and Greek civilisation (on which both the Reformation and Enlightenment were based) and helped inform not just the rise of science but also military and religious (Reformation) virtues:

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… those stoic philosophers whose teaching about self-control, self abnegation and submission to authority provided the necessary counter-part to the mechanism of Roman military models, the spirit of which alone would make them work. This stoical philosophy of self-sacrifice and obedience harmonised well with the sober lifestyle of Protestantism. (Howard, 1977, p.57)

Attitudes to violence and war began to change, guided by the new learning of an age that produced Locke, Hobbes, Hutcheson, Smith, Voltaire, Rousseau, Kant, Priestly, Newton and Pope and a host of others who stand as forefathers of science, sociology and the Enlightenment. And, as implied by Howard, these shared same foundations that supplied the Reformation theology, hence its greater acceptability for Protestants. Indeed, there is a line that runs through from the Reformation to science (Merton, 1973, chapter 7, Gellner, 1990, chapter 4) and the civilising and restraint of violence that will be returned to as an important theme, especially if one accepts Bruce’s (2003) argument that liberal democracy, against which so much and terrorism is directed, is a product of the Reformation. Enlightened society expected violence to be limited and conducted in a certain manner, wanton violence and butchery was to be avoided and regretted if it occurred. Formal rules were not laid down as such but civilised conduct in war became a matter of honour and principle for most officers where personal conduct was part of the essence of being an officer. Meanwhile, another part of the essence of an officers’ role was to properly control ones men and ensure their proper conduct, hence Wellington’s fury at the siege of Badajoz, because control was lost and lasting damage done to the army’s reputation in the Peninsular. Until Napoleonic times it was expected that proper conduct would include looking after prisoners properly, acknowledging the conventions of war in terms of honouring ones word regarding terms of capitulation, non-abuse of civilians and care of the wounded, quite simply it was properly civilised conduct becoming an enlightened gentleman. Orderly war became more humane and civilised. It also made good sense since it ensured better cooperation, or at least non-hostility, from local populations and also ensured ones own safety if on the losing side. War was also regarded as increasingly costly and incompatible with the growth of free trade (as against mercantilist ideas of fixed and limited trade opportunities that required military gain and protection for monopolies), which required improved international relations and better developed diplomacy. Free trade, with its ‘natural’ corollary of free assemblies and rule by a ‘naturally’ pacific people began to be interpreted (at least by a significant, small minority) as the true nature of man, building on the ideas of Tom Paine, Adam Smith and Rousseau in particular. And such new ideas were then contrasted with contemporary dynastic states ruled by aristocratic warrior classes for whom war was regarded as a natural form of employment, such as in the enlightened absolutism of France or Prussia. War came to be regarded by enlightened men as unnatural and against man’s interests, which included trade as well as health and civil liberties (Howard, 1989, chapter 2).

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Hence war began to take on a negative aspect for enlightened minds whose ideas of liberal democracy were beginning to gain political ascendancy and which continue to dominate modern liberal minds and assumptions. Those who describe themselves as progressive and liberal tend to see war as wrong and violence as negative and achieving very little, although there is no evidence for this. Indeed war is often very successful as a means to many ends (Christiansson, 2007, chapter VIII) as long as one understands exactly what ones true purposes are in using force (Smith, 2006). However, ‘progressive’, libertarian and left wing thought has continued to pose war as an aberration or vehicle for vested interests against those of the ‘people’ although in the 19th and 20th centuries the vested interest shifted, under the aegis of Marxist thought, to be that of the industrial bourgeoisie (the 18th century liberal free traders who previously posed war as an aristocratic and dynastic interest but now owned major arms and related industries) rather than the old aristocracy (Howard, 1989, p.63). Who was correct is another issue, but once again it was what we now regard as broadly the left who continued to see war as morally wrong, whilst the right simply accept it as a reality. The important point is that enlightened progress saw war as something wrong and to be abolished, a product of international trade, vested interests and power politics, at least at the rhetorical level. However, left wing revolutionaries saw their own violence as legitimate, and this applied to Marx and Engels who clearly opposed the ‘bourgeois pacifism’ of British and French enlightened liberals, despised romantic revolutionaries who thought elite insurrections would spark off general revolts but thought that genuine revolutionary violence was a legitimate tactic in the historic development of mankind (Howard, 1977, p.109). However, what Marx and Engels reflect is that once one reaches the 19th century a single unified attitude to war and violence can no longer be found in society, especially since there is now talk of class war and revolutions. This also takes one back to a very old principle in human history, often overlooked by sociology, that, as Heraclitus says ‘War is the Father of All’. Most societies, states and nations are founded in war and violence, as Howard (1977) begins his text on p.1, ‘The origins of Europe … were hammered out on the anvil of war’. And this is reflected in the way that the ranks of nobility use titles derived from original military functions: Chevalier, Caballero, and Ritter all signified literally ‘the man on horseback’, conveying images of physical and social elevation and tactical superiority. The German Herzog was originally the leader of an army, like the French duc, just as Markgraf had been a border commander and Freiherr (baron) a freed soldier. (Duffy, 1998, p.35)

And until the 18th century this basic idea behind society as reflecting a military order had not changed much in principle. For as Giddens (1987, p.53) observes few societies can be reliably found that did not have their origins in war, but by the 19th century the distinction between contemporary industrial and previous

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military society had become a point of marked comment for social thinkers. This was a product of Enlightenment political ideas on the ordering of society based on the new forces of industrialisation and free trade. Previously in a static semi or feudal economy the only way a state or dynasty could usually increase its wealth or economy was via military conquest of new lands and populations, but with the rise of industry massive new sources could be unleashed within static state boundaries as wealth became divorced from land as its sole source. This in turn was associated with the rise of liberal politics and enlightened ideals, closely integrated into the concerns of the new industry to break down the old ruling orders and elites, so that politics and social organisation began to reflect the ideals and needs of the ‘people’ as opposed to the old feudal and semi-feudal landed orders. The people now became a force imbued with interests and rights which stood opposed to the old order and was concerned to throw off its fetters and liberate itself from old rigid conformities and subservience to military orders, landed interest, ranks and feudal obligations. This was seen first in the American Revolution (1776-1783) and then in the French Revolution and Napoleonic wars (1789-1815) which led to a new bitterness and ferocity creeping into war since entire orders of social organisation and interest were being challenged. It even gave rise to the idea of terreur as a political concept to emancipate the people of France, under Robespierre, from the rigid order of the ancien regime (Furet, 1996, chapter 3), where terror was used to liberate the people (often from themselves). Politics, legitimacy and authority shifted to the people and the state, under the aegis of nationalism, came to be regarded not as the dynastic property of Kings, ordained by religion (the traditional source of legitimacy), but as the instrument of the people to act on their behalf and interests. If religion had previously legitimated the old order and its use of violence as executors of divine will we now had a situation in which the people, or those claiming to act on their behalf, the divine force, that could legitimate the use of violence. Many writers on nationalism, e.g. Gellner (1994) or Hobsbawm (1992) have recognised this propensity for the nation to become holy as it took on the mantle of the people. The people could now discard the old restraints in the cause of liberty and this was witnessed most dramatically in the terreur of the French Revolution and then the ferocity of the Napoleonic Wars. In addition, whilst conscription was not new in Europe, Napoleon took it to new heights of national mobilisation, producing mass armies, fighting brutal battles and campaigns to ruthless conclusions with massive casualties (his invasion of Russia in 1812 leading to nearly 600,000 dead, Markham, 1975, p.139, whilst, Best, 1998, p.187, regards Russian losses as similar). This had two effects, first it spread revolutionary ideas of nation and mass mobilisation not simply by emulating France but by the greater involvement of more people over greater territory. This implied not only soldiers involved in battles but civilians disrupted, pillaged, more families forced to provide recruits, greater industrial mobilisation and simply many more men having their ordinary lives disrupted or having to pay higher taxes.

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Terrorism and the Politics of Social Change

Second and as a result of the first point: … when the common people get into a war, the normal rules and conventions went by the board. (Best, 1998, p.187)

We thus now see the start of a regression back from civilised and restricted war to total war once it shifts to (pre-enlightened) wars of the people (the Spanish guerrilla revolt against Napoleonic occupation provided a major foretaste of this in its bestial and ferocious nature, Best, 1998, chapter 12) and national liberation and the wars of the 19th and 20th centuries increasingly became just that. Violence returns in greater force just at a time when industry also starts to provide the means for ever greater violence and destructive force. It is almost an irony that what once protected people from excess violence (enlightened militarism) now becomes associated with increased violence and acceptance of it in pursuit of enlightened ideals of liberty, democracy, free trade and the appliance of science in industry. Enlightened science provides the means for (military) industrial output, the political and administrative means to organise large masses and the political ideology to legitimate it in terms of liberal democracy realised through the nation (‘peoples wars’) which has become the vehicle for mass emancipation and expression, unleashed from the old orders that had previously restrained it. A further irony is that the old orders showed restraint precisely because they realised what happened ‘when the common people get into a war’. Mass democracy linked people to the state via ideas of nationhood and so they had a controlling influence over wars precisely because they were involved in its waging both at the military and political level and so they became more ferocious and difficult to control as the wars of the 19th century wore on. The old elites were small and individual rulers were relatively well educated (especially in the classics, the bedrock of Enlightenment), relatively free and autonomous individuals, landed men and families, and they could ignore the will of the people because of it and simply rationally calculate. But once the masses, the people, become involved, under the ideal of individual freedom and liberty realised in liberal democracy, so such rational calculation declines and mass sentiment and hysteria take over and impels elected rulers who feel obliged to respond to their mass electorates. The people easily become an amorphous mass, easily whipped up into high emotion by demagogues and cheap sensationalist media, with little room for reason, and it was this fear of mob rule by the masses that increasingly haunted Europe from the terreur onwards, culminating in Le Bon’s late 19th century classic The Crowd (1895). Just as landlord families in feudal countrysides had nightmares about peasant risings, so better off people in cities had nightmares about risings by the labouring, unemployed and unemployable people of the tenements, rookeries, riverfronts, courts and backstreets; nightmares about which revolutions did nothing to banish. (Best, 1998, p.281)

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Revolutions, mob rule and violent upheaval by the people became an endemic concern for the more respectable strata of society, the military and, as will be discussed later, behind the rise of sociology. But from the point of view of organised state violence or war the centre of gravity shifted away from elite control to democratic control via parliaments and mass consent by the people, although ‘the people’ often stopped prudently short at the middle classes. The gravity of violence shifted to the people and this was to have major implications for the rise of terrorism since it created problems of defining the people: who and what constituted a people or nation created serious political debate (Dingley, 2008) and became a cause of wars, revolutions and anti-state insurgencies. At first the enlightened idea of the nation simply claimed all the people within a state’s borders, thus the French Revolution merely declared all French Crown subjects to be citizens, even though 50 percent of them could not speak French (Hobsbawm, 1992). Indeed as late as 1870 the same applied (Eugen Weber, 1976), whilst the problem of unifying (manufacturing?) Italy in the 1860s was complicated by the fact that only 2 percent spoke Italian (Hobsbawm, 1992). The enlightened ideal was that all would simply become citizens of the new states and then learn to acquire the enlightened habits, language and culture of the new enlightened elites; these became known as unification nationalisms since they unified different ethno-linguistic groups into a single national unit. Indeed, it was also central to enlightened ideals that a new world order would arise that would even supersede these new enlightened states, something common to Smith, Paine and Marx. But problems arose in Germany as a new concept of nationalism arose (ethnic and Romantic) that actually saw the old linguistic and cultural differences of these populations as unique and the true basis for nations. These Romantic nationalists eulogised differences as something pure and uncorrupted and so developed an ethnic nationalism espousing ideals of cultural purity and exclusivity that had its origins in a reaction against the influence of France and the Enlightenment values it represented, as a result of Napoleonic occupation (Greenfeld, 1993, chapter 4). In Germany this new ethnic nationalism had helped mobilise Germans for the war of liberation against Napoleon and later in the movement for unification in 1870 (Blackbourn, 1997, chapter 1). But its main influence was to encourage the break up of the old multi-ethnic states, such as Austria-Hungary or Russia, in to all their separate ethnic units as nation-states in their own right. The problem with ethnic break-ups was that few ethnic groups existed in neatly defined parcels of territory, most involved a mix of ethnic groups within fairly large territories with no defined borders. If one thinks of the recent mix of ethnic identities that coexisted within the former Yugolsavia then one has a pretty good idea of what most of Europe was like before Napoleon. But this was regarded as normal, as was being ruled by dynastic orders that did not share your own identity or language, indeed it was irrelevant to the vast majority of peasants who lived self-sufficient lives in their local villages and rarely ventured further afield than the local market town. Who ruled was irrelevant as long as local custom, tradition and order was recognised and the state provided security from marauding

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Terrorism and the Politics of Social Change

invaders. This was precisely how multi-ethnic states like Austria-Hungary, Russia, Great Britain, Spain and France had existed so well for so long. However, once one creates the idea that the only legitimate nation-state is one ruled by ones own ethnic group it creates all the problems and violence so recently seen in the former Yugoslavia, or in Ireland (Hobsbawm, 1992, Gellner, 1983, Schopflin, 2000, Dingley, 2008). In itself this now provides us with one explanation for political violence over the last 200 years as Enlightenment and Romantic ideals of the correct political order clashed in the form of nation-state formation and the correct political ordering of mankind. It was this struggle between Enlightenment and Romantic concepts of the nation-state that was to form the basis for many later nationalist insurgencies, although until around 1870 it was the unification nationalism that impelled most of the revolutionary wars and much of the basis for non, or anti,-state violence, as will be discussed below. However, for the big states that were industrialising and unifying there was now the means to better prepare mass armies via peace time conscription (which also helped to cement national feeling amongst non-national peasants and urban proletariats by exposing them to national state institutions and ideas in a single language) and here enlightened ideas still dominated with regard to violence. Strict discipline and control were the norms under properly trained officers and equipped with new and ever deadlier weapons and technology which demanded higher standards of application and use and therefore better educated, trained and disciplined men; and a frequent occasion for their use was the maintenance of order in the new industrial cities and the establishment of state authority (Best, 1998, chapter 24). But when wars were fought such was the new lethality of warfare that it led directly to the first formal attempts to impose formal rules and laws to war: as the means to greater violence and destruction became greater so the enlightened imperative to closer monitor, order and control it increased. The first step was informal and followed the Battle of Solferino (1859) where the carnage and lack of care for the wounded shocked observers and led to the foundation of the Red Cross. Meanwhile the Crimean War (1853-1856) had already led to major improvements in the care of British casualties, although this had as much to do with the publicity given to war and its casualties via the new mass media of print. However, the Crimea did lead to the first attempts at legally restraining warfare (law now replacing the custom and practice that gentlemen could be relied upon to observe to maintain order). The 1856 peace treaty, ending the Crimean war, also laid down limitations on the conduct of maritime warfare, particularly relating to abolishing privateers and restrictions on naval blockades. In addition in 1863 there was the founding conference of the Red Cross and in 1864 the first Geneva Convention on the amelioration of wounded and the immunity of those wearing the Red Cross insignia. This Convention was added to or revised in 1906, 1929, 1949 and 1977 and now constitutes the, ‘Geneva Law regarding armed conflict and constitute a body of humanitarian law governing the treatment and protection of those hors de combat, civilians and other non-combatants’ (Green, 2000, p.30-1).

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Of more significance for the actual conduct of war was the 1867 Declaration of St Petersburg which banned the use of exploding bullets. This is important because for the first time there is a specific response in law to the industrial and technological potential of armaments, specifically designed to limit or restrain the conduct of violence in war and so reduce human suffering. The legitimacy of war was still recognised but the means to pursue it was restrained to within the bounds of ‘the laws of humanity’ (Green, 2000, p.31). This was then codified into what became know as the Hague Law, which followed on from an international conference held in Brussels in 1874 which looked at ways of ‘restraining’ the ‘severities of war’, regulating it and reducing the ‘passions’ it provoked. This in turn led to the Institute of International Law, at its Oxford conference in 1880, to draw up its Manual of the Laws of War on Land. The manual was intended at first merely to form the basis for national legislation in all participating countries and with an emphasis that all individual combatants be educated in its provisions down to the lowest levels. This in turn led to the Hague Conferences of 1899 and 1907 which sought to restrict the type and forms of combat that signatories could engage in. From here on a clear body of international law emerges relating to armed conflict, its conduct, rights and obligations of combatants that extended to cover war at sea (London Declaration, 1909) and in 1922 a meeting in the Hague drew up a set of rules on air warfare, although it never acquired legal status. In 1925 a Geneva Protocol banned the use of gas and chemical weapons and in 1929 there was a Geneva Convention on the treatment of prisoners of war. The Nuremberg trials (1945 and after) actually introduced their own new concepts of crimes against humanity and introduced certain basic concepts of human rights in war and a specific Convention on Genocide was adopted in 1948. Perhaps one of the most significant post-war developments was the Geneva Convention in 1949, which updated the previous Conventions and specifically introduced a new Convention relating to the treatment of civilians, particularly in occupied territory during war. Meanwhile, in 1977 the Geneva Conventions were further updated to apply humanitarian principles to non-international conflicts (Green, 2000, chapter 2). In general the aim of international law on armed conflict has been to limit the type of weapons permitted, against whom and under what circumstances; to define who and what counts as a combatant; how prisoners and other combatants now incapacitated should be treated, and; how civilian populations and their property should be treated. In brief, the law aims to codify and order warfare within acceptable moral bounds of humanitarian principles. In addition there are general principles, such as the UN Declaration of Human Rights (1948) that combatants are also expected to observe (Hagan, 1997, chapter 1). The aim is simple and goes back to the enlightened ideal of civility and restraint and often merely puts in to law what in the past was regarded as normal custom and practice but updated to take account of new weapons, technology and combatants. However, due to the increased lethality of weapons and the general increase in the destructiveness of war and its increased complexity, sophistication and scope, they have now been formally codified. The aim is to order violence, to restrain it, not eliminate it.

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Also, the rise of ideological war, in the 20th century, in which ideologies such as fascism, communism or nationalism, have caused the idea of a single religion as a means to legitimate violence to become redundant. As secular gods have replaced divinities, so there has emerged a tendency for ideology to supersede humanitarian considerations, custom and practice. ‘For the good of the cause’ has often implied that any means are legitimate to achieve ideological ends. A graphic example of this was provided when a leading anti-Nazi German Admiral (Canaris) objected to the failure to apply the 1929 Convention on prisoners to Russians, even though Russia had not ratified the Convention. He was over-ruled by Field Marshal Keitel who replied: The objections arise from the military concept of chivalrous war-fare. This is the destruction of an ideology. Therefore I approve and back the measures. (Green, 2000, p.41)

Ideology in particular over-rode all other considerations, especially religious and chivalrous, which was one of its features that led to the Nuremberg Trials, hence the need for the current laws on international and intra-national armed combat. The point is to maintain order and restraint via law, restrain the passions and to limit the affects of violence, so preserving basic levels of humanity, especially where the new secular gods can no longer agree. But this can only be done via reason, restraint and laws, which implies imposing order where one can so easily descend into a chaos that might be all-consuming. Order goes to the heart of all law and is especially relevant when one is dealing with war and violence because they raise the passions and blind men to higher humanitarian concerns and the preservation of human society and moral order. Society in turn is dependent upon order, implying laws, rules, morals, codes of conduct that can so easily be lost sight of in the raised passions of war. Wise warriors always knew this, the history of armed conflict always taught it and jurists continually remind us. Ever since the earliest days of Christianity the problem of war has vexed Christian thinkers, both as to the morality of war and its conduct. Generally, in the west (whose ideas tend to dominate international law), there has been a just war tradition since the days of St Augustine of Hippo (early 5th century) and the first formulations of moral codes on war stemmed from him. Augustine drew a clear distinction between just cause to go to war and just conduct in war and he also stated that it required a legitimate authority, not just anyone, to declare war (Holmes, 1989, chapter 4). In the 13th century this was added to by St Thomas Aquinas who introduced the idea of intention; that one must have the right, pure intention in an act and use no more violence than is necessary (Holmes, 1989, chapter 5). This in turn reflects a long tradition of Christian states seeking religious approval, hence moral legitimacy, for their cause. And whilst religion has been cynically manipulated at times it has also led to major moral constraints concerning when men can go to war and how to conduct it.

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Christian tradition maintained a certain realism that war would probably happen anyway so it was best to accept that and merely try to limit it and its affects, which has been the broad tradition up to today. The problems arise, of course when there is no longer a single religious organisation to impose the authority of its code, one reason why the wars of the Reformation became so vicious, and then in deciding how one defines a just war and what is just in war. These were not very problematic before the Reformation or before the rise of ideology and revolutions: with a single religious authority in a relatively unchanging world of peasant subsistence that dominated Europe until the 18th century there were few alternative ways of seeing or conceiving the world and its affairs. The world was natural and unchanging and so uncomplicated, it lived its every day life via custom and tradition so it was no stretch of the imagination to view war in similar terms. But come the Reformation, Enlightenment and industrial revolutions the world changed, as did men’s views of rights and justice. The Augustinian tradition needed updating, codifying and enforcing via laws, especially since war was increasingly deadly. Order was required in warfare as much as in any other area of mans existence, particularly since modern weapons had become so destructive. And it is in the maintenance of order via laws of armed conflict and combat that one sees the continuance of the Enlightenment tradition of reason, restraint and the imposition of order over violence. Meanwhile it is in the rejection of such enlightened attitudes that one sees the rise of terrorism and this brings one back to the rise of nationalism and wars of the people. For how one defines who and what are the people now becomes a very important issue, since under nationalism the people are the legitimate authority and thus the sole arbiters of when and where to use violence. If one accepts the enlightened concept of the people this simply restricts definitions to a plebiscite of all citizens within a state jurisdiction, but if one accepts the Romantic concept then it is only the ethnic group. What then happens in a multi-ethnic state? Or ethnic groups that straddle different states? Further, the Romantics rejected the cold laws of enlightened reasoning and so shifted their concepts of justice both for war and in war away from rational reason to emotion and feeling. And it is in those areas or regions where such problems actually occur that we find some of the worst terrorist campaigns and unrestrained violence, such as Ireland, the Basque Lands, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Palestine/Israel or the former Yugoslavia and the Russian Caucuses. Ethnic groups may not regard the state that rules them as legitimate or the rules that they impose over the use of force and violence as legitimate; it all depends on how one defines the people. Indeed, ethnic groups may have a particular antipathy to enlightened states since it is part of their rationale to dilute, if not actually destroy, the ethnic identity for the state identity. In addition, as Breuilly (1993) observes, many of these ethnic nationalisms actually represent regions that have not benefited from the modernising of the formal state and so have nothing to gain, as they see it, from conforming to it or the laws and rules it tries to impose. In addition they also often represent areas where traditional religion is still very strong

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and acts as an alternative moral force to the scientific values of the Enlightenment. Concepts of the people and rule by the people can be very destructive of good order and peace. Conclusion Order through law and reason is thus the key factor, to limit and civilise violence, to control that which we cannot prevent from reaching the logical conclusions of its own violent impulses. Precisely because violence raises the passions and emotions to levels in which men lose the ability to think rationally and clearly one needs mechanisms to recall violent men, to restrain their destructive impulses and to channel them away from the destruction of social order as a whole. It takes war out of society and at the same time imposes the rules and customs of a military society on its participants, thus removing violence from society as a whole and at the same time imposing limits on the use of violence itself. This is the essence of warfare and other forms of legally recognised combat and which distinguishes it from terrorism.

Chapter 2

Terrorism: Understanding the Heavens

Say what the use, were finer optics giv’n, T’inspect a mite, not comprehend the heav’n? Alexander Pope

Terrorism is a contentious term, imprecise and often used pejoratively as much as descriptively and its use is highly problematic. Not the least reason for this is that many states engage in highly dubious acts of violence that fall well short of international law and would not stand up to UN scrutiny. In brief, there is a heavy dose of hypocrisy hanging over many efforts to define terrorism. However, this is not unusual in human and, especially, political affairs: those who make and enforce laws rarely desire to define themselves as criminals. However, for laws to be generally accepted and enforceable and to maintain the legitimacy of the state there must be a general level of conformity and approval within society concerning its laws. In liberal democracies generally, only laws that are broadly acceptable to the vast majority are enacted. Indeed, it is part of the essence of the modern liberal state and its laws that they are regarded as an expression of the will of the people (leaving aside problems in defining the people). Thus one could also say that ‘we’ connive at the hypocrisy as well because we too expect our states to act in our interests and are often careless about strict legal parameters when defending what we see as ‘our’ interests. However, it is almost impossible to strictly legally define and categorise every action in human behaviour, particularly when one is trying to criminally define out rather than include in. When one looks at the whole rather than studying each and every instance in minute detail it is clear that many things exist in general terms that are very difficult to define in specifics. All individual acts of human behaviour will differ to some extent and form and one has always to isolate out the general core or principle of categories of acts from the specifics of each individual case. Thus in defining terrorism for academic purposes one needs to concentrate on appreciating a general category of act and not worry too excessively about the specifics of each case. Our purpose is to understand the general phenomenon of terrorism, which does not require a water tight legal definition, but does require a generic definition of certain kinds of action to separate it off from others for the purposes of analytic clarity alone. Terrorism is not only a legal category but also a socially constructed concept, i.e. it is a generally accepted way of categorising behaviour disapproved of by society, with its self-created categories of socially unacceptable behaviour. It is a socially constructed concept rather than an act inherent in itself, thus its meaning

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and definition, like any criminal act, will therefore always be somewhat dependent upon the social situation and interpretations of both terrorists and victims. But this does not mean that there is not a core phenomenon to terrorism just that its precise definition may vary with the social situation, individual or vested interests. However, most societies agree that there are generally unacceptable forms of behaviour, especially political, and these broadly conform throughout the world. Terrorism is not just violence but violence with a political, including religious, purpose beyond personal material gain (crime) and is usually non-state. This is where one can often identify the mistake in many attempts to define the term and set it in concrete – it does not set, rather one must try to get a basic idea of the general concept and attempt to apply it in practice in the real world. This was one reason why the first chapter concentrated so heavily on a history of violence and war and the development of codes and laws to define war out of society, since a major factor in defining terrorism is that it stands outside of the laws of war and combat (in this way it can also include state violence). Here I follow Sir Rupert Smith’s (2006) distinction between ‘war amongst the people’ and ‘war between the people’, i.e. until recent times war as conventionally defined (post-Enlightenment) was between peoples represented in their armies who met on battlefields outside of society, with clear boundaries between the civil and military. The modern trend Smith identifies is war amongst the people, where the battlefield is brought back into society and is not separated out, since the new combatants, such as terrorists, make society their battlefield and bring war back in amongst the people, i.e. war is now returned to its pre-Enlightened state. For it was part of the essence of the rise of the modern (enlightened) state to remove war from society, to separate political violence out from the civil population (van Crefeld, chapter 3). In Smith’s sense terrorism is peculiarly anti-social since much terrorism is actually directed at society, particularly the kind of social order it represents, which provides another aspect of its unique quality. In this it contrasts with the whole thrust of the development of war in the 18th century, which was to separate it out from society as well as to civilise and restrain its conduct, thus uniforms and separate barracks: in addition: … eighteenth century professional armies – and, to a considerable extent, their successors up to the present day – formed autonomous groupings which in many ways stood outside ‘civilian’ society and, needless to say, regarded themselves as superior to the latter. This was the period when a separate code of military justice, separate customs as the salute and (for officers) the duel, and even separate ways of bearing oneself develop … (van Crefeld, 1999, p.164)

Despite the increased lethality of war modern military violence has actually become more controlled and ordered, thus limiting the potential damage it could do to civilisation and society. Part of Smith’s (2006) argument is actually that total, industrial, war has actually helped create the conditions for a return to

Terrorism: Understanding the Heavens

33

war amongst the people precisely because conventional war has reached such potentially destructive bounds (in the 1950s Raymond Aron (1985) was also arguing a similar point). Consequently, even in modern conventional war there is an order and predictability to it and its conduct; to an extent it has even become highly ritualised as states go through diplomatic procedures and UN resolutions before making formal declarations of war. This in turn is followed by opening moves of air and naval blockade, followed logically by ground operations. Once the opening rituals have been observed, war is then carried out by men in recognised uniforms, with distinct equipment, styles of behaviour, bearing their arms openly and carrying out only legally prescribed activities of war and under a properly organised system of command and control (increasingly so as they come under the intense scrutiny of ‘embedded’ media and human rights activists). The foregoing are actually the basic rules and laws of war, which are clear, precise and well known to most combatants (Green, 2000, chapter 21, provides a good, succinct summary of the main provisions of the law on armed combat), which are largely observed for the good reason of separating out war from the civil population who, ideally, should not suffer from the horrors of war. However, the terrorist not only ignores most of the rules he deliberately flouts them; he reintroduces war back into society as ‘war amongst the people’ and actually targets the rules of war, order and civilisation. As observed terrorism is primarily non-state violence. State terrorism does exist and has been very lethal as Nazi Germany or many South and Central American states have shown. In fact it is responsible for many more modern deaths than nonstate terrorism (Wilkinson, 2001, chapter 3). However, to save complications and space the major focus and references here will be on non-state terrorism, although occasional reference will be made to state terror to highlight general points. Perhaps the most important general point can be made here: the maintenance of normal law and order in a liberal democratic society rests on a certain level of congruence between citizen, society and state. Terrorism invariably arises when there is a lack of congruence between citizen, society and state, in a single order, when this is disrupted via external agents (including immigrants) or fundamental socio-economic change, then the normal rules and forces of law and order lose their legitimacy and acceptability. In addition, the terrorist will also be targeting that relationship between citizen, state and society, hoping to exacerbate and break often already weak relationships. This is when the usual rules and regulations surrounding violence in society break down and groups, including the state, legitimate their own violence to try to enforce their own order. It is often forgotten that the main reason for order in any society is that most of its population accept the basic rules and regulations regarding social behaviour without anyone enforcing them, it is a product of the socialisation process, shared culture, morals, norms and values, hence the importance of a single socialising agency that creates a shared order. Our economic, political and social behaviour is mostly a product of being socialised into a culture that inscribes a common form of behaviour onto our consciousness and, more importantly, sub-consciousness. As long as everyone

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Terrorism and the Politics of Social Change

shares the same culture and consciousness there are few major social order problems. Equally the culture needs to respond to the practical realities of daily life and be shared by the state that rules us, so reflecting the general will, for peaceful conformity (the basis of Gellner’s, 1983, thesis on nation formation and political stability). And an important aspect of western culture is that there will be a proper separation between war and civil society, something attacked by terrorism. However, non-state violence is not new, whilst the violence of the state, in nationalist theory, was supposedly harnessed on behalf of the people via the nation and liberal democracy (van Crefeld, 1999, chapter 3). But who and what are the people if you have different ethno-linguistic groups or different religious denominations within a state? France in 1789 was a mass of different ethnolinguistic groups and religious differences who had no desire to be citizens of a liberal-democratic state, this was only achieved, not always successfully, when the French Revolutionary state utilised Le Terreur against ordinary civilians and Royal subjects to make them free citizens. But such use of violence in civil society was a common feature of pre-modern life, from peasant revolts to personal disputes. But did this count as terrorism? Or does it make terrorism simply a continuance of traditional trends of political protest? Once again, one needs some historical perspective on non-state violence if one is to properly come to terms with the modern concept of terrorism. Brief history of non-state violence Until comparatively recently there was no clear distinction between state and nonstate violence and even after a distinction began to emerge, with the rise of the state, society still remained a very violent place. Violence was almost an endemic state of nature for much of mankind (pace Hobbes), which was why walls were built around towns or towns grew up around castles, for protection. Men needed protection from the violence of nature, e.g. wild animals, and from their fellow men, e.g. armed robbers and armies who often amounted to the same thing. Additionally, until the 20th century most men in Europe and America lived off the land where the slaughter of animals, domestic or wild, was part of making ones living, so men were used to the sight of blood and killing and it was easy to transfer the weapons and attitudes of animal slaughter to human slaughter. Further, even the new industrial cities of the 19th century were often incredibly disorderly and squalid, where life was short, violent and brutish. Long before modern times, i.e. post-industrial revolution, violence was a normal way of resolving disputes or expressing feelings and ideas, in urban or rural areas. Taking medieval society as a starting point, whilst war was not liked because of its disruption of normal, peasant communal life there is a clear acceptance of violence as normal:

Terrorism: Understanding the Heavens

35

This does not mean that peasant culture, like the rest of society, was not permeated with violence, tolerating the use of knives, bloody quarrels between individuals, and self-perpetuating vendettas. This was doubtless particularly true in marginal communities in contact with a harsher nature … thus an aversion to war combined with mental habits and actual behaviour that included violence … (Cherubini, in Le Goff, 1990, p.126)

Meanwhile, life in the more ‘civilised’ towns and cities could be an equally violent experience: … all had to face an atmosphere of violence on an almost daily basis. … in Florence, Venice, Paris, Lille, Dijon, Avignon, Tours or Foix, the judicial archives reveal an impressive series of cold-blooded vendettas, of chaudes melees between individuals or groups settled with knives or iron-tipped sticks, and of rapes, often collective, that marked for life poor girls beaten and dragged from their rooms at night. These violent acts were for the most part committed by youths or adult men, often of modest social condition, but who were indistinguishable from law abiding citizens. (Rossiaud, in Le Goff, 1990, p.152-3)

Violence was a normal part of life, not the modern day exception, often exemplified in regular peasant revolts. In England the most famous was the 1381 Peasant’s Revolt and in Germany the Peasant War of 1525 or the Hungarian peasant revolt of 1514 were all remarkably brutal (Rude, 1995, part 2, chapter 1). These tended to be the larger ones in which a certain degree of ideology, particularly anti-feudal dues, can be identified. However, peasant revolts of a local nature, responding to particular grievances have been recorded, going back to the Norman peasants in 996 AD or the peasants around Lake Como (Italy) in 882 AD and 905 AD (Rude, 1995, part 2, chapter 1). Revolt was a popular way of resolving grievances, but since these were usually local they had little political impact in modern day terms, although they could be very nasty and brutal (Cohn, 2004, provides a catalogue of such riots and revolts across medieval Europe). Even in post medieval times peasant revolts occurred on major scales, thus in Russia, Germany, Austria-Hungary and France there are records of such revolts throughout the 17th and 18th centuries (Rude, 1995, part 2, chapter 2). In addition there were many minor revolts, protests and skirmishes. But as Giddens reminds us: It is misleading to call the kind of rule typically found in most non-modern states as ‘government’, if ‘government’ means a concern of the state with the regularized administration of the overall territory claimed as its own. Traditional states did not govern in this sense. Their ‘polities’ were mainly limited to the governance of conflicts within the dominant classes, and within the main urban centres. (Giddens, 1987, p.57)

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Thus, in the days before standing armies or police forces this meant that violence was the common way to resolve disputes for both illiterate peasants and their noble betters. Thus we have the illuminating example of local dynastic disputes, which highlight an endemic problem: In the course of a wide European tour, Baron Leo of Rozmital, in Bohemia approached in 1466 the great Spanish pilgrim cathedral of St James of Compostela, eager to pay his devotions to the relics of the true cross and the crown of thorns which it contained. But it so happened that his entry was delayed. Four hundred crossbowmen were pouring fire into the windows, from which they were answered in kind, their commander, the local magnate, being shot in the throat as he was pressing his siege against the family of the archbishop, whom he had thrown into prison. Neither of the men in Rozmital’s entourage who chronicled his journey evinced any surprise at this hold up. (Hale, 1998, p.19)

In fact part of the reason for the rise of the state was to control and eliminate such violence from society (Giddens, 1987, Gildea, 1987 and van Crefeld, 1999), which required it to achieve a monopoly of violence to impose a single order. This purpose was part of the reasoning of Hobbes’ Leviathan: its ideas expressed a reaction against not just the violence and chaos of the English Civil War and Thirty Years War but against the general violence found in contemporary society and the need for some overarching power to impose order, stability and peace, most instructively via a science of such things (Hobbes, 1981, introduction). Democracy counts for little if there is not a disciplined order able to ensure the peaceful implementation of the democratic will. Once one has a formal monopoly of violence then states can effectively control and impose law and order over their territories, which the rise of the modern nation-state and separate military did much to facilitate. This makes it safer to travel, trade and generally go abroad, so increasing prosperity and developing relationships that tie men into a greater sense of imagined and shared community (Anderson, 1991). And this applies as much within a state as between states, for as Joliffe (2001, introduction) observes in 14th century France, the wars between the internal ‘nations’ of the realm were as brutal and savage as any with neighbouring realms. Things only slowly improved, thus even in 18th century and relatively progressive Britain violence both by the mob and the individual were almost commonplace occurrences (Reay, 1998, chapter 6). There were no police forces and local magistrates, if things got out of hand, had to turn to the army to restore order, thus making its appearance on British streets a common scene when the ‘mob’ appeared. Otherwise peace keeping and crime prevention was conducted by magistrates with the help of locally recruited constables, night watchmen, informers and thief-takers (‘professional’ catchers of thieves for private profit: for the example of notorious ‘thief-taker general’ Jonathan Wild, see Moore, 1998, or for a more light-hearted skip listen to Gay’s Beggars Opera). Such men were rarely

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paid a salary and instead depended on exacting fees from the miscreants they were supposed to ‘police’, by providing services for the incarcerated or returning stolen property for a fee (van Crefeld, 1999, chapter 30, Moore, 1998, part 2, Waller, 2001, chapter 16). Violent crime was a prevalent daily concern and with no proper policing to investigate crime it was often safer to kill a victim than risk being identified, although deliberate murder was comparatively rare – just an unfortunate byproduct of casual violence. 18th century London was: … so dangerous that one had to travel fully armed to go out to dinner. Men habitually carried swords, and often pistols as well. … Servants in a big London house were armed and prepared to defend their master and his family as if it were under siege. Footmen were not just used to decorate the back of a carriage; they were also there to defend their master and his family against robbery. (Moore, 1998, p.58)

Meanwhile law enforcement was equally violent, Waller (2001, chapter 16) estimates 350 capital offences in England in 1720 in addition to such lesser punishments as branding. Meanwhile, up to 1790 women could be burned alive in England; in 1746 the Jacobite traitors were hung, drawn and quartered (in public) and the pillory, although not formally a capital punishment often effectively was, since it was a question of crowd mood whether one was pelted with rubble, rocks or rotten eggs. And it was not just the pillory that acted as a kind of participant spectator sport: executions were public and popular festive occasions, with special pews, stalls selling food and drink, hawkers selling ballads and jugglers to entertain the crowd. Therefore executions acquainted most people with regular, violent death: On some hanging days spectators were trampled to death in the crush. There was a carnival atmosphere as people from all levels of society flooded the streets to see their hero die a noble death. Samuel Pepys got a cramp in his leg from standing on a cartwheel, the better to see all the action, at an execution in 1663; in the next century James Boswell confessed that he ‘was never absent from a public execution’. There were as many as 30,000 people; one hanging in Moorefields, in 1767, attracted 80,000 spectators. (Moore, 1998, p.220)

Of course what increased the general excitement considerably was that hanging by the drop (thus breaking the victim’s neck and ensuring a speedy death) was not introduced until 1760, consequently the process was one of slow strangulation on the gallows, which could take some considerable time with the crowd cheering on and taking bets. Both crime and punishment were violent and cruel in an already cruel and harsh world, which helped breed an acceptance of violence as a part of everyday life and the only way to contain it and maintain order was via force (Porter, 1991,

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chapter 3, Waller, 2001, chapter 16). Meanwhile, on the Continent, whilst English society was regarded as somewhat exceptionally violent in terms of its urban life and politics, torture remained a common means of both punishment and to extract confessions (Jarrett, 1976, p.52). Politics also involved mass violence of a genuinely destructive potential. The vast majority were excluded from the franchise in Britain and Ireland but this did not stop them participating via the ‘mob’, whose destructive power could be really unsettling for civil society and frequently occasioned the need for military intervention. In this it probably still replicated the role and function of peasant revolts on the Continent or in South America (Rude, 1995, part 2), where riots and revolts formed a means of popular expression for the disenfranchised. As was observed of 18th century France: Order was the goal of this society precisely because it was such a rare and precious commodity. (Andress, 2004, p.54)

Mostly peasants revolted over local grievances and loss of traditional rights but in the new bigger cities of Britain and Ireland mob violence was usually overtly political and religious. In 1707, Daniel Defoe (author and English Government agent) when visiting Edinburgh at the time of the Union (with Scotland) was warned not to leave his house for several days since the ‘mob’ was in such a fury against the ‘traitors’ or ‘Commissioners of the Treaty of Union’ (West, 1998, p.127). Meanwhile in Dublin the ‘mob could actually storm parliament in 1759, inflamed by rumours of a union’ (Foster, 1989, p.239). Politics was not just a game for a few, but one involving mass spectator participation on a regular basis. The mob was something to be genuinely feared and a recognised part of the political discourse and popular will (Reay, 1998, chapter 6, Dickinson, 1994, chapter 4). Meanwhile as Jarrett (1976, chapter 2) reminds us non-political riots were also common. The causes could vary from the price of corn or mackerel, to wages, or attempts to legalise the naturalisation of Jews or the abolition of turnpikes (tollbooths) and would involve attacks on granaries or machine wrecking or simple rioting and mass destruction: Out of doors crime was rife and often bloody: smugglers had little compunction about slaying excise officers. And from the rough house of the crowd to the dragoons’ musket volley, violence ran through public and political life, as English as plum pudding. Force was used as a matter of routine to achieve social and political goals, smudging hard-and-fast distinctions between criminality and politics. (Porter, 1991, p.99)

Perhaps one of the worst examples, but typical in its potent mix of politics and religion, was the Gordon riots of 1780, when for nearly a week the rampaging mob virtually controlled the City of London. The mob, urged on by Lord George Gordon, rioted over fears of Catholic emancipation and plots and was additionally

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inflamed by the booty and booze from pillaged premises of all sorts; the riots were only put down after the army was called in and around 400 people were killed or wounded. Meanwhile in the 1760s London and Middlesex had been torn apart by rioting mobs over the election and subsequent disbarment from the House of Commons (eight times) of the radical politician (and rake) John Wilkes – ‘Wilkes and Liberty’ (Colley, 1996, chapter 3). Consequently Americans should not wonder at the use of the army to control colonial mobs. The ‘Boston Massacre’ (America, 1770) in which five people were killed by the army firing into a mob (Urban, 2007, p.13-14) may appear sensational today but then it was merely par for the course. In addition, given the savage nature of the colonial Indian Wars, savagery was perhaps even more a part of everyday life in America than in Britain. Meanwhile, the American Revolutionary Army, appears to have used systematic policies of terror against Loyalists (Urban, chapter 20), but, then, ‘civil wars’ usually bring out the worst in combatants. Political violence, as we know it, only began to emerge as a serious problem in 18th century Britain, as modern politics only then began to establish itself in the form of competing class and economic interests (Whigs, reforming liberals, versus Tories, Jacobite conservatives). Comparable politics did not occur in Continental Europe until the 19th century, and then under the guise of nationalism and the desire to catch up with Britain. Thus Britain evolved slow constitutional developments to institutionalise political change during the 18th century, which did not occur elsewhere, and so avoided the violence of the 19th century revolutions; meanwhile Europe was still plagued by peasant revolts and local violence (Briggs, 1960, Rude, 2002, Hayton in Longford, 2002). However, what triggered the political violence in both Britain and, later, Europe was rapid economic development, trade and industrialisation, which radically shifted the socio-economic basis of political power and social order as new classes, interests and social organisation challenged the old landed elites. And whereas peasant revolts were usually to re-establish a traditional order or rights in a static economy, the new political violence, most symbolically the French Revolution, was to impel change, encourage economic growth and usher in the new, which had already largely happened in 17th century Britain, the legacy of Cromwell and William III’s ‘Glorious Revolution’. And the new aimed to replace an old landed society that was, as Gellner (1990) reminds us, a violent world that thought violently, passionately and was very religious. It had only one source of wealth and status (land), which allowed little room for economic growth or compromise since it is a fixed commodity, which left no room for bargaining and so leads to a violent clash of interests with little room for compromise or toleration. The age of improvement (Briggs, 1960) in the 19th century was also one of increased working class misery in the new industrial, urban slums and a squalid life is often also a violent one, since it reduces men to a brutish level. The sordid nature of urban working class life is vividly displayed in works such as Engels’ classic The Condition of the Working Class in England, 1844, or Henry Mayhew’s London Labour and the London Poor (published 1851-1852). Both classics

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described truly wretched living and working conditions for the urban proletarian masses, where whole families lived in single rooms in unsanitary and unhygienic slums. The districts in which working families lived often lacked sewers, running water or any other of the public amenities we now take for granted until well into the 20th century. Cholera, typhus and typhoid epidemics were common as were smallpox and tuberculosis and it is not until after the 1870s that these begin to seriously decline (Clark, 1965). At work this period was equally dismal, where casual violence to control employees was common and the working conditions atrocious by any standards: 12-14 hour days were a norm in six day weeks, even 18 hour days being recorded and children as young as five or six worked regular hours (Thompson, 1968, chapter 9). Until the first factory Acts in the 1830s and 1840s conditions were more than harsh and can almost be said to constitute a violence against the person in themselves. However, throughout the century conditions improved, mostly as a result of better local government, government inspectorates of factories and mines, trade union and political agitation. Reforms, even if conceded only under great pressure were won and implemented via political processes that may have been raucous but were decreasingly violent. Life became less violent in terms of assaults on the sensibilities and daily living conditions, although still very basic and raw, slowly improved. Meanwhile, rural experience of animal slaughter declined as the population shifted to urban living. Even as far as violent crime is concerned Britain also saw a steady decrease: … the evidence for its existence in the nineteenth is even stronger. Throughout the century contemporaries accepted that criminals were becoming less violent, each generation seeing an improvement over the previous one. (Tobias, 1972, p.134)

This was the century in which modern police forces were established and prison slowly replaced corporal and capital punishment, which was increasingly conducted out of public sight and via the ‘drop’ (Tobias, 1972, chapter 11). A certain degree of civility began to creep into the orders of society and reduce violence. As Sennett (1993) observes, up to mid-Victorian times there had been a general trend to greater civility in society, an emphasis on personal restraint and self-discipline that militated against emotional displays and loss of self-control in public and private. And this in turn led to a lessening of tolerance for public displays of violence. However, violence was still prevalent, especially in the early decades of the industrial revolution. Resistance to factory work, with its hated discipline, new machinery and working practices that made old skills and crafts redundant and put many labourers out of work was strong. The early decades saw machine breaking combinations such as the Luddites and ‘Captain Swing’, often violent labour disputes and food riots on a frequent basis, especially at times of high unemployment (Rude, 1995, part 4, chapter 2, Thompson, 1968, chapters 14 and 15,

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Johnson, 1991, chapter 5). In addition there were violent confrontations over political reform, such as the Peterloo Massacre (1819) where government cavalry charged a peaceful demonstration leaving several dead and hundreds wounded (Marlow, 1971), inspiring Shelley to write The Mask of Anarchy. Meanwhile Britain’s upper echelons were galvanised by the fear of revolution in the form of Chartism right up until the last great Chartist movement in 1848. However, Chartists were predominantly peaceful radicals seeking reform rather than revolution but elite fears took much to assuage (Rude, 1995, part 4, chapter 2). Meanwhile, the vote was slowly extended throughout the 19th century, so negating the need for revolutionary violence in Britain (including Ireland), whereas the opposite occurred in Europe. Further, parliament implemented the necessary reforms in Britain of economic, social and political conditions, such as factory or mining acts (1833 and 1844) or the extension of the franchise (1832, 1867, 1884) and so removed the need for violent confrontation, although it hovered in the background as a latent threat, and an already (relatively) open press enabled free debate and exchange of views. However, in most ways Victorian Britain would still appear to us a violent society, where riots broke out that would require the military intervention of an army that still flogged its men, until 1868; but the general trend was less violent. On the Continent political violence had a different trajectory, for although most of the 18th century might have been free of it the French Revolution (1789) introduced it with a vengeance. Up to this point, since the end of the wars of religion in 1648, the Continent had been dominated by an ‘enlightened absolutism’ or ‘despotism’ that created wholly different circumstances to Britain, ones of socioeconomic stagnation, political autocracy and stability (Rude, 2002, chapter 6, Soboul, 1988, chapter 1, Hobsbawm, 1973, chapter 1). Hence stagnation created a pacific climate, except in France where enlightened despotism actually excluded a growing and increasingly frustrated merchant and nascent industrial middle class. But whereas in Britain this class was progressively integrated and enforced peaceful change (even if assisted by the mob) enlightened despotism prevented this from occurring in France where absolute monarchy and aristocratic privilege excluded the middle classes from senior government, civil administration or military offices. This was what lay behind the French Revolution – not revolting peasants but revolting middle classes who had also imbibed Enlightenment thought against absolutism. As Soboul (1988, p.56) observes ‘the French Revolution does indeed constitute a classic bourgeois revolution: the class struggle essentially pitted the capitalist bourgeoisie against the feudal aristocracy.’ Thus violent anti-state political violence broke out in France largely because its socio-economic development had not been matched by political and government development, as it had in Britain. Meanwhile, in the rest of Europe there was little call for any such revolutions since they did not have the developed socio-economic pressures that called for political change, although peasant revolts and violence continued as before.

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When the French Revolution gave way to the Napoleonic Wars these led to a particularly gruesome kind of uncivilised warfare against French occupation in Spain (1808-1814), known as guerrilla, or little war. This was the kind of war that 18th century military philosophy had thought to have stamped out, a bestial and cruel irregular warfare conducted by local peasant groups who recognised no conventional rules of war or civil and military distinctions, often torturing captives, raping and pillaging at will. Guerrilla war displayed all the depravity and brutishness (and terror) that men had traditionally noted occurred when the masses took over warfare and removed it from disciplined command and control (Best, 1998, chapter 12). The Spanish guerillas, the French Revolution and Russian attacks on Napoleon’s retreating army in 1812 (another guerrilla campaign) all left lasting fears over loss of order and the arming of the common people. The French Revolution unleashed a wave of violence that haunted Europe for many years (Fouret, 1981, 1996, Soboul, 1988) having a seismic affect on the popular imagination of all ranks of society: for whilst revolutionaries associated it with emancipation, for others, especially the landed and propertied, it represented loss of life and property, whilst most peasants were indifferent. However, for our purposes of understanding terrorism the French Revolution and Spanish War displayed all the vices and horrors that happened when the formal social controls were removed, the mob let loose and the common people armed. It also displayed that, despite the best ideals of Enlightenment philosophes there was an untamed animal violence to man that needed controlling by good order, for ‘when the common people got into a war the normal rules and conventions went by the board’ (Best, 1998, p.187). As Hobsbawm (1973) so accurately describes it, 1789-1848 was ‘the age of revolutions’, brought on by rapidly spreading socio-economic developments within Europe, in turn impelling political change. The Congress of Vienna (1814-1815), appalled by memories of the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars, set itself firmly against change and aimed to re-establish the old order, wherein religion and politics were seen as an unity (Burleigh, 2005) and reverse Napoleonic reforms. The legacy of this was that change, especially political and liberal democratic (the product of economic development), were forced into revolutionary moulds as the ancien regimes resisted peaceful reform. Hobsbawm (1973, chapter 6) discusses three waves of revolutions in the western world between 1815 and 1848: from 1820-1824, affecting Spain, Naples and Greece and including Spanish Colonial independence in the Americas. The second was from 1829-1834 and included France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Poland and parts of Germany, Italy and Switzerland. Both waves were essentially liberal ones, led and representing a revolt of the growing middle classes (products of economic and industrial development) against the political controls and restrictions imposed by the Congress of Vienna. However, these revolts reached their absolute peak in the third wave of 1848 that swept across Europe seriously affecting France, Germany, Italy, most of Austria-Hungary and in lesser forms, Denmark, Spain, Romania.

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The relative failure of these revolutions in the short term (Gildea, 1987) has to be counter-balanced by their symbolism of a new political mood and for our purposes the resort to non-state political violence. It also ushered in the age of nationalism, ideas of self-determination and liberal democratic ideals. Not only did they then proceed on the back of violence, but even today the legitimating cries of political violence derive from the same ideals – freedom and liberty, not established order, and this haunted 19th century Europe: G.M. Young once said that if one wishes to characterise an age, it is always a good rule to ask, ‘What were the people most afraid of?’ For nineteenth century Europe the short answer to that question is provided by Charles Kingsley: ‘Look at France and see!’ or by Ashley who complained in his diary that ‘revolutions go off like popguns!’ Nineteenth century thought returned time and again, to the spectre of the French Revolution and the desperate energies of the mob. (Pearson, 1975, p.159)

Freedom and liberty was seen as loss of order and the cause for savage violence, where the people, not an ordered hierarchy moralised by religion, took over and destroyed civilised society (Smith, 1998, Hobsbawm, 1992). Meanwhile, revolutionaries extolled the virtues of the ‘people’ (whose definition was always left deliberately vague), arming them and exciting them to overthrow the state and political order. However, as the century wore on and the new liberal nations established themselves so a new stability and community emerged, although, as Marx observed, haunted by the spectre of Communism. The nation, replacing the old feudal state, became the means to a new order that represented middle class property such as industry, banks and commerce, as much as the old landed property against the threat of anarchy and socialism (Gildea, 1987, Smith, 1998). In fact, whilst the fears of loss of order, property, rank and status were real enough the new orders actually had an equal interest in maintaining order along with the old nobility and landed classes. Hence the new nations displayed a traditional concern for order and stability, but one that included the new interests in (Gildea, 1987, chapter 8). And the maintenance of internal order against revolt became the prime concern of most state armies (Best, 1998, chapter 24). This reflects a key lesson from Napoleon’s success, who came to power by defeating the mob, ending le terreur and restoring order (with his notorious ‘whiff of grapeshot’, Gildea, 1987, chapter 2), but this time to the benefit of the previously excluded bourgeoisie. Once that was done most French revolutionaries quickly came around to support him. Violence was once more contained and placed under state control and men then felt more secure and free, for the first principle of freedom and liberty is that there must be some order otherwise chaos and anarchy reign and the anarchy of ‘le terreur’ had taught most Frenchmen the lesson of order. The need was for an order that reflected key realities, such as new bourgeois wealth and power and also respected certain basic rights either extant or newly

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claimed. Few wanted no order, what men wanted to was an order that reflected their interests. Here the nation and the idea of the people as sovereign helped provide both a vehicle for the new (industrial and bourgeois) order and an important non-violent avenue for protest via parliaments and elections. The old order was fixed in terms of rank and status in a way that reflected the fixed nature of a landed economy and production, but this was functional since, as nothing changed, there was little need for debate and discussion since tradition and custom provided all the knowledge and understanding that was necessary. Peasant revolts occurred within it, but not against it, since few had any ideas concerning an alternative order: peasant society is thus invariably immensely conservative. However, industrialisation and economic development changes all that since it ushers in a world of constant change, economic growth and development, new and competing interests. Liberal democracy provides a non-violent and orderly means to debate and implement change, which is part of the essence of industrial society, where growth makes an institution out of change, and a way to include radical elements into an orderly politics and isolate violence out. Additionally, this also led to more efficient government, better administration and the formation of proper policing and local administration, which gradually began to implant the new order into men’s minds and society. Indeed, the introduction of proper policing, prisons and reserve militia were often high on the reformers agenda since they too recognised the need to keep a good grip over the masses (Gildea, 1987, chapters 3 and 5, Giddens, 1987, chapters 7 and 8), the fear of political violence was still constant. Further, with the adoption of conscription and state education by the new nation-states governments found they had excellent vehicles to further impose order upon society, i.e. not only did a regular standing army provide a vehicle to put down revolt and ensure a state monopoly of violence but it, along with state education, provided a major vehicle of socialisation to ensure a new discipline and order in society. Both moulded men’s minds to accept discipline and authority, both implanted ideas of respect and shared interests in a common order and morality based on ideas of civic virtue (patriotism and nationalism). This was the entire gist of Eugen Weber’s classic study of the formation of modern French society Peasants Into Frenchmen (1976). And so, once again, the forces of violence in society were slowly extracted out of it. However, such a process is slow and by the end of the 19th century few societies had completely made the transition to the new, and riots and violent labour disputes were common throughout European society as the working classes mostly felt excluded from the new bourgeois order. The fear of violence still lurked beneath the surface, with an awareness that order, safety, life and property were not far removed from violent chaos. Against this background it was not surprising that the first wave of modern terrorism swept Europe in the late 19th century. But two general points emerge. First, the problem of order was crucial, especially one that corresponded to socio-economic realities. Order is and was a prime concern and the revolutions of Europe succeeded not because they

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challenged order but because they restored an order after violent upheaval. Here, as much as anything else, the ancien regime and many others confused the loss of a particular order (albeit theirs) with a lack of order. The second general point is the perennial fear of violence and mob rule. Men were much closer to violence than modern man appreciates – violence was an abiding concern. Consequently, even when order was established violence continued to haunt the sub-conscious imagination of individuals and society, particularly mob violence. Mob rule and loss of order is what terrorism particularly recalls. Just when the new nation-states were able to extract violence out of society in terms of war, crime and revolutions so terrorism recalls it back into the heart of society in a way that other violence does not. Crime, even violent, does not attack order as such, it is merely individual opportunism for self gain, criminals rarely wish to break the social order, but rather profit from it. Equally war, precisely because it had become so destructive was increasingly removed from society and had its own order placed upon it and was taken out of society so as not to affect a break down in socio-political order. As Smith (2006) observes, one of the great problems of ‘war amongst the people’, such as terrorism, is that it makes society itself the battleground and so threatens social order and stability and recalls all the old fears. And in case we need reminding, the last 20 years have provided us with enough riots, revolts and mob rule in Indonesia, the former Yugoslavia, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Darfur, Haiti, Iraq or a host of other examples where order has broken down. Terrorism builds on the fears inherent here because it defies the normal order (laws and conventions) of war and actually targets the normal agencies for maintaining both civil and military order. High up the list of terrorist targets invariably are the police, military, the legal processes on which law and order is maintained, prosecution lawyers, the judiciary, administrators and government officials and representatives, even the very process of liberal democracy. All the institutions and mechanisms by which violence was removed from society come under sustained attack from the terrorist as prime targets. This is a major reason for the fear and shock that terrorism induces, even though the actual violence and material damage itself is relatively insignificant. It is because terrorism attacks something deep in the psyche of any society, i.e. the very order on which society, security and stability are founded. This even makes state terrorism qualitatively different from non-state, because the state does represent an order and their violence (even if illegal and significantly greater than non-state) is usually directed toward maintaining an order and history teaches us that some, any order is better than none. No order was what occurred when Yugoslavia broke up without any new superseding order to immediately transfer to or in Iraq (2003), where the invading forces overthrew the old order but failed to have any alternative order to replace it. Loss of order and its consequences were what made Hobbes’ Leviathan so appealing, without an order life becomes intolerable.

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Since the late 19th century violence in western society has largely been extracted out, even if into highly destructive wars. By and large such wars have been conducted according to the rules of war and international law, illustrated by our horror at breaches of them, e.g. Japanese treatment of prisoners of war or Nazi war crimes. Even if events such as mass aerial bombing have often drawn a fine distinction between legitimate and non-legitimate acts of war they have still preserved the basic concepts, hence allied bombers in World War II were clearly identifiable with national markings and recognisably war planes and their crew wore recognised uniforms and some attempt was made at targeting legitimate war targets. However, the manner in which modern industrial war extends to include most aspects of an industrial society severely blurs distinctions between civil, military and hence legitimate targets. Equally, historically, violent crime is rare in modern times, despite populist media scare reports. Few western states experience mass riots and civil unrest, hence their shock when they occur, such as race riots in 1960s American cities or the street rioting in Belfast or Londonderry in 1969-1970. Even when they occur the state response is far more measured, in Northern Ireland neither troops or police were permitted to fire on rioters, no matter how severe the riots. Further, few western states retain the death penalty and even fewer retain corporal punishment. Violence both within the civil and military realms is deemed to have been taken out of society for orderly political protest, which in turn builds upon populations socialised into and loyal to their society via the politics of nationalism and liberal democracy, i.e. inclusion in and ownership of (at least in theory) the nation-state. And as Giddens observes (1987, p.172) it is the nation-state that constitutes the modern society, thus conflating social with political order, a point often lost on many modern sociologists and political scientists. Nation, religion, Enlightenment and Romanticism Many factors have been involved in the process of expunging violence from society, but one of the least appreciated but key event that changed everything was modernity and industrialisation, products of the Enlightenment, as contemporary thinkers from Francis Hutcheson and Adam Smith onwards realised (Herman, 2001, Broadie, 2007) precisely because it required a new kind of order that challenged the principles of the old. The old order was founded on static ranks within a static economy, where elites (Gellner’s, 1990, ‘sword’, in Plough, Sword and Book) ruled via force, i.e. violence, via which they imposed an order. This violent order was legitimated by religion Gellner’s, ‘book’, which gave it moral authority, something which is very important since men (in this case Gellner’s, 1990, ‘plough’, i.e. the ploughmen, peasants) tend to accept what they regard as ‘legitimate’, ‘reasonable’, ‘ethical’ or otherwise valid – their rights. When men ‘feel’ (the word is used deliberately) that their rights are being violated, abused or ignored is when they tend to revolt

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– ‘it ain’t fair’. Fair is rarely reasoned out, especially by illiterate peasants, but a reference to feelings based on practice, custom, myth, in other words their traditional order of things, and is consequentially emotional – states of mind. Such things are important functions of religion, as Hervieu-Leger (2000) explains, a prime function of religion is to preserve and record the past, where we come from and our origins. And this is particularly important for illiterate or poorly educated peasants for whom the religious organisation is often the only literate and educated body they will come into contact with, so it is their formal record keeper, e.g. births, deaths and marriages. Thus religion (the book) plays an important role in preserving order: it keeps the records and myths, defines the order and sets and maintains the moral standards that will influence when violence is resorted to and determine when violence is legitimate and what degree of violence is proportionate, where and when. It is also the purpose of most religion to mediate over the use of violence to prevent it or exclude it from a community just as it is to legitimate its use within a community, thus Gellner’s (1981) wonderful of explanation of the role of Sufism in traditional Islam as interpreters and mediators in inter-tribal relations and disputes. Armstrong (2006) makes a similar point when noting how religion in the Axial age switched to a concern with mediating relationships (order) and so maintaining peace. Thus do many studies of religion find it fundamentally interwoven with violence since its socio-political control and order function is very strong (Bruce, 2003, chapter 6, Turner, 1991, chapter 5). Consequently most wars involve religion, e.g. blessing troops, justifying the cause or whatever, to maintain the peace by preserving the order; and wars of religion tend to be the most violent, such as the post-Reformation European wars of religion (Wallace, 2004, chapter 5, Tracy, 1999, chapter 9) precisely because they are about such vital things as order, life and death. This is because religion goes to the heart of both society and order, as Turner observes: Religion (religio) is an obligation or bond; the etymological meaning of religion points to its social functions of discipline and bondage. (Turner, 1991, p.246)

Meanwhile, Bruce provides an even more overt definition of religion as a primary social force and function, specifically relating to order: By binding a people together under a shared God, a common cosmology and a common morality, religion creates order and stability and its rituals create social cohesion. (Bruce, 2003, p.10)

Order, religion and violence form a kind of holy trinity, thus religion often has a strong violent dimension. Equally where order is threatened, e.g. violation of traditional rights, there are outbreaks of violence and when religion itself appears to be threatened there is even greater violence. Similarly where social transformation occurs and threatens socio-political order, there is often an increased religious awareness or revival to accompany it (Herbert, 2001). Thus historically violence

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was greatest in pre-modern times when men were overtly more religious; outbreaks of violence were most common when local rights, traditions or order and stability appeared to be threatened, such as acts of Union, new machines, new working practices or loss of ancient peasant and guild practices. Unthinking, hence natural, order and stability were being disrupted, violence was being done to the sociopolitical or economic order and men responded violently, especially if they were illiterate or poorly educated and so unable to rationally comprehend events, merely feeling them on an emotionally disturbing level. However, when religion itself is threatened the consequences become even greater precisely because of the functional and symbolic role of religion. Thus the post-Reformation wars of religion produced some of the most bestial outbreaks of violence, culminating in the Thirty Years War (1618-1648) whose savagery shocked even a world used to casual violence (Anderson, 1998, part 1). Reformation and religious change had major implications in a way modern (western) men would not understand; it implied rupture with the past order, new moralities, new codes of behaviour, legitimacy and authority that profoundly affected men’s lives and cosmological order. Equally religious change should not be read in isolation since it corresponded with or reflected other profound changes taking place simultaneously in socio-economic and trading conditions (Wilson, 2002, MacCulloch, 2004). The Reformation grew out of the Renaissance, a time of new learning, printing, the rediscovery of classical Greek philosophy (especially Plato which led to critiques of traditional Catholic scholasticism, based on Aristotle), new wealth and trade, not least with the Americas, East Indies and Africa. Concurrently Europe felt an increasing threat from Islam following the fall of Constantinople (1453) and the extension of Ottoman power into Europe, which led Byzantine scholars with their knowledge of original Greek texts to flee to scholastic dominated Western Europe. This was a period of profound change when ‘men and women who knew that the world ticked to the rhythm of an inexorable divine clock’ (Wilson, 2002, p.11) were faced with its unwinding. The established order that had sustained life, being, identity, meaning, status, rank, wealth and privilege, even for the poor and excluded, who at least knew their place, for hundreds of years, was now faced with crisis. Thus we have the major blood-letting of the religious wars, only concluded in 1648 with the idea of a new order designed specifically to prevent such violent disorder – the Treaty of Westphalia. This treaty laid the basis for modern international relations and the idea of a stable order of states, with non-intervention in internal affairs and the religious dictum of all those inhabiting a state having to accept the religion of the dynasty (cuius regio, eius religio). This led to the establishment of a new order in what we would now think of as internal state affairs and international relations. This was associated with not just religion as a state prerogative but also the idea of the state as sole agent of force, thus ending independent baronial powers. Order was restored and a new symmetry of moral (religion or ‘book’) and physical (force/violence, or ‘sword’) order, but within a

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single state rather than via a multitude of local magnates (previously uncontrollable by states/monarchs) within a pan-European Christendom. Wars of religion became a thing of the past. This in turn represented a new rationality and use of reason that had slipped into European thought – the Enlightenment that proceeded from the Renaissance. Given the experience of religious wars and a growing realisation that such disputes were irresolvable via violence and appeals to old (mystical) divine right men began to utilise reason to find solutions to otherwise insoluble problems. The emerging Age of Enlightenment, or Reason, saw the application of new principles of order, based on reason and rationality (science) applied as much in the field of statecraft as in natural philosophy (science) as an ideal to help remove violence from within society, e.g. tolerance and civility, which also helped to limit violence between states, e.g. rules of war. For whilst reason and science, taken out of historical context, may seem to lead to artificial constructs they also led to greatly reduced violence via the creation of laws, rules and customs, deliberately designed to prevent or limit violence and increase civility (Sennett, 1993). The Enlightenment is a crucial stage in the development of a new order and its reasoning can be read in the political philosophy of Hobbes and Locke in England where order is the prime concern, based on the same rational principles wherein Newton had revealed the principles of light. ‘A culture of science’ (Porter, 2000, chapter 6) began to pervade the ordering of human affairs based on a rational understanding and critical analysis of human affairs and events rather than tradition and custom, facts and evidence began to replace myth and mysticism, material evidence and reason began to replace mystical authority. A new ideal of order emerged, affecting all aspects of society as it spread from manufacturing processes and economic systems, e.g. in Hutcheson and Smith (Herman, 2001, Broadie, 2007), to the workings of the human body (Porter, 2004) and onto political and state organisation. This in turn was not unrelated to religion, since much Enlightenment thought had emanated from the Reformation. Bruce (2003, chapter 7) argues cogently that the ideas of liberal democracy sprang from Reformation values, of individuals discovering and knowing for themselves, rather than accepting the teachings of established religious authority (Grayling, 2007, makes a similar argument). This implied reading and writing for each individual as a prerequisite for self-knowledge, which stimulated debate, criticism and analysis and the self seeking after truth. This same process led to the emergence of science out of Reformation thought: since man lived in God’s world and God was a God of laws, then by studying God’s world rationally one could find the empirical evidence and laws of God’s creation and his order; and this was fundamentally dependent on reading for oneself, debate, discussion and exchange of views within the scientific community and others being able to test one’s hypothesis. Science became an aid to knowing God and understanding his order and hence our place in it (Porter, 2000, Merton, 1973, Brooke, 1991, Uglow, 2003). A new order was thus revealed to guide men, a new God of order (science, Enlightenment and progress) to replace the old one (tradition, mystery and ritual).

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But it was largely dissenting religions that turned to science, not the established ones associated with traditional, landed order. And science was increasingly applied via industrialisation to the economic order and thence to the social and political order, thus propelling the political violence of 18th century Britain, but not on the Continent where the Enlightenment had yet to make such breakthroughs and impel a change of order. On the Continent established religions ruled over static economies and feudal communities, not dynamic new thrusting ones, and was still hidebound by traditional guild restrictions and local restraints on trade such as local tolls and taxes, local weights and measures and local currencies, long abolished in Britain, which inhibited industrial development (Alder, 2004, chapter 5). But European development eventually led to pressures for change, which inevitably heralded a clash of interests and world views that descended into violence, which is the key point here. The major elements leading to change were the Enlightenment, science and industry, which then implied major social, cultural, political and consciousness and legitimacy changes, new ways of understanding the world, a new cosmological order and men’s place in it. The old order, based on mystery, myth and custom and ordained by religion legitimated a rule by force that was progressively challenged by enlightened ideas. In economics the situation was exemplified via restrictive guild practices versus factory manufacture; craft skills versus division of labour or political rule by elected representatives versus divinely appointed monarchs; traditional organisation versus rational. Violence was one way of deciding the outcome; a normal way for traditional society whilst the enlightened liberals equated their ideals of reason with nonviolence, indeed liberals saw wars and violence as slowly disappearing under their influence (Howard, 1989, chapter 2), since they saw them as products of the old dynastic disputes based on unreasoned tradition and mystery, which could only be resolved violently. Science suggests a knowable, objective truth that can be verified and tested via reason as an alternative to force of wills and violence. There is within science the idea of a natural, objective order based on rational investigation which can pacifically resolve disputes whereas the alternative is passion and emotional attachment with an inevitable decline into violence. The new order that emerged, of reason and liberal democracy, reflected scientific ideas of open debate necessary to pursue the truth, objectivity and the idea of electing those most fitted, as proved and tested in the open marketplace (laboratory) of open politics. Men could use their reason to select their own leaders to represent them and their interests as growth and development created new needs and new kinds of leaders. The will of the people replaced divine rule. Consequently democratic rule became associated with order, socio-economic and political, based on scientific ideas of efficiency and rationality, but only once the relevant (socio-economic) conditions were in place. This new political order utilised the concept of the nation (as will of the people) as the true body which the state should represent and act on behalf of (Hobsbawm, 1992, chapter 2). The good of the people, defined in materially

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quantifiable, non-religious terms, because anything else was non-quantifiable, e.g. spiritual welfare, and therefore not scientifically testable; this became the end of states under nationalism and the new basis for social and political order, with the implicit assumption that nation = society (Dingley, 2008, introduction). Nations represented a new order both within and between states representing the will of the people as the new basis of legitimacy. Nation even became the new religion. But the need for this new order of liberal democracy only arose when economic development made it relevant, i.e. mass urban and industrial development which took men away from their traditional close-knit, static communities. Broadly there were two waves of nationalism, the unification and the ethno-separatist (Hobsbawm, 1992, Gellner, 1983, Kedourie, 1993, Smith, 1998). Unification nations were those impelled by modernisation, especially industrialisation, that sought to pull together men from disparate ethnic groups, within a pre-existing state, to form one big nation with a single standard culture, with no internal socio-economic or legal barriers of guilds, custom, tariffs, different weights and measures or currencies (as was standard at the time, Alder, 2002, chapter 5). The aim was one big market with a single language, laws and culture able to facilitate the economies of scale and exchange that industrial development and the rational improvement of all individuals’ wealth and welfare required, thus making old identities and traditions redundant. Consequently unification nations embraced the Enlightenment with its liberal ideals, freedoms, rational order and efficiency and technical expertise as core concerns and attacked all that was associated with the old order. Thus the French Revolutions of 1789, 1830 and 1848 were all opposed to the old order and its restoration, which implied not just the aristocracy, monarchy and Church but equally, the old trade associations such as the guilds or craft workers. They also resisted the new liberal industrial order because it made their trades redundant and meant loss of protection, status and income, e.g. in 19th century Germany or 18th century France (Blackbourn, 1997, chapter 2, Goubert, 1997, chapters IX and X). Between the two orders there was a diametric opposition of interests that precipitated the violence, although enlightened revolutionaries claimed a moral high ground since they saw their reason and progress ushering in an era of peace, prosperity and non-violence. However, the late 18th and early 19th century saw a reaction develop against the Enlightenment – the Romantic movement, which eulogised the past and traditional orders, the irrational, mysticism, myths, rural peasant society, traditional religion and work practices (Hobsbawm, 1992, Gellner, 1983, Breuilly, 1993). Marx’s quip about the ‘idiocy of rural life’ became inverted into an eulogy of the wisdom of rural life as supposedly representing something deep and profound, but inexpressible in material or scientific terms. Romanticism rejected science, industry and rationalism as cold, heartless and emotionally dead and so eulogised passion and violence and rejected order based on reason (Berlin, 2000, Berlin, 2007, Kedourie, 1993, Russell, 1961, chapter XVIII). It is absolutely no coincidence that the worst crimes against humanity and mass state terror were carried out by the

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Nazi’s, the ultimate invocation of Romantic ideals (Greenfeld, 1993, chapter 4), although willing to use scientific products to Romantic ends. Whereas the enlightened man of science was enjoined to think in a cool, analytic and restrained manner, the Romantic was enjoined to be a man of sensibility, emotion, passions and feeling (Berlin, 2000, Zamoyski, 1999). Restraint was artificial and unnatural and so therefore was any order based upon it, the true Romantic order had feeling and passion, was wild, natural and violent. Thus it was no coincidence that the Nazi ideology of Schmitt (Laqueur, 1987, p.69-70) saw in violence the basis of order. Romantics idealised the feudal order, traditional religion and violence, as opposed to the Enlightenment. And it is precisely when this Romantic reaction begins to take hold in the mid 19th century that we get the rise of modern terrorism, and it is from the 1870s on that Romantic ethnic-separatist nationalism begins to dominate European politics. Further this Romantic reaction was particularly strong amongst those unable to enter successfully into the new enlightened order; educated individuals but not in industrially useful knowledge, graduates in arts and humanities (the ‘over-educated and unemployed’) or lesser officials lacking the qualifications for advancement, these tend to dominate. Romanticism was particularly strong amongst late 18th century, middle class German youth who were well educated but lacked the specific educational skills to enter the enlightened absolutism of the ancient regimes or the new industrial order. Hence they developed their own alternative order and looked back to an eulogised past, in which they could identify a meaning, role and place. They despised the modern material (industrial and scientific) world since they were excluded from its opportunities and whose values they found false and artificial, indeed an artificially constructed civilisation and order became the major target of their ire. And since science required calm reflection and disciplined thought with reasoned debate they advocated passion, warmth, vitality – raw primeval values. They eulogised simple rustic folklore, myths and mysteries as reflecting a deeper and more profound knowledge than cold and artificial science, they also looked to traditional religion as communing with a more primordial sense of being and non-material existence. Romantics were men of sensibility and feeling, best found in the artist not the cold dispassionate scientist; the arts, feeling and passion now represented the way to profound truths, not science (Berlin, 2000, Greenfeld, 1993, chapter 4). The classic prototype of the Romantic was the German youth of the sturm und drang school, wherein ‘struggle and strife’ and deep, emotional, inner reflection resulting from it were the key to being and order (Berlin, 2000, Berlin, 1991, Greenfeld, 1993, chapter 4). But above all sturm und drang (storm and strife) were idealised: war, violence and conflict were seen as good and generating selfawareness, triumph of the will and being in themselves. Freedom lay not in the restrained discipline of science but in the emotional upheavals of art and violence that gave true expression to the passions. The true order (nature) demanded violence, also a violence not to be restricted and restrained by the old enlightened ideals of war and its conduct.

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Romantics particularly idealised medieval society, which was one much closer to regular and unrestrained violence and religion. Romanticism revolted against modernity, whose formalised rules, laws and order helped remove violence from society by producing well ordered nations and international relations. Romanticism thus reintroduced violence and gave it a legitimacy grounded in ‘alternative’ values. Liberty and freedom now became sturm und drang, struggle and revolt, of standing outside of society and fighting against it, seeking to destroy the artificial order of enlightened civilisation and return men to their old (highly romanticised) medieval order. Romantic heroes were men who revolted or outlaws (Schillers epic William Tell became a ‘must read’ for the early Romantics). But above all Romantics defied convention, rules and laws: It took the form of the glorification of the individual, the national and the historical, against the universal and the timeless: of the exaltation of genius, of the unaccountable, of the leap of the spirit that defies all rules and conventions, of the worship of the individual hero, the giant above and beyond the law, and an assault upon the great impersonal order with its unbreakable laws … The inexhaustible and the unbounded in the place of measure, clarity, logical structure; the inner life and its expression in music; worship of the night and the irrational … (Berlin, 1991, p.196-7)

Those who broke rules and defied order, universal reason and cosmopolitan ideas were the heroes, which may be all well and good in the arts but is more debatable in public life, but which impelled the separatist nationalism that followed the unification ones. Rather than being unified into a single big nation-state that could, at least potentially, deliver much better material rewards through economies of scale and greater freedom of movement (large standard cultures and economies offer greater room for geographic, social and economic mobility) so Romantics defied the logic of this and its material rewards. Romantics advocated the breaking up of multi-ethnic states into a series of small independent ones that defied the needs of economic development for a development of the spirit, cultural purity and autonomy. Separatist nations offered small cultural and economic units that actually limited and restricted opportunities for mobility and so kept individuals tied to their locale and so, from an enlightened perspective, less free for the individual, although separatists proclaimed a greater freedom for the cultural group to be and express itself. This placed the moral imperative on (ethnic) groups, it was groups (identity, being, culture or spirit) that were important and must be preserved, hence the individual became seen as group derived and therefore secondary to it. Consequently this made the individual sacrificial to the group and its existence since cultural being was primary and the individual was secondary. This was a reversal of the Enlightenment and Reformation evocation of the individual, of freeing them from group dependency, where scientific method breaks down the whole into individual and separable parts, therefore also autonomous, and so raised the value of the

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individual. In addition science by positing universal laws and values tends to imply a single universal value to all individuals, no matter what sex, colour or culture, which Romantics actually reverse by seeing only groups with different cultures and values. Thus not only individuals within ones own group become sacrificial but also individuals of other groups and other groups as a whole become equally sacrificial. This made it easier to kill, since it became impersonal as the cause of the group took precedence over individual conscience: … consider the case Mara Buneva who was happily married to a Bulgarian officer. In 1927, on the orders of the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organisation, she went to Yugoslavia and opened a hat shop at Skolpje and made friends with a lawyer who had incurred the enmity of IMRO. At midday on January 13th, 1928, Mara closed her shop. She went to the bridge over the Vardar where she would meet Prelitch on his way to lunch. She stopped him, then pulled a revolver from her blouse and fired. Prelitch fell mortally wounded. Then Mara shot herself. ‘I am sorry I had to kill Prelitch’, said the poor girl before she died, ‘because he helped me several times.’ (Kedourie, 1993, p.99)

Killing became justified without reason. All that was different and defied universal logic and values was good, including killing. Of particular importance was the idea that separate language groups and cultures (embodiments of primordial differences) were good, although not at the expense of one’s own, whilst any standards leading to cultural homogeneity were bad. A single universal culture (science) spelt death to the spiritual being, which found its source of renewal in inter-group struggles. Separate (national) cultures also created barriers that defied the universal (science), whilst providing wonderful new job opportunities for language and cultural activists and separate nation-state bureaucracies. A single order and structure, which brought peace, stability, easy exchange and reduced violence, was an abomination since it defied the essential being and emotional expression the Romantics thought was the essence of true being (Berlin, 2000, chapter 5). Violence and death was not a bad, but a good thing: It was morally good, more than that, glorious, to die, to kill oneself. And since it is generally acceptable to do a good thing to another, it was acceptable to kill. The right to cause death was prudently limited to those who understood that this was a good thing. … But it was in the nature of Romanticism to despise prudence … (Greenfeld, 1993, p.341)

Suffering, death and violence became important aspects of Romanticism and since they despised prudence, order and structure their violence was not bound by any rules or conventions. To observe the conventional structures would be to lose the life giving element of violence, death led to life (spiritual) and anyway, it was not the individual, but group that counted. Meanwhile, their evocation of peasant life

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styles and rejection of material goods for deeper, spiritual and alternative values found for them a natural ally in traditional religion. Thus it is in the revolt of the Romantics against enlightened civility that we find the ideological roots of modern terrorism. It is not a rejection of order per se but the Romantic longing for an idealised, past ‘natural’ order that had a resonance for those unable to succeed in the modern enlightened world. Well enough educated to be aware but lacking modern (scientific) skills Romantics retreat into an alternative world of emotion, passion, primordial being and spiritual anti-materialism that ends up eulogising violence and despising the rules and order of modernity. And if this was the violent ideal of European Romantics to modernity then it also helps explain contemporary violence of the non-modern against world against the west and modernity. Terrorism is part of a retreat into a dark past that modern civilisation had (hopefully) taken us out of; it rekindles fears for the order that enables our modern civilisation to function by deliberately defying its rules. And modern rules and laws are particularly pertinent since the tightly integrated world of extended and sophisticated division of labour on which industrial society depends is almost wholly dependent on tightly kept, rigidly observed and rationally constructed laws, rules and imposed schedules to function. This is partly why terrorism has such an impact, for it actually kills or directly affects very few and the danger of terrorist attack is often grossly exaggerated by media and governments (‘risk society’, where our ability to manufacture modernity has also increased the risk awareness, pace Giddens, 1990 and 1991, Beck, 1986 and 1991, Luhmann, 1993). We are much more likely to be run over by a bus, but that is an accident not a deliberate assault on the order that maintains our lives. Terrorism strikes at the rules and order (mental and physical) by which we are able to lead our physical lives and construct meaning and purpose. It is this subconscious fear of a descent into anarchy where terrorism really stirs our souls: that the surface veneer of order, control and predictability on which our lives depend may be very thin and we could quickly descend into chaos and violent disorder. The fear of terrorism haunted Europe from the mid-19th century on as industrial development spread, e.g. Anarchists in Russia or separatist nationalism in Ireland. Again, in the 20th century, we can see the same general forces at work: the state terrorism of Nazi Germany (Romantically inspired) was largely the product of the chaos and anarchy imposed on Germany by a collapse in the world economy and post-war reparations. It was a time of growing industrial disorder and the Nazi’s appealed most to those least able to cope with disorder, men who did not belong to major capitalist or trade union organisations that could protect them (Hiden, 1996) – men without order. One may see similar processes at work with modern Islamic fundamentalism. Islamic violence and terrorism, often grossly exaggerated, is a response to rapid change and development causing social displacement and breakdown of the old order, which had provided stability and security. The violence is greatest where

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the new is disrupting the old order, especially where the new has failed to deliver the order, stability and prosperity originally promised. Hence Arab nationalism and state socialism, with their secular values, all failed to produce a new order of prosperity, stability and security so the displaced and unemployed in the new urban slums look back to an old, idealised world and seek to recreate it (Lewis, 2002, Lewis, 2003, Ahmed, 1999). Thus Algeria stands as one of the worst instances of modern, terrorist violence; it also had the worst record of failed industrial development and disruption of the traditional order, wherein religion played the core role of social mediator and definer of economic, political and social order (Whitaker, 2001, chapter 10, Gellner, 1981). Change is invariably disruptive and provokes reactions but the change from pre-industrial to modern society is the greatest of all because it implies a whole new type of order and not just changes within an order. This is the fundamental problem behind many terrorist campaigns. If modernity is built on the Enlightenment and science then it directly challenges the authority and legitimacy of traditional religion, morals and values. Equally the kind of mass economic, political and social organisation required to operate a modern industrial economy is totally opposed to that of localised, traditional peasant society. But it goes deeper, since modern industrial society is based on the idea of perpetual change and development, whereas peasant society is built on an unchanging, static ‘natural’ order and its violence is usually aimed at restoring the past (Parker, 1999, chapter 1). Thus industrial society is built around an order that is based on perpetual change, so it must be flexible and adaptable, therefore men’s consciousness must be wholly different from that of peasant society, which is built on the idea of a fixed order that alone makes traditional knowledge and skills relevant and requires no great level of intellectual consciousness, rather the passive acceptance of an existing order that works well enough if left alone (Gellner, 1983, Smith, 1998). Modern consciousness totally undermines traditional order that was invariably linked with religion (Burleigh, 2005), which leads to a violent reaction. No matter that state elites may appreciate and embrace change, it is the disruption caused to society beneath the elites that is important and when the elites do not represent their masses’ interests and fears the masses, or those representing them, will respond violently. The masses had been content, or learnt to accept their place in a fatalistic way, in a traditional order that was stable, comfortable and predictable in their simple peasant communities, with the constant reassurance of traditional religion to buttress them. All of this is stripped away by modernity where all order appears lost and small elites appear to wallow in vast material wealth whilst everyone else finds themselves degraded and cast adrift in urban slums. However, the masses rarely revolt as they are too fatalistic, it is those who hold relatively privileged ‘hub’ positions in the traditional structure of relations who revolt, or lead it: well enough educated to be aware, they realise their dependency on traditional relations. They are often the local traders, publicans, providers of locally orientated professionals and services and priests whose local socio-economic position depends on the existing structure of relations. They are threatened by the

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arrival of the new supermarket chain, the local supplier of agricultural services bypassed by the modern agri-business conglomerate, or the modern scientist who can provide better answers and solutions than priests can. Shopkeepers sons, farmers sons, local traders, local school teachers, all at the hub of local elite relationships (pubs, shops and churches are the sole major public meeting places in traditional societies, hence hubs of politics and conspiracy), but who see their income status, position, power and influence threatened by modernity. Such men of local knowledge tend to dominate the ranks of terrorist movements, especially the ethno-religious ones (Garvin, 1981, Clark, 1984, Dingley, 1997), along with students with modern degrees in Basque or Gaelic whose learning is irrelevant to a modern industrial society. Such men thus find in the ethno-religious cause an outlet for their frustrations, sense of loss and even humiliation, which can in turn find a resonance with a vague feeling of threat and discontent amongst the masses as change threatens their sense of security. Modernity poses severe threats to the traditional socio-economic who have a vested interest in holding back the tide of change. In peasant society the local small town elites dominate the hub of relations that bond together a local community (religion – bonds, hence the prevalence of clerics and religion in political violence). These in turn become transmogrified into something holy not just because they help maintain material life but also because such relations exist over and above the individual as a kind of superior being, providing a sense of metaphysical and cosmological security. In addition, the most important hub of the local community was invariably the church (mosque, temple etc.) where everyone met at least once a week for worship and then loitered on afterwards to discuss local affairs and business, both informally and formally under a priest’s chairmanship. For local farmers on their isolated farms this was often the only time in a week they could meet and discuss; the local priest was known and respected and the church a frequent venue for parochial socio-economic activities as one of the few buildings large enough to house everyone. Thus local knowledge, business and consciousness were formed and became sanctified in this holy place, as did resistance to change and the use of violence. Added to which peasant life is deeply embedded in an image of a natural order, i.e. peasants live very close to nature, which gives their lifestyle a sense of divine naturalness. Thus peasant relations and order, confirmed by timeless tradition and local wisdom, appear sacred, which cannot be said for industry. Those wedded to such traditional lives become the terrorists, because they will lose the most and so mourn its passing (Clark, 1979, Dingley, 1997, Zulaika, 1988). What we are dealing with is transmogrification, i.e. the transformation of fundamentally material problems into spiritual ones, because the two become conflated in the minds of the activists (Gellner’s, 1990, single conceptual mind, which dominates peasant society, is particularly prone to this because it does not separate out concepts and so conflates them). Here men conceptualise in a metaphysical manner what is actually a material problem, i.e. socio-economic change is an attack on God. And few people recalled metaphysical ideals better than the Romantics.

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Conclusion This was the appeal of Romanticism in 19th century Europe and the same principles pertain to current situations, especially for an Islam only just encountering mass change and development. The Enlightenment may well be to the betterment of mankind in the long run but in the short term it can be violently disruptive and even impoverishing. In addition, Enlightenment knowledge is merely a tool that can easily be misused by both old and new cultures. Greedy and avaricious elites, enlightened or otherwise, may simply use it to further their own interests, whilst Romantics are more than adept at utilising science for their own ends, just as bin Laden uses the internet so the Nazi’s used science for mass murder. It is not the specific technology that counts but how it impacts upon vital relations, cultures and communities that counts – and science is a culture that frequently makes others redundant. When modern culture disrupts vital relations then it becomes a threat to established orders and it is the way of thinking transmitted by the technology, i.e. scientific, that is important, not the technology per se. Nor is it science as such that is rejected but the cognitive appreciation of the world that science encourages that is rejected, because it makes old knowledge and culture (on which God exists) redundant, along with a known sense of order and cosmology.

Chapter 3

The Heavens Described

Why has not Man a microscopic eye? For this plain reason, Man is not a fly. Say what the use, were finer optics giv’n T’inspect a mite, not comprehend the heav’n? Alexander Pope

An uncomfortable point is just how normal violence is in human history and that our modern peaceful civil societies are actually something of an abnormality. Perhaps this helps explain our horror at media reports of street violence, such as knife or gun crime, or the violence in Rwanda (1994) or the break-up of Yugoslavia (1990s). Perhaps what stirs our fears most is that such violence still lies close beneath the surface of our own ordered (western) lives, as anyone who has witnessed street riots can testify to. Violence may be a far more normal phenomenon than we wish to consider. Many of us may realise that we are living close to the edge and terrorism takes us a bit too close to a return to the ‘good old days’ when violence was the norm and even law and order was often imposed via arbitrary state violence (Napoleon’s ‘whiff of grape’). And if violence was the norm: what of its perpetrators? Once again, this came home to me on my peregrinations around the Khyber Pass (2005). My Cambridge educated and impeccably civilised guide got on to the topic of terrorists in the region after I had unwisely broached the question of who were the terrorist groups in Afghanistan. ‘What do you mean?’ he asked. ‘The Americans come along in their B52s and drop high explosive and napalm on villages full of old men, women and children. They are up there at 40,000 feet, they don’t even have the courage to come and face us openly and fight us man to man. Who are the terrorists?’ he expostulated. And the harangue continued for some time as he warmed to his topic, although politely, I suspect, keeping off the subject of the current British presence in Afghanistan. Of course, as a good western academic I could quote him the Geneva and Hague Conventions and explain how the American bombers are part of a legally recognised armed force, clearly marked, proper chain of command and so on. However, I prudently did not, since, apart from anything else, I could see the point that he was making. The west might conduct military operations according to the (our) book, and be very scrupulous about it but such cold, hard, legalistic logic certainly misses important subjective and emotional points. They also miss the point that law is a social and cultural construct and along the North West Frontier (Afghan-Pakistan border) they have few formal, written laws and even fewer ones

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that relate to western ideas or ideals. They have their own laws and codes (mostly tribal) that relate to ideas of honour, status, blood feud, vendetta, traditional rights, customs and so on for settling disputes. And failing existing codes and laws Afghan and Pakistani villagers have the Sufi (local Muslim holy men) to arbitrate between warring factions or tribes, an important function for local religious leaders throughout the more remote areas of the Muslim world (Gellner, 1981). In their culture this is not only their norm but also their morally and culturally legitimate authority, in fact something not so different from the role of the Church in medieval Europe (Southern, 1970). In Afghanistan the west is a culturally alien and violent intruder since it is intruding into the native social world, its culture and order and therefore it is the abnormal (in this sense the west is bringing disorder). And since ‘normality’, just like laws and rules of combat, is very much a social and cultural construction this raises some interesting problems in defining terrorism and who is a terrorist. This is not to go down the road of ‘one man’s freedom fighter is another man’s terrorist’, for the simple reason that such moral relativism itself depends on a shared concept of terrorism, war and violence. Further, it implies no objectivity or absolutes of right and wrong either within or between communities and cultures, such as there being no criminal behaviour as against lawful behaviour or no morally acceptable as against unacceptable behaviour, in which case we are back at Hobbes nightmare of no order at all (Kenny, 1998). Modern civilisation, whatever its shortcomings, requires that there be moral absolutes relating to behaviour and clearly definable categories of acceptable and non-acceptable behaviour, and precisely because we have these categories we have been able to progressively remove violence from our societies and then contain it even where it is permissible. Once again, it is this aspect of morally acceptable or ethical behaviour that goes to the heart of defining terrorism and was also the core concern of Durkheim’s sociology (Lukes, 1975, Giddens, 1978, Jones, 2001, Durkheim, 1973, 1992 and 1993). What I am suggesting is the need to reflect on our use of the terms terrorism and terrorist and do two things, first: see ‘terrorism’ through the eyes of the terrorist, and, second: critically reflect on our own assumptions about normal and acceptable standards of behaviour, especially when we enter other societies and cultures. This is not to legitimate their acts against us but merely to understand why others behave as they do and remember that most of our beliefs and attitudes concerning human behaviour are also socially and culturally constructed, based on our social beliefs and values that relate to our socially constructed world. What we take for granted as normal and natural may often only relate to the conditions pertaining to our modern society, which may be radically different in other societies. Thus forms of behaviour which one may objectively define as terrorism and socially unacceptable in modern society may well be acceptable in another society whose environment and conditions are different. What seems inexplicable from our cultural perspective may well be quite explicable from another, indeed it may even count as normal, even required behaviour in another culture. (This is

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not to say that other societies are equal or equivalent to ours: this I stress since I do accept the idea of progress in both material and moral terms, as did all the classical sociologists, which is not to deny that even progressive societies sometimes get it wrong.) Further, when we delve into our own history and cultural roots we may well find aspects of our culture that surprise us and help explain the inexplicable in others. This came across strongly to me when attending a conference on terrorism, Islam and suicide bombing in Rome (2007). Most papers concentrated on trying to understand the mentality of people who could destroy themselves and bring misery and loss to their family and friends; nearly every speaker, including Muslims, found such behaviour inexplicable. What I found fascinating was not the presentations themselves but that they were presented in the main auditorium of the Catholic University, at the back of which was a very prominent, life-sized, crucifix which could not be missed by anyone and directly looked down on every speaker. Yet no one picked up its significance or relevance to political suicide, i.e. that our entire western (Christian) culture is founded upon that ideal, the son of God gave his life for our salvation. He did not save himself, but died for us and our sins. No greater love hath any man than that he … The foundation of western culture, the Christian ideal, is built upon an act of suicide (or as close as makes no difference) to help save the community: selfsacrifice is our highest calling (posthumous Victoria Crosses and Congressional Medals of Honour, memorial plaques for our war dead). Does it really take such a great leap of imagination to compare the Christian ideal (martyrs) to an Islamic true believer who feels that he is dying for Allah and his fellow Muslims? (Pro patria mori.) It is core to Christian and Islamic ideals since both equally venerate martyrs, which should help make suicide bombing much more explicable, especially once we stop trying to analyse each individual act in microscopic detail and lift our heads to the wider, socio-cultural dimension and meaning of the act. Same act, different context – their cause, not ours. Every year the French Foreign Legion celebrate the anniversary of the Battle of Camerone (Mexico, 1863) and every new recruit is instructed in its significance for the Legion as an elite unit. However, for the 1st Regiment of Legionnaires there is the parading of the wooden hand of Captain Danjou in a glass casket. Danjou commanded a single company defending an outer position, which became pivotal in the battle. The company faced repeated attacks by vastly superior Mexican numbers (around 2,000 men) and Danjou’s company (just over 100 men) was soon much reduced but he refused repeated offers to surrender on honourable terms. Danjou was killed when his numbers were down to 12 men but still the survivors refused to surrender and it was only when three men were left standing with just bayonets to defend themselves that they surrendered to the Mexicans who had just received a further 1,000 reinforcements (Perrett, 1998). Death was almost certain for Danjou and his men from the start, yet they knew the importance of their position to the rest of their army and chose to fight to

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the death and all that was recovered of Danjou was his wooden hand. Just like a relic of the ‘true cross’ Danjou’s wooden hand is paraded annually to remind Legionnaires of the expectations upon them – ultimate self-sacrifice, for the Legion, their comrades, for France. What is truly important here is that the idea that being expected to sacrifice ones own life does not deter Legionnaires, it actually inspires them. Indeed, the same moral tale could be told about most armed forces around the world, one thinks especially of Japanese Kamikazi. Seen from this perspective modern suicide bombing may not be quite as abnormal or inexplicable as when first considered. Even in western society there comes a point at which self-sacrifice may not only be expected but actually required. Consequently if one takes the trouble to look at the situation and circumstances of suicide bombers from their perspective of society, culture or history, we may not be dealing with such a strange phenomenon after all. Once again, Durkheim (1970) discussed how in western society suicide rates were higher in the military than amongst civilians. This he accredited to the stronger culture of inclusiveness and social ties, the closer integration of men into cohesive social units (regiment or ship’s company) that created social pressures, not psychological, over the individual that led him to devalue his own life in relation to others and the honour and social prestige of his unit. Consequently the individual felt themselves sacrificial to the social unit in a manner that is not congruent with ordinary, civil society with its cultural emphasis on the individual. However, a major drawback with much terrorism literature is it is written from an almost wholly non-reflective position that simply assumes dominant western cultural values and norms and then tries to analyse terrorism from them. The fact that such values and norms may be wholly inappropriate, even alien, and very possibly what the terrorist is fighting against rarely seems to occur to many researchers, although a few recognise the need to understand the terrorists perspective, e.g. Guelke (1998) or Zulaika (1988), most don’t. Zulaika in particular offers an excellent insight into motivations and mindsets of the terrorist, but probably because he comes from the Basque region whose terrorism he studies and also because he is a social anthropologist who is trained to stand outside his own culture when studying others and to view the whole. Zulaika is also disturbing because whilst opposing the terrorism he studies he also displays an ability to empathise with its perpetrators and allows this to raise awkward questions (later developed with a co-author William Douglass, 1996, into serious critiques of western studies of terrorism). However, unusually, Zulaika and Douglass are both social anthropologists, who are trained to critically reflect on social and cultural phenomena. Terrorism studies are dominated by international relations, politics/political science or psychology whose primary training is not to critically reflect on the values and norms of our western society or to carry out comparative research on alien cultures. Their training lies within the acceptance of already existing western paradigms of culture, norms and standards, which are highly individualistic and tend to ignore the social dimension. Thus there is a kind of cultural blindness that permeates terrorism studies, an one dimensional

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approach, which simply accepts our cultural norms and morals and assumes that any deviation from them reflects an abnormality within the actor. There is an assumption of western individual norms and values as universal ones, which goes to the heart of classical sociology (Nisbet, 1996) and Durkheim in particular, who specifically addressed, especially in the Division of Labour, the fundamental differences and changes between peasant society and modern society. In particular Durkheim and his contemporaries, such as Marx, Weber or Tonnies, were particularly keen to emphasise the far more social nature of peasant man and how modern concepts of the individual were products of industrial society. Once again, this is something that also goes to the heart of Gellner’s (1983, 1990, 1992) work, particularly as applied in Muslim Society (1981). And most terrorism springs from pre-modern societies. Constantly, in terrorism studies, one sees a simple uncritical acceptance of western values of functional rational efficiency and self-interested rationaleconomic and the primacy of individual as normal. Whilst the individual works, e.g. on suicide bombing, are very good in themselves, such as Bloom (2005), Pape (2005), Pedahzur (2005 and 2006) they all betray the same one dimensional quality in which empirical data and narrative dominate. Thus they provide objective rationale for why suicide bombing campaigns occur but not why someone would volunteer for it, or how it affects a community, its meaning and mobilising potential, even if they do isolate specific causes behind the general campaigns. Pape accurately identifies land occupation as a primary cause behind suicide bombing: Pedahzur provides good narrative descriptions of the processes behind recruitment and possible objective rewards. Meanwhile, Bloom looks critically at the way in which western actions helped trigger campaigns against it. All provide good analysis at the operational and tactical level, good narrative accounts of processes and a wealth of empirical data but none really satisfy at the level of understanding (Weber’s verstehen, the core of his social action theory) the mind set of someone who would become a suicide bomber, or any kind of terrorist, and the meaning of the act. Perhaps because they are all western political scientists, trained to find and analyse the western legal-rational economic pursuit of self-interest that they miss the main point of understanding the behaviour of cultures that don’t share western cultural understandings. Yet there was no rational, economic self-interest to Captain Danjou, nor to parading his wooden hand around legionnaires and telling them, ‘this is all we expect to see of you coming back’. Meanwhile, the great heroine and national figure of France is Jean d’Arc, burnt at the stake by the English! Ironically, given his background training in econometrics, one of the few writers to genuinely appreciate the uncritical acceptance of western rational-efficient, economic selfinterested models, when trying to explain terrorism, is Gupta (2001). Indeed he actually uses his rational-economic training to stand the model on its head and show how vital the social dimension is in human behaviour, even economic; that man is a collective being who rarely acts simply from rational-economic self-interest.

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Indeed, Gupta analyses how violence is invariably linked to collective being and that we commit our worst acts of violence when the collective dominates our lives and takes us over. As a non-anthropologist or sociologist it is not part of Gupta’s training to explain why this is, but it should be the role of anthropologists and sociologists to do so. Ultimately we are all collective, social beings since we are all products of society and the way we are brought up, even our concepts of the individual and self-interest are grounded in socially constructed models and ideals, hence, when called upon we can all become warriors, e.g. conscript in war-time, once they have gone through highly socially orientated and structured military training that emphasises the collective. Of course western cultural blindness may have something to do with the fact that it is mostly against the west that modern terrorism is directed. Even within the west it is in those areas least westernised (i.e. rural, peasant regions where modern concepts of civilisation and individualism are least developed and religion is still strong) that we find the worst violence: Northern Ireland, the Basque Country, Corsica, Bosnia-Herzegovina, NagornoKarabakh: this list of familiar trouble spots is neither complete nor extended beyond Europe, in which case it would be at least eight times longer. (Nairn, in Hall, 1998, chapter 4)

Terrorism tends to come from Marx’s ‘rural idiocy’ (Ramet, 1996), and most of the Islamic world is profoundly rural (Gellner, 1981, Lewis, 2002, Halliday, 1996, Rashid, 2003), the kind of peasant society that dominated Christendom until comparatively recently. One only has to visit countries like Pakistan, Nepal or Iraq to appreciate the feeling of stepping back in time, into a different, pre-modern world. No matter that some cities do exist and some western industries have set up big manufacturing plants and some Arab states have vast oil wealth, the dominant feel of most Muslim countries, even in their big cities, e.g. Islamabad or Erbil, is of a peasant culture. By peasant here one means the concept as implied by Durkheim (1984) or Gellner (1981, 1990), of men living in predominantly self-sufficient, low culture, rural societies, relatively stagnant in terms of socio-economic development and where superstition and mysticism (religion, custom and tradition) play a dominant role in men’s understanding of their world and their place in it. This in turn may be contrasted with Durkheim’s world of division of labour or Gellner’s modern world of high culture, i.e. being able to think and rationalise in the abstract beyond ones own immediate place in the world. This is where reason, rationality, science, growth and development are normal aspects of everyday life in urban, industrial societies (Gellner, 1981, 1983, 1990) and, drawing on Durkheim, where men are able to multi-conceptualise. Alternatively, the pre-modern, peasant world can only conceptualise a single whole, where everything and all ideas are conflated into a single unity and where the group dominates the individual. Society comes as a whole, a closely interwoven

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network of people, not autonomous individuals, where parts (individuals) cannot be taken apart from others, where social, religious, economic, political, individual and all other aspects of life are but aspects of the same whole. This is not to deny that well-educated elites and cosmopolitan urbanites with individual values, products of work and study abroad, do not exist within them, just that they do not form the dominant ethos of the society. Equally, when one looks at the trouble spots in Europe, these are pre-modern; the dominant ethos, intellectual and cultural perspectives are those of rural peasant societies. Indeed, as Zulaika (1988) in discussing contemporary Basque violence or Clark (1979) in looking at the origins of modern Irish nationalism in the land wars (1870s and 1880s), both stress the desire to defend a peasant socio-economic structure and culture heavily conflated with Catholicism. In the case of Ireland it was almost exclusively a peasant and Catholic ideal that republicans advocated (Brown, 1981, Lyons, 1982, Kennedy, 1996, English, 2006), which is sociologically very significant in helping to explain why a Protestant and industrial Ulster rejected it and why the IRA reacted violently. Just like medieval Europe (Southern, 1970) modern peasant societies daily life, social organisation and politics are dominated by religion, which becomes a symbolic marker against a modernisation (science and industry) that disrupts them. In addition, as Durkheim (1984) observed, such peasant societies are dominated by collective, social sentiments and identities, the source of Gupta’s (2001) ‘collective madness’, not by the rational individual ethos that permeates modern, ‘high’ (industrial) culture. This was the starting point for sociology as a discipline, the realisation that industrial society was profoundly different and produced a totally different kind of society, order and individual from that of peasant society. Whether it was Marx observing that new industrial cities produced a totally new consciousness in man, or: Weber observing the rise of rational-efficient ideas of legitimacy and the decline of traditional authority, or: Pareto recognising the need for new ruling elites, or: Durkheim and Tonnies on new forms of socio-economic relations. All recognised that profound changes had occurred that altered the nature of man’s being and consciousness, which was profoundly dependent on social and cultural factors (Aron, 1968 and 1970, Nisbet, 1996, Zeitlin, 1994, Hughes, 1961). And, as previously noticed, times of change brought forth violence. This is a crucial point often overlooked in much terrorism literature, where terrorism and terrorists are extracted, as autonomous phenomena, for examination out of their socio-cultural context. This idea of the autonomous being is something at the heart of western culture and the ideology and assumptions of market economics (Gupta, 2001). Modern sociological critiques abound, e.g. Etzioni (1988), Lux, 1990 and even earlier Durkheim (1984) had built much of his defining work (The Division of Labour in Society, first published, 1893) on an attack on ‘English economics’, i.e. laissez faire, Spencer’s sociology and utilitarianism, as missing the important social dimensions of life. This idea of the autonomous rational-economic individual then fits, ideologically, far too comfortably with the inner directed individualist orientations

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of psychology and psychiatry that focus on the inner workings of the mind and not the external environment that conditions the mind: … the belief in a fundamental psyche which is prior to social determinations, and may therefore be considered the immediate pivot of political action. (Anderson, 1992, p.82)

These economic and psychological orientations, because they have become the building blocks of western society tend to become accepted and assumed within political science and theory, whose training and orientation is to look primarily at how western men vote and behave politically in their own custom-designed order. These were mostly manufactured in the 19th century to reflect the needs and interests of the new industrial society with its ideology of the rationally-efficient economic individual and now simply assumed as the model for all men. There is a tendency to assume that all men in all cultures in all times are basically the same, motivated the same way and towards the same ends, i.e. contemporary western ones. These are based on ideals central to the Enlightenment that so successfully transformed the western world, and of particular centrality is Rousseau’s idea that there is a core ‘natural man’ of a psychological nature (Nisbet, 1999, Zeitlin, 1994, Plamenatz, 1992), pace Anderson (above). This in turn reflects another blind spot that sees contemporary social ideologies, norms and structures as the vital end for which all previous history has struggled, which we then assume as the end of history, i.e. we will not progress beyond our current state. Indeed, this was the entire thrust of Hegel’s theory of history, which still dominates western minds, wherein the realisation of the nation-state is the culmination of history (Stace, 1955). This is not to say that these ideas are wrong but it does illustrate a certain naivety that sees man in a very one dimensional manner, it ignores man as a socio-cultural and historical product wherein ideas of individualism, rationality and self-interest are socio-cultural products. It also ignores ideas of progress and that there can be other non-western values and norms. Additionally there is also a tendency, under post-modern influence, to ignore functional arguments, which interpret culture as materially determined. In other words man as a social product is ignored, as is the idea that different societies produce different kinds of men with different imperatives to act, different moral codes and forms of evaluation and different end values (although if one wishes to emulate western industrial progress there may be only limited room for non-scientific values). This was one of the great realisations of classical sociology as it responded to the vast changes in 19th century society as peasant economy gave way to industrial economy and how the social organisation and culture of one was totally different from the other, producing different kinds of men and consciousness, and how men were driven by forces often beyond their conscious control or individual will:

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… that the basic characteristic of human experience was the limited nature of its freedom. Men were masters of their fate, they argued, only for limited periods and in strictly limited segments of their activity. The eighteenth- or early nineteenth-century image of man as a self-consciously rational being freely selecting among properly weighed alternatives they dismissed as an antiquated illusion. (Hughes, 1961, p.4)

In other words, to appreciate the causes and motivations of terrorism one needs to recognise its socio-economic and cultural dimensions and to both culturally and historically learn to conceptualise out of our contemporary western mind-set. In particular this relates to understanding the vital differences between modern (industrial) society and pre-modern (peasant) society and the violence of the clash between the two. Political science and international relations, which dominate terrorism studies, are almost wholly products of modern times and values since the conditions for modern politics only arose with industrialisation, which required extended politicoeconomic coordination. Only industrial society creates the economic room and growth that permits individual and political choice, because it spawns many large and diverse economic activities and competing organisations. Additionally, new industrial organisations rapidly evolve complex divisions of labour, which massively increase productivity and wealth, and these generate an enormous increase in the number and range of skills and opportunities available to men. This specialisation actually propels ideas of individualism since so many men now have different kinds of jobs, careers and interests. Thus power, economic and political, becomes diffused into many competing groups, occupations and centres (therefore also multi-conceptual) and so makes democracy and freedom of choice meaningful. Meanwhile, in static, subsistence, peasant economies there is little room for political or any other form of individual choice (therefore non-multi-conceptual), there is only one source of income and productivity tied to a single source (land), which is invariably owned locally (particularism) by an individual or small number of landlords. What trade that exists is usually controlled by highly restrictive guilds, where the emphasis is on corporate control of a local market and not competition. In addition, given the subsistence nature of peasant society, where survival is close to the edge, all men have an interest in stability and conformity, since only by staying together as a collective will they all be able to survive in the face of nature. In peasant society there is little choice, the very subsistence nature of peasant life means that working the land is the sole economy and the skills required to do that are a standard package for every peasant, where there is no meaningful division of labour. Even if the land is worked well there are rarely significant surpluses, unlike the perpetual growth and profit maximisation of industrial society, so there is little room for individualism or freedom of choice, one doesn’t have the resources for choice. Therefore modern democratic politics, liberalism, freedom and associated values are irrelevant, even harmful.

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Sociology, violence and the birth of the modern One can argue endlessly about when the modern began, but nearly all the key dates were marked by excessive violence. Most of the major wars of the 16th and 17th centuries involved religion, which was also associated with economic change and development and political shifts in power (MacCulloch, 2004). Economics and politics are both about the use and possession of power and the moral legitimacy and authority that religion bestows is also a major source of power – hence the fascination with religion of the classical sociologists and the ferocity of religious wars. The two major political revolutions of the 18th century (America and France) illustrate the mix of economic and religious grievances. O’Brien’s Godland (1988) emphasises the important religious dimension of the American Colonists’ Presbyterian opposition to having an Episcopal structure imposed on them by George III in addition to the politico-economic arguments about taxation and representation. (Presbyterians have a form of self rule by elected ‘elders’ in autonomous congregations and hence evince a strongly democratic ethos, whilst Episcopalians utilise rule by a hierarchical system of bishops at the head of a formal, pyramidal structure.) Meanwhile, the French Revolution not only expressed strong economic grievances but also religious ones, against the established Catholic Church (Soboul, 1988, Burleigh, 2005). Meanwhile, Britain’s industrial revolution created a new middle class seeking political power and influence, many of whom were also part of a dissenting religious revival (Unitarians, Baptists, Methodists, Quakers etc.) who united religion, science, industry and political reform as part of a whole package (Uglow, 2003, Porter, 2000, Porter, 1991). To which one should also add that a major impetus behind both the French and American Revolutions was also the emergence of a similar middle class denied access to political power. Modern culture has become used to conceptualising out religion, politics, science and industry, along with many other dimensions of life, such as the individual, society and nation, into separate compartments and viewing them in isolation. This is the scientific method of breaking down wholes into individual, component parts to study and analyse in detail and then restructure in a variety of different ways to create new concepts or products. This equates with Gellner’s (1990) ability to fragment and isolate out parts from the whole as individual concepts, e.g. men as separate individuals who also make up a society (a distinct concept separable from the individuals composing it as against a single concept of men in society in which both are indivisibly one and part of the same concept of community). Western men thus find it difficult to think of individuals as part of a bounded whole and indivisible from a deep sense of community, as understood in Alexander Pope’s time (1688-1744) – ‘All is but part of one stupendous whole, whose body Nature is and God the Soul’. Modern man therefore often finds it difficult to understand how change in one area affects change or events in another, why each

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individual cannot just act without being tied to others constraining thoughts and actions, such social conformity has become alien to us (although we are still subject to it at a deeper, subliminal level). We have developed compartmentalised lives, built upon ideas of rational-autonomous men, in turn reacting back to legitimate ideas of compartmentalised lives (although we mostly fail to realise the extent to which this too is socially constructed). This is largely a product of the process of division of labour which emphasises narrow specialisation leading to greater rational efficiency and autonomy (Smith’s, 1993, first published 1776, pin making factory and the centre piece of Durkheim’s, 1984, sociology). But non-modern men do not experience this and still think in holistic, communal terms of being so that it is quite normal for them to experience something in economics, identify it in religion and express it via politics as all part of the same whole. And such thought reflects an uniformity of ideas, behaviour and strict conformity to communal norms and a single conceptualisation of the world. This is of central importance to any sociological understanding of terrorism because it implies that such men are not free agents, ‘individuals’ who rationally think for themselves and make autonomous decisions: in non-western, pre-modern society men are, rather, agents of their community, which may be autonomous. Freedom and rights thus become something inherent in the collective, not the individual. Hence western ideas of individualism, freedom and liberty will actually be experienced as the opposite because it undermines communal freedom and western imports of concepts like human rights or liberal democracy, will be experienced as fragmenting and destroying that which provides them with real freedom, i.e. their society or community, which provides their sense of being and enables them to negotiate, express and experience in their world. Freedom and liberty are as much culture boundaries as cultural concepts, i.e. they are social constructs that only pertain to certain societies. Thus when modern men invade the pre-modern it does great violence to that society and to those men bound up in and dependent upon it. Where the collective or communal is the source of survival and being it alone is the source of knowledge, freedom and liberty. H.G. Wells, wrote a classic description of cultural boundaries in The Country of the Blind where a fully sighted man stumbles into a hidden country populated entirely by the blind. The sighted man immediately thinks he will be king of such a country and easily escape from it, but exactly the opposite becomes the case. So well adapted are the blind to being blind, so well have they developed their other senses and so well have they constructed and organised their country to meet their needs that they have all the advantages over the sighted man who now finds his dependence on his sight irrelevant, actually a disadvantage in an environment constructed for the blind. Indeed, such was the threat posed by the sighted man to blind society that the blind men had to do violence to him, i.e. blind him so that he would conform, then everyone could become normal, relax and enjoy the freedom and privileges of blind society.

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When the modern man enters the pre-modern world it is akin to the sighted man, which was the condition that modern pioneers found themselves in when they began to modernise, as new industry did immense violence to the old world order. Luddites, machine breakers and other rioters did great violence to the new industrial order because it did great violence to them, their livings, their settled, communal lives and traditional moral order. And this was recognised by the early social observers, e.g. Scottish Enlightenment thinkers such as Hutcheson, Smith, Ferguson or early French sociologists such as Comte and Saint-Simon. They all noticed the breakdown of traditional rural, close-knit communities with a holistic lifestyle and moral order, in the face of rapid economic development. They observed the rise of fragmented, often chaotic and socially anarchic industrial towns and cities in which industrial discontent and political disaffection seethed, as illustrated in the novels of Dickens or Zola. Urban violence and revolutionary menace dominated early industrial politics, reflecting the economic hardships of poverty stricken workers, in socially chaotic urban slums, and exuded Marx’s sense of alienation or Durkheim’s anomie to produce the fear of revolution that Charles Kingsley complained of. Early industrial society created rootless, atomised individuals, lacking place, loyalty, meaning or purpose apart from being mere hands in a productive process dominated solely by a cash nexus. Economics (market) became divorced from the social relations of personal responsibility, fealty or moral regulation associated with local, communally controlled peasant or guild production to be replaced by abstract markets wherein individualism was associated with misery. And any ameliorating role that religion had previously played was now stripped way by the new God of the market. Alder (2004) provides a wonderful description of this world in pre-revolutionary France, especially how weights and measures were fixed locally and annually precisely because they enabled the local community to vary them according to local needs and conditions. The new, national and standardised weights and measures that the revolutionary government tried to introduce were rejected precisely because they would be fixed and invariable and so locals would lose their freedom to adapt and adopt according to their needs. Meanwhile, the government and market interests were seen as imposing a rigid discipline and loss of freedom despite the fact that fixed, standard weights and measures would open up the country to greater opportunity for economic growth, development and mobility, which would in turn enable greater individual autonomy. The freedom of the individual in fact was built upon a new industrial discipline, itself based on science, which had to be acquired via the overthrow of local communal autonomy that actually restricted men to their locality and prevented them developing external relations. And as European society industrialised men were uprooted from their local, close-knit, secure and isolated village communities and exposed to the world of external relations that deposited them in an alien urban world of industrial slums, which lacked the social support networks that religion and a church centred community provided. Now there were only ‘atomised’ individuals united solely

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by the market cash nexus. At work men were crowded into unhealthy factories, with poor working conditions, brutal discipline and low wages imposed upon them in an alien and resented manner. Traditional skills and crafts were destroyed by industrialisation and reduced previously socially respected and economically independent and relatively affluent craftsmen to mere unskilled labourers – market forces respected no one, order or religion – thus was the new also seen as immoral and irreligious. This world was hated by most of the working population, often because it destroyed any meaningful human relationships in the workplace: ‘I wish to see’, Cobbett wrote, ‘the poor men of England what the poor men of England were when I was born; and from endeavouring to accomplish this wish, nothing but the want of means shall make me want to desist.’ All around him Cobbett could see traditional, security-giving relationships being ground into dust, craftsmen and farmers being transformed into ‘hands’ subject now to ‘seigneurs of the Twist, Sovereigns of the Spinning Jenny, great yeomen of the Yarn … When master and man were the terms, everyone was in his place, and all were free. Now, in fact, it is a case of masters and slaves’. (Nisbet, 1996, p.25)

It is easy to romanticise the pre-modern world as some kind of arcadian idyll, which Romantics do, but for all its poverty, disease and ignorance it did provide an intimate world of known place and order, with close knit communities providing social and psychological support and a kind of welfare and health system for those in need. Its severely limited socio-economic and geographic mobility was compensated for by a lack of any known alternative to foment discontent and a simple religious view of the world that gave sufficient explanation to satisfy what limited queries men had of the world. In addition the church provided an over-riding structure and continuity to life, a cosmology, linking men into a past, present and future as well as a geographical set of relationships. Religion and community provided an integrated whole for pre-modern man. The pre-modern was also a timeless world, where tradition ruled, simply because there was little change or development, time stood still and men moved through it rather than time moving on. Time and tradition themselves had a religious quality since the hours of the day were signified by the tolling of church bells, clocks or calls for prayers or the calendar of the year marked out by saints and feast days, and the major dates in the calendar, e.g. harvest, were marked by religious services, whereas for modern man time moves on and is money and tradition hinders development and profits. This gave traditional patterns of social organisation and culture great authority, as natural and timeless, which in turn added to a religious authority and dimension of an ordered world ordained by God, hence the references in Weber’s sociology not just to religious but also traditional authority (Weber, 1976). Little thought was required, merely an acceptance of God’s ordained order which was why the Reformation and the industrial revolution had such major and violent impacts.

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The entire west eventually experienced exactly the same processes as industrialisation spread throughout the 19th century. Initially it often brought misery, especially in the loss of traditional social and communal relationships and support systems. There was a sense of lost freedoms and rights, of being uprooted from timeless communities, where one had some participatory place, with established moral authorities and relationships evolving around religion and landlord (even if loathed at times). In the small, unchanging village life, run according to known patterns, traditions and customs, each peasant had an intimate knowledge of his locality and the necessary skills to survive there which were now lost (something also felt in contemporary Islam, Toth, 2005). Order, rank and status were ascribed unquestioningly and usually accepted even in times of revolt, which were usually about restoring traditional order not destroying it. Meanwhile, in the new cities physical life was often appalling for the new labouring classes: in Britain children as young as four or five years old would be employed in factories for 12 hour days with no health and safety legislation, whilst adults were often known to work up to 18 hour days, 7 days per week, in times of high demand. The first effective factory Act (1833) merely restricted the hours of work for children under 13 to 9 hours per day and young persons over the age of 13 to 12 hours per day and only in 1848 did a new act imposing a 10 hour limit on all children and women come into effect; men could look after themselves (Gregg, 1965, chapter VI). Meanwhile, life in the new urban slums was quite as bad as Mayhew or Engels described (Thompson and Yeo, 1971, Engels, 1969). Significantly, the conditions described in 19th century Europe were very similar to those described by modern observers in the sweatshops in Indonesia, Pakistan or the slums of Cairo and Algiers. For whether one is looking at Nairn’s (Hall, 1998) European fringes of ethno-nationalist violence or modern Islamic fundamentalism one is looking at very similar situations, i.e. of traditional society being rudely disrupted by modernisation and market forces. This is the case whether one is looking at large numbers of western tourists flooding into new holiday locations, e.g. Bali, attempts at industrial development, such as in Algeria or Egypt or even simply the importation of alien western culture and values via an all pervading, global mass media (hence the Taliban’s attempts to outlaw televisions). The situation is in principle no different from that described by Zulaika (1988) or Clark (1984) in the Basque Lands, where the new is invading the old, traditional world that forms the core of the terrorist revolt. Zulaika (1988) provides a detailed insight into how the traditional Basque economy of the baserri is not just a farm but a way of life and culture that bound entire families and communities into it. The baserri is not just an economic unit but a family unit and centre, cultural and social organisation, tradition linking past with present, farm with local community. It is a way of thinking about and seeing the world, the heart of a specific form of consciousness that is a whole, undivided concept of life and being in itself, now increasingly at odds with the modern world built on a multiplicity of divided concepts, to utilise Gellner’s

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(1990) terminology. The economics of the baserri are almost irrelevant to its members, it is a defining way of life that provides its members with identity and meaning and forms the core of a Basque culture and identity, with a meaning that is mythic, mystic and religious as well as rooted in the physical countryside. Modern economic activity can take place almost anywhere, but only in the Basque Lands can the baserri ‘be’. This ‘baserri’ world is now being destroyed by a rapidly modernising Spain that undermines its viability and, consequently, a way of life. Just like the peasant revolts of old, a way of life, communal freedom, tradition is being defended against unwanted change. Equally, a similar story can be told in Nationalist Ireland, whose entire raison d’etre over the last 150 years was the defence of a rural, Catholic, peasant society against the modernising and disruptive forces of industrialising Britain, of which industrial, Protestant Ulster was a part (Lee, 1989, Lyons, 1982). And in such rural environments violence and blood letting have a close proximity to everyday life and as Townshend (Crenshaw, 1995) observes in Ireland, a tradition of violent revolt. A similar picture can be painted in the Islamic world, where economic development and modernisation have disrupted settled, predominantly rural patterns and communities with their social, cultural and religious norms endowed with religious significance (the ‘ummah’, community of the faithful – Armstrong, 2000). Most commentators on Islamic fundamentalism have pointed to the role of rapid and sometimes failed attempts at modernisation and development, whether in the form of Arab nationalism, Soviet or western style economic development. These have led to rapid urban growth and conurbations often unable to provide the social welfare, or physical infrastructure able to cope with the rapid influx of poor rural peasants into an alien world of abstract markets, or mass unemployment when times are bad (Crenshaw, 1994 and 1995, Lewis, 2002 and 2003, Halliday, 1996, Yapp, 1996, Owen, 2000). Most commentators on Islamic fundamentalism also note the role of the Muslim Brotherhood in nurturing violent opposition. Yet they came to prominence precisely because they offered communal support services usually found in the small communities the new urban immigrants had come from (Toth, 2005) but totally lacking in the new cities. Such a lack might not have mattered had development and modernisation been more successful or evenly paced but too often it was not, such as Algeria and Egypt’s failed attempts at Soviet style development. In addition these new societies had to cope with the vagaries of global markets whose down turns, even for successful economies, could cause mass unemployment and widespread distress in states with no welfare system. Previously such problems had hardly existed in small, self-sufficient, rural communities, even if life was fairly basic; and if misfortune struck, the community, mobilising around the church or mosque, would provide the support. Now, when modernisation proves to be a false God it is true religion (pace – Muslim Brotherhood, Pratt, 2005, chapter 8) that provides succour. The Brotherhood, via the networks of mosques and other religious organisations

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provides a network of support and wider organisation that links and mobilises mass support for opposition to false Gods. It provides all that the old community offered in terms of support, place, identity, being (physical and psychological) social comfort and explanation. In addition, its leaders, especially its clerical leaders, seem little different in social function and position from the Catholic priests of Ireland (Brown, 1981). Further, the new urban life required the development of new cultures and levels of consciousness (industrial, multi-conceptual). The new rural immigrants still had the mental and cultural package of Gellner’s single concept world unable to cope with the modern multi-conceptual world founded on division of labour, which shattered their single concept consciousness. Hence a single concept solution appealed greatly to the displaced, atomised immigrant worker, such as a return to traditional Islamic society which unites all in one single, holistic community and order represented in a single concept of ‘ummah’ (community of the faithful). It was not just appalling urban conditions, since traditional life had often been harsh enough (indeed, in traditional society if the crops failed you simply starved and died), but the lost social and moral dimension of traditional community that really created resentment and a sense of loss. And this was particularly so for those who had previously led traditional society by virtue of being at the hub of local relations. Man is a social animal and those who can articulate this need become leaders. As in modern Islam so in traditional Christianity: ever since the Reformation Christendom had been fragmenting and men had sought new forms of community to provide them with place in the cosmos, meaning and being. This was made even more acute when the new industrial economy undermined the old socioeconomic order, which had provided stability, continuity, identity, authority, legitimacy, purpose and meaning to men’s lives, and it was this loss and the search for alternatives that caused so much disorder and violence in the 19th century. At the political level this was provided by the new ideology of nationalism and nation-states, which provided a new cosmos (pace Hegel), place and identity to men. However, socially they offered little on the personal: how men fitted into the nation, their role and function within it, what order and relations were to integrate them into it and discipline them and cement them into a genuine sense of community, with a shared sense of direction and belonging, especially since the new national communities were so big they could only be entered into via the imagination (Anderson, 1991)? These were vital questions as yet unanswered, how were peasants to be turned into Frenchmen (Weber, 1976)? This was the starting point of modern sociology, to devise the new communal order at the social and cultural level to match the political and economic imperatives behind the nation. Sociology’s aim was specifically to identify the means to order, discipline and orchestrate an effective response to the endemic instability and violence that accompanied modernity:

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The fundamental ideas of European sociology are best understood as responses to the problem of order created at the beginning of the nineteenth century by the collapse of the old regime under the blows of industrialism and revolutionary democracy … The break-up of the old order in Europe – an order that had rested on kinship, land, social class, religion, local community, and monarchy that had been consolidated, however precariously, ever since the Middle ages. Dislocated by revolution, scrambled by industrialism and the forces of democracy, these elements can be seen tumbling across the political landscape of Europe throughout the nineteenth century in search of new and more viable contexts. (Nisbet, 1996, p.21)

Thus sociology became dominated by order concerns relating to urban living, community, religion, industrial relations, class relations, status and power, how to manage change, how to effect political stability and authority, legitimacy and the relation of the individual to society. It can be seen first in the works of Comte and Saint-Simon, Tocqueville and then in Marx, Weber, Tonnies and Durkheim as they directly witnessed the violent disruption that industrialisation brought to their own societies (Aron, 1968 and 1970, Bottomore and Nisbet, 1979, Swingewood, 1984, Zeitlin, 1994, Nisbet, 1996, Turner, 1999, Dodd, 1999). And if there was to be order what kind should it be – Liberal democratic, socialist collectivism (Romantic or scientific), conservative or what? The choice was apparently wide open and the implications for different groups significant. Hence sociology’s concern with ideology and explorations to ascertain whether one could scientifically determine the correct ideology to match needs. What also was the place of religion in a world increasingly reordered around science, where once religion had been the pivotal force of authority, learning, explanation, community and order? Religion had previously been the ultimate legitimating force on which order rested, hence the problem of religion dominated classical sociology (Aron, 1968 and 1970, Turner, 1991 and 1999, Nisbet, 1996). If there was no God ordained order by what right did any authority exist and have to be obeyed? If there was nothing sacred now that science demystified and progress made redundant what then should men respect and defer to? Traditional society had provided a single conceptual answer to this problem, whilst modern society provided many conflicting responses. On one level the idea of the nation answered some of these questions, for as Hobsbawm (1992) observes nationalism equated nation with people and so the people and their welfare should become sacred (nation, religion and national religion). This goes some way to helping explain the religious zeal of many nationalists and their belief in the legitimacy of their violence, e.g. the IRA or ETA. However, it did not answer the question of who the people were: France had five ethno-linguistic groups in 1789 and hundreds of thousands of black slaves (eventually all men were included as citizens but not women). But even within a nation it did not answer the question of what kind of order? Hence why civil wars (English, American or French Revolution) are so violent: they involve the pursuit

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of the sacred since the order to be established and who is included in and what interests are to be served become part of the sacred – the sole of nation, the rest are ‘included out’ and so lack rights, place, being, identity. Thus we can begin to understand the violence and religious fervour in conflicts such as the former Yugoslavia, Sri Lanka, Middle East or Ireland, they relate to precisely what kind of socio-economic order, authority and ideology is to be employed in ordering the national society (community), who is included in and likely to benefit. By being Catholic Irish Republicans excluded Protestants from being Irish, by being Muslim, Bosnians excluded Christian Croats and Serbs. And it is these latter questions that sociology so significantly turned to. Nisbet (1996) identifies five core concerns at the heart of sociology, relating specifically to modernisation and the loss of the old: community, authority, status, the sacred and alienation, which were all serious problems in 19th century Europe. The first four represent social phenomena lost and seeking replacement, the latter is an unwanted gain stemming from the loss of the first four. They could also describe the conditions of most of the urban poor in the modern cities of Algeria or Egypt, or displaced Palestinian refugees, just as they did Cobbett’s (Nisbet, above) Englishman. Equally they describe the condition of one of the worlds first celebrity terrorists – Emile Henry, who, in his trial, had famously declared that were there were no innocents – because the whole of society oppressed him. Drawn into the city in search of a better future Emile Henry’s family came from a peasant, Spanish background. Henry was a drop out student who had failed to find regular work and found himself isolated and rootless in Paris where he drifted into anarchist circles and learnt to blame ‘society’ for his failure. Indeed his lost illusions dominated his defence (Henry, 1996), which in effect amounted to an attack on (modern) society as a sham that had let him and others down with false promises. This was the background to him planting a bomb in a rich Parisian café, in 1894, where he knew no one and killed an innocent civilian and wounded several others. Henry had all the freedoms and liberty of modern political and economic markets but none of the freedoms (security) that come from community, social integration, place or belonging. He was the lost and trapped sole of a Kafka novel for whom terrorism offered revenge on society. And Henry was not alone since this period saw the first wave of modern terrorism. Whereas previously political violence in Europe had been dominated by revolutions, such as the 1848 year of revolutions or the wars of Italian unification (1860s), these had been fairly open insurrections fought under conditions akin to open war. Either barricades were openly manned or battles were fought between fairly recognisable armies, even if non-state, e.g. Garibaldi’s ‘red shirts’. As such they were open and recognisable combatants as understood in traditional warfare. But now a new form of political violence, associated with something loosely described as international anarchism, took on the hue of terrorism: this is where the modern notion of the clandestine plotters, lone bombers and gunmen, living within society and targeting its members from within begins (Miller, in Crenshaw, 1995). This is the modern terrorist, a figure indistinguishable from the crowd,

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furtive and disguised who could be anyone, anywhere. All pretence at openness and civilised standards are dropped, if only because as Henry had stated such civilised society was an illusion and artificial (a Romantic legitimacy). This coincided with what is regarded as the end of enlightened unification nationalism and the switch to Romantic ethnic-separatism (Greenfeld, 1993, Hobsbawm, 1992). It was also when the enlightened world of science, industry, large nations, economies of scale and liberal democracy had finally triumphed and begun to impose their new order and institutions. And to many, not just Henry and the anarchists, including organised labour, trade unions, socialist parties, craft workers, rural peasants and many others this was not regarded benignly. Many lost out in this new world and resented the new ruling elites whose rise to power and affluence had not necessarily been associated with an improvement of conditions for the new working classes or the old crafts. The late 19th century saw the rise of revolutionary socialist movements, class warfare and industrial strife between organised labour and entrepreneurial capital on a significant scale, which dominated the political landscape and sociological literature (Swingewood, 1984, Tucker, 2002). But the institutional forces of the new nation states (armies, police and legal systems) were often too great for open revolt or even organised withdrawal of labour. However, the new states were still alarmed and scared by potential revolution and disorder and desperately sought means to control and bind in their new masses, to develop a social cohesion and shared sense of identity and loyalty around their new nation-states, which became another function of sociology, and Durkheim was sponsored by the French Republic for just this purpose (Giddens, 1987, Anderson, 1992, Dingley, 2008). Modernity had created its own reaction, which is important to understanding terrorism, since the revolt took two forms. The new freedoms of the city, market economics, liberal democracy and science did indeed appear a sham to many since urban slums and factory discipline offered little in the way of liberty for most of the masses. Equally the rigid discipline and stifling conformity of middle class life (frequently targeted in contemporary literature, e.g. Dickens, Balzac, Lafontaine) also offered an uninspiring future for many. One way forward, such as advocated by most contemporary sociologists, was to accept that the modern, enlightened world had not yet produced all its promised rewards and still posed many problems. However, this did not make modernity a sham just that it had not yet developed sufficiently. Equally, and here Durkheim was a particularly forceful advocate that ‘society’ was still going through a period of fundamental change which had not worked itself out yet, but when it did all would be well, especially if sociologists could help ease the process on its way. Most sociologists saw the potential of the modern as enormous and that when properly harnessed and understood the full fruits would be all that was promised. For Marx this implied a socialist revolution (a scientific one that still embraced industrialism) as the way forward, whilst for Durkheim and Weber it implied more enlightened knowledge and understanding of the workings of the new existing nation-state, economy and the creation of a new sense of social

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(national) community based on scientific principles and individualism and not a return to some romanticised peasant village community. In sociology this became immortalised in Tonnies ‘gesellschaft’ (association) as against ‘gemeinschaft’ (community) or Durkheim’s ‘organic’ as against ‘mechanical’ forms of social order, roughly modern urban loose knit association as against close-knit village community (Aron, 1968 and 1970, Nisbet, 1996). ‘Organic’ equates with the rise of the individual and the specialist division of labour whilst ‘mechanical’ equates with the closely integrated communal whole of peasant lifestyles. This in turn brings one back to Gellner’s multi-concept modern man of science as against the single concept man of peasant society, the ‘partial’ life within a complex sophisticated order of many parts versus the ‘whole’ life within the simple single community. Yet the complexity of modern society means that men cannot live the single simple life of old, the range of skills required demand a rational scientific knowledge that demands specialisation and consequent fragmentation. The multi-conceptual life of science and specialisation requires the loss of simple, holistic community and a complex re-integration via larger organisational units. The Romantic alternative was to reject the enlightened modern altogether as false, unnatural and artificial and to return to traditional society and nature, spurning especially industrialism, individualism, science, objectivity, liberal democracy and other associated multi-conceptual values for a single concept, new medievalism. Traditional religion and simple peasant life styles were eulogised, rationality and the cold calculation and deliberation of science were rejected for alternative values of warmth, feelings, emotion and subjectivity associated with community. What the Enlightenment saw as peasant ignorance, superstition and backwardness the Romantics lauded as representing some deep, inner, meaningful and more profound knowledge (Greenfeld, 1993, Berlin, 2000 and 2007): progress was a sham – Emile Henry was right. In political terms Romanticism rejected unification ideals of big nations that broke down ethnic and religious barriers and which advanced liberal democratic ideals of the objectified individual based on scientific principles. Instead it invoked the idea that ethnic groups were part of a divine plan, group difference was good and so barriers were necessary – the kernel of Hegel’s and Herder’s philosophy (Kedourie, 1993). Smaller was better and the more rural the more natural and spiritual, which in turn led to the sacred cause of the ethnic nation and eulogising the noble, rustic peasant, for whom religion had played a central role. And since modernity had led to the atomised and alienated individual that which opposed the individual, i.e. small, close knit, confining communities where the individual was subordinated to the group and traditional religion reigned became associated with good and true being (as Winfield, 2007, observes, this is also something that postmodernism and fascism eulogise). Liberal freedom and individualism was a sham, therefore true freedom lay in the communal and religious ties. And finally, since such communal warmth implied and required the opposite of cold, calculating reason, then emotions and the irrational must be

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positive virtues, which in turn provide the kind of mentality conducive to a single concept world because they alone can combine everything into a single emotion, sensation or feeling. In terms of political violence this has major implications since from its inception the Enlightenment had been associated with the decline of violence, first via regulating war and second via removing its causes. The great enlightened liberal traditions of Smith, Paine, Voltaire and Marx had seen war and violence declining as man progressed: reason and the universal ideal of the individual led to a brotherhood of man whilst international trade and science (governed by universal laws) would promote a common interest – the ultimate commonwealth of man. Meanwhile, because science proceeded via reason, calm reflection and cool calculation it was unlikely to raise the passions that excited violence. Not only did Romantics reject this idea but they actually eulogised violence as an end in itself and made the warrior a figure for noble emulation (Zamoyski, 1999, Berlin, 2000). Violence tested the resolve of man and group, it stirred the emotions to deeper, subjective insights and sense of being; shared danger created deep bonds between warriors and within groups and helped promote a spiritual awareness. But most of all struggle helped develop the passions, intensity of being and awareness. As has been written of the modern PIRA (grandchildren of the Romantics): But the necessity of and practice of violent nationalist struggle were central and distinctive features of their mission. Violence was considered essential to the production of necessary change – from the unacceptable ‘is’ to the sought after ‘ought’. (English, 2006, p.372-3)

And in the 1860s one saw the direct forebears of the modern PIRA emerge, the Fenian Brotherhood, who acquired their inspiration from the German Romantics (Foley and Ryder, 1998). Thus sturm und drang (struggle and strife) became the watchwords of the Romantics, great passion and emotion their key intellectual weapons and violence their tactic (Greenfeld, 1993, Berlin, 2000); however, the violence had, by definition, to be predicated upon non-Enlightenment principles. Violence was action, immediate (propaganda by deed) and so eschewed the enlightened principles of rational thought and calm calculation for a triumph of the will by struggle and sheer force. For similar reasons, Romantics also eulogised the arts and humanities, not science. But it was arts that stirred the passions and emotions, and so combined with violence for an immediacy of affect and stimulation, also arts that eulogised the peasant and rustic simplicity not inspirational in a cosmopolitan sense; Gellner’s (1983) low culture or Berlin’s (2000) third rate arts, were the ideal. The Romantic politics were heavily grounded in the 18th century German reaction against the French Enlightenment influence that dominated Germany, which in turn led to French becoming the court language, which resulted in excluding well educated middle class Germans who could not speak French. This

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precipitated a reaction against all things French, including the Enlightenment (especially the rather cynical and superficial ideas of the philosophers), amongst middle-class Germans, who produced a kind of counter-culture that espoused all things German, which became associated with being ‘true’ and deep (German): it also implied a jobs for Germans only message. At this time Germany was a rural, peasant backwater, hence any counter-culture (against France) had to eulogise rural, peasant values and reject enlightened values. It was then used as an ideological rallying point in German opposition to Napoleonic occupation and so gained great extra prestige (Greenfeld, 1993, Berlin, 2000, Burleigh, 2005). But it also tapped into a pan-European reaction against many aspects of modernity as aspects of its darker side became apparent. Romanticism too had its high and low aspects: in Fichte, Feuerbach or Hegel it had a dimension that was truly universal and high culture, but in lesser philosophers, such as Herder or Lessing, it tended to a low culture eulogy; and it was from the latter that the Fenians, via Young Ireland, picked up its nationalism. Of course to be true and pure in the Romantic sense meant expelling the un-pure and alien and as Greenfeld (1993) observes, in the German case this led directly to Nazi final solutions. But the principle applies to all ethnic nationalism, such as in the former Yugoslavia or Ireland. Unification, enlightened, nationalism avoided this by stressing the individual as autonomous, not group dependent and the formation of purely legal-rational relations in a civil society, not an ethnic or religious identity as defining the individual and so excluding non-ethnic members from society. Hence we can gain some insight into the violence of ethnic nationalisms: they are exclusive to the ethnic group, invariably formed around religion (Smith, 1991, Hastings, 1997, Dingley, 2008), intolerant of individual deviation and extol the use of violence, to cleanse, as both a means and an end. This takes us back to our equation of single concept, rural life with violence, which helps explain the locations of the IRA, ETA or Islamic fundamentalism (which may just be a new form of Romanticism). What is also striking is how Romanticism gained its strongest hold over the ‘failures’ of modernisation, be they German Romantics, Irish Republicans or international anarchists, all exhibited the same failure to adapt to modernity. Breuilly (1993) makes the important observation that ethnic-separatist nationalism emerges most strongly in regions that failed to modernise. It was an ethnic group’s or individual’s failure to successfully integrate into modern industrial society that mattered; atomised, isolated and alienated in it or by-passed by it and their sense of suffering articulated by often relatively well educated (non-science) activists (Dingley, 1997). It was not that there were not genuine issues of injustice and wretched conditions to stir them – there were, but these issues were dominated by hard, scientific revolutionaries (Marx, Engels and scientific socialism) who saw modernity as also holding the potential answers. Marxists were usually scathing of anarchists, terrorism and Romantics and actually regarded them as harmful to revolutionary interests.

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For Irish Republicans their revolutionary tradition exemplified the Romantic reaction in its avowal of physical force and its ideological purity of purpose in seeking to impose a purely Catholic, peasant and Gaelic culture in opposition to (British) industrialism, science, liberalism and materialism. For reasons still disputed, Catholic Ireland had been unable to modernise successfully and had developed a peasant-proprietor and small town trader economy ill adapted to the rest of the British economy, except for Protestant, industrial Ulster (which opposed nationalism). This made it make a virtue out of Romantic ideals in opposition to Britain’s industrial and imperial progress (English, 2006, Lee, 1989, Brown, 1981). Like the German Romantics they found themselves unable to participate in the modern and so made a virtue out of the old, which was being violently disrupted by modernity. Meanwhile, German Romanticism reached its apogee with the Nazis, probably the worst case of modern mass terror. They were dominated by those who were not part of either organised labour or capital, such as small business men, independent traders, minor officials or lower professionals. Such men were the new displaced within Germany lacking security against the post-war political and social chaos that followed defeat or the ravages of international capitalism as it went through industrial slumps and collapses. The big battalions of industrial society, banks, industrialists, landlords and organised labour (trade unions, socialist and communist parties) had some form of protection to defend themselves in the industrial world, the small men and peasants had nothing to defend them against international markets and capitalist exploitation, unless they turned to revolutionary socialism (Stern, 1974, Hiden, 1996). Failed international industry, markets and banking, from their perspective, led to the evocation of Germany for the Germans as violence captured the heart of the state and helped to create the sense of ‘volksgemeinschaft’ (people’s community) and ‘volksgeist’ (people’s spirit) that was both its own means and end to community and belonging, since violence bred its own intense comradeship. All three provide examples of the resort to violence as a means and end and reflect the longing for community and stability for atomised men and disrupted social systems, for belonging and security, in a world rapidly being transformed by modernity and industrialisation, but failing to deliver to significant sections. One might describe such violence as a knee jerk, emotive reaction against a world order that failed men, or certain groups of them. Ethnic nationalists sought a new medievalism, whilst the anarchists simply tried to destroy the entire industrial system, which seemed to create such atomised misery, without too much thought for what would come after. Romanticism was on a roll by the late 19th century and conservative political ideas based on the irrational, mysticism, emotion and subjectivity increasingly dominated political and intellectual debates (Hughes, 1961). In addition, traditional religion experienced a revival in the second half of the 19th century, especially Catholicism with its emphasis on mystery and traditional authority, which under the revitalising influence of ultramontanism (disciplined conformity to Rome) became increasingly centralised, authoritarian and opposed modernity (Burleigh,

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2005). Once again this was a time of economic recession (the ‘great depression’) when pessimism over economic growth and a new awareness of the darker side of industrial progress emerged as socialists and social commentators made known the slums and subsistence living conditions in industrial cities, whilst labour disputes increased in number and ferocity (Gregg, 1965, Cole and Postgate, 1961, Roberts, 1997, Wilson, 2002). Romanticism chimed with concerns, moods and sentiments prevailing throughout European society. And this applied to the new industrial elites as well as the old interests since the only alternative to a progressive liberal enlightened society seemed to be socialism. Industrial progress started to become a dubious proposition for several sections of society which shifted away from values of science and reason to pave the way for a darker irrationalism that provided a new basis for violence. In many European countries a new militarism emerged to match British Imperial ‘jingoism’ (Wilson, 2002), such as in France (Tombs, 1996) or Germany (Blackbourn, 1997), so that it is easy to understand the mood that swept Europe into war (1914): violence again leading to renewal and communal spirit – patriotism. But for sociologists like Durkheim or Weber or psychologists like Freud or Jung this Romantic and irrational mood was something to be scientifically understood: the rational understanding of the irrational and the objective appreciation of the subjective – not things simply to give in to. The alternative was to return to the mystic ways of reaction and violence, which the sociologists too well appreciated (Hughes, 1961). And the terrorist violence erupting around Europe at the time provided them all with a useful reminder of where the alternative led. Conclusion Violence haunted 19th century Europe, first: fighting for the freedoms and liberties of progress, second: in reaction against them due to an awareness of the negative side of progress. And in Romanticism the reaction led to an eulogy of violence that was inextricably linked to a search for community and religion in the newly atomised, material world of industry. If we study contemporary Islamic societies today we can find similar patterns emerging, which we may now be in a better position to understand. As Richardson (2006) observes, the root causes of terrorism must lie in the social, since most studies show terrorists to be psychologically normal. Historically we can identify upsurges in violence first with socio-political change and then over the last 200 years with socio-economic change. Not that change per se necessarily leads directly to violence, but change that causes loss in terms of significant needs; not just material loss where modernisation fails to provide jobs and income but loss in those non-rational, non-material spheres of life related to the emotional and nonmaterial. Here, specifically, we note the loss of community and all that it implies for men who are fundamentally social, something that the rational-economic and self-interested model of man gravely overlooks.

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Traditional society had a sense of community, security, religion and a moral economy, it felt rooted and provided a place in the cosmos. To a certain extent the nation does this in modern society, but it is a wholly new type of community that responds to new needs. Equally, liberal democracy provides us with a sense of inclusiveness and belonging, but only in as much as it responds to the relevant cultural and socio-economic needs and circumstances of the relevant community. These were problems whose solutions (such as nations, liberal democracy, welfare systems, social institutions to provide place and belonging) were still being worked out in 19th century Europe and we should not expect them to be automatic solutions for non-western societies only now confronting problems of modernity. However, when we impose them on other societies not yet ready they become part of the problem because along with market economics they disrupt the settled communities. And the settled peasant community thinks of and conceives the world in a totally different way from modern society, which is why the clash becomes violent and why our modern liberties are rejected as un-freedom. The liberty of the alienated, atomised and uprooted individual is like the sight of the man in The Country of the Blind. The search for community and order, or the preservation of existing ones against attack is the fundamental point behind much terrorism (and human yearning).

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Chapter 4

Making the Man – Terrorism Charted and Defined

The breed’s described: now, satyr, if you can, Their temper’s show, for manners make the man. Daniel Defoe

Most states have violent pasts and have also engaged in illegal and unconstitutional acts of violence, hence their wariness in defining terrorism. Raison d’etat is a fundamental of politics and diplomacy, not ethics. The very basis for the existence of the state is violence, combined with law making, and its defining institutions are usually violent (military and police). There is, therefore, some truth in the old adage that ‘yesterday’s terrorist is tomorrow’s statesman’, to go alongside that other old adage that ‘one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter’, despite the moral relativism involved, which I would argue against. Further, as Wilkinson (2001) observes some of the worst cases of terrorism have been conducted by states, not just against others (Libya or Syria) but also against their own people (Nazi Germany or South American dictatorships). Added to which liberal democracies support for state terrorism conducted by friendly states, such as UK and US support for Pinochet’s Chile or their support for Iraq (pre-1991) equally blurs the moral picture. Indeed, if one compares a map of 1815 with a modern one (Gildea, 1987, p.58) there are so many new states and nations which only came into existence after violent struggles that one loses count. However, once a new nation has gained its ‘independence’ it quickly follows existing states and condemns the kind of violence on which it was founded. The classic illustration here is the Republic of Ireland which waged a very nasty terrorist campaign (IRA) to secede from the UK in 1919-1921 but once established as an independent state it not only proceeded to condemn the IRA (and redefine its 1919-1921 terrorist campaign as a war of independence) but even introduced far more draconian anti-terrorist legislation, primarily directed against the IRA who had only recently been colleagues doing what they had done (English, 2003, Morgan, in Dingley (ed), 2009). Part of the problem was the rise of nationalism, especially Romantic, which not only extolled violence as a virtue but also proclaimed that every ethnic group had the right to be a nation (Hobsbawm, 1992, Kellas, 1991, Alter, 1989) and independent, given the new ideology of self-determination that replaced divine right (Woodrow Wilson’s ‘14 points’ was particularly harmful here, Macmillan, 2002). The problem was defining what counted as a legitimate ethnic group/nation.

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Additionally, ethnic groups were often dispersed amongst others within what would become disputed territory, previously not disputed when part of a single multiethnic state, such as in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, United Kingdom or Russian Empire. Consequently to claim independence and self-determination invariably implied having to engage in violent struggle against both the existing sovereign state and other ethnic groups within the shared the territory, the recent break-up of Yugoslavia providing a classic example (Dyker and Vejvoda, 1996, Glenny, 1992). Modern nationalist ideologies almost invite terrorism, even after independence, for the new ethnic states invariably find that they have their own ethnic minorities trapped inside their new borders, who see no reason why they too should not claim their self-determination (South Ossetia, 2008, provides a good example). Self-determination is a double-edged weapon that inspires great insecurity, especially when associated with Romantic ideas and potential economic rewards. It is a point too frequently overlooked when studying ethno-national problems that discrimination and sectarian politics are often highly rational, since the socioeconomic rewards of a state modelled solely to reflect your own group’s interests (cultural and economic) are enormous. Ethnic groups have often formed around specific economic interests that exclude others (Eriksen, 1993) and an ethnic state bureaucracy and associated cultural institutions are themselves often a, if not the, major economic interest – if you don’t speak the ethnic language you don’t get the bureaucratic jobs. From this it makes it difficult for non-linguists to even apply for state benefits and aid since they don’t speak the language, read the forms or understand the cultural rules and premises upon which the administration works and decisions are made. The socio-political exclusion that results then provides the basis for making non-ethnics alien and disloyal and therefore to be feared. This in turn leads to repression of the minority and their increased resentment which builds up into violent reaction – terrorism. This was what lay behind the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka: Tamils are Hindu in language and religion and once the Sinhalese majority in Sri Lanka voted to make Buddhism the state religion and replace the lingua franca (English) with Sinhalese as the state bureaucratic language it virtually ensured a Tamil revolt against being an excluded community lacking access to major economic opportunities, sources of power, prestige and status (Whittaker, 2001, Devotta, 2005). A secular, civic, English language state (an enlightened, unification nation), would have ensured an equality of opportunity and rewards for all in the public sphere, whilst also allowing individuals to be whatever ethnicity or religion they wished in their private lives. Culture is a major economic resource as Gellner (1983) or Eriksen (1993) observed and ethnic culture in a competitive global economy is even more so. From this then also stems all the associated social and political kudos, status, selfrespect, dignity and prestige for any individual in a society. As English (2006) so accurately observes in Northern Ireland, the overt discrimination against Catholic Nationalists was actually relatively mild in the Protestant Unionist state, it was the lack of dignity, status and self-respect associated with not being part of the

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dominant culture that was the core of the Nationalists problem. Meanwhile, the Irish Republic simply reversed the situation for Protestant Unionists in a Catholic, Nationalist state. Meanwhile, a hostile, anti-state culture (ethnic minority) can only expect discrimination, since state security demands discrimination against hostile elements. However, solutions to this problem went to the core of enlightened unification nationalism, which advocated the primacy of individual, civic-legal relations over ethnic ones. Durkheim’s sociology in particular, especially his discourse on Professional Ethics and Civic Morals, 1992, particularly addressed this problem. Modern ethnic (Romantic) ideas make ethnicity (legitimated by religion) worth fighting for. Yet the enlightened politics of the 18th century also led to their own violence (American and French Revolutions), indeed the French Revolution led directly to Le Terreur. Actually, part of the problem for both enlightened and romantic politics lay in the Enlightenment itself, since part of its revolutionary nature was the idea that men could remake their own political world, just as science and industry had remade the economic and productive world. Once one had done away with the divine right of kings and the legitimising authority of the church it was open to any one or group to believe that they could remake or re-order the political world in any fashion they chose, which once again invited violence and force (triumph of the will). Thus the enlightened tradition accepted the constraining authority of science and early nationalist thinkers such as Mazzini or J.S. Mill tried to ascertain what scientific criteria existed to define a nation that could legitimately claim selfdetermination (Hobsbawm, 1992, chapter 1). But they thought mainly in terms of unification nationalism, driven by economic needs for economies of scale and liberal democracies to match them (based on scientific universalism, not ‘particularism’) and a means to overcome ethnic and religious differences for an integrated civic society. Such thinking was seen as leading to a reduction in violence through the removal of ethnic and religious differences and conflicting interests, current problems arose when Romantics hailed ethnic difference as good and worth fighting for. Another important aspect of the Romantics was their praise for traditional religion (Berlin, 2000, Greenfeld, 1993) almost precisely because it opposed Enlightenment ideals and methods, e.g. science. Traditional religion offered important alternative values to science, e.g. metaphysical and transient values, feelings and emotions. Churches, parochial and diocesan structures (or mosques and Islamic structures) were ideal, ready-made structures for social organisation, mobilisation and control, usually outside of normal state surveillance, and frequently used for such purposes (Herbert, 2001). Equally traditional religion had a vested interest in resisting the encroachments of the modern, centralised state based on liberal, unification nationalism, the Papacy was particularly strong here (Burleigh, 2005). The very values on which pre-modern states were premised tended to conflate better with small, rural, self-sufficient communities, isolated

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and therefore better able to retain a local sense of mystery and keep local peasants in ignorance and awe – Marx’s ‘idiocy of rural life’ – and in their place (Ramet, 1996, provides a very good example of this in rural Serbia). Rural societies were also better acquainted with violence and slaughter was part of daily life, thus a link between religion and violence was naturally found in such a ‘natural order’. Most of the sociology and anthropology of religion has stressed its close connection with violence (Girard, 1977 and 1987, Levi-Strauss, 1972) and it was something that ran through much of Durkheim’s sociology. After all, martyrs died violently for their religion and sacrifice, even if merely symbolic, is central to most religions. The big mistake modern men make is to isolate religion out from all other social and political activities or institutions, when what we need to do is recall the religious being at the heart of them all, particularly in single concept societies. For Durkheim religion was the social and this is still a starting point for much social anthropology and social theory. As Turner (1991, p.246) explains, religion’s etymology derives from the Latin religio, i.e. an obligation or bond, which points to its social functions of discipline, relations and order. Throne and Altar was a natural combination for the pre-modern order (Burleigh, 2005). And the Gods usually required some form of sacrifice to appease, feed or renew them so that they could maintain the order of the cosmos. Thus many modern states have utilised religiously held philosophies of violence and conflict to assert their independence, their roots frequently lie in illegal, antistate armed conflict and terrorism, as well as state sanctioned wars, sanctified by religion. And the importance of appreciating this lies in forewarning against the error that many terrorism ‘experts’ make of assuming that terrorists are somehow abnormal or how abnormal their politics must be to resort to violence (although modern psychologists such as Horgan, in Silke, 2003 and Silke, 2003 are sharply critical of such ideas). A continual theme in the study of terrorists is actually how normal they are and how frequently they can legitimate their acts via reference to normal political and ideological ideas and theories (Dingley, 1997, Garvin, 1981, Clark, 1984). The origins of modern terror Modern terrorism springs from the French Revolution and Le Terreur, where in order to make men free the State (or those who had seized control of it) decided to terrorise men into accepting their freedom and intimidating their opponents. This is a seminal point in terrorism since it illustrates how terrorism needs to be understood in its socio-political context. For the key theme of the French Revolution was to remake man and society; new man in a brave new world, even the concept of freedom was radically, so new methods (terrorism) to achieve this aim were required. There had been some precursors in the form of the Reformation and then the English Civil War, Glorious Revolution and American Revolution, which

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all invoked ideas of liberty and freedom, but none were as thoroughgoing as the French Revolution, thoroughly grounded in the reason and rationalism of the Enlightenment. Up to this date men had lived in a static and given world, of fixed rank and orders, ordained by God, and where production and most economic activity was of and off the land and ruled by nature. A natural world reigned which was largely seen as immutable and fatalistically accepted; and since man could do little about it he accepted it as his lot, ordained by God. Freedom and liberty did not come into it and were rather meaningless concepts for most since they could do little to change nature or alter events anyway, especially if they were illiterate, ignorant peasants. Meanwhile, over the millennia, institutions and organisations, such as guilds or monasteries, had emerged that integrated men into this world and made them feel comfortable in (at least psychologically) and attuned to it. Freedom in pre-revolutionary society was the ability to adapt and integrate into the only known order, know ones place and conform (much like Wells’s Country of the Blind). And this is a theme we will come back to, since much modern terrorism and ‘liberation’ is actually a reaction against modern, disrupting liberties that disturb a settled order. Pre-modern societies often have an appearance of naturalness, defined order and stability in which there is no need to think about ‘society’ but simply to adapt, conform and accept and all will be well. Even in the late 18th century only a small group of men thought in terms of freedom and liberty, as modern man knows it, and the idea that one could do anything to change the world was scarcely conceivable. Hence, when revolutionaries seized control of the state and tried to make men free they often faced severe opposition from those they would make free. Freedom was an alien concept and often unwanted by ignorant peasants, to whom it was psychologically destabilising, or by craft guilds, churches or aristocrats, whose economic and political interests were threatened by it. Thus men had to be forced to be free, terrorised into it. And here we see a key element of terrorism, an effort to impel a specific socio-political being, consciousness and order. In turn, this only comes about once we have the idea that the world can be changed (backwards or forwards). This in turn is tied in with all kinds of destabilising (culturally, socially, politically economically, psychologically) ideas such as progress, change and development, growth, reason, science, discovery, liberty, equality, autonomy, democracy that seem to threaten all known sense of order and stability. (But this is not to say that rejection of such values means men don’t want their benefits, such as modern medicine or mobile phones, as long as they can be integrated into their existing social order.) And if there is an old lesson here it is that most men prize order and stability in their lives very highly, for without that there is only chaos and loss of control where life becomes impossible, even if ‘democratic’. Le Terreur encapsulates much of what terrorism is about, because it followed no rules or laws but made up its own that condemned men not for what they had done but what they might do, what they thought or what they were, i.e. things men had little control over. Keeping or breaking the law made no difference, Le

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Terreur struck at any man indiscriminately and solely for its own reasons, not any objective or quantifiable reason that enabled men to predict and adjust their behaviour accordingly to maintain order in their lives. Le Terreur became a form of organised chaos that undermined any quantifiable order, it was directed more by sentiment and emotion – those who might not be with ‘us’, but never defined so as to enable men to identify how they could be with ‘us’. It had no due process by which men could defend themselves, or right of appeal. The sentiment of the mob (an abiding fear) alone seemed to dictate both victim and punishment, so no one felt secure and all felt threatened. In the end even the great architect of Le Terreur (Robespierre) fell victim to it: thus it even consumed itself. Here the great irony was that such an instrument of disorder should first be used on behalf of the Enlightenment ideals of the French Revolution, which emphasised the scientific principles of laws and objectivity in human affairs. That Le Terreur was undone by its lawlessness and an appreciation that real freedom and liberty require rules and laws, order and stability, not chaos and anarchy. As Durkhiem and many other classical sociologists observed, freedom was a discipline and required restraint, reason and rationality, without which there was no freedom but just dependency on power, whim and emotion. But it is the dimension of trying to change men, to remould them into free men, nationals or whatever that was the striking feature of terrorism, the use of unlawful and unrestrained fear and violence to remake man according to some group’s idealised and invariably metaphysical image that is central to the use of terrorism. And this idea was a product of its own time, with the liberty to make men free (of what and to be what?). This new ideal of liberty was a product of the rapidly emerging economic and commercial developments of the 18th century that created new strains and stresses on a socio-political order designed only to reflect the realities of a static feudal order and economy based on land. The new economic wealth of industry, international trade and commerce had created new interests and power forces not based on land or represented within the old order, so making it non-functional and outmoded. The new market economics required freedom of movement of capital and men, which went to the heart of the ideas of liberty and freedom. It was freedom for the new wealth, more mobile and free of landed ties, of industrial economies which required new political arrangements and implied new socio-political orders to reflect new concepts of movement and consciousness. As Marx, Weber, Durkheim, Pareto, Comte and the other classical sociologists appreciated, the new forces of production had profound implications for the way that men conceived of themselves, their consciousness and the new kind of fluid relationships they needed (Nisbet, 1996). Economic change and development had profoundly radical implications for socio-political order, something well understood by contemporaries such as Adam Smith, Francis Hutcheson or Thomas Paine (Herman, 2003, Broadie, 2007, Porter, 2001). In turn the French Revolution was followed by the Napoleonic Wars, which exported its ideals throughout Europe, often at point of bayonet, as old dynasties

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were overthrown and new, enlightened ones (even if subordinated to French interests) were established which gave new opportunities to new men of ability from outside of the old orders. Such changes were indeed revolutionary and even if the reforms were initially abolished after 1815 they lived in men’s memories and ideals, which increasingly matched the socio-economic realities of industrialisation and economic development as it swept through nearly every state in 19th century Europe (Gildea, 1987, Smith,1998). In addition to French Revolutionary examples men also had that of the Spanish ‘guerillas’. Bestial and terrifying as their methods were and defying all the rules and laws of war, the ‘people’ had shown how they could play a significant part in ‘freeing’ their country from foreign invasion. And because the terror of their irregular war had played a significant part in removing the French from Spain it had acquired certain positive connotations and moral approval. Whilst on a more orderly level the role that the German Landwehr (volunteer armed militia) had played in the German war of liberation against Napoleon also added lustre to the idea of a popular armed resistance against foreign occupation (Blackbourn, 1997). To this was added a certain Romantic idealisation of the outlaw as a popular hero and figure symbolising freedom and liberty, such as Robin Hood attacking the evil Sheriff of Nottingham, who symbolised foreign occupation. Walter Scott’s novels, such as Ivanhoe, or Schiller’s William Tell told similar tales in a genre that idealised armed revolt in pursuit of freedom and liberty against oppressive law or order. Whilst in real life Byron created his own mythological archetype of great poet, libertarian and champion of the Greek revolt against Ottoman rule. Lawlessness and a revolt against established order acquired the trappings of liberty for many, especially when romanticised and packaged for a newly literate audience of middle class journal and novel readers. And the reading of novels and newspapers in the late 18th century had begun to spread not just news but ideas throughout Europe, which were avidly consumed in reading clubs and literary societies: Rising numbers of bookshops, reading clubs, masonic lodges, together with the spread of cafes and coffee gardens where newspapers were available … the reading public rose in tandem with the rise of publishers, promoters and literary entrepreneurs. (Blackbourn, 1997, p.35)

Now freedom of thought and action acquired the trappings of armed revolt for many a furtive imagination fired by the romantic revolt and violence against the forces of (traditional) law and order, especially if trapped in the boring backwaters of provincial society. Thus The reading of books became a political, a revolutionary, activity. Thus many a young man found himself advancing from the composition of poems to the manufacture of infernal machines. … Mean provincial towns, where nothing ever

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Something to also ponder on when viewing the mean, drab backstreets of Londonderry or Belfast. Equally Scotland Yard’s Animal Rights National Index (to monitor Animal Right’s activists) made similar observations to me; they observed how the majority of activists came from small towns in middle England, quiet, unspectacular places, comfortable, with few real problems and where nothing much ever happened. A mind freed from the mundane practicalities of life via abstract ideals and fired by sweeping emotive images could easily turn to violence as an escape route from an oppressively mundane life, if it could find the right plausible, legitimating ideology. Terror, as long as it is applied to others, can be a truly liberating experience for many (pace Fanon and Sartre, O’Sullivan, 1986, chapter 1), as long as one appreciates what it is a freedom from – the monotony and boredom of ordinary life. Thus begins modern terror – the use of violence to terrorise men into new political ideals, orders and consciousnesses. The aim is to change reality (from ‘is’ to ‘ought’) by terrorising men into a new conformity, creating a new man, and to do this one is entitled to go outside of normal law and order because they are deemed no longer legitimate by the activist, who follows no existing rules. This gives the use of violence its peculiarly terrorist quality, because it comes from outside of known and predictable sources, it follows no known pattern or logic and so its terrible quality pervades the whole of life, at all and any time without any recourse to known or open criteria. It thus makes men very malleable to bend to the new political will. Just as in Kafka’s Castle where there is no original source, no known procedure, no formal charges or defence but the victim’s whole life is bound up in and controlled by forces unknown and beyond them, so too with terrorism. Enlightenment and Romanticism The Enlightenment unbound men from traditional order, elite rule by unelected oligarchies (church, monarchy and nobility) and ‘particularism’ (local rule in a world that was intensely parochial and so mentally and physically confining, thus leaving men in isolation and ignorance and so easily ruled by a small elite). The Enlightenment thus freed men from past ties and relations at both the intellectual level and political, it unleashed whole new opportunities in science and industry for new wealth, status and quality of life. Both were universal in their implications and so freed men from the bondage of tradition, particularism, superstition and isolated ignorance (hence Marx’s quips about the ‘idiocy of rural life’ and how the new cities changed men’s consciousness). Indeed, modern industrial society, with its scientific values, goes to the heart of classical sociology.

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Industry and science freed men from the land and dependence on patrons by creating new economic power centres that liberated men from their old feudal dependencies (so making democracy real) as individual wage earners or entrepreneurs, not feudal serfs. It aslo provided new ranges of goods that improved the quality of life and even its longevity (cheap, mass produced soap and cotton garments greatly improved hygiene and health). It stimulated learning, since science required education and greater study than the traditional skills of the land, passed on from father to son, and science was universal, applicable knowledge anywhere, so enabling freedom of movement, whilst traditional knowledge was particular and parochially confining. Modern, scientific society thus stimulated learning, universalism and intellectual development, especially once industrialisation took on a life of its own (growth and development) that continually created the demand for new skills, new knowledge and new applications. And as men became better educated and more knowledgeable so they began to seek greater personal and political control over their own lives and economic opportunities, thus political democracy, freedoms and rights followed on, both as functional necessity for industrial society and as ideals for individuals. This stimulated individualism, which sought freedom from the old constraints, to move economically, socially and geographically, and to develop intellectually. But this ‘freedom’ seriously undermined all the old certainties of life, of order, elite interests and the cosy intimacy of settled communities, bonded by the close moral and emotional ties of men who lived closely together in a single moral community. And it also only applied to a middle class minority. The new cities became the ‘organic’ (or anomic) societies of Durkheim or the ‘geselleschaft’ of Tonnies, i.e. atomised individuals lacking the old social dimensions of life that provided so much psychological and emotional comfort, particularly for an uneducated working class majority. Indeed, the very essence of the traditional community had been that it was a collective and moral economy, not a market and individual one, regulated by local social and communal needs, not individual interest and profit maximisation. And market economies, at least at first, only benefited an educated minority. As Alder (2004) illustrates, the very things that freed the entrepreneurial individual were the very things that destroyed local communities and moral economies. National standard weights and measures, based on scientific principles may make the exploitation of a national market and socio-economic and geographic mobility realisable by opening up national trading opportunities, but it also destroyed local control and autonomy. Liberation and science were also agents of loss and repression for those beyond its benefits. The new order of individual freedom, universalism and movement undermined the old order of communal freedom and local autonomy in a static world and made all subject to the same standardised government regulations and laws. The classic example of this was the process leading to German unification (1871): in the preceding decades the independent states of Germany (the old Holy Roman Empire) had progressively moved to standardise weights and measures, coinage,

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customs tariffs, post and telegraphs and a host of other things to enable free exchange and movement on a pan-German basis. This broke down the old barriers of parochialism and particularism and opened up far greater mobility of goods, services and people within Germany, so making ‘unification’ more of a political inevitability than a popular choice. Unification meant freedom of movement within the greater Germany but also loss of autonomy and independence for the 39 individual states that comprised the pre-unification German Federation; central government replaced particularist rule (Blackbourn, 1997, Fulbrook, 1990). But individual workers became isolated, atomised workers in fragmented societies, easily exploited (before trade unions) by the new industrial order and discipline of the factory with its rigid standardisation, regulation and discipline of work and conditions that meant loss of autonomy (Marx’s wage slaves). Time took on a new rigidity, with set working hours, days and weeks; and time moved on, time was money for the new industrial world (Thrift, in Agnew, et al., 1996). Thus the old world in which time stood still and men moved through it, with its pace set by the rhythm and cycles of nature, was replaced by one of movement and speed. The old village community of communal decision making, communally run guilds and local authority figures (priest and squire) one knew in a personal relationship was gone. Meanwhile, the very parochial nature of traditional society helped to ensure elite status, position and rule. There were in effect two clashing concepts of order and freedom, each emphasising their own notions of order, place and being, one in a scientific world the other in a particularist one. The latter, rural, was felt as natural and normal, God given, since it had grown up over millennia and was finely attuned to local, ‘natural’ needs, the former, industrial, was seen as artificial and abnormal. In addition, the working conditions in the new industrial cities were often abysmal, so that loss of autonomy and community coincided with grinding poverty and slum living. In addition, industrial poverty had none of the old village support networks of church or extended family to help alleviate it. This particularly inspired the Romantic reaction in Britain, where poets such as Blake, Coleridge, Byron and Shelley led a particularly virulent attack on the evils of modernity and ‘England’s dark, satanic mills’ (Blake’s, Jerusalem). And this is particularly relevant when one looks at virtually the same socio-economic conditions prevailing in modernising Algeria or Egypt in the 20th century and the rise of contemporary Islamic Fundamentalism (Whitaker, 2001, chapter 10, Toth, 2003). In Germany, the other great home of the Romantics the reaction was based on another understanding of the Enlightenment, i.e. enlightened absolutism or despotism, where French Enlightenment ideas had been imported to better and more scientifically manage the ancien regime. This in turn had led to a reaction against the French by educated, excluded middle class youths (mostly because they could not speak French, which had become the court language). In addition, there was a massive over supply of such youths due to an excess of universities and graduates, especially in non-scientific subjects. Hence they identified the Enlightenment and France as the cause of their troubles and turned against both

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(Greenfeld, 1993, chapter 4) and became the driving force behind Romantic politics as an alternative. Additionally, during the Napoleon Wars, Germany had suffered great humiliation through defeat, occupation and then large reparation payments to France. Thus the Enlightenment acquired negative, lack of freedom, connotations for educated middle class Germans who became very active in the liberation of Germany from and final defeat of France (1814) and so gained great prestige for Romanticism. And as industrialisation spread so also did the reactions against it. An industrial society creates a need for an educated workforce and industry could find more than enough opportunities for scientists, engineers and the new business professions, e.g. accounting, business law or modern languages. But at the same time it offered fewer opportunities or rewards to arts and humanities graduates (Dingley, 1997, O’Boyle, 1970), who increasingly felt betrayed or unfulfilled in their positions, not least because these were precisely the young men whose imaginations had been fired by the Romantic visions of Byron, Schiller, Blake or Goethe and were well chronicled in the novels of Flaubert or Balzac. One now also has a distinct arts reaction against the Enlightenment that eulogises emotions, particularism, sentiments, feelings and differences. And this was not simply restricted to science versus the arts but even within the arts: there was a division between the arts of a high, universal culture that equated with the Enlightenment and an arts (low culture) that rejected it, what Berlin (2000) denigrates as third rate arts. The works of a Beethoven or Schubert, one might say, as opposed to those of rustic folk music, although the latter could be turned into high art by composers such as Brahms or Dvorak. Enlightenment and Romanticism, at their extremes, posed two alternative views of the world and order, each opposing the other: as the Enlightenment stressed scientific laws and order, so Romantics stressed back to nature, i.e. nonscientific order. And if the essence of science was calm reflection and cool, rational calculation then the essence of the peasant life was passion, depth of feeling, ideals and a withdrawal from modern society (rural life was particularly eulogised and its negative aspects forgotten). Now, not only do passion and feeling have a symmetry with violence but traditional, rural society was, as earlier discussed, a relatively violent place. Violence was a norm in traditional society as was a lack of education and learning. Ignorant peasants would have recourse to violence to settle disputes far more readily than educated men trained to think through the complexities of a problem in a calm, rational manner, the blood feud and vendetta are common in most rural societies along with slaughtering animals. In addition, traditional society was invariably organised around some type of formal religion in which the role of violence was often, at least symbolically, very prominent (Girard, 1977 and 1989). In Christianity Christ’s passion and suffering on the cross is a key feature, in Islam the very success of Mohammed was based on his warrior skills and Islam is still today essentially a warrior religion.

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Terrorism and the Politics of Social Change For most of the fourteen centuries of recorded Muslim history, jihad was most commonly interpreted to mean armed struggle for the defence or advancement of Muslim power. (Lewis, 2003, p.24)

Meanwhile the image of the Muslim martyr fighting and dying for Allah is as strong as the Christian one of suffering and dying for Christ, religion not only goes to the heart of most societies but is also central to much organised and communal violence. Both religion and violence tend to raise the emotions, both tend to legitimise the other and invoke strong feelings and passion, indeed passion is often a pre-requisite for violence and religious services often revolve around acts of violence (either actual or symbolic sacrifice, e.g. the Christian Eucharist). Most wars if not instigated by religion, e.g. Thirty Years War or the Crusades, have usually involved combatants going to war with religious blessings (Gott Mitt Uns, was written on German Army belt buckles in both World Wars I and II). Religion legitimated violence, even impelled men to violence. Blood-letting and sacrifice make holy and religion felt peculiarly under attack from enlightened science, due to its ability not only to provide alternative explanations and interpretations but also ones that actually worked and could be used to change men’s lives. Thus to react violently against science and all that went with it and to utilise all the ideas, emotions and passions that opposed it was a logical step for Romantics. Thus just as enlightened society looked to peaceful science, commerce and trade, and the general improvement of men’s material wealth and happiness so Romantics looked to emotional commitment and depth, struggle (the outsider or minority group) and the eschewing of material rewards for an ascetic, inner experience. Romantic ideals were best expressed in the unconfined imagination of the arts, which fired the mind and inspired the idealist, whilst enlightened ideas took the form of arid research and calculation that produced an artificial and unnatural world (Berlin, 2000). Such Romantic thoughts blended better with traditional religion and peasant wisdom rather than with engineers and industrial workers. Here one must stress traditional religion, which in the west meant the Roman Catholic and Established Protestant Churches, the cornerstone of traditional social and political order and communal life, much as Islam is in the Middle East, and it had a clear and vested interest in maintaining traditional society and values, which in turn supported it (Burleigh, 2005). However, ever since the Reformation the dissenting Protestant churches had evolved an affinity with science and industry, indeed, science was often seen as the handmaiden of the Reformation since Protestant theology stressed knowing and reading the bible for oneself. Protestantism therefore laid a stress on self-knowledge, literacy, the vernacular (not Latin, the language of Catholicism) and individual improvement as against communal submission to clerical authority. Additionally, dissenting theology saw in the natural world God’s work and God was a God of laws, hence the scientific study of nature was the study of God’s laws of creation and one came to know His laws and how He made the world and therefore got closer to God. Thus science,

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industry and Protestantism often went together (Porter, 2001 and 1991, Brooke, 1991, Merton, 1974, Uglow, 2003), which added to the vehemence of Catholic anti-science from Galileo and Copernicus onwards – science was heretical and challenged traditional authority. There is a strong interplay here between religion, anti-science, violence, sacrifice and bloodletting that runs throughout the history of violent conflict and applies as much to the IRA, ETA and Al Qaeda as it does any formal war (Dingley and KirkSmith, 2000 and 2002, Juergensmeyer, 1994 and 2001, Girard, 1977 and 1989). It also returns us to earlier themes of the violent nature of pre-modern society and the reduction of violence, or at least its greater control and removal from society, as the Enlightenment progressed. Thus, those opposed to the Enlightenment and its values had of necessity to advocate alternative ideals and ideas, a violent reaction that acted symbolically and ritually to deny enlightened values and ideals. In Germany this took the form of the sturm und drang school and communing with ones inner soul and seeking a deeper inner truth on an emotional level. And nothing helped stimulate this process better than conflict (physical or spiritual) and violence (Kedourie, 1993, Greenfeld, 1993, chapter 4, Berlin, 2000). Hence with the Romantics violence and death became idealised as pure, uncorrupted, inner, natural and holy, it led to a truth (emotional) that the dry, external, rational calculation of science could never find: they appealed to the heart and not the mind. It also had strong resonances with traditional religion with its own emphasis on passion and emotion. Inevitably ideals and beliefs (the cause) came to acquire a high value for the Romantic, attaching itself to the idea of inner (emotional) truths, profound and moving the idealist to great deeds of suffering and self-sacrifice, not to mention the sacrifice of others. Meanwhile, material, quantifiable truths, such as produced by science and objectivity, or reasoned practicality became associated with the corrupt, physical world, especially of commerce and industry. As such it linked the modern Romantic with the past in its glorification of death and dying as linked to truth and being, life through death: The last hundred and fifty years have, in a sense, been a scene of conflict and interplay between the older universal ideal, founded upon reason and knowledge, and the new romantic ideal, which derives from the notion of artistic creation and organic craving for self-expression and self assertion, or for selfimmolation, which is an inverted form of the same phenomenon. Idealism … Acquired in the early nineteenth century an absolute value of its own … And with it goes the high value placed upon martyrs and minorities as such. The older view venerated martyrs only when they died for what was recognised to be the truth, not, as was the case among the romantics, for any beliefs, any principle at all, provided the motive was good, provided, that is, it was held with sufficient sincerity and depth. (Berlin, 1991, p.192-3)

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Consequently, if one could link martyrdom and great suffering it now implied greatness of cause and soul and hence acquired a legitimacy in Romantic politics, one that went against the enlightened ideas of separating out violence from society, indeed, its logical implication was to bring violence back to the heart of society, Smith’s ‘war amongst the people’. None of the above is to suggest that enlightened politics does not have its own violent side, nor that war could not be regarded as a rationally calculated means to material ends or that science could not be used for violent purposes (it frequently was, although usually by romantically inspired politics such as the Nazi’s, South American dictators or Al Qaeda). What it is to say is that Romanticism inspired a prime value on violence in a way that the Enlightenment did not, it led to and legitimated a politics of violent ideological opposition to change and progress out of which modern terrorism has grown. It was the emotional experience and expression that counted not the practical, material realities. Romanticism eschews the rational restraint of man-made laws, reason and calculation, it poses a truth about meaning and life that goes beyond objective analysis and quantifiable rewards, it denigrates material gain and happiness for an emotional and spiritual dimension that is beyond human calculation or reason. Hence its strong associations with traditional religion and its denial of the right of any set of man-made laws and regulations (Geneva and Hague Conventions or national criminal laws) to impose its rules upon the Romantic spirit. Freedom, independence, liberty and rights, which under the Enlightenment were objectified and enshrined in laws and constitutions that provided for the greatest individual autonomy, were now redefined as oppressive of the spirit: freedom and liberty became spiritual and emotional states of mind, subjective experience not objective factors. Thus Romantics inverted the enlightened ideas of liberty and freedom: what had been un-free and servitude now became wisdom and liberty. Science, laws and rational order now became enslavement and denial of the spirit to the Romantic. Violence in the 19th century Political violence was almost endemic in 19th century European society and the perpetual fear of respectable society was of revolt and mob rule (shades of the French Revolution and the horrors of the Spanish guerrilla war) as revolutions ‘went off like popguns’. However, until well into the second half of the century most of the revolts could be said to be enlightened, whose principles were founded upon liberal democracy and unification nationalism, together with liberal economics, industrialisation and (occasionally) social reforms. There was nothing furtive about the 1830 revolution in France, nor about the revolutions that swept Europe in 1848 (Gildea, 1987). The violence, although often brutal and extreme, was open, conformed to the recognised customs of war and opposed both to the ancient regimes and to the traditional peasant lifestyles eulogised by the Romantics. The same could be said for Garibaldi’s ‘Risorgimento’

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and Italian unification in the 1860s (Breuilly, 1993), it was essentially an extension of traditional warfare, with openly born arms and uniforms (red shirts), in disciplined formations that conquered territory. And the ideals were impeccably liberal, objective and material in terms of political and economic rights and reforms. This was the realisation of enlightened ideals and invariably led by the new middle classes, for whom the new nation-state had practical values – providing state, bureaucratic, educational and cultural jobs that would give them place, dignity and secure income (very important for the over-educated and underemployed). Meanwhile, the industrial middle classes would benefit via greater economic opportunity and industrial development in larger national markets with central government standardisation. Standardisation and industrialisation went together since development demanded division of labour and economies of scale as prerequisites for growth, which could only be achieved via single, large integrated economies. Violent outcomes can have important material benefits, but one had to gain power first to bend the state accordingly. However, the major concern was for formal laws, order, procedures and standardisation in all things to enable the social and political conditions under which industrial development could flourish. And very important here was the legal recognition of the universal individual as an objective and autonomous being freed from local and traditional shackles, for he was the key agent of economic development. The entrepreneur or capitalist freed from the corporatism of traditional society alone had the incentive for industrial development, a peasant tied to his land and landlord had few entrepreneurial incentives (Smith, 1998). Thus scientific values predominated and affirmed objective freedoms and liberties in terms of individual rights and legal protection, quantifiable freedoms (and a large bureaucracy – jobs – to ensure their implementation), these became the basis of liberal politics, economics and intellectual enquiry. This is not to deny that certain Romantic elements did not infect liberal politics and ideals (most leadership requires some romantic dimension): Byronesque poses abounded (starry eyed revolutionaries expiring on the barricades or looking wistfully to the heavens), and ever since Napoleon a certain Romantic element had attached itself even to enlightened movements. Indeed, to a certain extent the Enlightenment helped breed the Romantics, since its emphasis on the individual inevitably led to an eulogy of him against society and a natural progression to look further inside him to the subjective, inner being once the objective material conditions and rights of the individual had been ascertained and achieved. This was something that the late 19th century sociologists well understood. But what distinguished them from the Romantics was that whilst Romantics tended to wallow uncritically in the subjective, emotional and irrational social scientists proper tried to rationally understand such things, to rationally understand the role of the irrational. Thus Durkheim placed great emphasis on the important role of the emotional dimensions of collective life (Fish, 2005), whilst Freud’s psychology was a conscious attempt to understand scientifically the sub-conscious aspects of life (Hughes, 1961).

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However, the influence of the Romantics had been growing throughout the 19th century, which brought with it the advent of modern terrorism; first with the anarchists, then with the ethno-separatist nationalists and in the 20th century with the rise of fascism and currently, as Winfield (2007) suggests, reappearing in the guise of postmodernism. The unification of Germany (1871) was probably the last gasp (and very halfhearted) of liberal unification (Blackbourn, 1997, Fulbrook, 1990), after which ethnic-separatist nationalism emerges, with the eschewing of enlightened values for a Romantic ‘new medievalism’ as traditional society (minus the nasty bits), religion, community and emotional and subjective values came to the fore. Old ethnic groups were now seen as profound and meaningful, with spiritual insight and deserving their own state to protect and nurture them, differences and particularism were good (pace contemporary postmodernism). Here the philosophy of Hegel (Stace, 1955) with its advocacy of different states as part of the divine order, and that of Herder (Berlin, 2000) were particularly useful. Herder in particular had argued forcefully for the protection of ethnic groups and the sanctity of different languages primarily because they were and therefore endowed with God given significance. Logically, an arts culture became the vehicle for romantic politics, since they opposed the rigours and discipline of science and materialism for a ‘fiery imagination’, where nothing was as it seemed and the world was open to creation or recreation as the imagination willed it. The arts also played significantly upon the emotions and feelings, evoking deep sentiments that stirred mass audiences, whereas science required disciplined study, quiet reflection and patiently acquired knowledge. Science also equated with industry and a culture of standardisation and conformity, rules and laws that bound and confined the imagination. Originally science had been called natural philosophy to reflect its creative role in understanding the material and this world and so helping men to master it and be creative, now it was denigrated as dead, soulless, unnatural and artificial, forming a prison to enslave the soul. At least this was how Romantics viewed it, and their views became increasingly influential (Berlin, 2000, 2006, Russell, 1961). This period (post 1870s) also saw the start of the ‘great depression’ in both European agriculture and industry, actually more a slowing down of growth. It saw the loss of European natural protection in agriculture, i.e. perishable goods could now be transported cheaply over great distances due to technological advances and discoveries such as refrigeration and canning, steamships and railway systems, hence small European farms of only around 20-200 acres now had much more economically efficient competition from Australian, New Zealand, North and South American farms often of over 100,000 acres (Bull, 1996, Southgate, 1962). It was a period when men began to lose confidence in perpetual improvement and progress, also the period when large scale industrialisation really took off in Continental Europe and America, whose own working populations were now exposed to the wretched working and living conditions of urban slums and factory discipline. It was a time of great industrial unrest, labour disputes, trade union

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formation, strikes, the creation of left wing political parties and, once again, fear of social revolution (Miller, in Crenshaw, 1995). This was also the period when sociology emerged as a serious discipline. Fear stalked European and American society as change in the form of rapid industrialisation and socio-economic unrest pervaded civilised society (Miller, in Crenshaw, 1995, Laqueur, 1987). It was also the time when the works of Marx and Engels first became popularised (The Communist Manifesto had actually been written in 1848) and socialism became a mass ideology. Of course very few had actually read either Marx or Engels but their message chimed with a large audience and, given their ‘scientific socialism’, even seemed to legitimate revolution. Once again it was socio-economic change, impelling political, that was at the core of the mood. Violence was being done on the socio-economic level to men’s stable traditional world and particularist order, wherein religion played a key role (Nisbet, 1996, Zeitlin, 1994). Crafts that had a proud history of skill, status and autonomy for hundreds of years, such as shoe makers, now found themselves reduced to penury as industrial shoe manufacturing replaced them, with only unskilled factory work in the hated urban slums as an alternative. Such an environment breeds hate and resentment to go along with the anomic feelings of modern, industrial urban life. Similar feelings were also felt by men forced off the land and into factories as small scale farming became un-economic with the decline of natural protection. Both farmer and craft worker were now reduced to mere hands in a factory, often on very low wages, without job security and living in slum tenements. Even the lowest peasant or farm labourer could find little of value in their new urban environment. In the traditional village the labourer may have been poor and wretched, but he was integrated into a community and could identify some place in the world and be part of a close network of relationships; added to which he had the rural dwellers affinity with the open spaces of the countryside for some compensation and the authority and comfort of the church to turn to (at least for a better afterlife). Traditional relations were violently torn apart and men thrown into environments either lacking communal relations or containing very ‘violent’ ones, i.e. brutal and impersonal and without any sense of a greater order as found in traditional communities. From this emerged a growing fear for order and property on the part of old and new property owners. Thus it is in this milieu that we find the origins of modern terrorism, this was the age of Emile Henry and what Miller (in Crenshaw, 1995) terms the ‘rootless rage’ against society. It was, paradoxically, also a society that provided the opportunities and weapons for terrorism, first: it is easier to blend into and hide in large conurbations than in small villages, where everyone is known. Second, industrial society provides the technology that permits terrorism, thus small, multiple shot revolvers, easily concealed or broken down into parts; long range, accurate rifles for assassinations at a distance; dynamite – small, stable, easily concealable and transportable and very powerful; fuses and timers that enable ‘stand-off’ explosions: cars that enabled a quick get away. All of this was not

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only realisable but also quickly annotated in a single broadsheet, Johan Most’s Freiheit. If the aim was to make free and equal then Most regarded dynamite as the ideal weapon because it made everyone equal and liberated them from their oppressors. Johan Most (1846-1906) was an ideal typical terrorist of his time. He was brought up in wretched conditions, in Germany, and became a bookbinder in the midst of Germany’s industrial take off in the 1860s. He soon became a serious agitator and labour organiser, with a vehement tongue and demagogic style who advocated violent resistance to employers and state alike. He spent several terms in prison before leaving for England, where he set up his journal Freiheit, for distribution in Germany: in this he explained the nature of the workers oppression and how to violently resist via home-made bombs, poison tipped daggers and other weapons. He later moved on to America, also undergoing its industrial revolution, where he engaged in the same activities with equal vehemence, appealing particularly to the masses of poor, illiterate, and alienated rural immigrants from Europe (Miller, in Crenshaw, 1995). Thus, industrial violence and violent confrontations in which major clashes between state forces, police and private armed guards and organised labour were frequent occurred in Europe and America. Deaths were common and serious injuries quite widespread. As an example, the Haymarket Square incident in Chicago, 1886: As the meeting was nearing its end someone threw a bomb toward the two hundred police who surrounded the square. The police shot into the crowd of demonstrators, some of whom were armed and fired back. Seven police officers died from wounds either caused by the explosion or by the gunfire. Moreover, at least twenty demonstrators may have been killed from the police fusillade … (Miller, in Crenshaw, 1995, p.49)

A further four men hung in the hysterical aftermath, although no one could prove who threw the bomb. This was a common enough event in the period and recalls not only the Gordon Riots in 18th century London, but also the Peterloo massacre of 1819 (eleven attendees at a mass meeting on St Peter’s Fields, Manchester, were killed by the cavalry when they broke up a peaceful demonstration, Marlow, 1971), which evinced a similar pattern of panic during an earlier time of industrial strife and depression. However, such incidents became increasingly common throughout industrialising societies as the forces of modernity and progress tried to impose themselves in the squalor and destitution of early industrial cities. ‘Society’ seemed to be breaking down, especially from the point of view of men of property and conservatives around the world: Quite precisely, they singled out Protestantism, capitalism and science as the major forces. These processes, further more, which were hailed as progressive by

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their Liberal and radical contemporaries, were leading even now to an increasing atomization of peoples. Large ‘masses’ now appeared, presumably unanchored in any stable groups; widespread insecurity, frustration and alienation became evident … (Zeitlin, 1994, p.65)

Loss of order seemed to accompany modernity, threatening old and new property, spreading panic and fear amongst all respectable classes. Previously cases of regicide were not unknown, but rare, and indeed, both classical philosophy and medieval theology could legitimate the idea of assassinating tyrants. However, from the mid 19th century onward political assassinations increased at an alarming rate, alongside industrial violence, as rage and hate, emotional expressions, not rational ones, took over. Individual monarchs or rulers became symbols of ‘the system’ and objects for the anger of the revolutionary acting on behalf of the people. This was ironic, since political leaders were increasingly democratically elected, or if monarchs, removed from political power. However, assassinations and attempted ones, became a regular occurrence. The first serious modern attempt at regicide was a bomb plot (by Felice Orsini, an Italian indignant at France’s restoration of the Papacy to the Papal States after the 1848 revolutions in Italy) on Napoleon III in 1859, it failed but the bomb killed eight bystanders and injured another 158. Then in 1861 a failed attempt was made on the King of Prussia’s life by a law student (Becker) and in 1866 another failed attempt on Bismarck by another student (Blind), both were inspired by Orsini. In 1878 there were two failed attacks on Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany, one by a known, poor and illegitimate anarchist (Werner) another by an affluent student (Nobiling) which convinced many that the rot had truly set in. This in turn enabled Bismarck to pass a series of anti-socialist laws and repress any form of dissent in his new Germany. 1878 also saw attempts on the lives of the Kings of Spain and Italy: the head of Russia’s police was assassinated and an attempt on the life of the governor of St Petersburg was made. Then, in 1881 the Czar was assassinated. After this reports of ‘anarchist’ (effectively the contemporary term for terrorist) murders of bankers in Austria (1884) and in Switzerland (1885) a plot to blow up the Federal Palace was discovered. 1885 also saw the discovery of the Niederwald plot, to assassinate the Kaiser (again), leading to two executions. And in 1886 there was the bombing of the Paris stock exchange. However, the 1890s saw a real plethora of anarchist/terrorist attacks. In 1892 a French anarchist from the lower districts of Paris called Ravachol was executed after a series of odd bombings and murders, shouting from the dock, after his conviction, ‘long live anarchy’. In 1893 another anarchist let off a bomb in the French Parliament, followed in 1894 by the case of Emile Henry, whilst in the same year another anarchist blew himself up with a bomb in a Parisian church. 1894 was a busy year in France since the president was then stabbed to death. In 1897 the prime minister of Spain was assassinated and in 1898 the Empress of

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Austria, followed by the King of Italy in 1900 and the American president in 1901, (Hoffman, 1998, Laqueur, 1987, Miller, in Crenshaw, 1995). And these were just the ‘successful’ ones. Meanwhile Russia had almost become the ‘Olympic’ champions of terrorism with Narodnaya Volya (1878-1881) who murdered the Czar and the Socialist Revolutionary Party (1902-1911), who carried out a series of assassinations, including the Minister of the Interior (1902) in the name of anarchist revolution and whose finale was the assassination of Stolypin (prime minister of Russia). This was closely followed in intensity by the Armenians in the 1880s against Ottoman rule and Macedonians (IMRO – Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organisation) in the 1890s against the division of their country between Greece, Serbia and Bulgaria. Meanwhile, Ireland had already spawned its own revolutionaries with the IRB (Irish Republican Brotherhood) in the 1860s and the shadily connected ‘Invincibles’ who murdered the Irish Viceroy and his secretary in Phoenix Park (1882). All this in turn had to be seen against a background in which industrial strife and an emergent sense of class warfare in which violence and death were common and troops called in to’ keep the industrial peace’ prevailed. Murder was truly in the air in the decades leading up to 1914. Most of the political violence, especially the anarchists, was limited to a few very small groups and often simply perpetrated by individuals, however, the strife of the times helped distort highly sensitive feelings. Increasingly an international anarchist conspiracy was seen to be at the root of much of the trouble (particularly one should note, not an international socialist one). This was partly a response to the anarchist claims of specific individuals, such as Most or Henry, but also because of a number of shadowy anarchist organisations and anarchist individuals who had done much to publicise ideas of anarchy and anarchists at war with society (shades of Al Qaeda?). First, certain individuals such as Heinzen, Most, Brousse or Bakunin and then the Jura Federation (based in Switzerland) did much to publicise the idea of anarchy and terror in the last half of the 19th century. Initially, their shadowy existence and conspiratorial nature helped romanticise them and fascinate a newly literate mass media audience – conspiracies are good for sales. Second, the way they used modern transport to move around Europe, even cross the Atlantic, to escape and plot gave them a contemporary feel and mystique (travel plus conspiracy, not unlike Al Qaeda and the internet). Next was their ability to publicise themselves, the Jura Federation issued communiqués, and the Anarchist International held an open congress in London (1881) that approved of terror and courted publicity. Meanwhile, Most had long been publishing Freiheit. But what caught the attention of public and media most was the sense of violent hate and a blood lust against society in general, especially its more respectable sections. Propaganda by deed was invented here, just as Henry declared that there were no innocents. A torrent of hate against society was poured out against a largely uncomprehending, but not always unsympathetic, public (Al Qaeda again?). Murder the murderers and don’t spare the women and

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children were common invocations. Heinzen had written an essay called Murder (1849) in which he explained how the official system killed thousands every day, therefore it was justified to kill a few of ‘them’ to free the masses, answering blood with blood. In addition it was not the act of violence that mattered but the circumstances of its perpetration and who judged its intent, consequently it was the politics of the act that was significant not the act itself. Thus murder became a relative phenomenon. This in turn should be used not just against the rulers but all their aids and collaborators to intimidate them 24 hours a day. Killing would teach the world and so lead to its revolutionary re-ordering. Not all anarchists shared this conviction of violence, Kropotkin did not, nor did revolutionary socialists who regarded it with disdain, but enough did and they grabbed the headlines. Elisee Reclus spoke of pent up passions, the result of repression, and that anarchist violence was merely the justice of the oppressed against the oppressors. Whilst another leading anarchist of the time, Errico Malatesta, ably defended the violent breaking of the law; since the law was unjust, made by men and governments and utilised force, violence was therefore legitimate to free men from unjust laws. Anarchist violence resisted oppression: it may be regrettable, but if the unjust laws did not exist they would not be resisted (Miller, in Crenshaw, 1995, Laqueur, 1987, O’Sullivan, 1986, Ivianski, in Rapoport, 1988). Such arguments captured and horrified the public imagination in a salacious manner although specific acts were relatively few and none significantly affected state rule, apart from new laws, tighter security and panic in high society. As so many authors have observed (Crenshaw, 1995, Laqueur, 1987) it was a general rage against society or other abstractions such as ‘them’, the ‘bureaucracy’, the ‘system’, ‘capitalism’ or whatever, where ‘they’ were blamed for the violence, whoever they happened to be. Indeed, given Emile Henry’s declaration that there are no innocents, ‘they’ can be anyone and everyone. Thus we are back to a preEnlightenment view of violence, Malatesta’s defence of breaking the law clearly rejects the enlightened values of law and order, which is why the revolutionary (scientific) socialists shunned terrorism. But there is also another important point, the anarchist-terrorist movements were involved in the revolt against the Enlightenment and its products and to be in revolt against such a society logically implied the rejection of its values, hence the appeal of anarchism that revolted against an oppressive, poverty stricken and degrading industrial society. In addition, society itself reflected many aspects of anarchy since it was going through its transitional industrialising stage, with major industrial disputes, where institutions, laws, democratic systems, political processes were still being worked out against established states, e.g. Czech or Hungarian from Austria, Poland from Russia and Germany, Macedonia from Serbia, Bulgaria and Greece. This provided an image of disorder and oppression in a world that was to an extent anarchic, oppressive and ‘un-free’. This applied particularly to the newly industrialised poor of the slums desperately trying to survive in a chaotic and confusing world. These were the alienated, anomic masses of displaced and wretched whose plight was largely

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ignored or written off as the result of market forces and with frequently no political representation. They lacked community, material or spiritual comfort in an anarchic and, to them, violent world. For this reason anarchy chimed with some: violent revenge against their oppressors had a resonance and formal states had few answers other than repression. Many dreamed of returning to their old communities, but that was impossible and it was sociologists who largely turned their minds as to how to respond in a modern, enlightened way, either by scientific socialism or by enlightened nationalism, to provide a kinder caring community in the new enlightened world – the nation (Dingley, 2008). There was a basic problem of breakdown in order, both moral and physical, which engendered an appeal for anarchy. Hence the key early concern of sociology was for order, because the world appeared so anarchic. Thus, also, the appeal of the Romantics and their new medievalism, it would restore a known order (actually, not really, since they advocated a very idealised medieval one). This represented a yearning to return to a world of stability and place, of close, comfortable community, recognised and legitimate authority and the spiritual comforts of the church (Nisbet, 1996, Zeitlin, 1994, Hughes, 1961). Order in society, community or collective are very important because man is a social animal, something that the dismal science of free market economics grossly overlooks. And the rapid industrialisation of the late 19th century had destroyed the old order and communities for anomic cities and workers as faceless ‘hands’ in an economic system without known moral inhibitions in its search to satisfy self-interest and maximise personal profit. Out of this moral and social vacuum stepped the men of violence, small in number and grossly exaggerated in their threat, but symbolically significant because theirs was a symbolic gesture of defiance, it resonated and spread panic because of its symbolism, which is how terrorism also needs to be understood. A symbolic revenge for the oppressed and a blow for freedom. But what precisely do words like oppressed, liberty, freedom, rights and so on mean? Without some order and structure to the world they are in fact meaningless, for all need to agree on them, they need to be consistently interpreted and applied to all in a commonly recognised and meaningful manner. There need to be rules and standards of interpretation that go beyond the assertion of individual power and autocracy to simply impose whatever the richest or most powerful want them to mean, whenever it suits them. Liberty for a rich industrialist is very different from that of an urban slum dweller, rights of property can be very oppressive for a worker, i.e. there needs to be some moral and social regulatory framework, an order, for the defining and implementation of such concepts that rises above competing individuals if society is to cohere and function in a non-violent way. And these were fundamental problems that had yet to be fully worked out. Meanwhile, the rich and powerful were themselves susceptible to anarchist scare mongering precisely because they felt the fragility of any existing order. The revolutions of the previous 100 years had made them wary and they appreciated that daily order was often only maintained via the implicit, and sometimes explicit,

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use of force. Thus the symbolism of anarchist terrorism was not lost on them. They too began to appreciate the need for a greater sense of order than force could impose, i.e. the need for a moral legitimacy to the state and property relations and a shared sense of community and destiny to bind everyone together – the nation. Bismarck, in the newly unified Germany, quickly grasped, the relevance of social and welfare reforms, to share the wealth of society equitably to provide a sociopolitical stability (Blackbourn, 1997, Fulbrook, 1990). But in other societies, such as Ireland, the Balkans, East Europe or the Basque lands, it was not so much industrial development itself but the threat of it led to violence. These societies saw the rise of ethnic-separatist nationalism in rural communities faced with the disruptive threat of socio-economic change that would undermine their rural economies. Or, where the rise of democracy placed a premium on the use of local vernaculars to campaign in, not a single state language; since democratic politics appealed to the people they had to use their language. This then implied the fracturing of multi-ethnic and multi-lingual states since the use of different languages creates a major barrier to cooperation and exchange. Ethnicity also placed an economic premium on separate languages since government jobs, frequently the major economic opportunity in ‘new’ nations, meant speaking the vernacular, thus: The classes which stood or fell by the written use of the vernacular were the socially modest, but educated middle strata, which included those who acquired lower-middle class status precisely by virtue of occupying non-manual jobs that required schooling. … The battle-lines of linguistic nationalism were manned by provincial journalists, schoolteachers and aspiring subaltern officials. The battles of Habsburg politics, when national strife made the Austrian half of the empire virtually ungovernable, were fought about the language of instruction in secondary schools or the nationality of stationmasters’ jobs. (Hobsbawm, 1992, p.117)

Only in the last quarter of the century did such ethnic-separatist nationalism take hold as the economic benefits of the Romantic reaction, became apparent. Peasant low culture and language revival became fashionable for pragmatic reasons, but also very divisive ones where different language interests or ethnic groups had to share the same territory, such as in Ireland. In Ireland the nationalists claimed the whole island as Gaelic speaking and a peasant-proprietor economy, whilst Ulster was an industrial economy whose international trade was founded on the use of English – the conflict was always more economic than the normally understood Catholics versus Protestants. Economic change and development, the loss of natural protection and the rise of democracy plus an increased awareness amongst the newly educated, literate and informed (via the new mass medias) now began to work against unification and enlightened ideals. The newly educated local elites now had a vested interest in local structures and cultures and began to use the new media and communications

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systems (rail, roads, telegraph, telephones) to mobilise newly enfranchised local populations. They erected barriers against incorporation into larger nation-states by now lauding those things the Enlightenment had denigrated and to eulogise the particularism of traditional society precisely to prevent incorporation into unified states. What was once seen as illiberal and un-free now became a source of freedom (and vested interest). Ireland, for example, was actually quite well governed in the 19th century. It was part of an open functioning democracy, with a free press, freedom of religion, freedom of speech and assembly, with a rising standard of living after the Famine (1845-1847). However, its rural economy was under threat from international agribusiness: its farms of around 30-50 acres or even the ‘ranches’ of several thousand acres could not compete with ranches of hundreds of thousands of acres in the new world, plus all the new canning and deep-freeze technology that enabled cheap, long distance distribution. At the same time organised labour and labour politics in the industrial conurbations of Britain (including in Ulster) led to a demand for new social and welfare legislation, which meant new taxes, even for Irish farmers already feeling economically insecure in the face of international competition (Bew, 1998, Lee, 1989, Bull, 1996). Against this economic background Irish nationalism and the Gaelic revival emerged as a serious political force (Lyons, 1982, Boyce, 1988 and 1995). Culture is not only often a front for economic interests (cultural barriers deliberately discriminate against outsiders, e.g. don’t speak the language, don’t get the job) but it is functionally linked to economic activity (it provides the concepts and thought patterns relevant to making a specific economy work and assisting relevant economic activity). This was British oppression in Ireland, which led to the creation of one of the world’s most famous terrorist groups – the IRA. A similar story applies in the Basque Lands, where once again nationalism emerged in the late 19th century as a response to (Spanish) modernisation, where the Basque region became a centre for industrial development, especially around Bilbao. Not only were new and alien industries established in the midst of this highly traditional and conservative peasant society but it also involved the influx of many workers from other parts of Spain and abroad. This led to profound changes and intrusions into Basque society that some found deeply disturbing and a threat to an established way of life, even where it brought prosperity. Once again, change and development was negatively experienced as the trigger for a separatist nationalist and terrorist (ETA) movement (Shabad and Ramo, in Crenshaw, 1995, Clark, 1984, Whitaker, 2001). Both societies were also highly religious, Catholic societies and part of a larger state undergoing rapid modernisation that was felt, by significant actors, to be harmful to their society. Modernisation implied exposure to a wider world that posed a serious threat to established ethnic interests, particularly peasant economies with an institutionalised religious core – Catholicism, whose hostility to science and industry had reached crusading levels in the 19th century (Burleigh, 2005). Modernisation threatened the traditional economic order, socio-political

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structures and culture, which all interconnected and conflated. Structure was particularly important for as Clark (1979) observed in Ireland or Zulaika (1988) in the Basque Lands structure formed the connections and networks via which the Irish and Basque societies operated and functioned, providing place, meaning and being as well as communication channels for vital information, be it from the price of land to politics. Structure also provides status and power by being at the centre, or hubs, of vital networks of relations. By being in such strategic positions one gains and manufactures knowledge and information and also knows how to work the structure to one’s own advantage. In addition, structures rarely arise without playing a vital function (hence structural-functionalism) in the working and life-sustaining operations of a community: undermine the structure and one undermines the local socio-economic and political relations at the heart of any society, which in turn leads to loss of direction and displacement for society as a whole, whilst those at the hub of local networks lose power and status. Certain hubs are more vital than others. The local church is a vital centre, for in rural societies this is where the entire community meets each week, gathers in the churchyard after services or uses church premises for meetings, often with the priest in the chair. Priest and church are then linked into a wider parochial and diocesan structure that links local peasants with peasant communities. The traditional churches were, and are, very threatened by modernisation, for science provides new and more productive answers to earthly matters than theology does, including communications systems that can bypass religious structures. Weber (1976) tells the story of a late 19th century French peasant coming back from the local town where a railway station has just opened, linking the locality to the outside world for the first time. The peasant is pushing his wheelbarrow with a sack full of artificial fertiliser in it, when his local priest passes him and cries out ‘Pierre, I have not seen you at mass recently’, ‘No’, responds Pierre, and pointing at the fertiliser says ‘this makes my fields grow better’. Cosmopolitan knowledge and science are major threats to traditional elites. Other major losers are the small, and relatively inefficient peasant farmers who cannot compete with modern agri-business and world markets and the local tradesmen and professionals who service their needs. In Ireland and the Basque Lands those at the forefront of nationalist and terrorist movements were usually from rural small town backgrounds, along with priests (local leadership was part of their traditional role), local journalists, auctioneers, shopkeepers, publicans, feed-merchants and local skilled craftsmen (mass produced, industrial goods were particularly harmful of local trades and domestic manufactures) and school teachers (Garvin, 1981, Dingley, 1997). All of these groups formed a mutually supporting and integrated structure of relationships that gave them power, prestige, meaning, status and economic reward, which were being violently assaulted by modernity. And it is from these structures that the terrorists come, they are not terrorists per se but social beings and terrorism is a social activity just like any other. Man is a social animal and his actions cannot be divorced from his social references,

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which is one of the major mistakes made by most political and psychological attempts at explaining terrorism (Prus, 2005). The terrorism comes from deeply held social beliefs, founded in and reflecting socio-economic structures and culture. This is why so many studies of terrorists have found them to be very normal men (most are), responding to abnormal circumstances (Garvin, 1981, 2005, Clark, 1984, Zulaika, 1988, Dingley, 1997). They are also responding to normal needs for community, order and stability in their lives. Further, structure is not only functional to material needs but also to emotional and psychological needs. A regular routine and pattern to life, a rhythm and continuity is deeply satisfying, indeed even a necessity for a healthy life. Zulaika (1988) likens it to the regular rhythm and beat of the heart, it goes to the ‘heart’ of good community life, where we can predict, plan, organise and project, often on an un-thought out level; where one just follows the natural patterns that hundreds of years of tradition have worked out. Lack of rhythm and continuity in life causes breakdowns and chaos, nervous stress, depression and emotional problems often identified with modern living. Indeed, this was precisely the point being made by sociologists such as Marx (alienation) or Durkheim (anomie) or being responded to by Freud and Jung. Being displaced, or the imminent threat of so being, dominated many men in modernising societies as they contemplated a loss of order in their lives as ‘progress’ overtook them. Thus disenchantment with the Enlightenment became widespread and only the Marxists offered an alternative enlightened path, which rejected terrorism. It was thus almost predictable that some men should turn to Romantic notions and means to express their frustrations and hatreds: violence and rage against a system that appeared remorseless and inhuman. It was the loss of community, order or structure in a new, anomic and dehumanised industrial environment, or the threat of it in rural areas, where enlightened progress often seemed an empty promise, that led to the violence. This became part of the appeal of nationalism: correctly packaged, it offered the idea of a new community and order, where democratic participation and new legal rights provided a sense of involvement and belonging, added to by new bureaucracies to provide new social and welfare services, e.g. pensions, education, health and welfare, that would help bind the masses into a new centrally administered order. Additionally, the new bureaucracies became major employment opportunities in themselves, along with national arts and cultural programmes to create a shared sense of heritage and integration (2008, Smith, 1998, Gellner, 1983). Conclusion The foregoing should illustrate the folly of trying to see terrorism outside of its socio-economic and political context, as many terrorism commentators attempt to do (Prus, 2005). Terrorism is fundamentally a social activity directed at political ends and springs from its contemporary social environment, which invariably comes

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down to economics and its relationship with the social and cultural. Terrorism is a product of its environs, just like any other socio-political phenomenon and must be understood as such. Thus just as hunting in rural society is a form of violence based on crude, functional necessity so too is terrorism conceived as a form of violence to protect ones way of life and society, for outside of society man cannot survive. Hence the folly of a ‘war on terrorism’, one might just as well say a ‘war on society’. And it is this interplay between the individual (terrorist) and their environs (society) which is so often overlooked in modern terrorism studies, yet was the kernel of sociology and anthropology – two disciplines terrorism studies tends to make the least use of.

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Chapter 5

Terrorism in the Modern World

Since Men like Beasts, each others Prey were made, Since Trade began, and Priesthood made a Trade, Since Realms were form’d, none sure so curst as those That madly their own Happiness oppose. John Dryden

Pre-1914 saw the emergence of what we would recognise as modern terrorism and the conditions that spawned it, i.e. rapid socio-economic change that impelled the disruption and destruction of traditional social and political orders. Man is a social animal and requires social order and harmony in his material life and cosmos, and the most effective vehicle for doing this was the nation, a new political order to integrate men and meet their social and psychological needs for place, belonging, meaning and purpose in life. Thus society and nation should not be seen as separate things but flip sides of the same coin (Dingley, 2008, Giddens, 1987). That they should be congruent merely highlights the problem of lack of congruence and resulting conflicts, since few ethnic groups and identities conformed to the neat order of nations seen in lines drawn on maps. And this was the major problem behind much 20th century terrorism and political violence, where ethnic minorities found themselves on the wrong side of political borders or without borders to protect their (traditional) order. Indeed nationalist violence dominated the political landscape, for whilst anarchists did not go away and continued to conduct the odd atrocity most of the violence was attributable to nationalists, especially those seeking secession from established states. And closely associated with nationalism was religion, for most ethno-national identities tended to either form around religion or have a strong religious element to them (Hastings, 1997, Cauthen, 2004, Skrbis, 2005, Safran, 2008, Burleigh, 2005). This brings us to another important dimension of terrorism; it is invariably at its strongest and most effective when linked to the social dimensions of men’s lives, i.e. community goals and being. When the cause has social support or sympathy, to establish or preserve a social order or community, something anarchism is unable to do by its very nature, it is at its most successful. The anarchist is invariably a rather isolated character and reflects the outcast problem of the individual who lacks social integration, but they offer no route to social inclusion and integration via their acts. The anarchist also tended to be a product of industrial cities where organised labour, socialist parties and cooperative movements had an almost universal claim on workers loyalty, usually because they could provide some communal solidarity and collective order, and

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a structured political way forward for the anomic working masses, not unlike nationalism. Indeed, as Lichtheim (1974) and Hobsbawm (1995) both observe organised labour, i.e. trade unions and socialist parties, tended to take workers away from violence and revolutionary change for reformism and national inclusion. Nation and society are almost by definition socially inclusive (and exclusive) and make major claims over the individual to belong and be part of. The same can also be said of religion, most monotheistic religions make an universal claim on behalf of God and want to include all but the unbelievers in (even those they usually wish to convert). Thus throughout the 20th century we see nationalism and religion (frequently conflated, e.g. Ireland and Catholicism, Ulster and Protestantism, Croatia and Catholicism, Serbia and Orthodoxy, Algeria and Islam or Tamils and Hinduism) at the forefront of political violence. Both offer solutions to cosmological questions, economic and emotional needs via communal organisation and structure, i.e. order, which is why they attract such strong support. Thus when violence can be attached to their aura of legitimacy and moral efficacy it gains an acceptance because man, as a social being, is deeply affected by all things social at a very personal level. Nationalism and religion link (bond) men at an emotional and abstract level into a community of believers that is hard to rationalise and ascribe to material factors alone, thus making it metaphysical and holy. Additionally, religion, which links men to the ultimate authority, makes causes both holy and morally legitimate, hence permitting men to throw off normal earthly shackles (Juergensmeyer, 1993 and 2001, Cauthen, 2004). Indeed, the two worst cases of political violence were World Wars I and II, fought almost wholly over nationalism. In World War I men fought almost exclusively for nationalist reasons and the war itself was triggered by an act of nationalist terrorism – the assassination of the Grand-Duke Ferdinand by a Serbian nationalist (Princip). From this proceeded the mass slaughter on all sides, which did much to enhance the sense of national cohesion through the emotional and physical experience of mass loss and suffering; great sacrifice and suffering make causes particularly holy. And at the end of the war there was a positive flowering of new nations as empires broke up and ethnic groups discovered that they were ancient nations (Hobsbawm, 1992, Breuilly, 1993). Further, World War II almost became a re-run of World War I, as unresolved national issues (Sudeten Germans in Czechoslovakia or German territory now part of Poland) ignited, or gave excuses to Nazi opportunism, in addition to myriad other nationalist tensions. This is not the place to enter into detailed discussions of either war, but simply to observe how the same nationalism that ignited formally declared wars is also central to many terrorist campaigns: and one of the most important instances of both in the 20th century was Germany.

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Terrorism in the 20th century As Wilkinson (2001) reminds us, state terrorism has killed far more people than non-state and the worst example was Nazi Germany, where an extreme ethnonationalism actually raised the nation to an overt object of religious worship. Nazi Germany really was rule by state terror (the Gestapo and a legal system whose leading jurist, Carl Schmidt, actually formulated a legal philosophy based on terror as the central pillar of order, O’Sullivan, 1986) which resulted in the killing of millions in an industrial, scientific manner. The origins of Nazi violence lay in the Freikorps created in 1919-1920 by the fledgling German Republic to put down political and social unrest and attempted revolution (Lichtheim, 1974, Eatwell, 2003) when society was faced with near total anarchy. They were ex-German military for whom violence was almost an end in itself because it bred excitement, camaraderie, power and its own order (during the same period many Irish ex-British servicemen joined the IRA for similar reasons, Hart, 1999), which offered its own rewards. This struck an emotional chord, since the united Germany Bismarck had created seemed a rather empty and shallow nation to many romantically inclined Germans, lacking soul and depth and regarded as an empty shell for industrial profit taking and elite Weltmacht. Even at its inception popular support was weak and it had lacked the kind of Romantic essence that traditional German nationalists had longed for; it wasn’t a volksgemeinschaft (people’s community), and lacked volksgeist (people spirit or soul) (Blackbourn, 1997, Fulbrook, 1990, Stern, 1974). There may have been order, but it was an elite, imposed order primarily for material interests (as Bismarck had planned). Thus the war had helped fill an intense hunger for a deeper spiritual meaning and purpose, a cause, sacrifice and suffering that met major needs for emotional attachment, giving meaning and purpose (even Weber succumbed to its intense emotional sentiments, Mommsen, 1974). But losing the war created a sense of humiliation and betrayal, especially by the old elites (monarchy, aristocracy, industrialists and bankers), which the Freikorps helped to assuage for many ex-servicemen: it perpetuated the intense emotional feelings of war whilst at the same time providing a sense of national crusade and mission in expelling the impure and corrupting elements (Communists, Gypsies, international bankers, Slavs and Jews) that were now threatening Germany. Soul and mission found a match. Restoring order in the chaos of post-war Germany was a major concern for all parties and once this could be linked to a specific ideology that translated it into a national message of salvation (Nazis) it formed a potent mix. The mix responded not just to the internal chaos of post-war Germany but also when the world economy crashed in 1929. Once again disorder threatened, with alien and impure forces shattering the livelihoods of masses of ordinary, decent Germans. The Nazi’s could appear to offer a new order and sense of community, purpose and meaning to an internally fractured nation, a volksgemeinschaft of a metaphysical nature that superseded individual will and interest. The great

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romantic longing for order and spiritual fulfilment, meaning and purpose found an outlet, bound up with a sense of national superiority that rejected the un-true and alien elements that had previously corrupted and betrayed Germany (Hughes, 1988). This reflects a continual problem for Romantic nationalism – to define what is nationally authentic and spiritually pure and expel all else. Here it is also instructive to look at who the Nazi’s were: most were small businessmen, lower officials, semi-professionals, small farmers, traders and independent artisans, i.e. not the big bankers, industrialists and aristocrats able to look after themselves, nor the socialists or trade unionists, workers with large organisations to represent their interests. Most Nazi’s came from the in between strata, too respectable to flirt with socialism or trade unions but not big enough to look after themselves, they fell between and had no one to represent their interests or protect them (Hiden, 1996, Hobsbawm, 1995, chapter 4, Lichtheim, 1974, chapter 8). These men were particularly susceptible to a nationalism that posed the state as their property and protector, that offered them place, order and belonging in a period of chaos and threat, and if terror could help bring it about then so be it. Terror was a good thing. Terror to impose order was the Nazi theme, as with most terrorism, which appeals most to those it offers to protect, i.e. those outside the big battalions, and those to whom it offers opportunities, i.e. state bureaucratic jobs and careers (Hughes, 1988). Gonzalez-Perez (2008) makes the startling revelation in her study on women and terrorism that they only get involved when revolutionary policies offer direct benefits to them: why anyone should think men are any different is a mystery. And the use of terror to maintain order, gangs of thugs roaming German streets to beat up undesirables or secret policemen in South America who simply lifted ‘suspects’ off the streets at random, gave a sense of place, function and importance to these ‘little men’. In other words terrorism can be rational choice to meet certain goals and needs, one does not need convoluted psychological theories or postmodern irony to work it out. The same could be said of Irish Republican violence. As previously stated, Irish nationalism (and never try to read terrorism outside of the context of the socio-political movements that spawn it: terrorists are social movement activists motivated by the socio-political ideology of the movement, which has some personal resonance and meaning for them) arose at a time of deep socio-economic change in Ireland that threatened the security and structures that formed the basis of its peasant-proprietor economy and social order. This structure also happened to conflate with that of the Catholic Church in Ireland so that they formed a symbiotic relationship that led to a transmogrification of material concerns into spiritual ones. (Catholic ecclesiastic structures and local priests had long served as an organisational basis of ‘nationalist’ politics because it linked, very efficiently, all Irish Catholics, Boyce, 1995, Foster, 1989.) As modern international economic relations threatened the internal socioeconomic and political relations of rural Catholic, but not Protestant, Ireland so too did the social and cultural values brought in by modern cosmopolitan living

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threaten the values, culture and spiritual authority of Catholicism. Modern science seriously challenged the authority of Catholic teachings and cheap, English language magazines, newspapers and the cinema posed grave moral threats to Catholic ideals of purity, righteous living, salvation and spiritual welfare (Dingley, 2006, Lee, 1989, Boyce, 1988 and 1990, Foster, 1989). This transmogrification of the material into the religious could stand as a model for any number of nationalisms and Islamic fundamentalism. In Ireland a major problem was that industrial, Protestant Ulster represented the exact opposite of nationalist Ireland’s interests, socio-economic and ecclesiastical structures and theology – hence there were no linking structures, ideas of shared community or collective destiny to inspire any sense of unity. Thus Ulster felt more at home with Protestant industrial Britain and saw Irish nationalism as totally alien. This goes to the core of violence in Ireland throughout the century and was well illustrated in the great iconic act of nationalist violence – the 1916 Easter Rising. The Easter Rising was virtually doomed from the start, and its leaders knew it, lacking the equipment, logistical organisation and popular support necessary. However, it struck an emotional and spiritual chord with many Catholics, but not with Protestants: it might have been misguided but it was done for ‘the cause’, a mystic ideal which many Catholics could sympathise with because they could share the terrorists’ Catholic sense of mystery, loss and sacrifice. Consequently the Rising was a technical failure but a popular triumph, a noble (violent) gesture on behalf of Catholic ideals – loss of traditional (Catholic) order, which played well with Catholics brought up on a diet of suffering and sacrifice, the crucifixion of Christ and all the other martyrs: martyrdom is a major theme in Catholicism (not Protestantism), as it is in Islam, where dying for the faith can be easily conflated with dying for the cause. Indeed, Patrick Pearse, who led the Rising actually saw himself in Christ-like terms and envisaged the Rising’s doomed failure in heroically tragic-sacrificial terms (MacDonagh, 1983), they knowingly sacrificed their lives. This was something that connected subliminally with a Catholic population brought up in exclusively Catholic villages, going to regular Catholic mass and Catholic schools and universities and then working in often exclusively Catholic workplaces. Pearse and the Rising appealed to the innately Catholic sentiments of Ireland, its culture and social order, playing out a Catholic drama of sacrifice and suffering that connected at a very deep, subliminal level of un-thought out sentiments and emotions (Dingley and Kirk-Smith, 2002 and 2000, Taylor, 1999). In addition, Ireland had a long history of violence to fall back upon, as do most rural societies, where blood feuds, secret societies and peasant revolts were often regarded as almost natural. In addition: Violence means the rupturing of norms. It cannot be delimited only in abstract terms or limited to actual physical harm. (Townshend in Crenshaw, 1995, p.313)

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If violence is done to ones society, i.e. undermines its order and norms, then to do violence back in defence becomes legitimate and normal, and violence was precisely what modernisation was doing to traditional Catholic society, since being part of a cosmopolitan and internationally trading Britain meant being totally exposed to modernity (British oppression and imperialism = being open to modern cosmopolitanism, not unlike Spanish imperialism in the Basque Lands, or Western imperialism in Islamic Lands). But it is too easy to trivialise this, for rural Irish society did face a serious problem: its economy and social structure was under threat, so how was it to survive? Solutions had been put forward but rejected, partly because Catholicism was hostile to ‘modern’ solutions. However, if Protestant Ulster’s industrial and religious interests were diametrically opposed to Catholic Ireland’s, how were its problems to be resolved in an united Ireland? This key question was never even asked, let alone answered. Here we have a key to understanding the violence in Ireland. The terrorists were simply ordinary Catholics responding in a traditional way to structural problems of change and order, for whom a Romantic ideology provided easy answers – return to pre-modern ways. The terrorists should not be regarded as somehow a separate problem, since they were similar in profile to their fellow political activists in terms of their socio-economic and demographic backgrounds, they came from a lower middle class strata that reflected the heart of the problem of a society (Hart, 1999, Garvin,1983 and 2005, Campbell, 2005). These backgrounds were of men, almost wholly Catholic, educated, younger sons of farmers and small town traders or first generation urban immigrants in lower clerical positions, with bleak futures in a static economy and with the safety valve of emigration to America cut off during the War. Such men were similar to 18th century German Romantics (Greenfeld, 1993), the mid-19th century European revolutionaries (Mayer, 1975 and O’Boyle, 1970) or later in the Basque Lands (Clark, 1984). As I have argued before (Dingley, 1997) terrorists are remarkably ordinary and do have a profile, but it is a socio-economic and not a psychological one, because they represent a socio-economic problem. And the same men who rose in 1916 also formed the backbone of the 1919-1923 strife and terrorism in Ireland (1922-1923) (Boyce, 1995, Foster, 1989, Fitzpatrick, 1998). In his analysis of Galway ‘insurgents’ Campbell notes: … most of the rebels were farmers (34%) or farmers sons (26%), occupying small farms. … 69% of the farmer-insurgents occupied small farms, valued at less than 20 GBP. The next largest group were semi- and unskilled labourers. Almost one-fifth (18%) were tradesmen, primarily from urban backgrounds and a further 13% were agricultural labourers. Of the remainder, 4% were professionals, generally teachers and solicitors, 3% were small shopkeepers: and 2% were shop assistants. The rebels were all Roman Catholic, and almost all of them were literate (98%), unmarried (83%), and young (85%) were aged under 40 in 1916. … While many of them were members of the Gaelic League, less than half were Irish speakers (44%). (Campbell, 2005, p.219)

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Galway was a western rural area, but the composition of the ‘insurgents’ fairly typified the kind of people most at risk from rural economic collapse, especially the small farmer and small town urban tradesmen and professionals who depended on the farmers’ trade. Hart (1919) alternatively provides a detailed breakdown of the IRA in Cork in 1919-1923, where he finds similar socio-economic patterns of IRA membership. But he also adds several significant categories, e.g. ex-servicemen who missed the excitement and camaraderie of the war, the importance of personal networks for recruiting and the particularist nature of most operations and how many IRA acts were inspired as much by crude opportunism, especially land grabs, pushing rival traders out of business or simply an eye to job opportunities in the new state: in other words, quite prosaic considerations, but important enough in a static economy under threat. This may help explain why Ireland’s was such a conservative revolution. Also significant was how certain areas dominated the violence: it was greatest in Dublin, with a high proportion of first generation rural immigrants, second greatest was in those areas most overtly confronting socio-economic change and so threats to the traditional order. Thus the east coast was relatively quiet, as part of a long standing maritime economy trading with Britain and so more assimilated into the cosmopolitan world; it was also relatively quiet in the far west of Ireland, where large scale change had yet to take effect. It was the midlands of Ireland and south west where violence was at its height, regions directly confronting change and disruption as modernisation struck most acutely (Dingley, 2006, Garvin, 1981, Hart, 1999). A similar pattern could be told along what Stewart (1989) refers to as a ‘shatter belt’ between Ulster and the rest of Ireland, where modernity clashed with tradition. This clash of the modern and tradition is exactly what one also finds in Islamic militancy (Toth, 2005, Crenshaw, 1994). Ireland typified inter-war nationalist problems in a period generally regarded as turbulent, of great change and instability, with new nations from old empires, new borders, customs and tariff barriers, old trading blocs/empires split asunder and great financial insecurity. Not only did hyper inflation in the early 1920s and the great economic crash of 1929-1932 destabilise national and international finances but by 1929 there were, in Europe, 27 different currencies (14 in 1914) and 12,500 new miles of frontiers to add to the confusion and complicate efforts at economic cooperation and rationalisation (Kennedy,1989). Many new nations had ethnic minorities and claims on other nations in addition to having to face social disruption and dislocation as they tried to industrialise or adjust predominantly agricultural economies as national independence led to lost markets, e.g. Czech markets were mostly in Austria (once part of the same empire but now separate states), increased international competition or new more efficient agricultural methods. In addition, in Eastern Europe the war had ranged far wider (fronts moved over thousands of miles) and been far more destructive than in the west, consequently the newly independent nations often had devastated lands and economies to add to their problems. One thus found a situation of broken

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communications and transport systems, dislocated markets, disrupted and dissolved social and political structures on to which was added hyper inflation (Kennedy, 1989). Fascist ideology found many wagging ears under such circumstances (Eatwell, 2003, Mann, 2004, Lichtheim, 1974). Fascism made its first appearance in Italy in 1919, and, like Germany later, established itself as a form of institutionalised rule by terror, placing a high value on violence, which, in Mussolini’s words, was a form of ‘social hygiene’ (Laqueur, 1977, p.71). Violence cleansed the nation, which in turn blended with fascist ideas of struggle, not debate (politics was corrupt, action was pure), and the idea that violence was liberating in itself (Laqueuer, 1977, chapter 2) sprang directly from Romanticism. Violence was highly lauded by fascists and Italy well and illustrates the kind of socio-economic and political conditions that made Romantic ideology acceptable. First, the fascist gangs were usually composed of ex-servicemen who enjoyed the violence and its rewards, just like the Freikorps. Second, political instability was pervasive in Italian politics (1919-1922 saw five different Italian governments). Third, there was general discontent with what Italy had won at Versailles, despite being a victor nation. Fourth, Italy was in the throes of major socio-economic change and disruption. This last point is again crucial, change lay behind the violence: The onset of capitalism marked a rapid end to the old paternalist labour relations, and the emergence of more conflict-based social relations. The resulting class animosities encouraged a socialism that had a highly radical and violent side to it. Revealingly, in areas where aristocratic paternalism lasted longer, conflict was much lower. World War I had aggravated social problems: it took people away from their homes and widened their horizons (many had never travelled more than a few miles). In some cases, the move was permanent, as many flocked to work in the munitions industries in the northern cities. In Turin, for instance, the number of industrial workers doubled between 1913 and 1918. At the same time the old communal organisations that had been set up by earlier generations of immigrants – groups which had helped arrange everything from jobs to marriage partners – were breaking down. In some cases, new collective influences emerged in the shape of unions and left-wing parties. But the workers found themselves socially more isolated and attracted by a more diffuse nationalist collectivism. (Eatwell, 2003, p.50-1)

In other words massive socio-economic change was destroying the old structures and order. Further, there was a middle class scared of higher taxes, new left wing parties and trade unions and big increases in regional differences and consequent resentments. And whilst fascist leaders were often wealthy upper class individuals, with specific politico-economic interests, the rank and file were invariably unemployed, ex-servicemen looking for the main chance. They were men of action and fervent nationalists, whilst the socialists and communists tended to be

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thinkers, rationalist and internationalist. Meanwhile, fascist formal organisation, as against loose combinations, and policies only came after Mussolini entered power in 1922 (Eatwell, 2003). In addition, Italy lacked a history of liberal-democratic order, collective identity or shared meaning (unification was a product of the 1860s) hence making imposed rather than democratically agreed order more appealing at a time of chaos. The social dimension, or lack of it, created a chasm for violence that the violent filled with their own version of order and collective being. Further, much of the intellectual appeal of fascism lay precisely in its ideas of the corporate state and corporatist socio-economic policies, where the collective element dominated at the expense of the individual. Such ideas also tended to blend better with Catholic social teaching, whose emphasis on submission to clerical authority (especially under the influence of ultramontanism), particularism and the holistic nature of the Church made corporatism seem more of a natural progression, hence its greater appeal in Italy, Austria, Spain and Southern Germany. Protestant ideas of individualism did not blend well with corporatism or with communism, but did blend with liberal democracy. Just when Italy went fascist, at the other end of Europe, Russia went through its own revolutionary and civil war to establish just which order should be imposed after the old empire had collapsed. Once again the old order had totally broken down when the warring factions of revolution and reaction fought out a war in which millions died. And this in turn was followed, in the newly created Soviet Union, with mass collectivisation (a socialist order) being imposed via state terror, which involved further millions dying throughout the 1920s. After this Stalin established his personal reign of terror, with labour camps, purges, show trials and the deaths of even more hundreds of thousands of probably innocent people to effect his rule. Once again, apart from Stalin’s paranoia, the key point is the chaos and anarchy, the social dimension, of Russia out of which the violence erupted and the need to impose an internal order (Conquest, 1991, Hobsbawm, 1995). Meanwhile, fascism was also a response to an external, chaotic economic and political world order following the slumps of the early 1920s and then the great crash of 1929. Such global catastrophes ruined and threatened to undermine whole societies, where whole strata of men and individuals (especially the middle class saver whose savings were rendered useless over night) found themselves directly affected by the global economy, hence a reaction against internationalism and the lunge towards to nationalism and particularism. Men resorted to violence to fend off that which was doing violence to them, their norms and order, so they rejected liberal democratic values, individualism and internationalism and fell for corporatism and the purging of ‘corrupting’ elements from the community. Finally, there is the added appeal of violence, action and Romantic imaginings against an enlightened calculation that seemed to have brought men to their current impasse. Everywhere fascism made headway where there was the least tradition of liberal democracy, seen as a harmful intrusion on traditional order (Hobsbawm, 1995, Lichtheim, 1974).

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However, in the liberal democracies potential violence was channelled into mostly non-violent protest, organised labour and parliamentary protests. The left generally eschewed violence, whilst advocating revolution, which was logical since, as products of industrial society, they were part of the enlightened tradition; they only resorted to violence when they organised to fight Franco in the Spanish civil war (1936-1939). Once again, in Spain, one saw the classic conditions of socio-economic change and development, a very weak tradition of liberal democracy and threatened elite interests, plus a Catholic culture, albeit divided between pro and anti clericals, and a dedication to maintain a traditional order, although Eatwell (2003) and Mann (2004) would stop short of calling Franco’s regime fascist, just an extreme rightwing dictatorship. Both Eatwell and Mann emphasise the chaos and disorder that Spain went through during the interwar years as attempts to modernise, especially in rural areas, met with violent resistance and where strikes and lockouts led to often fatal clashes. And as in Italy, it was the attempt to introduce reforms in rural areas and the industrial strife amongst new immigrant industrial workers that often led to the worst violence, this in turn built upon dangerous regional cleavages which helped to create a sense of national loss of order which left and right competed to fill (Mann, 2004). Thus the inter-war years were largely dominated by right-wing violence, which helped create a political instability to match the socio-economic instability of a world economic crisis. The very idea of a world order seemed to disintegrate. Meanwhile the left preferred political organisation and democratic politics to seek orderly change and redress. Whilst in Asia it was the right wing military that made Japanese government impossible by a series of assassinations (Kennedy, 1989) and guided Japan into invading China and Korea and then attacking the western powers. Another example of interwar chaos was Palestine, where the newly acquired British mandate (1919) had to grapple with a major influx of Jewish immigrants intent on displacing the local Arab population and creating a Jewish state (Wasserstein, 2003, Segev, 2001). This not unnaturally led to widespread violence in Palestine and the deliberate use of terrorism by Jewish groups such as the Irgun or Stern Gang and less well organised Arab counter violence. Once again, it was the underlying threat to a traditional order (Arab and Muslim) by immigrants (Jewish and European) wishing to introduce radical change that caused the violence, especially as Jewish immigrants introduced new ideas of commercial farming and modern cultural ideas of rationality and efficiency, i.e. a modern socio-economic order, that would easily displace native skills, culture, social order and regional dominance. The violence in Palestine was a response to a threatened traditional order, and as Wasserstein (2003, chapter 1) observes it was the influx of Jews that created the collective sense of Arab-Palestinian identity, a community under threat. Jews and Muslims could easily live together as individuals, it is the different order they both imply at the socio-political, i.e. how to live together, under what rules, regulations and norms (social, cultural, religious or legal) that create the problem.

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Nor was Palestine the only region of the British Empire where violence occurred on a regular basis. India was a continual policing problem, especially along the North West Frontier between India (now Pakistan) and Afghanistan, and between Hindu and Muslims as political demands for independence grew (which religious order could or should impose its cosmological map, cultural norms and laws for salvation). And in Iraq the British had new policing problems with local tribes and the Kurds, which led to the RAF experimenting with gas bombs. And this was just the British experience of peace-keeping during the period (Sluglett, 2007, chapter 7). As was stressed in previous chapters, violence is more of a norm than an exception, especially in predominantly rural societies, but in many of the European colonies there was also the rise of incipient nationalist movements and their inherent threat to colonial order, which were later to feed into more violent campaigns, such as the Mau Mau in Kenya or FLN in Algeria. But again, the trigger for the violence lay in the ideas of change and a new order, producing threats for some and opportunities for others. However, most of the interwar violence was soon subsumed into the greater violence of World War II, which claimed over 50 million lives, the majority of whom were civilian and included some of the worst atrocities of modern history. The most obvious example was that of the Nazi’s: Nazism, as Greenfeld (1993, chapter 4) argues, was actually the logical extension of Romantic nationalism, since its twin concepts of struggle and strife and the search for pure ethnic being lead inevitably to the violent expulsion of the impure and non-German. And above all it was Romantic, ethnic-separatist nationalism that dominated the political ideology of the 20th century. After World War II The post-war period led to its own violence as European colonies conquered by the axis powers had their illusions of European supremacy and imperial order shattered, which in turn combined with nationalist ideology to set off a spate of de-colonisation movements, which frequently involved violence of a distinctly terrorist nature. In addition, during the war many native populations had received military training at the hands of their imperial masters either to resist the new invaders or to fight for their imperial masters, the British 14th Army in Burma was composed predominantly of ‘colonial’ troops. This gave them confidence in their own abilities, increased awareness and raised expectations of some reward for their services (India in particular was promised independence in return for her full cooperation in the war) and when it was met with refusal, as in French Indo-China, Malaya or Indonesia it led to open revolts. Sometimes as in India and Malaya it was not a question of independence per se but of how and to whom. In India the problem of an united India or a partitioned one (India and Pakistan) became the key question. The British would have preferred a single India, but given the demand by Muslims for self rule, from the dominant Hindu majority,

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partition became inevitable. It also led to severe violence and great loss of life, possibly of millions, in riots and deliberate acts of mass murder and retribution (Khan, 2008). But what is important for us was the divisive role of religion and the imminence of fundamental change that would alter power structures and relations and affect the balance of power between religiously defined groups. When both were subordinate to British rule they were ruled equally, but in a liberal democracy based on majority rule one community would have to dominate the other and so impose its cosmological map, order, norms and identity, to the loss of the other, a problem still being played out in Kashmir. And one way of ensuring one’s own democratic domination is to expel the others in sufficient numbers. Meanwhile, in Malaya, after an initial attempt to reinstitute British rule independence was agreed upon: but to whom? Apart from the competing claims of the different states and kingdoms that made up Malaya there was a Communist insurrection to respond to (the Malaya emergency, Dewar, 1984). Once again, as the old order gave way, which new order should succeed it? There were also claims from neighbouring Indonesia over some Malaysian territory, which led to a prolonged ‘stand-off’ with Britain in the 1960s. But these tended to conform more to conventional guerrilla or border wars against external threats rather than anything we would identify as terrorism. The same could not be said for the Mau Mau in the 1950s. This was a brutal campaign of terrorist tactics, mixed up with tribal religious cults, against the white settler community, where isolated civilians, such as farmers, civil servants and police, were deliberately murdered to create an atmosphere of violence. Similar campaigns were also waged in other British colonies by those seeking independence, such as Cyprus or Aden (Dewar, 1984). Here again, change threatened, as nationalism and anti-colonial movements made empires unfashionable and local populations, whose elites had seen the vulnerability of colonial regimes in the war, now felt emboldened. Generally such campaigns tend to get brushed out of any history of terrorism since they are safely labelled as liberation or anti-colonial struggles; but the tactics and style were the same – the use of terror, i.e. indiscriminate killings, attacks, bombings and destruction of property, which aimed to make normal, i.e. imperial, law and order break down and whole regions become ungovernable so that a new order could be imposed. It then becomes a test of will and popular sympathy between the colonial and the would-be order, invariably a throw-back to old traditional orders dressed up in modern rhetoric. The pursuit of a new independent order often amounted to little more than a repackaging of traditional (tribal) order, ‘liberation’leaders often resorted to mobilising old cultures and norms of violence to oust the imperial orders or competing ethnic groups. Thus the Hutu utilised religion, tribalism and sacrificial ideas of violence that were highly symbolic against the Tutsi (Taylor, 1999), the will of the people involved going backwards into indigenous cultural heritages and mobilising old cosmological orders against the enemy order. And the results were similar to that experienced in the Spanish Peninsular War (Chapter 2), which reminded men of what happens when the people take hold of war and not a modern, disciplined military.

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As Townshend (in Crenshaw, 1995) observed, terrorist campaigns tend to thrive where there is a tradition of violence to utilise. It then becomes a question of whose order will triumph and on that many lives and fortunes will depend: which order has major implications for jobs, careers, life or death, status, power and all major life opportunities in addition to a transcendent sense of sacred being, which will be discussed in more depth later. And here, there are two aspects in terms of what wins out, first: a test of wills (pace Nietzsche), second: what order actually works and produces the desired effects for enough key activists, i.e. decision makers and influencers, to support. And given the dominant idea of popular sovereignty as the ultimate modern legitimacy those with a strong enough will and the ability to influence enough of the relevant opinion formers to support them will tend to triumph, whatever the moral efficacy of their violence, hence the importance of terrorist political wings and media relations (Forrest, 2009). Perhaps one of the worst examples of anti-imperial terrorism was Algeria (1954-1962). Its bestiality on both sides has been well covered in the literature (Crenshaw, 1995, Horne, 1978) and again does not need to be examined in depth here. What does need noting is the context of change, with its implications for order and legitimacy, which in turn lay in ideas of community and dominance (implying order) and the creation of a new national community, order and state: … the issue of responsibility for terrorism is related to the conditions that create and sustain community and identity as well as political legitimacy. (Crenshaw, 1995, p.479)

The dominant minority community resisted change, the subordinate majority tried to impel it. All of this was done in the era of anti-colonialism when ideas of ‘the people’, i.e. the majority and especially if they can claim an indigenous prior right, led to the threat of a new independent order replacing the old ‘colonial’ one. In this case the opposing orders were clearly mixed with race (Arab versus European) and religion (Muslim versus Christian), which latter is particularly potent given its conflation with ideas of order at the cosmological level and legitimacy. We thus find a situation of change that implies not simply a change in the ruling elite to run an order (community), as happens in a modern democracy, but a change in the very nature and type of order (community) that will dominate. Such a change for the losing community often implies a total loss, both in material and cognitive terms, such as happened to the ancien regime in France (1789) or Russia (1917) after their revolutions. In addition, Islam, with its inherent concept of the ummah, implies an exclusion of all non-Muslims and a cosmological order and culture that diminishes the role of the individual, other religions and their modern rights, colons were faced with a loss of far greater magnitude than simply being temporarily out of power. Modern concepts of liberal democracy are founded on ideals and values of autonomous individualism that do not square with traditional societies ideas of the communal.

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This latter point raises awkward questions of progress and racial or cultural superiority that take one back to issues of postmodernism, pluralism and cultural equality or Edward Said’s ‘Orientalism’ (1979). Put bluntly, most white settler populations were products of a ‘superior’ military and industrial society, i.e. modern order and power, whose values and culture, especially individualism, were and still are perceived as being more advanced and developed than those they conquered, indeed that was why they were successful. However, this does not fit well with a liberal culture that proclaims that all men and cultures are equal, because culturally (often conflated with race) we find that liberal democratic and traditional communal ones are not. Modern scientific culture has a superiority over traditional cultures that is evident in practice: medicines, technology, public health, electronic aids – try living without them – plus the economically, politically and socially liberating ideas of scientific organisation, legal rational principles and efficiency. Such values are more enlightened in terms of individual autonomy and so produce an order more conducive of rights, liberty and freedom (individual rights only become meaningful when the individual is freed from the traditional community). Most native colonial populations are tribal and communal and hence non-individualistic in modern cultural terms. What then happens when a colonial people (majority) demand, in impeccably liberal style, majority rule and the will of the people, which means slipping back into the old tribal, mystical and pre-modern cultural order? Our very liberalism can be used against liberal values to revert to a very illiberal order. Thus we have a clash of orders; what many an independent colony found itself facing as regards its settler population and its indigenous tribal groups. Each order now assumes its ‘legitimate’ (communal) right to violence to advance itself. Whilst the orders could be kept apart and did not clash, e.g. natives were excluded from governing, there was no clash. Equally, when there was no democratic majority rule, which inevitably resulted in the largest tribe, then there was no clash concerning tribal domination since there was no power (government) to compete for. But liberal democracy creates such problems because it erroneously assumes the autonomous individual and fails to recognise their social (communal) dimension, which is much stronger in pre-modern societies. Even in modern society man is still a social animal and only recognises his community (nation) as the legitimate democratic forum, which goes to the heart of ethnic conflicts in Yugoslavia, Ireland or the Caucuses. (It is not that community ceases to exist in the modern, western world, it is just of a different nature that supports individualism, liberalism and greater autonomy within its cultural and structural borders.) Meanwhile for the settler community independence means being subjected to ‘inferior’, i.e. non-modern, order and standards of rule that defy liberal democratic ideals, economic and political efficiency and rationality (such fears may drive white attitudes in Zimbabwe and South Africa). Thus European settlers in Algeria faced rule by an Islamic culture whose core values were largely communal (ummah) and pre-modern (Gellner, 1981, 1990) whilst theirs was derived from a French civilisation based on a highly modern

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culture, that alone supported liberal democratic values in terms of modern individualism. Here the wearing of the veil and the role and place of women in society or the role of Sharia law become important touchstones for measuring this sense of modernity. The tolerance of the individual, and associated self-discipline and respect for the other, of the west is not reciprocated in Islam or many premodern societies because it would be disruptive of the dominant communal order. Similar fears dominated Protestant attitudes to being part of a Catholic dominated Ireland, where democratic majority rule meant the imposition of conformity to Catholic social teaching that precluded liberal, individual autonomy. Thus an independent Ireland reversed many of the cultural norms of modern freedom and liberty, e.g. divorce, abortion and contraception were made unconstitutional and a woman’s place was defined as in the home (Foster, 1989). As Foster observed, this was something hardly compatible with a modern industrial workforce (Ulster) even if the majority of the electorate could accept it as part of their Catholic culture. These are complex problems that require considerable reasoning and rational comprehension to resolve and failure to do so results in violence. What is important here is how different orders are intolerant of each other because they imply different forms and standards of public and private behaviour and even concepts of freedom. Where they can be safely separated so as not to touch or influence the other there are few problems, but when they have to compete for supremacy in the same domain or when one order is threatened with disruption is when the violence occurs, which is the key to understanding terrorism. And since men are social beings and respond socially to social stimulus it is when the socio-political order is problematic that they revert to violence to express their social frustrations and fears: Terror is not here normal politics by scandalous means but a declaration that normal politics are not possible. It is perhaps the capacity for violence that ultimately marks the sacred, the disordering element that stands as the exterior guarantor of order, of division and partition. (Friedland, 2001, p.129)

Terrorism is a problem of order and, closely related to this in both anthropology and sociology is the role of symbolism and ritual (a form of order), both help to give a ‘rational’ explanation for the ‘irrational’ violence of terrorists, once one learns to read religion as metaphor for order and violence as symbolic ritual to cleanse and expel elements of disorder and impurity (Taylor, 1999, utilises metaphors of unblocking barriers to flows that keep the cosmological order open to explain the Rwandan genocide of 1994). The examples of disorder and terrorism in the modern world are myriad but four will suffice for our current purposes: Northern Ireland, Basque Lands, Sri Lanka and Islamic fundamentalism: all three represent problems of change in highly traditional societies, where symbols and rituals are very important. First, symbols are the way in which we recall important values and beliefs central to our being, cosmology and material world; they represent, like Captain Danjou’s

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wooden hand, ultimate ideals to be lived up to and die for. They are also important cultural markers that define borders not to be crossed and that separate ‘them’ from ‘us’, order from disorder, and give us special meaning and purpose and so objects of a sacred character (for this reason most religions are awash with symbols that signify specific moral values, e.g. martyrs, sacrifice and suffering). Meanwhile, ritual helps create symbolic value, by going through certain ceremonies or procedures in a certain order related to specific objects men endow them with mythic and sacred meaning and value. We give ‘life’ to these specific objects, so that they cease to be inanimate and take on a life and meaning of their own via ritual and become sacred. Ritual equates with rhythm and routine, which equates with regularity of the life sustaining functions of the body – regular heart beat, blood flow or breathing. So in our psychological and social lives, to have regular flows and patterns, routine in our lives – order – makes us feel good (Taylor, 1999, Zulaika, 1988). Not to have these things, to face no routine or pattern in our lives, no sense of direction, meaning or purpose, where life is chaotic and confusion leads to nervous or mental breakdown. Such rituals do not just happen but are the product of a socialisation process via which we acquire a culture from which we gain a set of expectations and idealisations, a sense of what the socio-economic and political order should be and into which we develop our expectations of an ordered world. When this order fails to materialise or is disrupted we respond in symbolic ways, such as the symbolic, sacrificial violence we learnt from our religious teachers (martyrs). Just as our heart beats to a regular rhythm and gives us life so must society, the order in which we live, provide us with psychic or mental rhythm to give us security and social being. This provides us with deep and important aspects of life and life sustaining needs: socially and politically we can orientate ourselves and so provide for personal psychological needs and health, economically it enables us to make a living and sustain physical life and when all three are put together they help us gain status, honour, prestige, meaning and purpose. With no order to our lives life fails, or if ‘our’ order is diminished vis-à-vis another order then our life appears diminished, devalued and loses purpose in terms of sustaining us in all our needs (physical, mental and spiritual). Loss of order (security) causes acute anxiety and loss of life chances, hence we react violently against threats to it, internal or external, and the community represented in the order legitimises the violence. Four case studies The four cases are chosen almost at random but do represent four of the most ongoing and virulent cases of contemporary terrorism. First, Northern Ireland, whose current ‘troubles’ began in 1969, but actually have a long history preceding that, since the root causes and main terrorist group (IRA) go back a hundred years or more and have already been referred to in relation to the partition of Ireland.

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Partition had left Catholic Nationalists in Northern Ireland feeling cut off from their all Ireland structures, centred on Dublin, which would have made them part of the dominant ruling religious community in all Ireland. As it was they now became a minority to a Protestant (Unionist) community and unable to impose their communal order on the ethos, structures of power and influence and had to accept a diminished communal status. Meanwhile, significant numbers of Nationalists maintained a hostile opposition to the existence of the state, so reinforcing an Unionist enmity that already existed after 200 years of intercommunal strife. However, most Catholics and Protestants learnt to live with the new Northern Ireland, but as a deeply segregated society; they lived separate lives in almost selfcontained communities that rarely mixed, out of mutual consent, and formed their own networks for social, economic and political purposes, usually utilising their respective churches structures. The Catholic community as a minority, anti-state community inevitably had an inferior status (English, 2006) but as several studies have shown (Roche and Barton, 1991) they were not materially worse off than their Protestant (Unionist) neighbours and substantially better off, as part of the UK welfare state, than co-religionists in the Republic of Ireland. There were acts of discrimination against them, often somewhat exaggerated, and they were quite capable of discriminating back when they had the opportunity (Kingsley, 1989, Whyte, 1991), in addition to which Catholic nationalists clung to a Gaelic Catholic culture which was irrelevant to the functional demands of an industrial economy (their separate educational system was based on scholastic philosophy, not modern scientific philosophy). Further, many Catholics did and still do wish to remain part of the UK, up to 50 percent (CAIN). What then set the ‘troubles’ off, giving rise to Europe’s most deadly terrorist campaign? In 1969 relations in Northern Ireland were actually improving and segregation slowly crumbling (Sherwood, 2006, Kingsley, 1989), i.e. structures were breaking down. Old industries were declining, being taken over by multinationals or new industries moving in and introducing new hiring practices that took no notice of sectarian divisions (which had traditionally informed employment practices in Northern Ireland). The traditional jobs and patronage networks that had operated via the churches and related organisations such as the Orange Order or Ancient Order of Hibernians and had assured good Protestants or Catholics of a place and future in the traditional order no longer worked. And this was a key problem – change. It was a change in the established order of things, of Protestant job rights in established industries, of a known and reliable future for being a ‘loyal’ Protestant, of a sense of Protestant superiority and hence order and security in their known world (Bew, Gibbon and Patterson, 1979, Bew and Patterson, 1985). Further, many of the reforms that Catholics sought were actually quite small, but symbolically significant of Protestant ascendancy, and being addressed via the democratic process of the state (Hennessey, 2005); but this made many Protestants uneasy regarding their individual and state security.

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But the same applied in Catholic communities: new opportunities took Catholics away from their traditional structures, place and role, not least from the control of Catholic Nationalist elites. Catholics were even beginning to vote for the non-nationalist Northern Ireland Labour Party, shunning their traditional allegiance to the Nationalist Party (Kingsley, 1989, Hennessey, 2005), after all the British welfare state with its free health service was no mean thing and worth trading political allegiances for. Northern Ireland (Ulster) was going through a period of profound socioeconomic change that directly attacked many of the old structures of relations that had created and preserved order within each community and between them, which helped to keep the peace. Elites felt this most strongly and worked to mobilise mass support to resist change: in the Protestant community the churches, Unionist Party and the Orange Order provided readymade organisational structures to do this. Meanwhile, in the Catholic community new organisations, e.g. Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association or the IRA/Sinn Fein, emerged to pursue more radical change, whilst the traditional elites of the old Nationalist Party and Catholic Church sought to regain their control. Challenges to order and elite control were the key underlying issues. The deep segregation of Catholic-Nationalist and Protestant-Unionist was crumbling, which created a great sense of threat and insecurity as known order and place was challenged. This in turn has to be placed against the background of a new international media that beamed violent and revolutionary events from around the world into everyone’s living room. Vietnam was made to feel quite ‘next door’ and the Paris Spring, street protests, American civil rights, race riots, anti-colonial liberation struggles and new, ‘revolutionary’ personal life styles (Guelke, 1998, chapter 4) created an aura of change, threat and disorder. Against this background even quite trivial, but symbolic, events could appear to portend cataclysmic ones, making Catholics and Protestants feel insecure. Thus, not so paradoxically, it was as things were getting better that the violence started. Into this background re-emerged the old IRA, who had never gone away, despite needing much taking out and dusting down, but whose most recent campaign had only been in 1956-1962 (Smith, 1997). The IRA were part of Catholic Nationalist folklore and memory, a highly romanticised and hence legitimated resort to violence in defence of Catholic community rights and maintainers of a tradition of violent revolt that perpetuated myths of 800 years of Irish resistance to British rule. The IRA did not create the troubles, although they helped, but found in them an opportunity which they happily grasped and exploited as the troubles produced new grievances and recruits en masse. The troubles also instigated a retreat back into the old communities, segregation and re-establishment of traditional order and control as men felt insecure about the brave new world of de-segregation. Thus a kind of particularism re-emerged, of local community, strong boundaries (kerb stones painted with British or Irish colours or flags on lamp-posts) to keep out the impure and maintain an internal community order and discourse to legitimate one’s own side and interpretation of events (Arthur, in Apter, 1997). The more men

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retreated back into small, self-contained communities the easier it was to impose order and control over them and to ensure only the ‘right’ message was told within the community. Northern Ireland reflected a basic clash of ethno-religious culture, two opposed orders, where the more traditional one, with its roots in a peasant Romantic reaction against modernity, felt a legitimate right to resort to violence to preserve its order. The Basques, represent a similar situation, of ethnic struggle to maintain their culture and traditional order, a source of great pride for them. Once more, the origins of the current terrorist campaign go back to the late 19th century with industrialisation and modernisation, especially of agriculture, which challenged the culture and socio-economic order of a highly traditional peasant society. But here there was also a strong class element, since although industrialisation was driven by Spain, many Basques willingly participated to produce an indigenous Basque industrial capitalist class and working class attached to Spain. In addition many industrial workers were non-Basque immigrants, who had little sympathy for the kind of Romantic separatism of language revivals, traditional arts and the preservation of a peasant culture and economy. In this situation traditional Basque skills and economic interests, built around the basseria (traditional Basque farm) and small town traders and professionals who supplied them and who represented an entire strata of Basque society felt threatened. And a final important aspect was that the hub of traditional Basque village and rural community was the local Catholic Church, thus giving religion a central role in traditional life. Basque nationalism was thus well established before the current violence broke out and ETA began its campaign of violence in 1968-1969. However, since the 1930s Basque nationalism and identity had been suppressed under Franco and his centralising policies, which the Catholic Church supported. This created a slightly schizophrenic situation, since the essence of Basque nationalism was the preservation of traditional order and culture against modernity, yet it was suppressed by a reactionary government that was supported by a church which was also part of Basque identity. However, local priests were often much more supportive of Basque identity than their bishops, hence there was often a power struggle between local clergy, their congregations and the ecclesiastic authorities. Meanwhile, concurrently, Franco’s regime also supported Basque industrial development and continued immigration (Shabad and Ramo, in Crenshaw, 1995, Clark, 1984, Whitaker, 2001, Wieviorka, in Apter, 1997). And once again, note how the 1960s was the background to ETA’s violent beginnings – revolution was in the air. Most important to ETA was the preservation of their language and their traditional family-farming system, the baserria, which was not simply an economic unit but a socio-cultural order, way of life and the backbone of Basque society. The baserria provided a structure and meaning that placed it beyond economic calculation, which was important since it was economically highly inefficient and unsustainable (Zulaika, 1988). The baserria had added symbolic significance since it gave traditional Basque society a sense of timeless order, of un-thought out

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networks, patterns, routine, rhythm and structure to life that was beyond calculation and stretched back thousands of years, so making it sacred. This was an order that connected all its members on a daily basis and with a distant past, making Basques feel part of a sacred order, unmediated and natural, based on instinct and primordial forces that they were custodians of. Infused into this order was the church, or at least its local presence, at the centre of village life, relations and culture. Religion not only makes holy by legitimating the order but also represents order in the cosmos and the world and so provided a natural organisational hub around which ETA frequently formed, since members were invariably Catholics and brought up in the Church, even if the church formally disapproved of their activities. In a deeply Catholic society it is not just attendance at mass that counts, but being in formal Catholic organisations, being infused with its teachings and sharing the common experience of going to Catholic clubs and associations where everyone mixes and discusses Catholic life experiences and opportunities that matters. Then being taught in Catholic schools, imbued with a Catholic social philosophy (scholastic, inherently anti-modern, as in Ireland), which were then applied to interpreting the Basque world. Again this is something they have in common with the IRA in Ireland, where the Church frequently disapproved of IRA activities, but by its dominance of or influence over most cultural, socioeconomic and recreational activities ensured that individual Catholics shared an wholly Catholic world view and relationships. Hence a purely Catholic discourse that can lead to an uncritical acceptance and justification of violence (Arthur, in Apter, 1997): the only known (holy) order (community) was under threat and so had to be responded to in the only known way, in a rural society where hunting was an integral part of life and symbolic stories of martyr-hood formed the basis of local religion, violence was a natural resort. Hence it was rural Basque society or first generation Basque immigrants to the towns and cities (as in Ireland, 1916-1923) that provided most of the militants and ETA members and, according to Clark (1984), most of them and their activities took place in the Basque equivalent of Stewart’s (1989) Ulster ‘shatter belt’, i.e. where modernising Spain collided with traditional Basque society. Outside of these ‘collision’ areas terrorist activity was relatively small, in areas not threatened with modernity or which had already been modernised. Thus it was where traditional order is most immediately threatened that the problem is greatest. Zulaika (1988) provides a wonderful example of the problem when he discusses the role of agricultural cooperatives designed to help make Basque agriculture more efficient and economical and so save the baserria. These coops’ were almost universally hated by traditional Basque communities and often shunned, despite the fact that they offered the basseria an economic lifeline, which implied the preservation of Basque life. However, in practice the cooperatives meant the death of traditional Basque culture and farming. To work the cooperatives had to have modern central depots, machinery and processing plants, run on modern economic lines with modern managerial systems, this meant extending such factors out to their suppliers, the baserria, and requiring them to conform to regular quotas,

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schedules, deliveries, standards, routines and all the other demands of modern management: in fact, just the things Basque culture was revolting against. The baserria is not just an economic unit, it is way of life and culture, with precise meanings, expectations and its own patterns, linked in to social networks and relations, with its own rituals, rhythms and un-thought out ways. The basseria linked men with their primordial past as well as current relations in a very deep and rooted way that could not be valued in material or economic terms (any traditional Irish Republican would empathise deeply). Thus Basques and ETA moved off a calculable and rational plane on to a higher, metaphysical one, of cosmic forces and sacred heritage, in turn bound up with a Catholic culture in which submission to higher authority (not secularising Spain’s material and individualist one), communal conformity, integration and a diet of martyrs to provide role models and symbols of suffering and sacrifice abounded (Jeurgensmeyer, 1993 and 2001). But above all a sacred order was under attack, which in turn impelled men to resort to its violent defence, since they (and the individual and the social order cannot here be separated out precisely because men are social) saw violence being done to their social and cultural world. And it may come as a shock to both old fashioned Marxists and new fashioned free marketers (but not to Karl Marx or Adam Smith) that men can value non-economic things over economic ones. For what does man live? Perhaps this is why no one can ever quite kill God off. Our third example is Sri Lanka, where the current vicious terrorist campaign appears to be ended (much will depend on government wisdom in post-conflict rebuilding). Once again, the contours of the conflict follow a classic line of clash of orders, between Tamil (predominantly Hindu in religion and speech) and Sinhalese (predominantly Buddhist in religion and Sinhalese in speech). Under the British and immediately following independence both communities had lived together reasonably amicably since English was the acknowledge lingua franca for government and business, in addition there was no attempt to try and impose a formal ethnic or religious identity on Sri Lanka, hence both communities (orders) could live in tolerance of each other and share within a relatively neutral, civic space. But it was when the majority Sinhalese community (or their opportunist politicians) began to impose a single ethno-religious Sinhalese identity and official language that the troubles began (Whitaker, 2001, chapter 6, Bloom, 2005, Devotta, 2005), which in turn led on to some of the worst terrorist violence of modern times, including pioneering suicide bombing (Pape, 2005, Pedahzur, 2005). Once again it was the problem of one order threatening another, devaluing and degrading it in terms of potential economic rewards, e.g. government and major private sector jobs, and social reward, e.g. status and prestige. It also made it difficult for those non-Sinhalese speakers to be able to negotiate with government and other administrative systems. Thus, symbolically non-Buddhists were reduced to second class citizens and excluded from the dominant order and denied important life opportunities, whilst the majority would be bound to see the minority now in ‘impure’, alien terms.

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From now on the Tamil order had to be, at least partially, abandoned for its individual members to be able to progress in life (which could make them objects of suspicion, even alien, in their own community). But order is a prime factor in the maintenance of life, an important part of which is the ability to link ourselves into a historical order or chain of memory that fixes us in the cosmos and gives us our sense of being and place, past and future, which is what religion does (Hervieu-Leger, 2000). Order is not just today, but also past and present as part of a continuum over time that gives meaning, structure and purpose to our lives, giving it up is not easy since it takes away part of our lives, which is why order conflates with religion. Further, why should anyone simply give up what gives them meaning and purpose? Once again, we are back to something worth fighting and dying for – God and community (nation). Attack the order and one attacks religion and the Gods, who can legitimately invoke any kind of violence in their own defence since they are not bound by earthly rules. Further, once the official order excludes the other we are back at the Spanish guerilla scenario, where the people take over the war and order is removed from its conduct as it becomes increasingly bestial. The God of order (Apollo) is replaced by the God of disorder (Dionysus). Terrorism now becomes the religious response of Dionysus, as it also did for the IRA in Ireland (Catholic peasant order against modernising Protestant) and for ETA in the Basque Lands (traditional Catholic peasant against modernising Catholic Spain). But for this to happen there has to be a real sense of order, i.e. an identifiable community with all of its socio-cultural and structural implications, being under attack. This was one reason why the left-wing and right-wing terrorists in the 1970s rarely gained popular support. Groups like Baader-Meinhof in West Germany or the Red Brigades in Italy (Reich, 1990) were never able to garner enough community support or sympathy for their violence to legitimate it. The fascists in 1930s Germany and Italy did attract a recognisable community, i.e. a significant strata of society who could recognisably pass as representing their nation, which could share a sense of threat to their order, for whatever reason. The same applies for Catholic nationalists in Northern Ireland, Basque separatists in Spain or Tamils in Sri Lanka, the order that links them and sustains their sense of life, being and purpose as a community is commonly felt to be threatened. Thus, although only a small minority engage in the violence the majority of a community can empathise with them and their cause, because they are linked at the socio-cultural level as social beings in the same order and so share the same sense of threat. Of course majority communities may also feel a similar sense of threat from minority communities and since they invariably have access to the formal forces of law and order and state intelligence their terrorism may be even more extensive and brutal, although more ‘disciplined’ and calculated, e.g. the Hutu genocide against the Tutsis in Rwanda (Taylor, 1999) or the Nazis against the Jews (Eatwell, 2003). But the principle is the same.

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Finally we come to Islamic fundamentalism. This is a very loose concept that relates to violence emanating from Islamic groups, frequently only loosely connected. It is very different from the other three examples in that whilst their violence was restricted to specific territorial claims or targets, Islamic violence, for want of a better term, appears to be world-wide and targets everyone, although Americans seem to take it very personally. However, despite its relative nonterritoriality and its overtly religious character it displays most of the same characteristics as nationalist movements, thus also illustrating the conflation of community, nation, society, religion and order again. Of primary concern in Islam is the concept of the ‘ummah’ or community of the faithful. The ummah has a double meaning, both of the local community and of the world-wide community of Islam (something redolent of pre-modern Europe where local communities – particularism – were part not of a nation but of Christendom), and the community implies an order whose relations are governed by Sharia law. However, in Islam the order, or ummah, is specifically related to the idea of a final revelation from Allah, as revealed in the Quran, as to how life should be led on earth, making it holy in a very specific way (Armstrong, 2001, Pratt, 2005). No matter what this ideal might be or how it varies from place to place, to the faithful who live in it and experience it locally, i.e. the vast majority of Muslims, it has an air of inviolability. In addition it has an air of timelessness to add to its inviolability since in the pre-modern societies where it dominates there has been very little change since its inception. Timeless, sacred order is thus the essence of the ummah, with a strong emphasis on close communal ties (common in all pre-modern societies), tradition and social, not individual, living. Such close communal living ensures strong and immensely supportive social networks and extended family systems where a strong affinity of identity and being between individual and the group or community are important. The individual and groups’ knowledge of the particular is strong, but often very weak in terms of the cosmopolitan, and religion plays a central, almost defining role in individual and communal life so that it becomes a key aspect of identity, which is mostly socially derived. The ummah, in which Islam is central, thus contains the individual and supplies them with most of their key, sacred concepts of identity, being, purpose, role and function in life and after it, it also supplies most of the life-sustaining social and economic support networks and rewards (Gellner, 1981, Pratt, 2005). Consequently, when the ummah is threatened it strikes at the heart of individual and social being. And what strikes so violently at the heart of Islamic society as to warrant its violent reaction is modernity, the invasion of modern values, relations and ideals that disrupt those of the ummah. The modern order (individual, industrial, western, international, cosmopolitan, Christian and Jewish) invades and violates the old order (traditional, communal, rural-peasant, eastern, particular, Muslim). The norms and relations of traditional society are violently offended and so Allah expects violence to be done back to lay down border markers and to repel the alien,

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also to symbolically inspire the true believers who have read how the martyrs of old gave their lives or shed blood (Islam is a warrior religion) to bear witness (the literal meaning of martyr in Greek) to the cause, i.e. Islamic order. The instances of violence to the ummah are numerous. First, in the case of Israel, because western, Jewish settlers not only came in and appropriated the sacred land, in many instances they violently expelled the indigenous population (Segev, 2001, Wasserstein, 2003). Meanwhile, Israeli violence was also used in an overtly symbolic way to assert Jewish toughness and identity vis-à-vis Palestinians (Lustic, in Crenshaw, 1995). They also introduced new, modern economic ideas based on individualism and industrial organisation that violated the norms and values of traditional Islamic culture and peasant socio-economic organisation. In addition, they introduced the new international, cosmopolitan world order into the enclosed confines of the particularist ummah at both local and pan-Islamic levels. In brief Israel, both by the nature of its creation and the symbolic nature of its being, does great violence to the ummah. This is something the west is often blind to because it tends to see violence only in its own terms, i.e. overt violence causing physical harm and death on an individual basis and not in terms of violence to the ummah, or order. Violence to the ummah can also be seen in ordinary everyday behaviour, often not recognisable to westerners. Here one has to think of the violation of Islamic cultural norms and values, on which important relations are founded, as western women walk openly alone, alcohol is openly consumed or pornographic material is freely displayed. Many westerners unthinkingly offend simply by their normal behaviour as they introduce individual and cosmopolitan standards into Islamic lands (tourists in Bali or Egypt). One may call it cultural violence or social violations, but to many Islamic minds it amounts to an attack on the holy order of the ummah, an order that has helped them survive for over a thousand years, sustained them and provided a sense of superiority and identity. Western objectivity (science – whose empirical and individualistic methodology deconstructs the communal order) can be very harmful to Islamic norms and values, which sustain the order and structure of the ummah and too easily conflate with physical violations, such as Israel, which stands as a symbolic marker for all that is going wrong in their world. In addition, as seen in Ireland and in the Basque Lands, it particularly tends to affect specific strata and hubs in society, those likely to be displaced by the new order and who have much to lose. One such losing group is traditional religion, which science invariably usurps as a source of truth and ultimate authority, because it works. In turn scientific concepts of organisation (Weberian rational-efficiency) imply loyalty to abstract bodies of man-made law, not religious or holy community, with its traditional skills and relations. The same applies in trade, commerce and local manufacture; new multi-national companies, or NGOs, such as major supermarket chains or charities quickly replace local shops and businesses, offering a greater range of cheaper goods, with better quality service, thus the local shop-keeper and trader, deeply embedded in the local community and a hub of knowledge, information and social relations, is made redundant, just like the cleric (‘MacDonaldisation’,

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Barber, 2003). A whole structure, order and way of life is undermined and men’s livelihoods, status, prestige and honour removed, as occurred in Ireland. And as with the Basque’s basseria it is not just the economic and material loss but the socio-cultural and metaphysical that give meaning and purpose. Hence the entire ummah (Islamic world), now connected via the international media and internet, can share the threat, empathise and sympathise because they can see and feel similar experiences in their own lives. This occurs not just because new physical contacts are made but also because of the massive inroads the modern media is able to make on men’s consciousness and relations. In the past contact, where it existed, was either, limited and restricted to elite relations or, as in the case of empires, restricted to an elite rule that left native populations alone to live according to their traditional culture. But, as in Ireland, the modern media floods the market with new ideas, lifestyles, choices and opportunities that imply new relations, many of which can only be glimpsed and so remain unfulfilled and so even more disturbing. Questions are raised as to why traditional society cannot provide the new goods and opportunities when the modern (west) can and so the order becomes questioned and threatened. The threat is magnified when, inspired by reports of new opportunities, lifestyles and standards of living, aspirant migrant workers flock from the rural areas into the new industrialising cities, seeking work and wealth. They leave behind the close relations and support systems of the ummah and drop the known traditional order, with known place, to migrate to the city where they simply become hired hands in an abstract market. The market knows no values or relations other than the cash nexus and soon reduces the migrant worker to an economic object in an alien world, lacking either social support networks or welfare and health systems. He now becomes the kind of alienated or anomic individual, part of an identity-less mass of urban workers that inhabited 19th century European cities. At first things might go reasonably well when men have jobs, but when the economy falters, the employer fails and men become unemployed, with no one to turn to, no familiar village community or family to support them, they become ripe for fundamentalist propaganda, just like the European anarchists. This in turn has to be set against the collapse of Islam, primarily the Ottoman Empire, as a major political and military power, the colonisation of large chunks of it by European powers and its failures to modernise and compete with the west in terms of socio-economic and political development. Most specific is Islamic society’s inability to come anywhere near to competing in terms of science, the key to all modern development and material success, when once Islam led the world. For an ‘ummah’ that sees itself as the final revelation of Allah this is deeply disturbing and humiliating and produces its own sense of disorder and disorientation, against which all the other particular instances must be set. For the fundamentalist the answer is easy, they have gone astray from the Quran and Sharia and so must return to it and then all will be well. Once again, expel the impure, purge the sacred lands of Islam of the profane western influences and rightful order will be restored: terrorism as ritual, symbolic cleansing.

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The success of the fundamentalists, and even non-fundamentalists, such as the Muslim Brotherhood, is precisely their ability to offer to provide order in individual’s lives by returning to the true way, the ummah. The false Gods of the west have failed, their order is chaos and serves only westerners and local lackies, but return to the true God who has served one for hundreds of years, return to the traditional order and all will be well. Further, one should work to expel all the corrupting influences that have led one astray and so save society as a whole, for only then will one be truly safe. Expel the west, which also conflates with Israel, from Islam, for which violence is theologically legitimate and symbolically significant and the ummah (and all true believers) can be saved. Wherever, one finds serious outbreaks of Islamic violence, from Egypt to Algeria, to Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan this is a key message (Toth, 2005, Crenshaw, 1994, Whitaker, 2001, chapter 10), it also lays down clear symbolic markers between the sacred (our territory) and the profane (yours). In fact it is not much different from the message in any of our examples. Another important aspect of Islamic violence that Pape (2005) addresses is the way that most suicide bombing campaigns respond to invasion of territory, i.e. violations of the sacred order and space, e.g. Israel. And this is particularly pertinent in relation to the Caucuses, where one saw the demise of an old superordinate order (communist), which, like Sri Lanka under the British, had been able to overlay a new inclusive (civic) order, values and norms over the old ethnic ones and so be able to include in all their members. But with the collapse of Communism there was no alternative civic, inclusive, order to replace it, hence men had to resort to the previous old, known orders, with all their implications. The Caucuses were a pot pouri of traditional ethno-religious groups, which meant no clear borders delimiting ethnic sacred space (under the Soviet regime regional borders had often been deliberately redrawn to create an ethnic mix with the aim of breaking down ethnic identities), hence most ethnic groups could be cast as violating another’s sacred space. Thus everyone faced the potential loss of their own order and with no alternative super-ordinate one, men had to fight it out to assert an order. Neighbours who had previously been good neighbours under a super-ordinate order now became violators of the sacred space if they were of another group, they became invaders of one’s territory in the battle to impose one’s own order and communal control, with all the material and non-material rewards that brings. Thus as we saw in Sri Lanka, and in the former Yugoslavia (Dyker and Vejvoda, 1996), a collapse of order impels the need to impose a new one, which is particularly pertinent where there are competing orders. In the Soviet situation there was a very specific case for reverting to religious violence in as much as what had failed had been a secular, enlightened state, albeit a non-capitalist one: hence, given the suddenness of the collapse, men looked for what was most readily at hand to replace it and which folk memory indicated had worked successfully, also one which linked into a chain of memory that provided a cosmic map and material rewards. Thus the violence almost had to evolve around religion in Yugoslavia

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and the Soviet Caucuses, given our previous understanding of religion (bonds and relations), even if the motives and calculations of key players may have been more prosaic. Only if the new order was recognisably ‘theirs’ would the community respond, otherwise they lost everything, which is why nationalism is so politically virulent, violent and religious (Cauthen, 2004, Friedland, 2001).

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Chapter 6

Durkheim, Sociology and Understanding Terrorism

All is but part of One Stupendous whole, Whose body Nature is, and God the Soul. Alexander Pope

First, Durkheim, never wrote about terrorism, it is just that I have found his sociology extremely useful in analysing and interpreting it, also Durkheim is regarded as one of the founding fathers of sociology and social anthropology, so his authority looms large, if not always unquestioned. Second: why sociology? Well, as Richardson (2006) observes terrorism is a social phenomenon, hence the causes of terrorism must lie in society, whose proper study is sociology. Terrorism is a social activity conducted by men who are consistently found to be psychologically normal and not necessarily acting in an abnormal manner (for their society). But they act in specific social fields, such as politics or economics, where their behaviour is regarded as abnormal by modern ideological and social standards. Further, economics politics and other social processes, at the fundamental level, are all social activities that do not occur outside of society. Indeed, conflict and violence by their very nature are social activities expressing specific forms of social relations, even if negatively, because it involves others and occurs within society and invariably has specific social aims, e.g. affecting relations of power or status. And whereas the enlightened trend had been to export violence out of civil society and bind it with laws and conventions terrorism seeks to re-import violence into society and remove the social shackles of law and civility. Nearly all the evidence we have indicates that terrorists are not mentally or psychologically maladjusted, indeed most are the exact opposite, i.e. very normal (Horgan, in Silke, 2003, Dingley, 1997). Thus, psychologically, terrorism is normal people acting in an abnormal manner, from our perspective (normal is a social concept); although violence may be more normal in society than is often realised. Hence the cause must lie outside the individual, i.e. in society, and if the individual terrorist is normal, then the abnormality must lie in the external, social realm. We are therefore dealing with a sociological problem (here I imply sociology in its classical sense as a discipline that integrates all the social sciences into a whole concept of society). Sociology, when founded in 19th century Europe, was consumed by the disorder, violence and conflict that racked Europe (Gildea, 1987), a response to changing social, economic, political, philosophical and ideological conditions,

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mostly brought on by the Enlightenment, science and industry. These destroyed or disrupted all the old traditional relations of peasant society, of religion, community, moral economy, politics, authority, legitimacy and threw men into a world of apparent chaos and disorder. This in turn led to two centuries of revolutions, nationalist insurgencies, fascism and wars as new forces, interests and classes battled with old ones for supremacy and to impose their new order. Order was the prime concern (and those bound by a specific order constituted a community or society), for without it life becomes impossible; and order here implied primarily social order, i.e. the relations between men, without which economic or political orders could not be established. Orders were only effective when they expressed real and relevant interests and forces and identifying them became a key concern for sociology. If one studies the main places of origin of modern ‘terrorism’ one finds societies and communities undergoing major changes, just like 19th century Europe, i.e. mostly peasant societies being disrupted by modern industrial values, relations, organisation and forces. Here I explicitly equate modernisation and industrialisation as part of the same historical process referred to as ‘progress’ by classical sociologists. And I would still accept the broad concept of progress (having seen traditional dentists at work in Pakistan) and do not accept that we live in a post-industrial world, it is simply increasingly sophisticated and complex (it’s how we get our TV’s, washing machines and cars). Further, it is the underlying values that go with this that are of greatest importance, i.e. thinking and behaving in an industrial culture of science, specialists, rationalism and individualism, with its emphasis on abstract conceptualisation, growth, deferred gratification, personal discipline and extended, diverse relations. In other words: high culture as against low culture in the anthropological sense (Gellner, 1983). The reason why modern politics so often fails to understand terrorism is because modern political systems are based on contemporary industrial values, which are not meaningful or relevant to the socio-economic and cultural conditions, issues and relations that spawn terrorism. It may be political violence in that it is not criminal but it does reflect deeper sociological problems, because ‘politics’ only works where the political system has the cultural and material roots that enable it to respond to the relevant conditions and express relevant interests of a given order (community). Modern liberal democracy is a product of and necessary corollary to modern socio-economic needs and interests and only works in those settings, outside of this it is felt and regarded as irrelevant and even oppressive, because it is not of and does not reflect real dominant social needs, interests, culture and values of an order and so has no moral hold or legitimacy. As Zulaika (1988) observed in the Basque Lands, ETA’s terrorism was directed to rejecting modernity because it undermined traditional culture and interests. Further, the shift from traditional to modern society involves totally new ways of organising society (complex systems of exchange and interdependency, division of labour, urban life, self-discipline), which implies a completely new consciousness in both man and society of who and what they are (Hughes, 1961). Just what is a

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man’s role and place in the new world, how to conduct his affairs, who to refer to, how to make his living, whose authority and rights should rule and a myriad of other questions. The old world may have been backward and poverty stricken but it was predictable, with known social and political references and order in closeknit communities providing great social and psychological comfort; all ripped apart by modernity. As discussed previously, it was the modernisation projects in Algeria or Egypt that produced the worst terrorism, it is the highly traditional society of Saudi Arabia, ‘invaded’ by western modernity that produced the ‘Twin Towers flyers’, it is the rudely disrupted traditional society of Palestinians that is disrupted by Israeli modernity. Even in Europe, the trouble spots are located where modernity clashes with and disrupts traditional life, e.g. Ireland, the Basques or former Yugoslavia, whilst it is the rural border regions of the old Soviet Union that provide the major conflicts there. Traditional, rural, semi-feudal societies, with strong senses of community (implying closely defined order) and religious affiliation dominate terrorism. And it was just these two points of community and religion that dominated much classical sociology. Today, community has something of a cult following in social science, it is deemed good and often serves as a reference point for post-modern idealisations and a justification for terrorism (Winfield, 2007) i.e. defence against modern market forces, which genuinely do disrupt local communities. However, religion is rarely given the attention today that it once had, except to discuss western secularisation and falling church attendance. Indeed, part of the western lack of understanding of terrorism lies in its lack of comprehension of religion, its role and how it can justify violence. Modern scholarship on religion, where it addresses religious practice, tends to regard it more as a minority life style choice and politically pacific (Fish, 2005). Yet if there are two causes that dominate terrorism it is community, in the guise of ethno-nationalism and local, peasant communities and religion. Indeed, since America has joined the club of terrorist hits religious terrorism has tended to dominate the agenda. But if one looks closely one will also see that most ethnonational terrorist movements emanate from peasant societies with a strong religious base, indeed, religion and communal identity often conflate at the local and ethnic level. Thus we have Catholic Irish and Protestant Ulster; Catholic Basques and secularising Spain; Catholic Croats, Orthodox Serbs and Muslim Bosnians; Muslims in Chechnya; Muslim Palestinians and Jewish Israelis; Buddhist Sinhalese and Hindu Tamils. The list is long but the link between ethno-national community, particularism, religion, consciousness and terrorism is extensive. Also, as Pape (2005) has demonstrated most of the religiously defined conflicts have major territorial disputes at heart and many of the local activists, whilst asserting their religion, are only inclined to battle within their territorial interests and borders – the aim is ethno-religious control of local, sacred territory. Thus whilst religion may dominate the headlines control of territory lies close beneath the surface, where small, local communities form a segmental structure of socio-political relations. Segmental implies a society where each local community

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is marked by similitude, i.e. it is a social replication of the others, and in this way they are bound together via likeness, not reciprocal exchange relations leading to interdependence (the basis of modern industrial relations). Consequently most segmental communities can lead relatively self-sufficient, stable and isolated lives, they do not need the outside world, which often appears threatening to them. And in such societies the church or mosque is the focal point for most formal and informal community relations, whilst external extended relations with other segments are usually conducted via the religious organisation, there being few other extended organisations. This is the typical pre-modern world (Gellner, 1983 and 1990), whose demise dominated much classical sociology. Territory is easily explained, since men need to live and feel secure somewhere to grow their crops and rear their cattle in safety and security. Hence the threat or use of violence to preserve and protect ones own: here land and control of it become vital and worth fighting for. The break up of Yugoslavia did not impel the violence, but who should have territorial control and claim legitimate rights over areas of mixed ethno-religious populations. Ethnic control of the state, territory and formal reward systems have major impacts on life chances, social position and economic opportunity: most states place limits on non-nationals holding land and only via the ethnic language can one gain access to the state. Ethnic control is frequently vital to maintain life sustaining socio-economic systems and physical security. But this does not explain the ubiquity of religion in political violence, given its association with non-violence and the way true believers and theologians invariably claim that theirs is a religion of peace and tolerance. Consequently, for this and other reasons, religion was an object of intense fascination for classical sociologists (Nisbet, 1996, Fish, 2005) since it went to the core of society and many conflicts. Hence our concern for classical sociology and Durkheim in particular, since, although he is no longer fashionable he is still a major influence on major sociologists such as Gellner, Giddens, Bellah or Nisbet. Part of his unfashionable appeal was due to traditional functionalist interpretations of him, e.g. Talcott Parsons, but in recent years works such as Jones (2001), Fish (2005) or Schmauss (1994) have done much to revise traditional interpretations. However, postmodernists tend to reject Durkheim largely because of his emphasis on a structural meta-narrative. Meanwhile, his work has become regarded as a building block of social anthropology, influencing such figures as Malinowski, Levi-Strauss, Gellner or Pitt-Rivers. Whilst from my own experience of analysing the divisions in Ireland (Dingley, 2006) and for generally understanding the nature and formation of nations (Dingley, 2008) I have found Durkheim an almost perfect template. For this reason I believe that Durkheim can teach us much about political violence and place the preceding chapters in some context, which is not to say that he alone can explain everything or be beyond criticism. A Durkheimian analysis is the starting point for a sociological analysis, not its end.

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The sociology of Durkheim and the role of religion For Durkheim society was religion: he unambiguously asserts that religion is nothing other than a system of symbols, structures and representations that reflect society back to us (1984 and 1995). In addition religion provides man with a set of moral instructions and imperatives which act to maintain society. Durkheim thus creates a systematic relationship between morals, religion and society, an integrated holy trinity, which in turn is related to economic organisation. God is merely the idealised form of society, a collective representation of the ideal form and shape of social man. Thus religion is not to be interpreted in purely theological ways but as a collective and symbolic representation of the social. This made religion a crucial ‘social fact’, only it should be understood metaphorically as well as literally. Religion was the transcendent, other being over and above men as individuals, which had authority and legitimacy to inform our behaviour, and for Durkheim the only being that could exist over the individual was society, i.e. the structure of social relations that existed over and above man, which was the essence of religion. Each religion (society) was thus its own ultimate authority and legitimising force, its own God. From this Durkheim then saw man as primarily a social being, a product of society, whose essence and being at the conscious and cognitive level is a product of society. Thus man is God/society made being and his conscience and soul are but society acting on and through him, informing him how to be social, and defence of the social was also defence of ones self. Man can only live and survive in and through society, which is the set of relationships (order) that link men together into life sustaining communities on which we depend for both our material and psychic well being. These networks of social relations bind and enclose us in a social order (community, specific structure of relations) on which we are dependent. Thus Durkheim’s man is a duality, both individual and social, but at the same time his individuality is also a function of the social, i.e. his social relations and the demands they make on him. Societies are real things, with their own vital needs and interests, made up of individuals, but existing apart (above) from, but also through them. The network of relations that constitute society are functional to survival in their unique environments and therefore constitute the means for survival of the individual as well. Hence men and their livelihoods are dependent upon society as a life giving and generating force, providing physical sustenance, identity and consciousness. God/society is the source of life beyond mere animal existence, and even here men are hugely dependent on community based activity to respond to the purely physiological requirements for survival. Survival requires cooperation and each community has its own unique style of cooperative rules and relations, morals and obligations, i.e. social order, intimately known only unto them, on which the individual is dependent for survival and conscious being, place them in a different community and their ability to cope is greatly decreased (The Country of the Blind), which is what happens when sudden change and development imposes new social orders.

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Meanwhile internal and external environments change and develop, creating a need for new relations, but these have to be internally generated, responding to felt internal needs to gain moral legitimacy and acceptance, i.e. it acquires religious (social) sanction, to change the social order leading to social cohesion – the ultimate objective for survival. Without cohesion society breaks down and cannot fulfil its life sustaining functions. This dominated Durkheim’s thought – the need for cohesion or solidarity in the chaotic conditions of 19th century France (Dingley, 2008). And this was a key function of morality and hence religion, to create a sense of moral obligation to maintain solidarity, it acted to cement the relations that formed the structure of society, hence a single, dominant religion becomes a functional and symbolic necessity. A shared morality (religion) was thus vital to maintain a community, so that everyone felt the same sense of social obligation and maintained the vital social relations: different religions or moralities implied competing social orders, legitimacy, authority and obligations, causing chaos and conflict. Here we have a simple explanation for religious violence, a metaphor for the defence of society against ‘harmful’ internal or external elements; indeed, violence becomes a moral (religious, social) obligation. The violence may be used to repress internal dissent, or against external disruptive forces, anything that threatens the social structure, cohesion and consciousness of the community. Such threats may come from new ideas, socio-economic relations, cultures or morals, e.g. new economic models, science, work organisations, liberalism, or invading armies – anything deemed harmful to community relations and social solidarity. For without solidarity societies break up and since man is a product of society something within him dies if society is lost. Here Durkheim’s ideas of community and society need some elaboration. In their earliest forms these were clans and tribes but later developed into what we call ethnic groups and nations, indeed a vital point about Durkheim’s concept of modern society is that it does equate with the nation (Dingley, 2008), which gives him particular relevance when looking at the problems of nationalist and religious violence (nation = society = religion) and social ownership or occupation of territory makes it holy, hence also a moral, religious imperative to defend territory. Different societies or communities may be more or less autonomous and many were originally sub-groups of others and there is no hard and fast rule as to what provides a dividing line. In addition, most ‘societies’ are made up of many different communities, often very localised and isolated and with little consciousness of any outside larger community such as nation. However, what binds is primarily a set of relations that tie everyone one into a single network (order) and common experience in the face of a common environment and shared morality which cements social relations and makes them obligatory. This in turn ties in with the etymology of religion (Latin: religio, bonds of relations) and of society (Latin, socio, compassion for): thus we have the concepts of compassion for those we are in relations with, which helps give us an explanation for nationalism’s religious and violent potential.

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Religion brings one back to another important dimension of terrorism and Durkheim’s concept of religion – sacrifice. The sacrificial act is central to most religions and the role of martyrs in them merely serves to heighten the sacrificial (violent) emphasis. The Gods, to live, need feeding and sacrificial victims are an important dimension of doing this, even if only symbolically, e.g. the Christian Eucharist. The shedding of blood and slaughter of others is thus part of religious tradition; violence is at the heart of religion not beyond it and the trauma and passion of violence helps rekindle the emotional consciousness of men and recall them to sacred duties. The reason for this lay in what Durkheim referred to as collective effervescence and in returning to the Gods what originally belongs to them. If society is God, then only society has the means and authority to give life, land, property, legal and other rights, therefore it is part of the due rights of the Gods to have returned to them as symbolic recognition what is originally theirs, even if only in token form. Since the Gods give, all belongs to them and sacrifice recognises that ultimate authority. This becomes especially true if the sacred is profaned, i.e. what is religious becomes contaminated by the irreligious (non-social, individual), and what is religious is all that society holds in common and represents the collective interest, what is profane is that which relates to the individual or originates beyond the collective. When the sacred is profaned it must be made sacred again and the impurity expunged and the way one does this is via sacrifice: blood cleanses and washes away the impurity, especially if carried out via the correct rituals and ceremonies, which help recall and induce the right, emotional frame of mind. The emotional element of sacrifice lifts men above the profane to recall them to their social being and obligations. Thus we have a further link between religion (social) and violence, since all that offends the social profanes the religious and must be expunged. By sacrificing to the Gods, e.g. terrorist victims, we make sacred and pure again. This may either be via violence in expelling alien forces or shedding ones own blood on behalf of others to cleanse and expiate (Christ crucified) or any other offering or oblation to the Gods. Naturally the greatest sacrifice is one’s own life (martyrdom) which if achieved for recognised social good ensures one an immortality in the communal, collective memory. Statues and memorials are erected, folk tales told, myths created that last as long as the community honours them, which in turn helps maintain the community by becoming a focus for community to renew itself via regular ceremonies of remembrance – life beyond the individual to inspire others. Since, for Durkheim, only society exists beyond the individual our afterlife is that of being in the collective memory, which occurs when we perform acts that can be eulogised as symbolic of good social behaviour and ideals that raise the social consciousness. This helps renew society through example and consciousness and sanctifies the martyr, just like Captain Danjou or Islamic and Tamil suicide bombers, they maintain their communities existence and consciousness, particularly when threatened, which is why their memories are revered, even videoed before

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martyrdom, and constantly extolled before new recruits and the community as a whole (funerals are particularly potent events here). In addition, sacrifice helps to renew the emotional and conscious attachment to society via Durkheim’s idea of collective effervescence, i.e. moments of great collective emotional intensity that recall men to and renew their bonds and commitment to society. The trauma of sacrifice, death and maiming has great emotional intensity, so too does religious ritual and ceremony and both are greatly increased when experienced on a collective scale. Here, when all are gathered together, to celebrate, commemorate, witness or otherwise experience important events they have a major emotional impact on all of us that is capable of transporting us above our normal, individual levels of consciousness – a religious experience. To Durkheim this was merely the greater sense of the social being recalled within us, recalling us to our social roots and raising men above their profane, mundane and personal interests. Thus we have memorial services at the Cenotaph where all the nation stops and shares and remembers the sacrifice of our war dead, it reminds men of things beyond and above and recalls them to a greater purpose, of duty and obligation that can transform us (Fish, 2005). Collective events or memorial services of any kind recall the social in us at an emotional level, not a rational one. We feel our collective being that takes us beyond our private material interests. Even if we don’t wholly agree with the specific act of sacrifice we at least feel for the cause and ideal of self-sacrifice that led men to commit the act. Even at the time of the act, e.g. a mass suicide bombing in Iraq, usually carried out deliberately in broad daylight, amongst crowds and with easy media coverage, precisely so that it can be collectively experienced, we feel the emotional intensity of it and the emotions recall us to the collective, religious dimension, even if it is just to ask ‘but why?’ (Dingley and Mollica, 2007, Dingley and Kirk-Smith, 2002). We now have further explanations for terrorism: symbolic acts of sacrifice, often utilising their own form of ritual and ceremony in their preparation and commemorations, which are major occasions for collective effervescence. At a time of loss in society (fractured relations) we come together to renew the collective essence and death becomes transformed into a source of new life. Terrorism becomes a kind of religious act, which helps explain the normal nature of terrorists and their often moral nature, which is why they are not criminals (criminal acts are wholly profane). Terrorism plays on the emotional, sacrificial and sacred dimensions of religion and social being, which defies the logic and calculation of self-interest, modern industrial society and individuality (profanity). Thus did we notice that terrorism predominantly comes from pre-modern societies with strong communal and religious sentiments. In addition, the vast majority of terrorists have usually been brought up in religiously infused environments, at home and in school, where religious teaching and metaphor dominate the formation of their consciousness. Catholic schools in Ireland and the Basque Lands or madrasas in Islamic societies help socialise children into a religiously infused universe and consciousness that conditions their

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cognitive processes and understanding to see and interpret the world in a religious way that abounds with martyrs and symbols of suffering and sacrifice in a largely static, God-given world, e.g. Iraq or Afghanistan. Mechanical and organic solidarity This was the main theme of Durkheim’s first book, The Division of Labour in Society, where he traced out his theory of human development from primitive or lower societies to modern progressive ones. Division of labour, on which modern society is founded, is the kernel of his progress, the basic principle upon which modern societies differ from pre-modern ones. It implies a wholly new and different principle of social organisation and relations (organic) and, consequently, religious experience from that of pre-modern society (mechanical). And in this one can identify a major cause for violent conflict, for not only would two societies of the same type, mechanical or organic, pose conflicting socio-religious imperatives, because of conflicting networks of social relations (order), but between organic and mechanical the conflict would be even greater since they pose totally opposed principles of order , morality and being social. One might say that between societies there comes a war of the Gods. Mechanical societies are the original form of social relations, marked by very low differentiation between members where individualism is an almost non-existent concept in extreme cases: and here we are discussing extreme cases to make the point. Here communal conformity dominates and the individual is almost totally subsumed in the whole, collective existence alone is important and religion suffuses and dominates everything. Individual rights, personality, identity, consciousness, knowledge and being is limited, whilst collective ideas and sentiments pervade and dominate around a few close, intimate relations that evolve around a few basic skills necessary for primitive survival, itself organised collectively. Only as a closely bound collective can primitive societies survive against the forces of nature, e.g. the hunt. Hence moral and religious forces are directed toward a rigid conformity to maintain social cohesion via similitude and sharing to maintain the few intimate collective relations, where critical thought is discouraged and strict religious observance maintained. In turn, religion dominates all aspects of life, ceremony and ritual accompany most acts, the Gods are felt to be close and intimate and the world is experienced as a fixed, concrete place where Gods act directly on men. Durkheim identified such primitive societies with the earliest forms of social life, such as clan or tribe, which later develop into city states and then feudal, peasant society. But as society advances so does the development of the individual, intellectual awareness and ability to conceptualise in the abstract. At the same time the structure of relations that compose society become more extensive, complex and sophisticated to take account of increasingly new experiences and contact with others as increased population (moral) density leads to the development of

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a rudimentary division of labour where men have to divide finite resources and skills and develop exchange relationships to survive without ruinous conflict. However, the basic ideal and moral impetus, the social centre of gravity is still towards social conformity at an overt level and religious dominance in relatively small and immediate locations. Such societies dominate whilst men are fixed in an environment that is dependent on living off the land (which strong social consciousness makes very holy), i.e. pre-industrial, where nature primarily acts on man. However, such societies may later develop a high degree of internal sophistication and complexity and there was no hard and fast line between mechanical and organic or when one transformed itself into the other. However, for Durkheim, there came a critical point at which a society crossed over and its imperative tended to organic social relations (structures). Here the ideal of social order is founded upon the concept of reciprocity of differences. Instead of order and cohesion being maintained by conformity and similitude it is maintained by an interdependence of differences, of complex, extended networks of exchange between highly differentiated skills (division of labour) and goods over extensive distances. At one level this leads to an intense differentiation, and the rise of the concept of the individual, as men increasingly concentrate on narrow, specialist skills related to singular projects or activities and develop distinct differences (the old peasant was usually multi-tasked with a small array of simple skills). This is the basis of division of labour, whereby we all become increasingly different and separated from others by our development of singular, differentiated skills, often of such great depth that men do not have the time or resources to master more than one activity. This is modern industrial society, where men act upon nature, change their physical environment and free themselves from passive conformity to the forces of nature. Men no longer have the moral and material necessity to bond together in tight-knit communities to defend themselves against the ravages of nature in relatively isolated localities, where survival requires intense cooperation. In addition, small, isolated communities also imply close social observation and moral pressures to conform, especially where intellectual development is low: the opposite now occurs. Industrial division of labour produces an unique social order and cohesion because its specialisation requires constant interchange and exchange with others in a highly standardised manner, especially as organisational systems become more complex and sophisticated. In modern society few men would know how to exist and survive by themselves (peasants living close to the land do) and the vast majority are completely dependent upon receiving their life-sustaining goods from others. Modern products and services depend upon thousands of others all performing their specialist skills on time, often in different countries and to the right standards to fit in with each other. In fact differentiation creates a need for standardisation and so similarity at a far more abstract, cognitive and moral level – a shared scientific culture. Specialisation may create the individual but it also necessitates a standardised individual able to fit into the complex whole

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with all the other individuals in a complex set of socio-economic relations, i.e. social structure, as in Gellner’s (1983) ‘high culture’ based on a standard set of underlying values that enable all the parts to co-exist and exchange, pace Alder (2004). The differences have to be compatible. Thus order and cohesion are maintained via reciprocity, which creates, first, a relational requirement, i.e. we fit in with others, and also a moral requirement, i.e. because we are all interdependent in the ‘stupendous whole’ we have to be tolerant of others, individual differences and self-disciplined. Of course, there are limits to our tolerance, individuals have to be seen as at least non-harmful and preferably useful (functionalism) to the social whole. But increasingly individual tolerance becomes the functional necessity, moral imperative and religious ideal behind modern order, whereas in mechanical society overt conformity was the moral ideal. Whilst it was neither necessary or desirable in mechanical society and even positively harmful where survival was linked to strong communal conformity, thus violent repression was called for. Industrial society has learnt to release itself from passive dependence on nature and can therefore release the individual from conformity, which enables us to develop our separate talents and become individuals. In an artificially created world we can manufacture new ideas, social relations and means independent of nature, so freeing us from submissive conformity and close social scrutiny, implying different principles of organisation and morality, which become the core of our religious experience. Equally, since society and nature play on us less and as we become increasingly autonomous we feel less acted upon by society and our religious consciousness declines and religion plays a decreasing role in our lives, except where it idealises the individual. An important feature of mechanical society is its segmental structure, i.e. it is composed of many different segments that are separate but all alike in form and content and shared ideals, e.g. a series of small but identical communities perhaps sharing a common language and religion, such as an ethnic group. But each segment can survive individually apart from the others, the whole and the part can exist relatively independently, consequently pre-industrial ethnic groups could straddle state boundaries and not be affected or different ethnic groups dominate others in a single state, as long as it did not interfere with the internal functioning of the local community. However, this is not the case in organic societies which, because of their division of labour have to reach out, expand and break down segmental barriers and differences to effect their extended exchange relations. Hence, segments have to be disrupted and broken down, new standard forms of relations and communications (language, currencies, weights and measures) and a new consciousness (high culture) that can think beyond the local are introduced that undermine the segmental communities. This was precisely what the unification nationalisms did when they turned Peasants Into Frenchmen (Weber, 1976). Organic society implies the demise of mechanical, segmental society; it implies a new life giving social order, which is a denial of both the moral and functional basis of mechanical relations. The organic individual violently disrupts

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the conformity, relations and consciousness of mechanical solidarity, whilst the mechanical denies the individual development necessary for organic relations and order. Organic and mechanical imply the total opposite of each other and cannot co-exist because the one denies the legitimacy, authority, morality, religion and functionality of the other: thus may we reflect on western values and ideals in Afghanistan or Saudi Arabia, or Catholic Irish in Protestant Ulster. And this went to the heart of what Durkheim saw as the cause of much socio-political conflict in 19th century Europe. One could simplify it as individual versus community in sociological terms. Thus industrialising, unification nationalisms, e.g. France, Italy, Germany, tended to involve conflicts to break down ethnic differences, whilst rural-peasant, ethnic-separatist nationalism, e.g. Basques or Irish, tended to involve conflict against the metropolitan state to erect ethnic barriers to unification (Dingley, 2008). Organic and mechanical were functional necessities for each order’s milieu at both the individual and communal level. But for Durkheim the advancement from mechanical to organic was the essence of progress and history, hence the impetus was always to organic, but only in as much as organic structures were functional to a societies milieu, e.g. organic structures for industrial economies. Society was a real living thing that had to develop in its own way, spontaneously responding to its own environment at its own pace, according to its needs as it developed. Hence, the imposition of industrial morals and norms, e.g. liberal democracy, before a society had developed a functional need for them, e.g. an industrial economy, such as in Afghanistan or Pakistan, by external forces would be felt as alien, dangerous to vital relations, identity and being and hence sacrilegious. Thus different societies develop differently and at different speeds although all tend to one ultimate scientific truth, since science revealed a new, universal truth and was itself a product of the specialising process of division of labour. Science actually becomes the new God, directly developing out of religion, hence it may appear very sacrilegious and threatening to traditional mechanical societies, one thinks not only of the traditional Catholic Church’s opposition to science but also contemporary Islamic societies abysmal record in science (Economist, 2002, New Scientist, 2002). This now provides us with another level of understanding political violence. Societies forced to share the same territory find that the imperative of one source of moral authority is in direct conflict with the other, symbolised in the opposition of traditional religion to science. Thus Catholic or Islamic societies which have to share their territory with non-coreligionists find that Protestant or non-Islamic ideals of individualism cannot co-exist with ideals of social (religious) conformity, further, their very existence becomes a challenge to the authority of the established religion. One authority alone has to reign supreme over a territory if order is to be maintained: there is a logical incompatibility between demands for communal conformity and individualism. Thus, whilst both Catholicism and Islam emphasise that salvation can only be through their community, as sole purveyors of truth, so the toleration of other religions or science becomes a challenge to their truth

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and community. This incompatibility can be avoided where the two groups can be kept separate, as may be the case in segmental systems, but the very nature of industrialisation and economic development (division of labour) means that this can only be a temporary measure since eventually they will pervade most societies. Further, it is not always possible to segmentalise, although ethno-nationalism often attempts to do this by erecting national borders, for, as was the case in Catholic Ireland a significant Protestant minority already formed a clear majority in one area (Ulster) of the claimed national territory. Significantly this Protestant community was also the only industrialised one in Ireland, with extensive trading and international exchange relations, they built ships (notably the Titanic) and manufactured linen for world markets and, significantly, were the only scientific centre in Ireland. Meanwhile the rest of Ireland was a peasant-proprietor economy. The implications of this for Durkheim were tremendous, since economic relations were key to social relations (both formed a mutual interdependency). The religious conflicts in Ireland/Ulster can now be seen to be one of opposed socio-economic relations, creating opposed forms of social order, culture, socio-economic interests, identity and sense of being, which led to different consciousness and moral imperatives symbolised in religion. As previously discussed, the violence tends to emanate from the points of contact and interface between the two communities, when one invades the other (Dingley, 2006), invariably progressive development invading self-sufficient segments and undermining them. A similar situation arises with the Basques where the violence is greatest just where the incursions of a modernising and secularising Spanish state are most immediately felt and disrupt traditional relations and community. Here, the modernising Spanish state undermines local relations as it tries to develop the region economically and introduce new agri-business methods or industries. These imply new relations and new moral imperatives, externally imposed, even if for their own economic good, that threaten the social (religious) being of the Basques because they will radically disrupt the traditional social relations (order) that defines them, gives them consciousness and sustains their sense of being and worth (Clark, 1984, Zulaika, 1988). If such development occurs internally as a product of their own internal dynamic then it is felt, rather than rationalised, as a natural extension of their own being and so becomes acceptable. But even so, there may be many opposed to even this, since it implies the death of certain relations, consciousness and knowledge that are emotionally cherished and highly pertinent to some men’s local socioeconomic and political position. Those at vital points in networks of relations hold great power and prestige, hence any change in them vitally affects some men’s livelihood, esteem and socio-economic status: those particularly vulnerable are typically the local small town traders and professionals at the hubs of local relations and knowledge whose positions are threatened by cosmopolitan relations: they tend to dominate terrorist movements. Such men are also in powerful positions to influence and inform others in the social network of relations, invariably centring

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around religious meeting places, so moulding communal consciousness. Hence terrorists often come from religious backgrounds, because religion is a metaphor for social relations and community. Equally one can apply this analysis to Islamic societies, where religion and terrorism are overtly mixed and often operate out of mosques or organisations like the Muslim Brotherhood. Its targets have been symbols of modern socio-economic organisation and identity, especially if they appear to project those symbols of modern western relations such as liberal individualism, female autonomy, and market relations, banks, or holiday resorts where western tourists import alien values and lifestyles. It is where western, material, secular forces collide with traditional Islamic society, disrupting the ummah, and its traditional social relations, values and norms, i.e. undermining the community, that we find the points of conflict. Equally when Islamic societies have tried to modernise, particularly where they have failed, e.g. Egypt and Algeria, we find the worst violence. Here the traditional social relations of peasant society have been violated and religion undermined by industrialisation which has proved a false God, which prompts an extra violent response. Another situation related to this is the one where a system of, imposed external relations have existed, e.g. the former Soviet Union or Yugoslavia, which suppressed old relations and imposed new ones which worked adequately enough for a time. But when these relations are suddenly removed the old relations re-emerge in lieu of any alternative, because they are known and can be rapidly re-utilised to local benefit. Once again, religion would play a major role simply because it not only supplied the previous structure of relations (particularly parochial and diocesan and keeping the language alive), but it usually continued to exist under the previous regime and inform men at a subliminal level of consciousness. It provided instant identity, relations and collective consciousness, having sustained them during the period of suppression. The old relations had merely been temporarily suspended whilst the imposed ones were in play and provided a network capable of providing the necessities for social mobilisation, decision making and political power. When the new relations (Communist God) failed men merely reverted to pre-existing relations temporarily suspended. A major problem here was that the Soviet regimes often deliberately drew internal borders that deliberately cut across old ethno-religious relations and communities to encourage the break-up of past ethnic identities. But when these regimes broke up they were confronted with Soviet internal borders as new external borders which simply did not match the social reality (relations) of the new/old ethnic community. And with no new external body prepared to step in and broker the revision of borders on a more realistic basis it was simply left for each to battle it out to claim or assert what they could. The violence was therefore inevitable and predictable given the importance of society and the dependence of the individual on it. Men felt a moral obligation to commit sacrifices for the territory made holy by one’s own society (ethno-religious group) and the greater the sacrifice the more holy, e.g. Bosnia-Herzegovina, Nagorno-Karabakh or Chechnya, where the sacred territory of one society has been profaned by another.

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This level of analysis may also be applied to Palestine/Israel, leaving aside the vexed question of how the state of Israel was established. Israel is not only Jewish in identity and consciousness but is largely a western import based on modern, relations, values and norms, i.e. organic solidarity, whilst traditional Palestinian society is based on the Islamic ideal of the ummah, a mechanical form of solidarity. The ummah refers both to local community and that of all Islam, and the ummah is the final form of righteous community ordained by Allah and ruled by Sharia, it is therefore very sacred (Pratt, 2005). This now represents a twofold problem, first: western, industrial society (Judaic-Christian) has invaded and profaned the pan-Islamic ummah and the Palestinian ummah, so making it a holy conflict. Second, the kind of mechanical solidarity emphasised in the ummah is simply not compatible with the kind of organic solidarity emphasised in western, industrial society. The former places the emphasis on communal conformity and adherence to a single social type and norm, whilst the latter extols the virtues of individualism. Communal and individual imperatives do not mix, nor do separate consciousness and alternative sources of authority and legitimacy, or alternative sacred claims to the land, which we implicitly recognise in ideas on the inviolability of borders. Law For Durkheim law was an important index of the foregoing: in mechanical society law was simple, heavily religious, emphasised communal and traditional obligations and rights that stressed conformity and it relied heavily on punishment to impose communal conformity and repress individual differences. Meanwhile, in organic society the opposite was the case: the law moved to free the individual from social conformity and rigid regulation, it became increasingly secular and emphasised civic virtues of tolerance and individual diversity. In addition, organic societies increasingly expressed ideals of restitution in their law and the idea of regulating diverse and extended relations not repressing them. But above all law was a product and function of society, hence it was, by its nature, religious and holy, especially in mechanical societies where the social is more immediate and dominant, but in both cases the ideal behind the law, conformity or individualism, is even more sacred. Law was functional to the needs of society and diversity was a functional necessity for industrial activity and specialisation and so it became the moral imperative, it was not a right in itself but a right pertaining to social, sacred, needs of the community, to establish functionally required relations. Meanwhile, repression of differences was a moral imperative and sacred if it pertained to the needs for social survival in a pre-modern environment. Thus liberal, democratic rights and values should not be seen in themselves as either right or wrong but in relation to their functional relevance to a given society. Once again, we are looking at two opposed forms of legal imperative that do not mix, whilst also recognising

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that even different societies of the same organic or mechanical nature will have different internal dynamics and environments to respond to. Hence the imposition of ideals, laws, rights, norms and values from one society onto another will always feel oppressive and unjust to those made subject to them and legitimate violent revolt, e.g. modern legal norms in traditional Islam. Closely related is the idea of justice, since law is supposed to reflect it. Once again justice is an idea rooted in a society and its related religious, cultural and moral systems and how they pertain to a given internal and external milieu and men’s expectations and needs within them. Hence, what is just in one society may not be regarded as just in another, which has little relevance where intercommunal relations are very limited, but once different societies come into contact, enter exchange relations or have to share the same territory it becomes highly problematic. And since justice is worth fighting for it is frequently a source of conflict: thus a Basque or Irish nationalist’s concept of justice will differ from cosmopolitan Spanish or British ones. In moral philosophy this equates with Catholic scholastic versus modern scientific philosophy, where scholasticism begins from an acceptance of a preconceived order of things and one argues down from it to substantiate the existence of a given order, whilst modern scientific philosophy critiques and deconstructs existing orders to reconstruct up from first principles into new orders (Russell, 1961). Hence concepts of justice will vary enormously and quite innocently, but being dominated by another culture with its laws, rights, moral imperatives and ideals of justice may feel very oppressive, even where there is no intent to oppress. Interestingly, Islamic philosophy with its concept of ‘ummah’, also derives from the same Aristotelian, scholastic root, hence justice and the sacred both rest finally in the community and its maintenance, not individual rights, autonomy and freedom to dissent, since these would deny the final justice of Allah. Thus justice and truth in traditional Islam pertain to the maintenance of the ummah. Consequently, western ideals of liberal democracy, freedom and justice may well be perceived as unjust and oppressive (imperialism) if introduced into Islamic societies which have not reached the relevant stage of socio-economic development. Equally important is what is sacred: the law and justice are merely expressions of this and what is sacred in one society is not in another if it does not pertain to social needs and relations. Hence, human rights ideals and laws (based on liberal democratic standards) in traditional societies get rejected, where religion commands social obedience to sacred communal rights which triumph over liberal ideals. Liberal laws profane the communal sacred, which takes precedence. For this reason we can better understand the opposition of Islamic and other traditional societies and their violence to women’s rights, tolerance and individualism; these will disrupt the social relations upon which society is founded and worked harmoniously until modern liberal incursions, e.g. industrial development, tourism or oil. This also gives us another explanation for the prominent role of religion in many ‘radical’ (i.e. quite reactionary) militant and violent movements.

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This can also help us understand the problems of old western settler populations in European colonies. When the Europeans lived apart from the indigenous population effective socio-political borders existed to maintain two separate societies, but when independence and majority rule arrived this became impossible, so there now existed a situation where an organic minority had to integrate with a mechanical majority. Whilst on the one hand this produced democratic majority rule it also often led to the loss of liberal democracy, since the majority were still rooted in a mechanical society and culture, which had no tolerance for a liberal individualism that was intrinsically opposed to its social organisation. For the old colonial elite to integrate into the new majority implied the surrender of their elite and externally imposed organic social forms and ideals, i.e. going backwards and giving up freedoms and rights (as well as vested interests), which is very difficult to accept. Thus we can help explain the attitudes of colonies, Algerian independence, or white South African and Rhodesian fears of majority rule, which is not necessarily to justify them but to offer a level of explanation. One could add the same warning to current efforts to bring liberal democracy to traditional Islamic societies, e.g. Afghanistan or Iraq, or any other pre-modern society. Societies need to develop in their own way in their own time, adjusting internally to the demands of their specific milieu. It also helps explain the violence against the west, in the name of Islam, and the rejection of legal and moral standards and rights that western liberals regard as fundamental. Precisely because man is a social being and the social is sacred men cannot simply be changed or made to conform overnight to new social relations, norms or values, it takes time and the right environment; attempts to rush it will produce violent resistance because it will be felt and experienced as sacrilege. Offending the Gods is a far worse crime than offending western liberals and economists. It is in regions where there is a failure to create unified, extended or superordinate relations to overcome multi-cultural differences that ethno-religious tensions tend to lead to violence, e.g. the Caucuses, or where external relations impose on internal ones, e.g. Islamic world. A certain level of multi-cultural and ethnic diversity may be maintained where the differences are relatively superficial and avoid key issues, e.g. the rights of the individual, concepts of justice, economic interest or communal solidarity, but once these become major sources of difference they cannot be contained or tolerated within a single society. Law, emotion, knowledge, religion and violence This brings one back to a major theme of the entire book, which has stressed how the essence of civilised warfare was the gradual removal of violent and political conflict from society and then its steady codification under the laws and rules of war, making war socially rule bound yet external to society. Over several hundred years in Europe violence was incrementally removed from society, which coincided with the progressive development of society from pre-modern to modern, mechanical to

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organic. Life in pre-modern times was an infinitely more violent experience than today, as Whittock (2009, chapter 7) observes the homicide rate in 14th century East Anglia was greater than modern New York, capital punishment was the norm for anyone over 10 and violence was the normal way to resolve disputes between neighbours in a society where the law rarely reached down beyond the elite. Death was common place, either from disease or violence and the landed elite often preferred trial by battle (legal until 1819 in Britain). The idea of the rule of law and its general acceptance throughout society is a distinctly modern idea and clearly associated with the rise of civilisation, extended networks of economic exchange and urbanisation (where large masses of strangers had to congregate) as personal contacts declined and men had to exchange with complete strangers. This coincided with the decline of small intimate rural communities where everyone knew each other and could exert a social conformity, moral control and acceptance of rigid norms via the close observation and immediate social pressure of neighbours under the simple strictures of either tradition or the Church. And since few were literate and even fewer could afford lawyers the law was almost an irrelevance to many. Further, since most men lived in isolated rural communities the reach of the law would have been very difficult even at the best of times. Hence lawlessness and violence were endemic features in traditional rural societies, then and now. In addition, what law that existed was primarily religious in nature and grew out of religious teachings and dogma: most modern legal professions trace their roots to religion and key religious teachings. This coincides with Durkheim’s (1984) observations on the progressive development of law with modernisation and civilisation, particularly associated with the division of labour and organic society. Further, not only did law develop but Durkheim noted it changed its nature from punitive and repressive to enabling, of the individual, restitutive and civil. Law ceased to repress differences via punishment (judicial violence) but became concerned with contract and the regulation of differences between individuals to enable the reciprocal exchange an extended division of labour required: it replaced violence with extensive codes that freed individuals from previous ties, created rights and formalised duties and obligations. Thus, one of the first things the new nation-states in Europe did was to create formal written constitutions and extensive legal codes. The law, which only functions with the authority of and as an expression of society replaced divine rule with an extensive legal framework of justice that included everyone in as equal individuals. The next thing the new nations usually did was to set about introducing an universal educational system, (often followed by conscription) to ensure all its citizens were socialised into a common set of civic morals, values, norms and respect for the law (Hobsbawm, 1992, Gellner, 1983). In particular, where the new nation represented a modernising metropolitan or unification state it faced much resistance from rural and/or ethnic groups to incorporation. Such areas tended to be rural and by-passed by economic development (Breuilly, 1993) and formed the basis for separatist nationalisms and ethnic conflict, e.g. Ireland and the Basques, as Nairn (in Hall, 1988) has

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observed. It was also Harnden’s (1999) observation about Republicans fighting each other along the Irish border, that it would have made little difference which government ruled since this was their traditional way to resolve disputes. Even when we look at the rise of Islamic violence, we find it in opposition to modern law and emphasising the importance of Sharia, or even no recognisable law at all, with its violent punishments and repressive attitude to individual rights and freedoms that modern societies would regard as fundamental. Yet one only has to go back a couple of hundred years to find the same kind of legal and social attitudes in pre-modern Europe. The development of law and rights, the rejection of punitive and violent repression, either judicial or extra-judicial, can thus be shown to correspond to Durkheimian ideas on modern social development. Industrial division of labour required the complex coordination of a vast array of different skills and knowledge, it required increased specialisation and hence increased differences that needed peaceable coordination and careful re-integration into a whole that had to be tolerant of all its different parts and experiences. The law now reflected the new sacred – the individual and the need to regulate relations between them, profaned by attempts to impose social conformity. This is the opposite of pre-modern society where the individual profanes social conformity, and it is from here that modern terrorism largely comes, since it is a normal way of responding. Violence and emotional responses are normal in peasant, mechanical societies whilst legal-rational responses to protect individual rights are the modern norm. For Durkheim this reflects nothing more than the functional needs of modern society, but precisely for that reason they are alien to traditional societies, so that when individuals try to exercise modern legal rights in traditional societies they offend and profane because such societies are not yet ready for them, e.g. Afghanistan or Saudi Arabia. And this problem becomes ever more acute as modern economic development extends into under-developed traditional societies, whether to extract raw resources, open new markets or encourage tourism. Modern natural and normal is not pre-modern natural and normal and is felt as being, if not actually, harmful to that society, which metaphorically identifies itself via religion. Violence and repression is functional for mechanical society due not just to its physical environment, but also, for Durkheim, due to the dominance of emotion and passion and lack of scientific reasoning. This in turn links in with Durkheim’s sociology of knowledge and the rise of science, a major concern of his Elementary Forms of Religious Life. For Durkheim science and rationality grew out of the division of labour precisely because it led to specialisation, therefore greater depth of knowledge, with an emphasis on laws of causation, empirical evidence, quantifiable individual facts and testable hypotheses. And because all of these had to be re-integrated into a coherent whole, or theory of causation they and their relationships also required greater reasoning and analysis to establish principles of causal relations. In other words, a greater mental discipline was now required.

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This is important for understanding violence in society since Durkheim identifies science and reason as organic qualities and functions, which imply coolness, calculation and rationality in the search for causes, truth and resolution of differences, i.e. non-violent, unemotional and dispassionate mental states and discipline. Meanwhile, he regarded emotion and passion, the well springs of violence and physical repression, as mechanical functions and qualities, where undisciplined minds reacted purely at the sensate and emotional level, not reasoned explanation of causality. This was partly because the mechanical mind was as yet untrained in the kind of mental discipline required of science, since it was not yet functional to a pre-modern society. But also because the more immediate, limited and total the social environment the more it acts upon us the less room it leaves for individual, reasoned, critical thought and consciousness and the more we become passive respondents to group sentiment, enveloped in it and taken over by social and emotional forces. Strong, immediate social forces overwhelm the critical mental faculties for an emotional and passionate charge, which is not only a basis for violence but also religion (Fish, 2005). Thus, for Durkheim, mechanical societies are more emotional and passionate, because the social dominance over the individual represses reason and critical analysis and creates an emotionally charged, hence more violent disposition since the passions take over. And passions need to be assuaged, acts of sacrifice to appease the outraged God (society) are needed e.g. for revenge or expiation, which are regarded as moral, e.g. capital punishment, physical mutilation or terrorist victims, since coming from the same social source. This then combines with the sacredness of the social over the individual to encourage a violent reaction against all who defy social convention or group norms. Thus we see violence disappearing from societies as they become more organic in terms of legally prescribed punishment and social reactions to non-conformity: violence is a normal and moral reaction where the emotions (social) dominate, a process reversed by science. In turn this links in with the religious nature of mechanical societies, where traditions of martyrdom and sacrifice not only bring violence vividly to metaphorical and literal life but also give moral legitimacy to it. Thus social = religious = moral = emotion = violence. Hence, most terrorism comes from mechanical societies who are antipathetical to science, e.g. Irish or Basque, Catholicism and Islam. Here we have explanations for violence, its moral sanction and legitimacy and the readiness to have recourse to it – because it is normal. Emotion, passion, suffering, sacrifice go together (the passion of Christ on the Cross). Where scientific reasoning and analysis is absent and the vast majority of a population is illiterate only immediate emotional and passionate messages will get through to affect men’s consciousness and their behaviour, e.g. violent sacrifice and suffering victims. And in societies where this has been a long established tradition the sudden intrusion of modern liberal ideas will not only appear perverse but even harmful. Conversely, in organic societies with more developed ideas of reasoning and analysis, especially in the abstract, men are able to better think

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out and realise, without emotional recourse, what is the best and most functional social behaviour. Here, because of the need to free the individual from group conformity (but not social order, which is merely interpreted differently due to organic functional necessities) a more reasoned approach to social order occurs, based on tolerance and scientific reasoning. Organic solidarity frees man from the emotional dominance of the group and enables freedom of thought. Violence is also very disruptive of a complex division of labour and so to maintain its order we need to be less violent and more reasoning: violence causes disruptions in organic society, whilst in mechanical it helps repress disruptions. Hence violence, especially within society, appears more abhorrent to modern man and poses greater risks and problems. It only takes one computer crash to bring international networks to a standstill with losses of millions of pounds after even a few hours. Modern ‘just in time’ manufacturing techniques, the foundation for multi-national industries, often work on the basis of minimum stocks of parts (often only three days supply at point of assembly) for operations stretching across the UK, US, Europe and Far East, e.g. modern car manufacture where there may be over 10,000 parts per car to assemble on a single production line, producing hundreds of thousands of cars per year. It only requires the slightest blip to disrupt such a complex operation, where parts come in from different countries. Tens of thousands of parts have to be produced to a standardised exactness, have specific time schedules for delivery and coordinated between 20-30 countries for a successful production line to operate. Ours is a complex society, with sophisticated economic, social and administrative systems that need constant thought, monitoring and planning ahead, often for decades. Modern man has to be cold and calculating, scientific in his reasoning, not emotional and passionate, to make things work. Emotion and passion will harm the system on which we depend, but will not harm the system of peasant, mechanical society where nature takes its course whatever men do and the living is basic and simple, modernity is a scientific and man-made world, traditional is a natural and God given one to which adjustment is the key and where emotions and feelings can do little harm to nature, in fact they are more ‘natural’. However, it is precisely the lack of emotion, feeling and passion that the terrorist is often in revolt against, especially if they have neither the training in or understanding of science, with its own inexorable logic; their consciousness is profaned by our scientific consciousness. Nor is this invalidated by their use of modern technology when it suits them. New technology can be utilised without it affecting ones consciousness or the known social relations and networks. In Kurdistan, where I am currently writing, society is essentially mechanical, with an oral culture – people do not write things down. Yet they use mobile phones constantly and have easily mastered all their techniques, but mostly on an intuitive level. If you asked the average Kurd about the scientific principles behind a mobile phone most would be lost, their consciousness does not extend to that. Further its use merely utilises existing social networks, it is an extension of their normal oral culture, simply using it does not challenge

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their culture or any of their social relations, it actually enhances them. To invent or manufacture a mobile phone or to organise a manufacturing facility based on its scientific principles would challenge their culture, consciousness and social relations, e.g. scientific management techniques, written directives and rational efficiency would cut diametrically across their cultural concepts of oral relations, honour and status. Simply using scientific products does not imply a scientific consciousness or powers of reasoning. There is a difference between using the products of science and a consciousness based on science, even between advanced technology and science itself. Terrorists may be engineers and technologists (including medical doctors) who apply scientific inventions and discoveries but rarely scientists who discover and conduct the initial research. Scientists deconstruct, critically analyse and challenge perceived wisdom and consciousness, so developing a critical consciousness, engineers and technicians don’t – they apply given (discovered) wisdom, which can then be easily accommodated within existing social relations and consciousness. As has been stated, science has an abysmal record in Islamic society, but a wealth of engineers. But back to political violence and the laws of war; from a Durkheimian perspective terrorism represents a reaction of the mechanical against an intruding organic world. Terrorism reflects the norms and values of the pre-modern mechanical world responding, according to its consciousness (cognitive and moral), to threats to its normal order. This may come about either through resistance to internal change (European Fascists exemplified the phenomenon, where their violence was emphatically anti-modern although happy to use modern technology) or external incursions and is experienced and interpreted metaphorically via religion. For the mechanical society suffering the anguish of change violence is a normal response and is conceptualised via religious metaphor and symbols, including the modern religion of nationalism. And this in turn makes the thesis fully compatible with previous observations on the Romantic (mechanical) reaction to the Enlightenment (organic) development, something which Durkheim was very cognizant of in contemporary France. Organic societies often find it difficult to comprehend mechanical reactions against change since their own success involved embracing it. Further, organic (Enlightened) consciousness often cannot find the rationale for mechanical violence via its own thought processes, whereas the perpetrators do not need to rationalise it, since they are working on a non-scientific, emotional level. This is why the modern social sciences of politics, psychology and even international relations often fail to grasp the true problem of terrorism, yet, ironically, it was part of the purpose of classical sociology to find a rational explanation for the irrational (Hughes, 1961). The meaning of the violence may even be said to lie in its nonmeaning; it is the emotional and symbolic statement of the act that counts to the perpetrators and their own audience, as acts of expiation and symbolic expression as well as deterrence. It is also a way of saying keep out to agents of change by instilling fear in outsiders and issuing a symbolic and emotionally charged rallying call to their own community to stay within the known order.

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But when the violence is imported into an organic society it becomes even more perplexing and darkly threatening, partly because we are unused to such social behaviour and moral reasoning but also because the terrorists’ religiously symbolic and metaphorical acts have no meaning to us. In addition, violence threatens the fragility of our complex society with its sophisticated division of labour, it only takes one petrol tanker lorry strike, or the failure of the local power station for a couple of hours to throw us into panic and disorder. But deeper still are the darker, almost subliminal fears of what we have come from and our desire not to return to it: from our enlightened position we can reflect back on the days when violence, not law, ruled, when punishments meant branding, flogging and public executions and murderous riots required the shooting of civilians to put down. A major theme of many science fiction works has been the social scenario of what happens when social order breaks down and violence becomes the prime means to survive. The essence of terrorism is thus the reintroduction of political violence into society, Smith’s (2006) ‘war amongst the people’, when the essence of civilisation has been to remove it from amongst the people and place it in civilised hands. For Durkheim this would have been highly significant for any analysis of terrorism, it is the return to the un-enlightened past. Suicide and terrorism This of all the forms of terrorism appears to be the most inexplicable to the modern mind, trained to think scientifically, materially and self-interestedly. What can a person gain by blowing themselves up? It appears incomprehensible to the average western mind. However, the foregoing should have provided some clue to its not being so incomprehensible and Durkheim’s work on suicide becomes particularly relevant. First, one must read religion as metaphor, for society, second: the role of symbolism, ritual and ceremony raises acts from the mundane to the sacred in all our minds, e.g. national heroes, third: martyrdom is a highly lauded, sacred act in religion and in the military where the social bonding, conformity and mechanical nature of the military unit replicates that of ‘primitive’ societies, fourth: death leading to life is an old theme in most societies, which is why sacrifice is practiced, even if only symbolically, e.g. Christian Eucharist, and funerals are occasions for major social gatherings, emotional indulgence and social renewal. If we wish to understand suicide bombings we have to strip away the filters through which modern man sees the world and his non-religious mind. As Gupta (2001) observes, modern society and culture is premised on ideas of individual economic self-interest, yet economics is the only social science that makes this assumption (psychology and politics come close), all the others recognise a social dimension to man’s behaviour.

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This was the opening premise of Durkheim’s (1984) sociology, where he posited a duality in man of social and individual, which became the basis for his critique of English economics (market, self-interest) and Utilitarian philosophy. That man was as much social as individual, indeed his individualism was itself a social product as much as any inherent self-interest. And much of Durkheim’s later work set out to validate these premises, most significantly his Suicide (1970). Here Durkheim set out to show that even the most apparently personal act (suicide) was actually a product of social forces by showing how suicide rates varied with different societies, their milieu and the role of religion. However, of all areas of Durkheim’s work this is his most contentious, since many later studies have heavily criticised his Suicide, especially its statistical analysis and hence his conclusions (Pope, 1976), but equally others have substantiated it (Stark and Rushing, 1983). Perhaps, again, we should view Durkheim’s work as a starting to point to investigate suicide bombing at a deeper level rather than see it as definitive. Here what is highly relevant is the idea that suicide is not an individual act but a response to social forces. Throughout history men have died for causes, something bigger than self-interest, e.g. Captain Danjou, Christian and Islamic martyrs or hunger strikers. Suicide bombers are not unique, but represent a normal phenomenon, a social impulsion to sacrifice ones own life. Any society, for Durkheim, is its own force able to make its own sacrificial demands on its members for its own good and since society is a metaphor for religion the same applies to religion. And as has been established, most terrorism can be related to societies under attack (in their own consciousness), hence to impel the individual to the ultimate self-sacrifice may become an imperative, precisely because man is of society, the ultimate life-giving force. The individual and social survival are bound up at a primary level, our conscience is society acting in and through us, the moral force that tells us how to act, right from wrong, it is society talking to us. Therefore many of our acts are social, or socially conditioned, responses not individual will and if this is the case then the call for self-sacrifice is in principle no different from any other social calling. Further, Durkheim argued, rates of suicide were an indication of the nature and type of society men lived in. Thus, where individualism has a high social value suicide rates might be high if individualism separated men from the close social ties that bound and sustained them, they would feel a loss of value in their life when separated from important social relations. Durkheim (1970) identified four main categories of suicide: individual, egoistic, altruistic and anomic that all related to mans position in the nature and type of society in which he existed. Individual forms related to those who became self-absorbed and detached from society, so that the social value of ones life became lost; but this is not a category that has too much relevance to terrorism or social causes. Egoistic suicide was more of a problem of organic societies where material self-interest and the loosening of social ties and tradition left individuals increasingly free and rootless. Egoistic suicide was particularly a problem where societies were breaking down, there was an excessive emphasis on individualism

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and social cohesion and known place in a social order was lost. This was often a result of great or rapid rises and declines in individual material fortunes which left men outside of their known social parameters, lacking a social home or place in the world. Socially isolated men, e.g. nouveau riche, felt a worthlessness about their own material fortune and life where they could not successfully integrate into their new socio-economic category and culture: hence leaving them socially isolated, discontent, dissatisfied and socially empty. Great success can uproot men and take them away from their social home for an unknown life in a social vacuum. But once again, this would not necessarily help explain terrorism. It is when we come to the categories of anomic and altruistic suicide that we get a useful insight into terrorism and suicide bombing (even ‘ordinary’ terrorism requires some degree of self-sacrifice in terms of foregoing an ordinary life and possible draconian punishments). In anomic suicide individual acts are a product of a lack of moral (social) regulation, where the structure, relations, rules or parameters to social life seemed chaotic, adrift and pointless and hence so did ones own life. A meaning-lessness creeps into life, because it had no social (moral) focus or structure, no purpose beyond itself, in which case what was its purpose? This has always been a focus for arguments in favour of religion; it was important precisely because it provided a meaning and order beyond the individual and selfgratification. But if life is meaningless in itself the flip side of this is that death, especially for a cause (society/religion), gives it meaning. Death (victim or martyr) for God gives life meaning, especially for those left behind, who would get a new sense of value and purpose to their own lives, death inspires – witness dead war heroes. It is the social that gives meaning and purpose and if that is taken away from men it becomes a threat to life, which needs renewing via death (sacrifice). Primarily Durkheim saw pre-World War I society as in a state of anomie, witnessed by the political and industrial unrest that permeated Europe and America then. However, Durkheim saw this as a transitory stage in western society as it went through the process of transforming itself from peasant to industrial society, as it struggled to develop new forms of social and moral integration and consciousness appropriate to an industrial order to replace the old mechanical order. Once the new organic order was suitably established and the requisite moral and social order in place then the violence and chaos would settle down. Here we have the elements of an explanation for late 19th century terrorism and nationalist insurgencies, the Romantic reaction and the rise of fascism in the early 20th century. Most of the violence was ill-conceived and misdirected in any rational sense and we may now interpret it as a response to the anomic conditions of those uprooted from their enclosed, mechanical, peasant societies – a lack of rooted-ness in the new industrial cities, which, for Durkheim, was only because the new social order and cohesion had yet to fully establish itself. Thus the most excluded reacted in a traditional and symbolic manner, venting their frustrations and loss against those who seemed to symbolically represent the cause of their anomic distress. Emile Henry stands as a good example, a rootless immigrant from a rural peasant background who had failed to find his niche or belonging

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in modern Paris (1894) and so threw a bomb into a crowded café killing and wounding innocent customers for no apparent reason. It was Henry who famously declared at his trial that ‘there are no innocents’, i.e. for an Anarchist like him the whole of society was oppressive and a fraud, because it was and because he had no place in it, it was anomic. Time and again, when studying this period, one comes back to the theme of rootless-ness and the Romantic search for belonging in societies undergoing rapid change, something that Durkheim was definitely reflecting on (Lukes, 1973, Tombs, 1996, Nisbet, 1996, Hughes, 1961). The same can be seen in post war Europe with the rise of fascism in the face of an apparently disordered and chaotic world and where the violence came from those most adversely affected by it, whose own lives had been reduced to chaos, e.g. the newly created lower middle classes struggling to hang on to new found status and respectability in the face of economic collapse (Stern, 1974, Hiden, 1996, Eatwell, 2003). Socio-economic change, or the imminent threat of it and loss of economic security, community and status were driving forces behind fascism, its institutional violence and rejection of modern scientific values, (although happy to use its technology). The same applied in Ireland or the Basque Lands (Garvin, 1981 and 2005, or Clark, 1984) where one again sees a rejection of modernity, the irrationality of its violence, its embrace of Romantic notions and the emphasis on emotion and non-material values, hence the role of religion, as men sought a semblance of order in an apparently chaotic world – anomie. Now when we look at Tamil, Palestinian or Islamic terrorism in general we find similar patterns of change and its threat. In Palestine it is the enforced removal of ethnic Palestinians from their homes and lands, in Sri Lanka the loss of status and socio-economic opportunity for the Tamil community. Both are confronted with changes and intrusions into their traditions and normal socio-economic relations and order and both react in a time-honoured way of (religiously sanctioned) violence in defence of the community. In Islam, we could also interpret the fundamentalist violence in the same way, as modernity is either imposed or creeps in it threatens the social relations and community of traditional society, which has served them well for over a thousand years. Only when Algerians and Egyptians turned their backs on traditional, Islamic society and Sharia law, and follow the false Gods of nationalism, industrial development and democracy did the problems arise of meaningless lives as unemployed hands in anomic cities. In many ways contemporary Islam may simply be experiencing what Europe had previously been through, although without the benefit of an intervening Reformation and experiencing modernity as an external, imported intrusion upon their natural order. Those with a grasp of history and classical sociology may not be quite so surprised at Islamic terrorism. In Durkheimian terms rapid socio-economic change and development and urbanisation breeds the kind of anomic situation in which violent reaction is to be expected, especially for those coming from a peasant background where violence is a norm in a religiously grounded way of life. Here

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men think in religious terms to explain material experience and so use religiously symbolic acts of violence to expunge that which profanes their sacred. To anomic one must add altruistic suicide. This is the opposite of egoistic, where individuals are so closely integrated into their society that they lose their sense of individuality and become dominated by the social will. The most obvious example of these are the Japanese kamikaze of World War II, or, on a slightly lesser scale, Captain Danjou. The military exemplify the phenomenon because their training specifically aims to de-emphasise the individual and promote group solidarity and consciousness so that the social imperative to serve the group dominates, leading the individual to take risks or lay down his life for his comrades. Thus in mechanical societies there is a propensity and imperative to acts of martyrdom, of self-sacrifice on behalf of the community, which may not be regarded as suicide by the community because the individuals felt compelled to act, an obligation or duty to sacrifice their lives for the good of their society, which the rest of their society understand and was a product of the need to maintain the community. Once again, because terrorism is a product of mechanical societies, there is a level of explanation within anomic and altruistic suicide which provides meaning both for the suicide bomber or hunger striker and the inability of their organic targets to comprehend it. Close knit, mechanical societies that are threatened may well induce a sense amongst their most well integrated members of anomie as their normal relations and cosmology are challenged. Meanwhile, those most well integrated will feel a strong sense of the social ties and obligations, a personal sense of their lives being intimately bound up with that of society so that the maintenance of society takes precedence over their own life. And as discussed above, whilst society lives on so does the martyr in the collective memory: plaques in churches, war memorials, folk lore and stories, street names, videos, books, all keep the memory alive and so the martyr becomes immortal and sets a prime example to the rest of society (Dingley and Mollica, 2007). Their death helps society live on, but only as the community lives on and remembers its martyrs do they remain immortal – life through death. The suicide is then followed by the funeral which becomes a source of collective effervescence and social renewal, followed up with regular ceremonies of remembrance. It is the emotional trauma and drama of the act, the religious symbolism of the sacrifice that works on a sub-conscious and emotional level, not a rational level, and so defies logic and takes it beyond earthly and material calculation onto a higher plane. And the more close-knit a society is, the more communal, the more men think and act on the emotional, social level and subconscious. Hence suicide terrorism may also be seen as an index of social development in society, where men are more bound by the social and less by the individual who is sacrificial to the community. One may also analyse ‘home-grown’ terrorists in the same way, especially those from immigrant communities in modern industrial societies whose ethnic origins are in peasant, pre-modern ones. Here one particularly thinks of Pakistani suicide bombers in Britain. The very raison d’etre of Pakistan as an independent state was

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its Islamic identity, inextricably linked to the idea of the ummah. For them the religious-cultural discontinuity of being citizens of a secularised Christian society is difficult enough, but to see their Islamic homelands and ‘community of origin’ traduced and invaded by secular Christians, to see it fall so far behind in terms of development and civilisation (especially given Islam’s once dominant position) may be too painful and humiliating. From their cultural perspective the only legitimate response may be to strike back in the only way they can conceptualise. Belonging and pride is not just being a citizen and a legal status, it is being part of a community of shared values, heritage, beliefs, relationships, yet belonging to a western society means, for Islamic immigrants, dropping all of those known and often not thought out communal values and identities for a new set of unknown or only semi-perceived ones, which often are not very strong on community. Such men can feel a distinct sense of anomie and a desire to perform some altruistic act for ‘their’ community to reconnect with their social. In addition race and skin colour do mark one out and can make it difficult to integrate, which may make the sentiments of disillusionment and failure even stronger. The search for place and belonging, no matter how welcoming a new society is very difficult and when one feels unable to fit in the response of Emile Henry may well be typical for those from a rural peasant background. And having been to Kashmir and Pakistan and met returnee immigrants back in their homeland I can testify to how strong this need is. For without a doubt, whilst many held fond memories of Leeds Rugby League and Yorkshire County Cricket, which I share, they had all felt the desire to return home, a home they mostly felt they had not left spiritually and had always wanted to return to physically. Terrorism of all kinds, from this perspective, may now seem to appear less of a mystery and more explicable as the emotional reaction to the demystification and growing rationality of the modern mind; the rational understanding of the irrational that was a key part of classical sociology and anthropology. One has to understand terrorism as a social act that has meaning to the actors and their society and not simply from the perspective of the society attacked because man is a social being. This does not make terrorism right, or mean we should tolerate it, just better understand it for what it is so that we can better prevent and respond to it, which I will briefly discuss in the Conclusion.

Conclusion

For Wit’s false mirror held up Natures light; Shew’d erring Pride, whatever is, is right, That Reason, Passion, answer one great aim; That true Self-Love and Social are the same. Alexander Pope

The first great problem to be confronted is in defining precisely what terrorism is. In fact it is easier to define what it is not, i.e. it stands outside of the accepted, rules, customs and laws of war, it is a defiance of norms and laws, indeed it even constitutes an attack on them, usually for some greater political purpose. However, it is not done in a mindless manner, for part of the essence of terror is that it defies the rules and implicitly attacks them as oppressive, also it is often an un-thought out but structured response to externally imposed rules and order that intrude on a communities own sense of order. This is why terrorism is political, because it is about politics in its wider sociological sense, i.e. who makes the rules and laws, defines the customs and norms that make an order and which community it ought to apply to. Terrorism rejects not just the norms, values and laws and concepts of justice they are founded on, but also the process whereby they are constructed and the community that constructs them, it poses an alternative system of construction utilising alternative values that reflect an alternative order, i.e. community. And this is one reason why terrorists have often to resort to violence and not democracy to achieve their aims, because the very process, system and values of liberal democracy and the community they refer to as legitimating them are rejected and hence attacked, they are not felt as internal to the community but external, alien and disruptive. This in turn helps to explain the relative success and failure of different terrorist groups. Terrorism is invariably at its most successful where it has some form of communal sympathy, if not support, i.e. it is tolerated at a level whereby members of a community will see it as legitimate, even if regretted. (And community here implies not the formal one of political boundaries but the informal social one of relevant social relations and shared culture, which may or may not coincide with formal political borders.) One reason for tolerating violence, as Townshend notes (in Crenshaw, 1995) is that certain communities have a tradition of violence to resolve disputes, however, as my first two chapters have indicated, violence was traditionally accepted in most pre-modern communities as a way of resolving disputes, it was the norm.

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Another aspect of this is that liberal democracy is not only a very new political phenomenon but it is closely linked to modernity (in its philosophical sense), which in turn founded not only new communities (nations) but also founded upon new principles, i.e. democracy, which now places a premium on identifying correctly the relevant community for giving legitimacy to democratic votes. For the will of the people to hold legitimate authority it has to be the will of a specific community of which they ‘feel’ part, i.e. can subjectively and objectively identify with, for only within that community will popular democratic votes be regarded as valid and binding as an expression of that community. Even the very process of democracy has to be regarded as legitimate and a true means of expression of the popular will for it to be accepted, which in societies or communities where tribal elders and leaders or priests and imams are regarded as the proper authority may imply a nullification of modern democratic processes. Added to this, if violence was the accepted norm to resolve disputes or to express identity and being, as was often the case in pre-modern peasant societies, then it will triumph over democracy as the true expression of a community. And where violence is the norm then it is also sacred and holy, given the role of religion as metaphor for society. In traditional society the individual and liberal democracy does not have the legitimacy as the relevant expression of the community that it does in modern society. In such societies the communal emphasis is far stronger and the rights of the individual far weaker, here collective conformity dominates and the desire to maintain the traditional order and submission to it is much stronger. This is not just cultural choice but also, to an extent, functional to a way of life they feel socially and psychologically comfortable with as well as economically dependent on. In addition, since all men are social animals most will want to conform to social norms unless and until they can see good reason for not doing so. In the Basque Lands the emotional attachment is so strong to the culture and socio-economic order built around the baserria that men cannot envision giving it up, whilst in Islam attempts to imitate western modern economic and political systems have often ended in dismal failure and mass misery. In both cases the traditional order has been deified and sanctified, either formally via theology or informally via tradition and custom, which in turn legitimates the violent defence of community against the invader. Men are not acting according to the individual level assumptions of modern western models of rational economic behaviour but at the traditional socio-cultural level of pre-modern community. They are doing what they have always done and utilised religion to legitimate the violent defence of the holy community (even modern men do that during national wars). Violence, along with the social, makes holy and what is holy impels men to violence, which is why sacrifice and communal services are at the core of most religion, why wars elevate their posthumous heroes as displaying the greatest valour and why suicide bombing has such great appeal for the religious, when done for the good of the community.

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And if violence is perpetrated in defence of the community the community is defined by its own internal order, sense of being and shared belonging, which in turn are defined by the socio-economic relations, culture and morals that bind the relations and make them obligatory (religion). It is a kind of circular argument, but one that creates an inclusive world, environment and explanation for all that is vital and important for members of the community and meets not only their material needs for existence but also their need for social and psychological comfort, community, metaphysical explanation and an ordered cosmos that makes sense of their world. Disrupt those internal relations or undermine the cultural (moral and cognitive) reasoning and explanations of a community (as foreign presences often do) and one causes severe harm to the community, those who live in it and depend upon it and because the community (society, nation or ethnic group) is holy it becomes an attack on God. Equally if a community is subject to another dominant community and does not believe in its legitimacy its commands, even if expressed as the democratic will of a majority (ethnic groups in larger multi-ethnic states especially find themselves in this position), will also be seen as disruptive and an attack on the Gods. And the Gods are not bound by earthly laws and rules, especially those created by false Gods, alien ones and usurpers, i.e. external to the community, who drew up the laws, customs and practices of war. The aim of the violence is to drive out the invader who disrupts the community, first by attacking them and frightening them off, second; as a kind of moral and emotional call to rouse one’s own community and galvanise its consciousness by making emotive sacrifices to the Gods. By playing on religious messages and metaphors of symbolism and sacrifice, martyrdom and ritual, the terrorist hopes to send a subliminal message to his own community of resistance and return to the true faith and communal order and values, to reject the new Gods (of modernity). This is an anti-intellectual message, at least in the Enlightenment sense of reason and scientific logic, so it is pitched at a non-intellectual level, of the emotions: death and destruction, martyrs and suffering, up the passion and emotional level, as do funerals where mass displays of grief and suffering further the initial emotional impact of the act and help recall men to their communal roots. This is because the more communal an act, the closer the communal ties and bonds, the less room there is for individual reason, calculation and calm reflection as the emotions take over and passion drives. Equally that which is emotional drives the community (bonds and relations of warmth, compassion and fellow feeling), individual calculation disrupts the community and induces reason and it is the community that provides psychological comfort, place and being and gives meaning and purpose to men’s lives. This was one of the great appreciations of classical sociology as it responded to the scientific rationalism, market economics and individualistic drives of 19th century European development – men need to belong to some kind of social grouping or community to give their lives purpose and meaning, they needed some kind of order and structure to their lives to give it an objective, otherwise it becomes simple anomic chaos. Failure to meet such communal needs led to violence and

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disorder through out Europe and North America as it industrialised, it also led to the Romantic reaction against the Enlightenment almost specifically because the Romantics emphasised a past world of ‘natural’ community, order, stability and place and one in which religion played a key role. There is a simple history lesson here (as Burleigh, 2005, reminds us) as well as a sociological one (Nisbet, 1996). Of course the Romantics forgot about the violent nature of pre-modern society as they eulogised its mystical order, but they also glorified violence as an almost religious expression of being, hence displaying the contradiction at the heart of Romanticism and romantic politics (the Nazi’s were the ultimate example of this), something the classical sociologists were well aware of as they tried to develop a science that could understand the ‘non-rational’ as much as the rational needs of men (Hughes, 1961). Here they clearly identified the non-rational in the realm of the social, which is where we should be attempting to understand such ‘irrational’ behaviour as terrorism, from fire-bombers to suicide bombers. For most terrorism is not marked by a reaction against oppression or denials of liberty that can be rationally quantified or explained, where men are quantifiably oppressed they rarely revolt since they are too busy being oppressed. Equally, the actions of a suicide bomber are almost incomprehensible at any rational level (even allowing for trips to paradise), it is because they are operating and thinking at a level that does not calculate in terms of quantifiable, material gain and individual advancement, on which modern, western ideology is premised. They are thinking and operating on a socio-cultural level, where the social takes over their being and impels their acts, because they come from societies where the socio-communal plays a very strong (religious) role and it is this that affects them and drives them and it is this that modern men have failed to understand. And the social is not just religious but also moral, it is the other and the relations and obligations that bind us to the other that make up the community and form the basis of morality, to defend the community selflessly is the highest morality. Very often it is men right on the cusp of communal transformations (loss of the old with the dawn of the new), men who have been brought up in a community and then educated outside of it who become the active terrorists. Men who have found the modern world of individualism wanting and wish to return back to the old order or men who are made aware enough of the new order to perceive it as a threat to them, their culture and community who become the leaders of the revolt against modernity and change. Sometimes it is because they have a vested material interest in the old order, sometimes it is because they feel the social and psychological loss of the old community into which they are well integrated, or else they feel the loss of status and prestige for those in their particular position in the old social order. Meanwhile others simply find they cannot compete in the new order. More often it is a mix of them all that leaves men feeling a deep sense of material and non-material loss and confronted with a world that seems to know of no moral or social order and in which religion, both symbolically and literally, is swept aside for an amoral world of calculation and individual gain; an immoral

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world based on private profit in which they feel lost and so wish to return the world to the ‘good old days’. They find evidence of this in the anguish of the community and the displacement and loss of its members and so the individuals most sensitive to this, those in key positions in the social structure and so with a more intimate knowledge of it, who are also often better educated, become key actors on behalf of the community and its needs, as they interpret it. This also helps explain another facet of terrorism, that most terrorists are not mad or bad, in fact they are mostly very normal men who are often quite moral, even puritanical in their thoughts and behaviour (selfish men seeking material gain and pleasure do not become suicide bombers). This is because they are impelled by an unselfish commitment to a greater cause than individual gain and aggrandisement – their community, a cause that is also religious, which also makes them moral and morality is one of the great unmentioned factors in so much modern social science (a total abnegation of the true legacy of Hutcheson and Smith). Morality actually goes to the heart of any society, community or order (political, international, economic, legal or international) and it is an apparent absence of morality or an attack on their traditional morality that so offends the terrorist, because the moral order of their community or religion is being offended. Strange that such immoral behaviour should result from such moral men, but that is only to see it from western modern perspectives, based on economic selfinterest, consumerism and individual rights which often do represent an amoral if not immoral world, especially as economics has been ripped away from moral philosophy. Indeed, terrorists often see themselves as unselfishly responding to the selfishness of modern consumer society and individualism that is destroying religion and communal obligations. None of this is to deny that there may well be other dimensions to terrorism as well and I do accept that modernity upholds and advances major moral values, despite its often amoral economics, that are frequently an advance on traditional society, such as individual freedom and human rights. But what I am arguing is that the fundamental imperative that drives at the deeper, ideological and psychological level and that also legitimates is a socio-cultural (hence also religious and moral) imperative. History indicates quite clearly the normality of violence in everyday life in pre-modern, peasant society, a world that was intimately entwined with religion and where the law and government was something far removed from the average peasant. This was the norm, one that modern society often rudely invades. But it was not a world without order, rather it was an order that was un-thought out and timeless and again heavily conflated with religion and ‘natural’ patterns and rhythms of traditional rural life, which included violence. It was an intensely communal order where social pressures and the constant social monitoring that goes with close knit communities weighed heavily on everyone and so acted as its own form of order maintenance mechanism. When we skip to western, modern society we have entered a world in which the new order has already been imposed according to new individualist values, with greater emphasis on law and order, rather than religious order. Social

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regulation has been removed from religious agencies to civil ones and violence has largely been isolated out from the normal social world as a means to maintain order. But what we forget is that this is only a recent phenomenon for us and that during the 19th century and later western man had to go through a very painful transition process of his own, where anarchist terrorism haunted Europe along with the spectre of Communism and then fascism. The problems arose when the two worlds collided, which is now happening in new areas of the world, where modernity is invading the traditional and strongly and religiously ordered world of Islam or Catholic Basque society before they are ready to cope with it. Or, as in the Russian Caucuses or Yugoslavia, when an established order dissolves before a relevant new one is able to take over or if different orders have to compete for control over a domain. Different orders, due to their socialising processes and functional requirements will imply different mind sets, different ways of interpreting and understanding the world, different values and norms, different aims and objectives, different cultures and alternative cosmologies, different concepts of legitimacy and authority, different beliefs and ideas as to social and political organisation, economic interests and a different conceptualisation of the individual and the role of religion. And when men from one order find themselves subject to another order it can be very disquieting and threatening and even feel oppressive, un-free and undemocratic, a denial of rights and of one’s own route to salvation, especially at the level of un-thought out cues, responses and expectations and how to subjectively interpret the world they are confronted with. This especially applies with the external imposition of democracy, if it is not part of the indigenous culture, where it will create a crisis within the community since it implies an alien form of socio-political relations and bonds, which has no validity or relevant meaning, hence it will be disruptive of social relations, fragment the community and be seen as an attack on religion. It is not the objectively quantifiable factors such as freedom of speech, legal rights or having the vote that counts but of being collectively linked into ones own community that alone has exclusive rights to determine its own communal destiny, which has its own cultural interpretations and expectations. It is a known and understood system of relations and culture with which men feel comfortable and which they know and understand and so can makes sense of their world and negotiate it. These alone enable men to truly understand and interpret their world at the subjective and emotional level (the religious), and conditions their sense of identity, legitimacy and affiliation. Hence in Northern Ireland or the Basque Lands it is because non-community members have a controlling influence over the communal destiny – the British or Spanish – and this was brought to a head with modernisation and change. In Northern Ireland the relevant Catholic and Protestant communities could tolerate each other and being part of a larger Britain if they were left well enough alone to control their own internal affairs. However, development and change broke down such insularity and opened up both internal orders to outside scrutiny and change impelled from without. In the Basque Lands a modernising Spain inevitably led

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to the intrusion of modern agri-business and economic relationships that would threaten the Basque community and its self-conceptualisation and subjective identity. The same can be applied to Islam, where change, associated with an infidel West, has disrupted the ummah at both the local and pan-national level, it has undermined old certainties, both objective and subjective, and threatened the established order and it is this that forms the basis for oppressive imperialist claims far more than any quantifiable acts or material disadvantages. But the change is ‘felt’, rather than intellectually grasped, it is experienced on the emotional level as patterns and rhythms of life, natural and un-thought out as part of a life experience of routine and intuitive understanding, a cosmic order, is challenged and threatened. Hence it is experienced as above and beyond the individual and rational, material calculation and choice, the order is the structure of relationships that exist over and above the individual and link him into his community, which is what gives it its religious and sacred dimension. Our social relations effectively become the metaphysical reality that reigns over us. And since the order is holy it must be protected according to sacred and collective rites such as sacrifice and symbolic acts if order is to be maintained or restored to the cosmos, to keep out the alien, reconnect with the cosmic and metaphysical, renew and increase the emotional attachment of community members. Again, this may not be how men think consciously, it is the way they think and conceive sub-consciously, the way their religious socialisation, upbringing and education form their minds into a cognitive process, i.e. culture, which interprets and conceives of the world in a religious way. This in turn provides the subliminal template from which men will then consciously act out religious stories and metaphors of sacrifice and violence in response to changes in their material conditions and social environment. In turn this equates with a sense of being ‘called upon’ to act, a higher authority speaking to them, the Gods calling, which is really nothing more than the network of social relations and early social conditioning in them responding to social changes. And the more social and communally exclusive the early conditioning and socialising, as occurs in pre-modern communities, the more intensely men will feel this sense of social (religious) calling. This is why modern men find such phenomenon as martyrdom strange, because our modern society emphasises the individual to a far greater extent and we are less acted upon by close social networks of relations. Modern society also emphasises scientific reasoning as an alternative to intuitive feelings, emotional expression and responses and so invokes a less religious, less emotional and less communal response to changes in the social environment. But this is in itself the major threat to traditional society. From this it is easy to jump to the conclusion that we should not enjoin change, since it leads to such anxiety and violence. However, this is to doom whole populations to lives of ignorance, unchanging feudal-style servitude and a denial of the many benefits that modernity can bring and to the progressive development of individual rights and freedoms that can greatly enrich individual lives and societies. It is also to deny the validity of science in its ability to find and

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test verifiable truths that can greatly improve human understanding and conditions of existence, despite human abuses of scientific knowledge. Indeed, this is almost precisely what much post-modern and multi-cultural theories do in their rejection of universal narratives (particularly science) for a modern ‘particularism’ based on defending cultural differences and lauding ‘alternative’ values and emotional experience. What one needs to do is to recognise the reality of the social as an empirical factor and the greater and more direct role it plays in human affairs than the western modern rational economic man model permits. It is also to recognise the reality of the social and cultural as a variable to be taken into account when introducing change, the major social hurdles that may have to be overcome, the importance of the social dimension in men’s lives and then to work with it and through it when implementing change, even to the extent of having to drop certain social forms of social organisation and devise new ones over time. This may imply ideas of social planning, organisation, construction and control that free market liberals would object to, but then such free market ideas are often based on false premises and a failure to grasp the full meaning of the original theories and philosophies on which liberal market ideas were founded. It might also imply having to accept certain ideas of progress and the superiority of certain cultures in terms of identifiable rights and benefits, but that does not mean we have to accept them uncritically or as a whole. Modern market economics have unleashed major productive forces and liberal freedoms, but they have also unleashed an amoral materialism that many, including myself, would argue needs some redressing without throwing out the entire liberal package. Durkheim began his sociology with a critique of English, i.e. free market, economics as lacking a moral and social dimension and in this Durkheim may have had more in common with Smith and Hutcheson than he or any modern economist realised. Both Hutcheson and Smith were moral philosophers, neither advocated self interest and Smith was very pessimistic about self-regulating markets. Indeed, in his first book (The Theory of Moral Sentiments) Smith explicitly argues that you cannot have commerce outside of society and that you cannot have society without justice, there must be a social and moral dimension even to economic activity. It is not something outside of economics to argue for a social and moral dimension, it is in fact central to economics and markets since only society can create values – both material and moral. Perhaps if modern men rediscovered this element of modernity it would help them to both understand and then overcome the kind of resistance to modernity that terrorism evinces, especially since it is often morally led in its own perverse way. Meanwhile, it is our own lack of an appreciation of the social and moral dimension that invokes the terrorists’ wrath against us, especially ill-conceived military interventions with all their collateral damage. Change is necessary if man is to progress and given the verifiable status of science and its truths (I am writing very generally and well aware of Popper’s (1963) philosophy of science and the test of falsification) it may well be that we will all progress towards one single model or narrative. Actually, any concept of

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universal human rights, freedom and democracy of necessity implies this if it relates to the individual, since part of the essence of science is universal laws and individual elements. (Ideas of multi-culturalism and ethno-cultural differences actually work against this since they pose the cultural group as the primary point of reference and not the individual who then becomes subsidiary to the group and hence denied rights in their own right.) And it is against this that the terrorist is often in revolt, precisely because they wish to assert the primacy of the group over the individual. It is also a major reason for rejecting moral relativism (another aspect of group primacy, since morals only pertain to the group and that group in particular and not to an universal concept of the individual) when judging terrorism for that is to imply no universal human rights or equality of the individual and the right to life. On the other hand; individual rights are a positive reason to assert the rule of law, particularly as laws become more universal, and is one reason why the progressive development of the laws and rules of war was stressed so strongly in the early chapters. Men have progressed from barbarity to comparative civility over the past few hundred years and any form of moral relativism is to turn that particular clock back. Modern weapons may be far more destructive but the moral and legal pressures to use them in increasingly restricted and ethical ways also indicates a more humane and civilised approach to the use of violence, as do the rise of non-lethal weapons and tactics. Meanwhile terrorists love to goad states into massive overkill and excess use of conventional force, with its emotive collateral damage, to pose themselves as, if not morally superior at least equivalent. The terrorist may be acting out of a kind of moral impulse but he is also turning the moral clock back when he breaks the rules of modern combat. This is not to say that the modern rules of war are perfect nor the modern legal warrior a paragon of virtue, but it is to say that we have come a long way from our origins in unrestrained violence. The terrorist is operating from a moral impulse rooted in the past against a society that seems to lack their concept of moral legitimacy. Indeed, given the rampant consumerism and self-interest of recent years in the West one could almost argue that the terrorist has a point, which may explain why so many ‘liberal’ and ‘progressives’ can sympathise with the terrorists. Indeed, their very communalism and commitment to a cause beyond material self-interest can give them a moral gloss that may initially compare well with the devious calculations of politicians and multi-national wheeler-dealing. But it is not moral to murder people either: murder is even more immoral than material greed, equally, those with strong moral sentiments, but different from the terrorists, also find themselves being murdered by them. This is where the moral questions of modern society, change and development and progress need to be better thought out and a more coherent and universal set of moral propositions put forward that all can share in, which is a complex and challenging task in itself, but one that went to the heart of much classical sociology. And the point is not that one has to choose one moral order rather than another, but to develop and identify moral orders able to encompass both individualism

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and social responsibility and to properly inculcate them. Modern individualism has given us new moral concepts of freedom and liberty, autonomy and respect for the individual, which has done much to promote respect for human life and rights. But the essence of all morality is consideration for the other and society as a whole, which an over concern with self-interest has done much to undermine – greed is not morality, helping and sharing is. What is required is a morality that can properly reconnect the individual with society so that both can enhance the other, whereby the individual good can also become the social good (something Hutcheson and Smith well understood). At the same time, as we recognise and witness the threats and problems caused by terrorism it is also important not to over exaggerate it, as I believe modern politicians and the media do (more than one professional state security official has expressed to me their suspicions of the way governments have suddenly ‘upped’ the terrorist threat in recent years). The numbers affected even indirectly by terrorism are trivial when compared to other security threats, but very dramatic (as the terrorist intends). The very rarity of such attacks helps to thrill us and ensure publicity. Crossing the road is probably far more dangerous. So we have to be wary of exaggeration and scare-mongering – and I write from the experience of living in Northern Ireland and Iraq! We also have to be careful not to surrender hard won liberties and freedoms for some spurious concept of security, life can never be 100 percent secure, which would be a triumph for the terrorists. Equally, one has to be careful as to what one includes in definitions of terrorism. Israel was created at the expense of displacing the indigenous Palestinian population: America and Britain did invade Iraq on very dubious grounds, later found to be erroneous, and as occupiers they did abolish the major internal organs of order and stability (police, army and Ba’athist party and government), although against best military advice: the West (NATO) did enter Afghanistan as part of an American led ‘war against terror’ – so we invaded a country to pursue a war. Does ‘resistance’ in these instances count as terrorism? We have to be very careful here not to let our hyperbole get ahead of us or to let pejorative terms like terrorism be used to provide spurious cloaks to cover morally and legally dubious acts, even if impelled by genuine moral outrage. Certainly America was hurt by 2001, but so were tens of thousands of Chileans by American support for Pinochet, and equal numbers of Iraqis and Kurds by Saddam (ably bank rolled by America and Britain). Equally, thousands of people in Northern Ireland were hurt by American fund raising for the IRA and the UK security forces often believed that the Republic of Ireland provided far too safe a haven for all Republican terrorists, whilst the Spanish felt the same way about ETA havens in France. This is not simply a moral argument of comparability because it also leads on to questions of counter-terrorism tactics – not to respond and not to strike back has frequently been found to be a far more effective anti-terrorist policy than mass retaliation (against who? – as we must now ask about Afghanistan and Iraq). The morals of force and violence also link into the socio-cultural dimensions of force and violence. In Northern Ireland the security forces eventually learnt that

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not shooting terrorists was far more effective than shooting them in terms of an over-all policy directed at defeating the IRA, which they did. Precisely because of the socio-cultural role of martyrs, symbols and sacrifice in the Irish Catholic tradition any shooting of Republicans, no matter how legitimate in national and international law, had a major negative effect on Catholic attitudes towards the state and security forces (Dingley and Kirk-Smith, 2002, Dingley and Mollica, 2007). Hence minimum force and non-violent responses, or, better still, preemptive actions to forestall incidents became the preferred tactic, such as good intelligence providing forewarning of terrorist plans so that the security forces could swamp an area before an attack occurred and so deter the terrorist from even mounting it. Morals and culture are not only linked at the philosophical level but also at the practical. Equally change and development also affects both culture and morals: as the culture shifts from a communal to an individualist one so too the moral imperatives will shift from communal conformity to individual tolerance and development, from communal conformity to personal responsibility for acts. Which brings one back to the problem of Western (individualist) intervention in non-Western/Islamic (communal) societies – our very commitment to ideas such as liberal-democracy, individual rights and freedoms, self-interest and related values strikes them as immoral. And what is immoral is that which harms the community or society as so structured and hence offends the Gods, who demand vengeance and deterrence if they are to survive. And the violence is greatest when it emanates from the emotions, which in turn are at their greatest under two conditions, first: when the individual is subsumed into the social and hence unable to utilise their own reason but get taken over by the social forces of the community and so unrestrained by personal responsibility. Second, in an anomic situation where the individual finds themselves totally isolated from their social and communal world of relations, bonds and culture and so suffer great anxiety and psychological suffering because of the absence of the social and also have no social or moral restraint over their actions. Hence reason gave way to emotions and raw sensate outrage and the desire for ‘revenge’. This was the fear of the mob in 19th century Europe and also of the furtive, isolated, ‘individualist’, anarchist outside of society. In the small, isolated communities of peasant society the communities were small enough to easily contain and include all, but brought together in the new cities, the urban masses formed a tidal wave of destructive venom that was truly frightening, e.g. the French Revolution, Paris Commune or Gordon Riots in England. Uneducated, jammed together in urban huddles they formed a potent mix readily susceptible to emotional discharge. At the same time the modern industrial and anomic masses also created the space and lack of social bonds for disgruntled individuals to fall outside of society and so pose themselves against it. This became part of the basis for mass state education, to discipline and control minds and include everyone into a shared sense of community according to modern social and economic needs and to create a common social and moral order. This was also part of the appeal

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of nationalism, a new community to give men place, being and order in their lives and a new religion after their old communities and Gods had been destroyed. And this is why so much terrorism evolves around those key questions of nation and religion, both relate to community and order in the cosmos which untrammelled economic development or western incursions appear to threaten. Terrorism relates men directly to their God and their cosmos: terrorism is above all a question of order, both moral and social. And order can come only from society. Hence it is not a question of society or no society, or to pose traditional communal life against a world of total individualism and no community, it is a question of appreciating that the modern world (Durkheim’s organic solidarity or order) is based on a different kind of order, different principles of social relationships that appear chaotic and non-communal to those coming from the close knit communities (Durkheim’s mechanical solidarity) of traditional peasant society. However, totally free markets and amoral economics often do present newly modernising societies with an image, even of a reality, of a world of no order, or at the very least one of a very bad order, i.e. one that only looks after the rich and selfish. The modern world only works because there is an order (for better or worse), but not one that is necessarily known or appreciated by the old order. The new order does provide remarkable new freedoms and rights, wealth and prosperity, security from want, ignorance, disease and many of the afflictions that made traditional society so bad in reality, at least for some. But modernity also creates, even for its own members, an insecurity and anxiety in its competition and individualism, change and development, complexity and lack of roots. This was partly overcome by the rise of nationalism, especially in its Enlightenment form, which accompanied modernity and economic development and provided a new larger, more extended set of relationships built around economies of scale, division of labour and reciprocity. This was an order that enabled the development of the individual, democracy and freedom, but not as a chaotic and disordered world, in many ways it was a far more rigid and standardised world, since reciprocity and the exchange relationships required of an extended division of labour needed greater order at a deeper, underlying level. It was an order of a different kind from the old communities, which repressed individualism for group conformity and created a greater sense of social domination and demanded a submission (the literal meaning of Islam is surrender to the will of Allah, Armstrong, 2001) to the communal will. The modern nation provided a social order (religion) that provided place and context to constrain and put boundaries upon the individual and the otherwise endless seeking after the new and progress, to curb the otherwise insatiable appetites of individuals let loose from their old communities, relations and ties and to provide a protective shield against the outside world for its members. Patriotism, whilst also the ‘last refuge of a scoundrel’ could also have an important disciplining and constraining affect on individual behaviour and create a sense of community belonging and moral obligation.

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But modern nations took time to develop and become the vehicles for the social order they have become. They were also complex constructs that also had to respond to the specific needs of different groups in different milieu and different communities had to be carefully moulded and engineered into these new constructs. They also had to evolve new principles of order and integration, new relations, new identities, cultures and new imperatives that could also combine with a relevant sense of the past. It took time and even then there were different groups reacting against this: the new order was based on economic exchange and individual development linked into an international order that reflected the principles of science. But when these first emerged they appeared as chaotic to many, then as now, because they appeared so alien and incomprehensible to those nurtured in the old traditional orders. This is what we have to remember today, the lessons of history, if we are to successfully combat terrorism: it is the need to recognise the social dimension and the magnitude of the change required by modernity in men’s social and communal lives as they go through the transition to modernity. One might almost say: the need for an ordered process of change and the need for stability and security when many of the old institutions of stability and security are being undermined. This in turn also requires of the modern west a discipline and restraint in its own urges to develop new markets or exploit new resources, precisely because it will have such a destabilising and disruptive affect and induce such anxiety, unless suitable change strategies and transitional institutions are put in place before the new national ones are properly constructed. Order within disorder is the key to preventing terrorism. In this we must remember that it is not a question of order or disorder of society against the individual, it is a question of new, more relevant orders when they are appropriate and respect for old orders when they are still in place and functional. Equally in our pursuit of individual rights and freedoms, which I support, it is not to pose the individual against society or the community but to recognise the need for different kinds of social organisation that will enable the individual and still provide them with the necessary social support. At the same time society itself is dependent upon the individual as its fundamental building block, hence the need not for amoral individuals but individuals who appreciate their dependence upon society and display a willingness to understand their individual obligations back to it, for without society none of those institutions that make and support us, from education to health care, would exist. We have to recognise the complex interplay between individual and society that can also vary from context to context, for as Pope observed: That true Self-Love and Social are the same.

Get that wrong and then we have a terrorism problem.

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Index 19th century anarchy 105-6 Catholicism 108 Europe 171, 179 Europe and terrorism 55 France 146 Ireland 108 political assassinations 103 Romanticism 100 sociology in Europe 141-2 terrorism 174 violence 98-110 20th century terrorism 115-23 Afghanistan Great Britain 11, 59 liberal democracy 159 modern legal rights 159 NATO 178 violence 60 Age of Enlightenment (Reason) aims 19 anarchist-terrorists 105 arts reaction 95 Continent 50 disenchantment 109 Europe 50 evocation of the individual 53 France 79, 94-5 French Revolution 89 Germany 95 knowledge 7-8, 58 liberal conscience 20 nationalism 180 ‘natural man’ concept 66 order 49 political violence 79 reaction 51 Reformation 29 Romanticism 26, 87, 92-8, 109, 162 rule of law 3-4, 24-5

science 7, 30 Scotland 70 sociology 142 violence 46-57 Western society 9 Agincourt see Battle of Agincourt Al Qaeda 97-8, 104 Alder, Ken 70, 93 Alexander the Great 11 Algeria 56, 123, 125-6, 156 Allah and Islam 96, 156, 180 altruistic suicide 165 America Anomic suicide 165 fund raising for IRA 178 industrialisation 101 religious terrorism 143 American Revolution (1776-1783) 23, 68, 88 American Revolutionary Army 39 amoral economics 180 anarchy in 19th century 105-6, 113-14 ancien regime (France) 23 Animal rights National Index 92 anomic suicide 165 Apollo (God of Order) 134 Aristotle 48, 156 Aron, Raymond 32 Baader–Meinhof group (Germany) 134 Badajoz siege 15, 21 Balzac 95 ‘baserria’ (Basque culture/economy) 16, 72-3, 131-2 Basque Lands Catholic society 174 ETA 142 nationalism 108-9, 158 non-community members 174 religion 148, 166 social relations 153

194

Terrorism and the Politics of Social Change

Spanish imperialism 118 terrorism 127-8, 131-3 violence 65, 153 Battle of Agincourt (France) 16-17 Battle of Camerone (Mexico) 61-2 Beggars Opera 36 Berlin, Isaiah 79, 95, 100 Best, Geoffrey 23-4 Bismarck 103, 115 Blake, William 94-5 blood letting 17, 96 book summary 4 ‘Boston Massacre’ 39 Breuilly, John 29 Briggs, Asa 39 Britain see Great Britain British 14th Army, Burma 123 Bruce, Steve 47 Byzantine scholars 48 Canaris, Admiral 28 ‘Captain Swing’ and Luddites 40 car manufacture 161 Castle 92 Catholicism Basque Lands 174 Church 152 Ireland 153 Nationalists in Northern Ireland 129-30 Northern Ireland 174 science and industry 108, 117 society 152 traditional religion 81, 117 Caucuses (Russian) 13, 138-9, 156, 174 Cenotaph memorial services 148 change anxiety and violence 175 progress 176-8 Christian Eucharist 96, 163 Christianity 29, 61, 74, 95 civil wars 75-6 clans in sociology 149 Clark, Robert 153 classical sociology 171, 177 collective effervescence concept 148 ‘Commissioners of the Treaty of Union’ (Scotland) 38 Communism 43

Communist God concept 154 community defence and violence 170 terrorism 144 transformations 172 Congress of Vienna (1814–15) 42 Constantinople 15, 48 the Continent Age of Enlightenment 50 political violence 41 Convention on Genocide, 27 conventional force and terrorism 177 Copernicus 97 craft workers (exploitation) 101 Crenshaw, Martha 131, 136, 169 Crimean War (1853–56) 26 Cromwell, Oliver 39 Danjou, Captain 61-3, 127-8, 147, 166 death and Romanticism 97-8 Declaration of St Petersburg, 1867 27 Defoe, Daniel 38, 85 Dickens, Charles 70, 77 Dionysus (God of Disorder) 134 disorder and society 181 Division of Labour 63 Douglass, William 62 Dryden, John 113 Easter Rising, 1916 (Ireland) 117-18 Eatwell, Roger 166 economics free market 176, 180 Romanticism 107 egotistic suicide 164-5 Elementary Forms of Religious Life 159 emotions collective life 99 society 161 suffering 160 violence 179 Engels, Matthew 22, 39, 80, 101 English Civil war 17, 88 English, Richard 86 Enlightenment see Age of Enlightenment ETA anti-science 97 Basque Lands 142

Index change/development 108 havens in France 178 location 80 religious zeal 75 violence 131-2, 134 ethnic groups conflicts 126 France 75 moral imperative 53 nation states 25 Romanticism 78 state rule 29 ethno-nationalism 51, 144 Europe 19th century 141, 171, 179 anomic suicide 165 development 50 ‘great depression’ 100 industrialisation 101 revolutions 98 Romanticism 82 terrorism 55 violence 81-2, 157-8, 172 factory Acts (England) 40, 72 farmers (exploitation) 101 fascism Italy 120-1 Romanticism 165 world order 121 Fear and Trembling 1 Ferdinand, Grand-Duke 114 Flaubert 95 FLN in Algeria 123 former Soviet Union 154 former Yugoslavia 138-9, 154 Foster, R.F. 127 France 19th Century 146 ancien regime 23 Age of Enlightenment 79, 94-5 history 36, 43-4 industrial middle class 41 Franco, General 131 free markets 176, 180 freedom concept 89, 93-4 meaning 106

Romanticism 98 Freiheit (journal) 102, 104 Freikorps 115, 120 French Foreign Legion 61-2 French Revolution 1789 125 1830 98 Age of Enlightenment 89 anarchy 79 citizenship 25 Congress of Vienna (1814–15) 42 Le Terreur 23, 34, 87-8 man and society 88-9 middle class revolt 41 Napoleonic Wars 42 old order 51 political violence 41 violence 42 Freud, Sigmund 99, 109 Galileo 97 Garibaldi ‘red shirts’ 76 ‘Risorgimento’ 98-9 Gellner, Ernest Algeria and Islamic culture 126 culture in global economy 86 Durkheim 144 ‘high culture’ 151 industrial society 56, 63 law 158 low culture 79 modern world divided concept 72-4 nationalism 23, 34, 51 ‘plough’ concept 46 single conceptual mind 57 Sufism 47 ummah concept 135 ‘gemeinschaft’ (sociology) 78 Geneva Conventions 26-7, 59, 98 Germany Age of Enlightenment 95 Landwehr 91 Napoleon 25 Napoleonic wars 95 nationalism 25, 114 Nazism 33, 55, 115-16 Nuremberg trials 27

195

196

Terrorism and the Politics of Social Change

Peasant War 35 Romanticism 81, 94 unification (1870-1) 25, 93-4, 100 ‘gesellschaft’ (sociology) 78, 93 Ghurkas and kukri 16 Giddens, Anthony 17, 22-3, 35-6, 46, 55, 113, 144 Gildea, Robert 36, 43-4, 85, 91, 98, 141 ‘Glorious Revolution’ (Great Britain) 39, 88 God attacks 171 blood letting 17 Death 165 laws 96 sacrifice 147-9, 159, 171 science 58 society 145 world 49 God of Disorder (Dionysus) 134 God of Order (Apollo) 134 Godland 68 ‘good old days’ 173 Gordon, Lord George 38-9 Gordon Riots, 1780 (England) 38, 102, 179 Gott Mitt Uns 96 Great Britain Afghanistan 11, 59 ‘Glorious Revolution’ 39, 88 industrial middle class 41 industrial revolution 68 ‘jingoism’ 82 Northern Ireland 12 Pakistan 11 Pakistani suicide bombers 167-8 political violence 39 Sri Lanka 138 violence 36, 40 ‘great depression’ (Europe) 100 Greenfeld, Liah 80 guerillas Spain 91, 98 warfare 42 gunpowder 18 Gupta, Dipak 63-5, 163 Guy Fawkes 18

Hagan, Frank 27 The Hague conferences (1899 and 1907) 27 convention 98 Law 27 Harnden, Toby 13, 159 Haymarket Square, Chicago incident 102 Hegel 100 Heinzen 105 Henry, Emile 76, 101, 103, 105, 165, 168 Herbert, David 47-8 Hervieu-Leger, Daniele 47 history France 36, 43-4 non-state violence 34-46 political violence 38-9 terrorism 181 violence 14-30 Hobbes, Thomas 15, 21, 34, 45, 49 Hobsbawm, Eric fascism 121 French Revolution 25, 41 law 158 nation concept 50, 75, 85 nationalism 23, 51 Nazis 116 political order 50-1 revolutions 42 holiness 23, 170 ‘home-grown’ terrorists 167 Howard, Michael 20-2 Hughes, Michael 161 Hungarian Peasant Revolt, 1514 35 Hutcheson, Francis 46, 178 Hutu tribe (Rwanda) 124 ‘idiocy of rural life’ 51, 64, 92 immoral behaviour 173 IMRO see Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organisation India 123-4 individuals in society 177, 181 industrial development and violence 107 industrial division of labour 150 industrial middle class in Britain/France 41 industrial revolution in Great Britain 68 industrial society 56-7, 150-1, 155

Index Institute of International Law Conference, Oxford, 1880 27 Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organisation (IMRO) 104 international relations 67 invaders and violence 171 IRA American fund raising 178 anti-science 97 Catholic nationalism 130 ex-British servicemen 115 location 80 membership 119 Northern Ireland 128, 178-9 religious response 134 Republic of Ireland 85 violence 65, 75 Iraq 123, 156, 178 IRB see Irish Republican Brotherhood Ireland 19th century 108 Catholicism 153 Easter Rising, 1916 117-18 nationalism 65, 73, 158 peasant culture 107 religion 148, 166 Romanticism 118 violence 118-19 Irgun (Jewish Terrorists) 122 Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) 104 Islam Algeria 126 Allah 96, 156, 180 change 175 fundamentalism 55, 72-3, 117-18, 127-8 immigrants 168 Ottoman Empire 137 philosophy 156 religion 96 religious teaching 148 society 81, 152, 154, 166 suicide bombers 138, 147 terrorism 166 tolerance of individual 127 ummah concept 74, 125-6, 135-8, 155-6, 168 Western intervention 179

197

Western objectivity 136 Israel 136, 155, 178 Italy 99, 120 Ivanhoe 91 Jacobite traitors 37 Japanese Kamikaze 62, 167 Jarrett, Derek 38 Jean d’Arc 63 Jerusalem 94 ‘jingoism’ and Britain 82 Jura Federation (Switzerland) 104 ‘just in time’ manufacturing 161 justice and law 156 Kaiser Wilhelm 103 Kamikaze (Japan) 62, 167 Kashmir 168 Keegan, John 14, 16 Keitel, Field Marshal 28 Kenya and Mau Mau terrorists 123-4 Khyber Pass 10, 12, 59 King of Prussia 103 Kingsley, Charles 70 knowledge and Age of Enlightenment 7-8 kukri and Ghurkas 16 Kurdistan 161 Landwehr (volunteer armed militia) 91 ‘last refuge of a scoundrel’ 180 law development 159 Durkheimian analysis 155-7 justice 156 society 155-6, 158 war and political violence 162 Le Terreur description 89-90 French Revolution 23, 34, 87-8 Napoleon 43 Leeds Rugby League 168 Leviathian 45 liberal democracies 44, 122, 124-6, 170 liberal politics and Romanticism 99 liberty concept 90 meaning 106 Romanticism 98

198

Terrorism and the Politics of Social Change

local knowledge and terrorism 57 London Labour and the London Poor 39 London and violence 37 Luddites and ‘Captain Swing’ 40 ‘MacDonaldisation’ 136-7 Malatesta, Errico 105 Malaya and terrorism 124 Manual of Laws of Wars of the Land 27 Marlborough, Duke of 19 martyrdom 117 Marx, Karl Age of Enlightenment 7, 25 alienation 109 communism 43 ‘idiocy of rural life’ 51, 64, 92 liberal tradition 79 modernism 80 non-economic values 133 socialism 101 socialist revolution 77 wage slaves 93 war/violence 22 Mau Mau (terrorists) in Kenya 123-5 Mayhew, Henry 39 meaning freedom 106 liberty 106 ‘mechanical’ order in sociology 78 mechanical solidarity 149-55 military movements and religion 156 Mill, J.S. 87 ‘mob’ rule 38, 45 mobile phones in Kurdistan 161-2 modern scientific culture 126 modern terror and violence 92 Most, Johan 102, 104 multi-culturalism concepts 177 Muslim Brotherhood 73, 138, 154 Muslim Society 63 Muslims India 123-4 martyrs 96 Mussolini 120 Napoleon 23, 25, 43, 99 Napoleonic Wars (1789–1815) Congress of Vienna 42

description 23 French Revolution 42 Germany 95 ideals 90-1 nationalism age of Enlightenment 180 appeal 110, 180 Basque Lands 108-9, 158 ethnic units 25 ethno-separatist 51 Germany 25, 114 holiness 23 Ireland 65, 73, 158 politics 139 religion 114 Romanticism 85, 123 society 114 unification 51 violence 46-57, 113 NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) 5, 10, 178 ‘natural man’ concept 66 Nazism Germany 33, 55, 115-16 ideology 52 Romanticism 123, 172 science 58 war crimes 46 ‘new medievalism’ and Romanticism 100 new technology and sociology 161-2 New York, US 158 Newton, Isaac 4, 7, 20 Niederwald plot, 1885 (assassination of Kaiser) 103 Nietzsche 125 Nisbet, Robert 76, 101, 144, 166 non-governmental organisations (NGOs) 136 non-political riots 38 non-state violence history 34-46 North America and violence 172 North West Frontier, Pakistan 10, 123 Northern Ireland Catholic communities 130 Catholic community 174 Catholic Nationalists 129-30 Great Britain 12 IRA 128, 178-9

Index non-community members 174 Protestant community 174 Protestants 129 Republic of Ireland 13 segregation 129 terrorism 127-31 violence 46 Nuremberg, Germany trials 27 order concept 94 Former Yugoslavia 138-9 law 30 mob rule 45 reciprocity 151 religion 47-8 society 28, 106, 181 sociology 75 terrorism 126-7 violence 47-8 ‘ordinary decent terrorist’ 5 ‘organic’ order in sociology 78, 93 organic social relations (structures) 150 organic society 151-2 organic solidarity 149-55, 161 ‘Orientalism’ 126 origins of terror 88-92, 142 Orsini, Felici 103 Ottoman Empire and Islam 137 Paine, Tom 21, 25 Pakistan Great Britain 11 North West Frontier 10, 123 returnee immigrants 168 suicide bombers in Great Britain 167-8 Palestine Israel 155, 178 terrorism 6, 166 violence 122-3, 136, 166 Pape, Robert A. 138, 143 Paris Commune and anarchy 179 patriotism 180 Pearl-Continental Hotel, Peshawar 12 Pearse, Patrick 117 Peasant War, Germany 35 peasants culture in Ireland 107

199

definition 64 farmers 109 revolts 35, 38 society 67 violence 159 Peasants into Frenchmen 44, 151 Peninsular War (Spain) 15, 20, 124 Peterloo massacre, 1819 102 Pinochet, General 85 PIRA (grand children of Romantics) 79 Plough, Sword and Book 46 policing in Iraq 123 political violence Age of Enlightenment 79 Britain 39 Continent 41 history 38-9 laws of war 162 politics assassinations in 19th century 103 science 67 terrorism 142, 169 violence 144 Pope, Alexander 7, 20, 59, 68, 141, 169, 181 Popper, Sir Karl 176 post world war II terrorism 123-8 ‘primitive’ societies 163 Professional Ethics and Civic Morals 87 Protestant community in Northern Ireland 174 Protestants church 96 Northern Ireland 129 Ulster 153 psychology and terrorism 141 Quran 137 Raison d’etat concept 85 Raj 10-14 Ravachol (French anarchist) 103 reciprocity and order/cohesion 151 Reclus, Elisee 105 Red Brigade (Italy) 134 Red Cross 26 ‘red shirts’ and Garibaldi 76 Reformation 29, 48-9, 53, 88, 96

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Terrorism and the Politics of Social Change

religio term 88, 146 religion Basque Lands 166 Ireland 153, 166 Islam 96 military movements 156 nationalism 114 order 47-8 Romanticism 87, 96, 98 sacrifice 147 society 144, 175 sociology of Durkheim 145-9 terrorism 148 Ulster 153 violence 47-8, 64, 88, 146, 156 wars 28, 68 Republic of Ireland IRA 85 Northern Ireland 13 Romanticism 81 violence 116-17 revolutions Europe 98 Russia 121, 125 western world (1815–1848) 42 Rhodesia 156 Richardson, Louise 1, 81, 141 ‘risk society’ 55 ‘Risorgimento’ (Garibaldi) 98-9 Robespierre 23 Robin Hood 91 Roman Catholic church 96 Romans 15, 20 Romanticism 19th century 81-2, 100 Age of Enlightenment 26, 87, 98, 109, 162 arcadian idyll 71 death 97-8 economics 107 ethnic groups 78 ethnic-separatism 77 Europe 82 ‘failures’ of modernisation 80 fascism 165 Germany 81, 94 Ireland 118 Irish Republicans 81

liberal politics 99 liberty/freedom 98 Napoleon 99 nationalism 85, 123 Nazism 123, 172 ‘new medievalism’ 100 outlaw concept 91 politics 79-80 religion 87, 96, 98 science 96, 100 self-determination 86 sturm und drang 79 terrorism 29 traditional society/nature 78 violence 51-5, 57, 58, 97-8 ‘rootless rage’ and society 101 Rousseau 21, 66 rule of law 3 rural society and violence 95 Russia caucuses 13, 138-9, 156, 174 Revolution 121, 125 terrorism 104 sacrifice Christian Eucharist 96, 163 God 147-9, 159, 171 society 163 Said, Edward 126 St Augustine of Hippo 17, 28-9 St Thomas Aquinas 28 Saudi Arabia 159 Schiller 91, 95 Schmidt, Carl 115 science Age of Enlightenment 7, 30 God 58 modern culture 126 Nazism 58 products 162 Reformation 49 Romanticism 96, 100 societies 160 society 7-8, 93 violence 50 Scott, Walter 91 segmentation in society 151 self-determination 86

Index Sennett, Richard 40 Sharia law 127, 137, 166 ‘shatter belt’ (Ulster) 132 shoe makers 101 Sinhalese race 133-4 suicide, terrorism 163-8 Smith, Adam 21, 46, 56, 133, 178 Smith, Anthony 25, 32, 45, 91 Smith, Sir Rupert 162 Soboul, Albert 41-2 social being and terrorism 148 ‘social hygiene’ concept 120 Socialist Revolutionary Party (Russia) 104 society Catholic 152 development 149-50 disorder 181 emotion 161 French Revolution 88 God 145 individuals 177, 181 industrial 56-7 Islam 152, 154, 166 Islamic 81 law 33-4, 155-6, 158 liberal democracies 33-4 nationalism 114 order 28, 106, 181 organic 151-2 peasant 67 ‘primitive’ 163 religion 175 religious affiliation 144 ‘rootless rage’ 101 sacrifice 163 science 7, 93, 160 segmentation 151 semi-feudal 144 suffering 160 territory 154 terrorism 1-2, 31-2 traditional 170 violence 20, 50 western 66, 173-4 socio-economics and violence 101 sociology 19th century 67, 141 clans 149

201

classical 144, 171, 177 Durkheim 145-9 empirical factors 176 Europe 141 gemeinschaft 78 gesellschaft 78 history 141-2 ‘mechanical’ order 78 new technology 161 order 75 ‘organic’ order 78 segmentation 143-4 terrorism 5, 110-11, 141 tribes 149 violence 68-82 South Africa 156 Spain guerillas 91, 98 socio-economic change 122 Sri Lanka Great Britain 138 Tamil Tigers 86 terrorism 127-8, 133-4 Stalin 121 state rule and ethnic groups 29 terrorism 33 Stern Gang (Jewish Terrorists) 122 Stolipin (prime minister of Russia) 104 ‘stupendous whole’ concept 151 sturm und drang (storm and strife) 52-3, 79 sufi (Muslim holy men) 60 Suicide 4, 164 suicide altruistic 165 anomic 165 bombers 138, 172 egotistic 164-5 funerals 167 Islam 138 Kamikaze (Japan) 62, 167 Pakistani bombers in Britain 167-8 Taliban and television 72 Tamils race 133-4 suicide bombers 147 terrorism 16

202

Terrorism and the Politics of Social Change

Tigers 86 territory society 154 terrorism 143-4 terrorism, definition 31, 169 terrorists (character) 173 The Communist Manifesto 101 The Condition of the Working Class in England, 1844 39 The Country of the Blind 69, 82, 89, 145 The Crowd 24 The Division of labour in Society 65, 149 The Mask of Anarchy 41 The theory of Moral Sentiments 176 Thirty Years war 17, 48, 96 Tobias, J.J. 40 tolerance of individual (Islam) 127 Treaty of Westphalia 1648 3, 17, 48 tribes in sociology 149 Tutsi tribe (Rwanda) 124, 134 ‘Twin Towers flyers’ 143 Ulster 107, 117-18, 127, 132, 153 ummah concept (Islam) 74, 125-6, 135-8, 155-6, 168 unification Germany (1870–1) 25, 93-4, 100 Italy 99 nationalism 51 United Nations (UN) Declaration of Human Rights (1948) 27 United States see America van Crefeld, Martin 32, 34, 36 violence 19th century 81-2, 98-110 Afghanistan 60 anxiety/change 175 Basque Lands 65, 153 Britain 36, 40 Constantinople 15 defence of community 170 disorder 171-2 emotions 179 Europe 81-2, 157-8, 172 everyday life 173 French Revolution 42 history 14-30

holiness 170 industrial development 107 invaders 171 IRA 65, 75 Ireland 118-19 Israel 135 Khyber Pass 59 London 37 modern terror 92 nationalism 46-57, 113 North America 172 Northern Ireland 46 order 30, 47-8 organic society 161 Palestine 122-3, 123 peasant societies 159 politics 38-9, 144 religion 47-8, 64, 88, 146, 156 Republic of Ireland 116-17 Romans 15 Romanticism 54, 97-8 science 50 society 20, 50, 95 socio-economics 101 sociology 68-82 terrorism 13-14 volksgeist (people’s spirit) 81, 115 volksgemeinschaft (people’s community) 81, 115 Volya, Narodnaya 104 vote concept 41 ‘war against terror’ 178 ‘war amongst the people’ 162 ‘war on society’ 111 ‘war on terrorism’ 111 wars Christianity 29 civil 75-6 religion 28, 68 warships 18 weapons for terrorism 101-2 Weber, Eugen 25, 44, 63, 71, 77, 82, 109 Wellington, Duke of 21 Wells, H.G. 69, 89 Weltmacht 115 Western intervention in non-western/ Islamic societies 179

Index Western objectivity and Islam 136 western society 66, 155, 173-4 western world revolutions (1815–1848) 42 Wilkinson, Paul 33, 85, 115 William III 39 William Tell 91 Wilson, Woodrow 85 Winfield, Richard 144 World War I 114 World War II 46, 114, 123, 167

Yorkshire County Cricket 168 Young Ireland 80 Yugoslavia break up 144 Zola, Emile 70 Zulaika, Joseba ‘baserria’ 131-2 Basque violence 65, 72, 108-9, 153 ETA 142 psychology and social lives 128 terrorism 62

203