Violence and Militants: From Ottoman Rebellions to Jihadist Organizations [Hardcover ed.] 0773558691, 9780773558694, 9780773559851, 9780773559868

Table of contents :
Preface / ix
Acknowledgments / xi
Notes on Pronunciation and Acronyms / xiii

Introduction / 3

1 The Historical Paradigm / 23
2 Cultural Violence / 43
3 The Rationalization and Application of Cultural Violence / 79
4 Structural Violence / 93
5 The Rationalization and Application of Structural Violence / 127
6 From a Violent Past to a Desperate Future / 139

Notes / 159
Index / 199

Citation preview

Acknowledgments

VIOLENCE AND MILITANT S

i

human dimensions in foreign policy, military studies, and security studies Series editors: Stéphanie A.H. Bélanger, Pierre Jolicoeur, and Stéfanie von Hlatky Books published in the Human Dimensions in Foreign Policy, Military Studies, and Security Studies series offer fresh perspectives on foreign affairs and global governance. Titles in the series illuminate critical issues of global security in the twenty-first century and emphasize the human dimensions of war such as the health and well-being of soldiers, the factors that influence operational effectiveness, the civil-military relations and decisions on the use of force, as well as the ethical, moral, and legal ramifications of ongoing conflicts and wars. Foreign policy is also analyzed both in terms of its impact on human rights and the role the public plays in shaping policy directions. With a strong focus on definitions of security, the series encourages discussion of contemporary security challenges and welcomes works that focus on issues including human security, violent conflict, terrorism, military cooperation, and foreign and defence policy. This series is published in collaboration with Queen’s University and the Royal Military College of Canada with the Centre for International and Defence Policy, the Canadian Institute for Military and Veteran Health Research, and the Centre for Security, Armed Forces, and Society. 1 Going to War? Trends in Military Interventions Edited by Stéfanie von Hlatky and H. Christian Breede 2 Bombs, Bullets, and Politicians France’s Response to Terrorism Christophe Chowanietz 3 War Memories Commemoration, Recollections, and Writings on War Edited by Stéphanie A.H. Bélanger and Renée Dickason

4 Disarmament under International Law John Kierulf 5 Contract Workers, Risk, and the War in Iraq Sierra Leonean Labor Migrants at US Military Bases Kevin J.A. Thomas 6 Violence and Militants From Ottoman Rebellions to Jihadist Organizations Baris Cayli

preface

Violence and Militants From Ottoman Rebellions to Jihadist Organizations BARIS C AYLI

McGill-Queen’s University Press Montreal & Kingston • London • Chicago

iii

iv

preface

© McGill-Queen’s University Press 2019 isbn 978-0-7735-5869-4 (cloth) isbn 978-0-7735-5985-1 (epdf) isbn 978-0-7735-5986-8 (epub) Legal deposit third quarter 2019 Bibliothèque nationale du Québec Printed in Canada on acid-free paper that is 100% ancient forest free (100% post-consumer recycled), processed chlorine free This book has been published with the help of a grant from Derby University.

We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts. Nous remercions le Conseil des arts du Canada de son soutien.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Title: Violence and militants : from Ottoman rebellions to jihadist organizations / Baris Cayli. Names: Cayli, Baris, 1984– author. Series: Human dimensions in foreign policy, military studies, and security studies ; 6. Description: Series statement: Human dimensions in foreign policy, military studies, and security studies ; 6 | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20190118393 | Canadiana (ebook) 2019011844x | isbn 9780773558694 (hardcover) | isbn 9780773559851 (epdf) | isbn 9780773559868 (epub) Subjects: lcsh: Violence—History. | lcsh: Religious militants—History. | lcsh: Jihad—History. Classification: lcc hm1116 .c39 2019 | ddc 303.609—dc23

This book was typeset by True to Type in 10.5/13 Sabon

Acknowledgments

Çok kıymetli Annem ve Babam için Para mi mama i mi papa Per i miei genitori For my parents

v

vi

Acknowledgments

preface

vii

Contents

Preface ix Acknowledgments xi Notes on Pronunciation and Acronyms xiii Introduction 3 1 The Historical Paradigm

23

2 Cultural Violence 43 3 The Rationalization and Application of Cultural Violence

79

4 Structural Violence 93 5 The Rationalization and Application of Structural Violence 6 From a Violent Past to a Desperate Future 139 Notes 159 Index 199

127

viii

Contents

Acknowledgments

ix

Preface

Writing about violence is emotionally challenging. I am passionate about understanding violent episodes; in this book I ask how they occurred, why they occurred, and what determined them. These important questions help me to contextualise the stories of militants, their enemies, and their victims. My aim is not to discover remedies for violence but rather to uncover the complicated dynamics and bitter realities that pave the way for the rationalization of violence and therefore, ultimately, to its application. I also attempt to shed light on the universal codes underlying human behaviour. For this reason, I select cases from the nineteenth century to compare to those involving some of the militants of our age. History is not an esoteric discipline; it is essential to know the past in order to understand the present. Studying history helps us recognise similar occasions, events, troubles, conflicts, and perplexing human behaviours in our own times. As Richard Bernstein reminds us, while there may be enormous confusion in terms of the value, instrumental role, and meaning of violence for different actors, the roots of perceived injustice follow unsurprisingly similar paths in rationalizations of its necessity.1 I hope readers of this book create their own bridges connecting the great troubles of the past with the tragedies of present. These bridges are critical to thinking again and again about the origins and consequences of violence. Hannah Arendt said that “violence appears where power is in jeopardy”2 The relationship between power and violence is inextricable. If one seeks the ethos of justice, the roads paved by violence and power need to be walked through first. This book relies on a wide variety of scholarship, including the work of political theorists, historians, sociologists, anthropologists,

x

Preface

and philosophers. A large number of historical cases come from documents I consulted in the Ottoman Archives, which used to be part of the prime minister’s office in Istanbul.3 I particularly consulted the fonds of Sadaret Mektubi Kalemi Belgeleri (Documents of Grand Vizier’s Offıce), Girid İrâdeleri (Cretan Decrees), Sadâret Âmedî Kalemi Defterleri (Registers of Amedi Office), Irade-Hariciye (Imperial Decrees on Foreign Affairs), Hariciye Nezareti Belgeleri Siyasi (Ottoman Foreign Ministry Political Section Documents), Amedi Kalemi Defterleri (Amedi Office Registers), Taşra Bosna Müfettişliği Evrâkı (Documents of Provincial Inspection of Bosnia), Sadaret Mektubi Kalemi Meclis-i Vala Evrakı (Documents of Grand Vizier’s Offıce related to the Legislative and Supreme Council), and finally Sadâret Mektubî Kalemi Nezâret ve Devâir Evrakı (Documents of Grand Vizier’s Office about Correspondence between Ministries and Offices). The period of the Ottoman rebellions is limited to the Tanzimat era. This era witnessed great changes in the Ottoman officialdom when “justice” was at the center of political and legal debates. One may argue that the post-Tanzimat period is more interesting for studying violence because of the extensive nationalist militant activities at that time. However, this book is concerned not only to understand militant activities but also to explore the emergence of militant violence, so the Tanzimat era provides a better context for examining the source of militant rebellions before they became more endemic and ferocious. To conduct a systematic comparison, case selection relies on the analysis of documents published by the militant jihadists of Hezbollah, Hamas, al-Qaeda, and Isis, as well as videos disseminated by these groups and analysis of their attacks. I have focused on the concepts, occasions, and discourses embraced by the militants to legitimize their attacks, propagate their campaigns, recruit new members, and give support to the ideologues within their movements. Even though the following chapters provide a sequential analysis related to the four jihadist organizations, this book provides neither a detailed organizational chart nor a detailed history of each jihadist organization. Readers may find these elsewhere. My concern is to understand those events which make violence an inevitable instrument for militants. The rebellions were the critical events that put militants at the center of the state-society nexus in the nineteenth-century Ottoman Empire. On the other hand, jihad is an ideological force shaping the character of current militants. The militant rebels of the Ottoman Empire and the militant jihadists of today are presented in two different groups in the following chapters because this classification provides clarity.

Acknowledgments

xi

Acknowledgments

I started writing this book in 2013 and completed it in 2018. The book embraces such a wide range of subjects that I need to acknowledge many people who helped shaped my thoughts. Some of these thoughts sent me to the inferno of solitude, and without my family, colleagues, and friends, I could not have left that inferno. My deepest appreciation is reserved for my parents, who have always encouraged me and demonstrated their love for me. They even pointed out certain things that I overlooked during this project. Gioacchino Messina was fascinated by the project and his emotional support was invaluable, as was that of my friends Emine Incesu, Bengu Demir, and Burcu Ozdemir. My colleagues Alex Nunn, Francesco Belcastro, Michala Meiselles, and Paul Elliott provided a stimulating and productive environment for me and commented on some parts of the book. My colleagues Gill McIvor, Niall Hamilton-Smith, Margaret Malloch, and Sarah Wilson at the University of Stirling motivated me to write. I am also grateful to the archivists of the Ottoman Empire Archives in Istanbul, who were always helpful. I wish to thank my acquisition editor Jacqueline Mason, who believed in the project from the start and took it forward. The transformation of a manuscript into a book is not an easy task and requires the involvement of a number of dedicated professionals. Other people at the McGill-Queen’s University Press played important roles in the production of this book. I also wish to thank two anonymous reviewers whose feedback and suggestions helped me to strengthen the book. I am also grateful to the British Academy that supported this research financially. Last but not least, I am grateful to the impressive work of Susan Glickman who carefully and deftly oversaw the editing process. The views expressed here, however, do

xii

Acknowledgments

not necessarily represent the position of these institutions or of the various people that I have mentioned. All mistakes are, of course, my own.

Acknowledgments

xiii

Notes on Pronunciation and Acronyms

This book avoids using Ottoman paleography except when an English translation does not really provide the correct pronunciation of the term. The contemporary names of towns and villages are used in the text and their Ottoman names are mentioned in the notes. Modern Turkish spelling has been used throughout this book; the letters are pronounced similarly to their English equivalents. The following letters are exceptions. Letter

English pronunciation

c ç ğ

j ch the preceding vowel is lengthened; for example, ağız is pronounced a-ız similar to the pronunciation of serial zh like the German ö sh like the German ü not as heavy a sound as it is in English

ı j ö ş ü v

“Militia(s)” and “jihadi(s)” are two common versions of the words “militants” and “jihadists” used in the book. The other two names that have variants are Hezbollah and Isis. “Hizbullah,” “Hizballah,” “H . izbu ‘llāh” all literally mean “the Party of God” in Arabic; these are slight variations used in different places and contexts. This book uses “Hezbollah,” as its pronunciation is closer to the original Arabic.

xiv

Notes on Pronunciation and Acronyms

“Isis” has also had several alternative names; “Islamic State” (is), its Arabic acronym Daesh (pronounced as dāʿish), and “The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant” (Isil) are the three most common. This book uses Isis, which means the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. This acronym has been popular since the organization was established in 2013.

The Backstory

VIOLENCE AND MILITANT S

1

2

On the House

Introduction “These violent delights have violent ends, And in their triumph die; like fire and powder, Which, as they kiss, consume.” William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet

Every great expectation invokes hope and fear at the same time. This strange contradiction manifests itself ironically in human nature. The story of Kadhem Sharif is one such manifestation. Shortly after the invasion of Iraq in 2003, videos of Kadhem Sharif were disseminated widely and he became a popular figure. In these videos, he can be seen proudly breaking a statue of Saddam Hussein with a sledgehammer. With each blow, Sharif probably thought about how his homeland would become a better place to live in and how it would provide a future where his hopes would come true. However, this expectation resulted in mere disappointment. The outcome of the invasion intended to topple Saddam Hussein was catastrophic. This catastrophe did not result from reasons unique to the people of Iraq. Violence is a disruptive and subversive instrument. In many social settings with frustrating impacts, disappointment and resentment may be an unsurprising outcome, at least for a number of persons. Kadhem Sharif was one of those persons. He was not a militant but an ordinary and angry citizen of a dissident society. In fact, the character of contentious societies lies in diverse but similar modes of dissent. At the same time, both the use of violence and disappointment about its results also contain some ideals about the future. Intervention into the dissenting realms of a contentious society may cause an already fragile situation to deteriorate. The sinister outcomes of intervention in such societies create an unbearable situation when

4

Violence and Militants

the dissents are not eliminated within a reasonable period of time. If democratic channels are not available, or are perceived as disparaging governing methods, violence may be a valuable and even indispensable instrument for marginalized dissident people. In the conundrum of great concerns, individuals apply violence as a rationalized practice, which gains persistency when it is employed on multiple occasions. These violent practices eventually create militants out of angry and concerned people whose dissent directs them toward the route of revenge, and sometimes even towards proposing a new world order. Millions of people have been the victims of violence employed by militants and their antagonists since the state phenomena emerged. Millions of people have become refugees because of the consequences of violence. Destroyed cities and ruined villages paint the landscape of cataclysm. We hear the bitter cry of orphans and abandoned children in areas afflicted by civil war and conflict. Raped women and hopeless men are the endemic victims of social and political disaster. In regions characterized by such suffering, unsurprisingly, militants are the partners of catastrophe whether they are affected by it or create it.

the aim of this book: exploring the rationalization and application of violence by militants The role of violence in militant life is contingent upon the rationalization of violence as a necessary instrument for militant activities. Moving from this vantage point, the following two queries guide this book: (i) How do militants rationalize and then apply violence? (ii) Is there a set of common conditions that lead to the rationalization of violence by militants in different times and spaces? The present study aims to respond to these two principal questions by exploring the violent responses of militants who rebelled against the Ottoman Empire in the Balkans during the Tanzimat1 era (from 1839 to 1876) and those of militants belonging to four different jihadist organizations – Hezbollah, Hamas, al-Qaeda, and Isis – which operate in a diverse geography from Asia to the Levant. Studying historical calamities alongside the troubles of the present is the main methodology of this book. This comparison helps us answer the vexed question of how violence shapes contentious individuals and societies by asking: Is the militants’ motivation for resorting to violence independent of time and space? Responding to this

Introduction

5

question, we may clarify parallel elements determining the conditions for the rationalization of violence by different militant groups. More importantly, we may gain insights into violent human behaviour, whether it is oriented politically or not. In doing so, we may attain sufficient perspective to understand the application of violence by militants. This study develops two central arguments. The first argument clarifies the process of rationalization by claiming that both groups of militants justify the need for violence similarly, although the particulars of what kind of violence is ultimately employed depend on context. The second argument delves into the two forms of violence – cultural violence and structural violence – by investigating the reasons for and methods used in the rationalization and then application of violence. This leads us to conclude that politico-religious factors primarily determine the rationalization and application of cultural violence, whereas socio-structural factors are more influential in the rationalization and application of structural violence. There are also many incidents when the combination of cultural violence and structural violence leads to the escalation of aggression. We witness the most calamitous events when this occurs.

why do the ottoman rebellions and jihadist organizations matter? The nineteenth century was once described as the “Transformation of the World,”2 because its revolutions and rebellions determined the destiny of humanity in the following century, a century marked by two world wars. The Ottoman Empire did not remain isolated from these transformations. In fact, the early nineteenth century was critically important for Ottoman rule, providing the opportunity to bring about changes and develop policies addressing the concerns both of the people and of the governing cadre. Important changes in the political, social, cultural, and legal areas in the nineteenth century showed that Ottoman officialdom really strove for change, although they understood, after the second half of that century, that such change would not be easy to put into practice. This grim understanding became a bitter reality for the Ottoman Empire with the surge in nationalist violence and social and political tumult in the Balkans. The Ottoman Empire had a cosmopolitan character, with people from different religions and ethnicities living in the same small vil-

6

Violence and Militants

lages and towns. In Anatolia, the Middle East, and North Africa, there were plural societies that were ethnically and culturally different as well. However, the population of non-Muslims was greater than that of Muslims in the Balkans. The Almanach de Gotha3 recorded the population in 1850–53, and noted that 3,800,000 Muslims, 11,370,000 Orthodox Christians, 260,000 Catholics and 70,000 Jews (mostly in Salonika) resided in the European territories of the Ottoman Empire.4 Multiple identities in the religious sphere convulsed the region with more than a dozen ethnic groups in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Though in other times those plural communities had peacefully co-existed, the region was transformed into a labyrinthine network of conflicts. This persistent struggle even produced a new and orientalist concept – Balkanization – a term that was mostly used to suggest that the region’s multiple identities were hostile to each other.5 The implications of this term were that different communities in the region were alienated from each other, and their future co-existence was uncertain. The Napoleonic wars in Europe, the revolutions of 1848 attempted mainly by peasants and the lower social classes across Europe, the French revolution, the rise of nationalism, the colonialization of Africa by European powers, and the advancement of technology shaped the nineteenth century’s political and social landscape. These great changes impelled the struggle between colonialist states to control the means of production and to fulfill the goals set in their expansionist agendas. Some states enlarged their territories, whereas others were dissolved. Invasion and the use of military force were common. Territorial control was central to the realization of these goals. Violence afflicted the Ottoman Empire in the nineteenth century through attempts at rebellion by militants who were mostly Christians and resisted Ottoman rule. Similarly, the employment of violence by militant jihadists today has interrupted everyday life. The social and political dynamics of the late twentieth and the early twenty-first century include many parallels to those of the nineteenth century concerning the control of territory. Nonetheless, advancements in technology and developments in communication and also the manipulation of truth have characterized the last four decades. These developments also shaped the use of violence and produced global reactions through the concerted actions of the four jihadist organizations – Hezbollah, Hamas, al-Qaeda, and Isis – examined in this book. These organizations all have military sec-

Introduction

7

tions, and each member may engage in militant activities if ordered to do so. The Ottoman Empire controlled some of the militant activities through a set of reform packages and diminished the power of other militant groups by encouraging local people to oppose them. The harsh and fierce suppressive plans of the central government in Istanbul, the Sublime Porte6 (to be called the Porte hereafter), were also on the table to reconsolidate its authority in the periphery. Social and political problems in the Ottoman Empire lead to violent collective dissent and public panic. Reading this transformation in the Balkans through the role of militant activities helps us understand how the social dynamics of everyday life and the political agendas of diverse groups were influenced by violence among the multi-ethnic and multi-religious communities. “Jihad” is a vague term which signifies a general meaning of “striving” rather than “fighting” when we consider both hadith literature and those verses of the Quran which deal with jihad and martyrdom.7 In fact, its early expression was not limited to physical struggle against the enemy.8 The meaning of jihad can differ greatly depending on the identity of those using the term, their political and social agenda, and the local setting where it is practiced. Although today’s usage is mostly that which militants employ to further their ideological agendas,9 jihad is also a term indicating “internal reform, spiritual struggle and self-defence.”10 The commonality of aggression within the Abrahamic religions lies in the concept of a “just war” or “jihad” that legitimizes the use of physical force to eliminate the evil-doers.11 From this perspective, “the individual, while striving for individual merit and salvation, has also internalized the needs and goals of entire community. This is jihad in its fullness, a force uniting the individual, community and God.”12 Perhaps the most contentious verses in the Quran regarding the use of violence to defend one’s faith are Chapter 2, verses 190–1: “Fight in the cause of Allah those who fight you, but do not transgress limits; for Allah loveth not transgressors. And slay them wherever ye catch them, and turn them out from where they have turned you out; for tumult and oppression are worse than slaughter; but fight them not at the Sacred Mosque, unless they (first) fight you there; but if they fight you, slay them. Such is the reward of those who suppress faith.”13 By saying that tumult and oppression are worse than slaughter, these verses send a message that only slaying the opponent who oppresses the believer

8

Violence and Militants

is acceptable. They also permit fighting in the Sacred Mosque if opponents attack Muslims while they are observing their religion. These verses also state that oppression humiliates human beings, so the defence of one’s life and faith is presented as a method of resistance rather than offence. Even so, “oppression” remains a vague term. Does this oppression aim to exterminate all believers, or is it simply a form of psychological oppression? Considering the physical pressure on Mohammad and his followers, the former might be more accurate. Chapter 6, verse 151, reminds us that human life is sacred. As in other Abrahamic religions, we are told, “Do not take life, which God has made sacred, except by right: if anyone is killed wrongfully, We have given authority to the defender of his rights, but he should not be excessive in taking life, for he is already aided [by God].”14 In this verse, justice and law are required before deciding to take life. Understanding the range of interpretations of the word “jihad” makes it clear that a jihadist organization need not be violent at all times. Yet violence is fundamental to both the structure and the governance of Hezbollah, Hamas, al-Qaeda, and Isis, the four groups this book examines. There are other militant jihadist groups across the world, such as Abu Sayyaf in the Philippines, Jemaah Islamiah in Indonesia, and Ansar al-Sharia in Libya and Tunisia. But the violent activities of Hezbollah, Hamas, al-Qaeda in the 1980s started a new discussion about jihad more than a half century after the fall of the Ottoman Empire, a period in which Muslims lacked a universal caliphate. Jihad returned to the centre of Islamic political discussion globally with the rise of Isis in 2013. These four groups have more extensive global networks than any of the others and, except for alQaeda, they were founded in the territories that the Ottoman Empire once ruled. Even al-Qaeda’s original strength in Afghanistan and its strong links in Pakistan remained under the religious influence of the Ottoman Empire, so that al-Qaeda’s second leader, Egyptian Ayman Zawahiri, stated that the Ottomans “were the holy warriors against the ‘greedy’” and “for some five centuries were the defenders of Islam.15 Comparison of the Ottoman rebels with the jihadists is key to the principal question explored by this book: the rationalization of violence. The book also examines how militants regard religions as a means of legitimizing their actions. For this reason, militants in the Ottoman Balkans in the nineteenth century, who were mostly Christians, are compared to militant jihadists from Afghanistan to the Levant. The most common and important feature of both militant types

Introduction

9

– militant rebellions and militant jihadists – is their endorsement of violence as a principal instrument to attain their goals. Violence can be traced in the identities of these militants, the occasions of their conflicts, and the uneven distribution of power in the regions where they live. Before going further, however, it is important to ask: Who are these militants?

who are these militants? A militant, like all other rebels, is prone to use violence. Yet the concerns of a militant, like those of all other dissident people, are the outcomes of a multifaceted relationship between the state and society. The militant behaves in an implacable manner due to complex dynamics in which victimization, emotional suffering, and revenge are conflated in the habitus of dissent. Similar to the etymological root of “violence,” the word “militant” has a Latin root, milit, meaning soldier. Among different meanings of “militant,” the common characteristic is the use of concerted action until dissent is eliminated. The modern connotations of the word “militant” suggest armed insurgents and violent aggressors who use force to achieve a goal. From this standpoint, a militant is a dissident who fights for his goals through aggressive and persistent methods. The reaction of militants against perceived injustice in the nineteenth-century Ottoman Empire was discernible through politicoreligious dissents that were fueled by ethnic and religious motives. These militant activities diminished state authority and created thousands of victims among the civilian population and the state forces. Public safety was one of the main concerns of rural communities because of the ferocity of the militants’ attacks. The Ottoman state cadre identified those militants by a number of names. Şaki (eşkiya in the plural) is the most common term. Etymologically, şaki signifies a desperate or miserable person; however, it was mostly used to describe outlaws and brigands who violated the rules of state authority and created dissent in the governing centers. In addition to şaki, the term klepht denoted brigandage in the rural and mountainous areas of Ottoman Greece. The klephts were defined as “mainly fugitives, debtors, bandits, misfits, adventurers, victims of oppression, men not attached to the land by property or other obligations, who took to the hills and became brigands.”16 Klephts continued to be a serious problem even after Greece gained independence from the Ottoman

10

Violence and Militants

Empire in 1829. Ironically, this was related to the dual character of the klephts, who were known both as heroes of the national struggle against the Ottoman Empire and as criminals violating the laws of the newly established Greek state.17 Similar to the term klepths, hajuks (haiduks) was another popular aspersion used to describe bandits both in the Ottoman Empire and Eastern Europe.18 The multi-layered identities of these bandits made them a multidimensional problem. The heterogeneous character of militant rebels and even the use of different names to identify them are common features also of references to contemporary militant jihadists. The jihadists are merely “terrorists” to many of their opponents, but “heroes” and “martyrs” to their own supporters and sympathizers. The two common characteristics of militant jihadists are their eagerness to devise a violent response and the role of jihad in their activities. They target powerful authorities, as also happened in the case of rebels in the Ottoman Empire. However, as Gilles Kepel observes, these men and women are reacting against modernity and the rise of a new order starting from the early twentieth century, so this reaction makes them “the true children of our time.”19 Oversimplification of the militants’ backgrounds and presenting them as brutal characters who are hungry for bloodshed does not help us to understand the conditions determining human behaviour in grievous times. Using that simplified “orientalist” perspective, we may remain unable to understand why militants use violence the same way in different times and places. In regard to the educational level of militants, an important number of militant jihadists received advanced education in engineering, medicine, and science.20 Similarly the prominent leaders of the militants, particularly the Bulgarian and Greek rebels in the Ottoman Balkans, were educated and well aware of the political and social theories of the time. Hence, it is misleading to identify all these men as ignorant and irrational. In fact, both the militant rebels of the past and militant jihadists today justify their use of violence by interpreting their suffering through the books they read. This is not to suggest that militants are merely freedom-fighters. Jones and Smith successfully show in Sacred Violence how the transnational networks of Al-Qaeda, particularly in Europe, provided ideological and logistic support to the organization in the use of religion as a basis for political violence.21 Militants can be just as ruthless

Introduction

11

against the innocent as their opponents, as is demonstrated by many incidents recounted in the following chapters. The understanding of jihad today is quite different from that during the three previous “caliphates”: the Umayyad and Abbasid Caliphates and the Ottoman Empire. For example, in distinction to their predecessors, militant jihadists violate the classical rules (ahkam) by killing non-combatants, especially women and children, and they become suicide bombers even though suicide is strictly prohibited in Islam.22 Olivier Roy brings our attention to radicalized young Muslims of the second and third generation in Europe, who feel that they are rootless and are therefore prone to be tempted by the glorification of jihad presented to them by leading ideologues.23 The militant rebels of a number of bands and committees and even of the four different jihadist organizations embrace different goals and react differently against their opponents. These goals and reactions hinge on a perspective of victimization, narrated according to their understanding of justice. The fluid character of militants is more discernible in the relationship between state and society. These relationships produce multiple and sometimes conflicting narratives to define what is legitimate and just. The negative discourse used to describe militant rebels by the Ottoman authority is not surprising. However, they were appreciated by a portion of their local communities, who shared similar ideals and goals. The same appreciation is also evident in the recruitment process of militant jihadists, who gain the sympathy not only of local populations but also of Muslim men and women across Europe. The support of local people is particularly determinative for the empowerment of Hezbollah and Hamas, whose members are under the influence of national ideals and national agendas. Still, even though the members of al-Qaeda and Isis are recruited from around the world, local people in the territories controlled by these two organizations influence their power. It is true that the ordinary crimes committed by outlaws in the Ottoman Empire were not always based on politico-religious or sociostructural concerns, because banditry also brought material benefits. Similarly, a number of jihadists affiliate with militant organizations, particularly Isis, because of material benefits from that assignment and the salaries paid to them for their activities. However, the cases in this book focus on şaki, hajduk, or klepht who were formidable figures of local community and rebelled because of politico-religious or

12

Violence and Militants

socio-structural concerns. Similarly, the following chapters examine jihadists in the four organizations who participated in violent activities because of politico-religious or socio-structural motives.

why does violence matter? Etymologically, the word “violence” derives from the Latin root vis, meaning force or vigor. It started to be widely used in the thirteenth century to describe “a quick tempered and brutal person.”24 What instigates a vengeful behaviour or what leads to a brutal event at the community level arises in the dynamics of a violent relationship between the individual and society. The heterogeneous character of society provides incentives to dissenters when the issue is uneven distribution of power. The lack of a just social system in societies composed of diverse identities and classes makes the culture of diversity “a source of frustration” and “a constant source of grumbling cultural commentary.”25 Some ideologues, such as French philosopher Georges Sorel, promoted the use of collective violence in the early twentieth century because they believed that it was the key for the proletariat to mount a revolution.26 Violence was also appealing to social engineers like Mussolini, who argued that “creative violence” would hinder socialism and therefore lead to a better future for Italy.”27 What each of us views as “violence” is determined subjectively because the positions of conflicting people are shaped by contradictory perspectives. By citing scripture, Western civilization legitimized violence to defend “widows, orphans or declare ‘just war’ waged by Christian kings against the ‘Infidel’, ‘troublemakers’, and ‘the enemies of the prince.’”28 Violence is “an act of physical hurt deemed legitimate by the performer and illegitimate by (some) witnesses.”29 Defining what is just or unjust while devising a response to the source of dissent is the natural dynamic of subjectivity. The polemical statement centralizes violence as “neither malady nor enemy.”30 Taking violence as a part of human nature leads to the next question: how violence is rationalized. Violence may, in fact, follow a seemingly rational path whether it is justified by an earthly desire or a divine requirement for heavenly reward. Violence is generally an easy, quick, and profitable method of response, which makes it a “mechanical form of human energy: so mechanical that it can even be quantified or classified as ‘heavy’ or ‘light.’”31 Violence is not simply an individual practice. Organizations may also employ violence,

Introduction

13

and are affected by it. Every organization has some political features, and the state is organized “to mobilize the means of violence” so its control of territory can be sustainable.32 Max Weber’s famous essay, “Politics as a Vocation” (Politik als Beruf), explicates how a legal system created by the state itself acquires a monopoly of violence to legitimize and protect its status quo. Weber notes, “The state is seen as the sole guarantor of the ‘right’ to physical force. Therefore, ‘politics’ in our case would mean the pursuit for a portion of power or for influencing the division of power whether it is between states, or between groups of people which the state encompasses.”33 Control over the division and distribution of power uses physical force as a deterrent. Yet the use of force is not under the sole control of state authorities; violence plays a disruptive role wherever it is deployed. Such a disruptive role characterizes the degree of conflicts between the agencies vying for power. Nonetheless violence, as a concept, may mystify when it comes time to define it through actions. The act of violence and the violence of act express different things.34 The former invokes physical force over the targeted persons, institutions, or assets; however, the latter is the result of violent behaviour. That is why the use of violence by militants may generate severe outcomes, especially by way of intervention and in the responses of their opponents. Violence is vital for controlling society through totalitarian methods. Hannah Arendt produced one of the most significant and yet debated texts on the role of violence in the political realm. Arendt sharpened her arguments through a critical reading of Sorel, Fanon, Weber, Marx, and Sartre.35 Arendt’s concept of violence includes some subversive dynamics, particularly about the outcome of violent action, as she states that “the distinction between violent and nonviolent action is that the former is exclusively bent upon the destruction of the old and the latter chiefly concerned with the establishment of something new.”36 Arendt’s approach to violence is novel in terms of giving new meanings to old concepts. However, her perspective is state-centered, which limits violence to the orbit of revolutions, state violence, and political legitimacy. Arendt noted that “in domestic affairs, violence functions indeed as the last resort of power against criminals or rebels – that is, against individuals who, as it were, refuse to be overpowered by the consensus of the majority.”37 In this respect, we may open new gates to understanding the relationship between the state and society when we consider the use of violence by non-

14

Violence and Militants

state forces – criminals, rebels, and bandits – who deploy the instruments of violence to achieve their particular goals. Militants provide us the social ambiance with which to explore the central role of violence. That social ambiance is necessary to analyze power in diverse times and places in which it prevails. Studying violence helps us clarify the universality of human behaviour, people’s motives for its rationalization, and how it is applied. On the other hand, efforts to justify the use of violence may distort the truth, provide an excuse for provocation, and legitimize excessive physical force over the vulnerable. Judith Butler argues that “a frame for understanding violence emerges in tandem with the experience, and that frame works both to preclude certain kinds of questions, certain kinds of historical inquiries, and to function as a moral justification for retaliation.”38 Both victimized groups and the agents which oppress them have used the same frame of violence throughout history to legitimize their acts, defeat their opponents, and realize their ideals. When I refer to “violence,” do I mean a unified and single form of action or many different forms? In modern peace and war studies, Johan Galtung proposed two different forms of violence. These are “cultural violence” and “structural violence.” Cultural violence, according to Galtung, “refers to aspects of a culture that can be used to justify or legitimize direct or structural violence, and may be exemplified by religion and ideology, language and art, empirical science and formal science.”39 However, the term “cultural violence” as used in this book is slightly different from Galtung’s, because human culture is an inclusive arena where communities identify themselves through politics, ideology, social behaviors, customs, everyday practices, and patterns. Therefore, I define cultural violence as the use of physical force by a dissenter when that person perceives that his or her cultural identity is subject to injustice. The identification of cultural identity through resistance against perceived injustice, in fact, transforms a dissenter into a militant when physical violence is used persistently. Ethnic, national, or religious identification are the principal factors shaping the cultural identity of a militant. This is the reason that dissent rules the identity of militants before the decision to engage in violence is taken. Yet culture is not equivalent to religion, so “cultural” violence in this study is highly related to militant identity in which politico-religious factors play a primary role. Religious and political ideals become enmeshed when dissent resonates in the political spectrum. This resonance manifests the primitive motives of using cultur-

Introduction

15

al violence and it shapes the identity of a militant. Physical force against opponents emerges with the instigation of politico-religious dissent. This book argues that politico-religious motives provide the basic rationale to instigate cultural violence by militants, both in the past in the Ottoman Empire and in Hamas, Hezbollah, al-Qaeda, and Isis today. Structural violence, on the other hand, appears within social structures or institutions that degrade the lives of people by diverting them from their fundamental needs. Institutionalized discrimination against young people, ageism, classism, elitism, ethnocentrism, nationalism, racism, and sexism are examples of structural violence according to Galtung.40 These forms of structural violence may be related to cultural violence. However, according to Galtung, the main reason for structural violence is the unjust organization of institutions and their notorious power exercised over the lives of individuals and communities. From this perspective, structural violence may not be directly related to physical force even though it may produce gender-based violence, hate crimes, racial violence, war, or police and state violence. The principal characteristic of structural violence is social injustice. In fact, social injustice fosters feelings of victimization among militants and therefore becomes the fulcrum of structural violence, as we shall see in the following chapters. In contrast with Galtung, however, I emphasize that physical force is the unchanging outcome of structural violence because militants perceive it as the most effective method, if not the only one, to attain their ideals. Socio-structural concerns provide the principal rationalizations of structural violence by militants against their opponents. My definition of structural violence, therefore, is different from Galtung’s because when the issue is militants, structural violence denotes physical violence related to injustice resulting from the uneven distribution of power and poor living conditions in everyday life. Weak and fragile states, large populations, and poverty are factors that favour the recruitment of militants.41 Structural violence, therefore, is a form of physical force driven by socio-structural concerns, and this physical force aims to defy the power of the opponent while striving to make the militants’ own organization solid and formidable. This is in contrast to cultural violence, which prioritizes those values and abstract notions that form a person’s identity. Even though injustice penetrates the realms of both cultural and structural violence, the main motivations for and the expectations

16

Violence and Militants

involved in these two forms of violence differ. Of course, there are occasions when cultural and structural violence intersect and lead to a catastrophic outcome. The militants are not the only instigators of such intersections; states too may use both cultural and structural violence at the same time. The Syrian civil war is the most recent example of how a state applies both cultural and structural violence at the same time and becomes a model of strategy for the very militants that the state purports to be fighting against.42 Charles Tilly argues in his landmark study, The Politics of Collective Violence, that collective violence “is not simply individual aggression writ large. Social ties, structures, and processes significantly affect its character.”43 Social interactions and conflicts reveal that the competition for power determines the degree of collective violence. Structural kinship creates similar outcomes for people who feel subjugated in different regions and time periods. James C. Scott similarly asserts that this subjugation structures the domination so that we can grasp its operation in analogous ways: “They will, all other things being equal, elicit reactions and patterns of resistance that are broadly comparable.”44 Both “historically given (and often economically driven) processes and forces conspire to constrain individual agency. Structural violence is visited upon all those whose social status denies them access to the fruits of scientific and social progress.”45 This main dissent, leading to structural violence, creates more shattering outcomes when it is conflated with cultural violence. The commonality in both forms is the role of violence in connecting individual and social concerns. Violence emerges as an entropic element at both the cultural and structural levels, and when it connects the individual and society, it destroys both.46 Hannah Arendt states that we “have established ourselves as ‘universal’ beings, creatures who are terrestrial not by nature and essence but only on the condition of being alive, and who therefore by virtue of reasoning can overcome this condition not in mere speculation but in actual fact.”47 Creating motivation to live in a safe future environment through non-violent instruments requires dedication, organization, and application. Richard J. Bernstein says that we need to be hopeful about the future, because even some of the communities that have been subjected to violence have used non-violent instruments to realize their ideals. For example, he cites “the non-violent power employed by Gandhi in India, the civil rights movement in America, the Solidarity movement in Poland, and the non-violent social move-

Introduction

17

ments in Eastern Europe that resulted with the collapse of Communism.”48 The distinction between people who strive against perceived injustice by employing non-violent methods and others who use violent methods indicates that exploring the process in the rationalization of violence is critically important. Perhaps the most interesting outcome of cultural and structural violence is their combined force when used to attain power. A leading sociologist, Michael Mann, explores the sources of social power through four power types: (i) ideological; (ii) economic; (iii) military; and (iv) political.49 Ideological power unifies people around ideals. Economic power is the capacity of social sections, segments, and classes to function better in life by fulfilling their material needs. Military power refers to the army and the ability of ruling organizations to sustain security. Political power is the state’s use of a central bureaucracy to rule and govern. However, the concept of social power, according to Mann, cannot be reduced only to state actors because other agencies, such as militants, believe that they are victims of the state. As a result, they too can influence social power in one way or another. Cultural violence has a strong relationship with ideological and political power in the rationalization of violence, whether militants are being affected by it or they shape the social power types. And economic and political power play greater roles in the rationalization of structural violence. Finally, military power becomes key in the application of both violent forms.

the methodological approach and organization of this book The two main questions raised at the start of this project designated this book as an inductive investigation of violence and militants employing a grounded theory and four stages of analysis. First, I identify two codes – “violence” and “militants” – and consider how they relate to each other through numerous cases. Second, two concepts – “rationalization of violence” and “application of violence” – emerge from these cases as the main drivers for mapping the complex and dynamic perceptions of militants and of their opponents. My original point of departure was Charles Taylor’s statement that “We very often can’t fully understand these ideas if we think them in isolation from the practices.”50 For this reason, the book aims to test how ideas function in practice, so it first focuses on the rationalization and then on

18

Violence and Militants

the application of violence. Third, this sequence indicates that different forms of violence are used for different motivations and goals. Cultural violence and structural violence are the two main forms of violence that I investigate in this study. After pursuing these three stages of investigation, I discover the determinants that characterize the rationalization and application of violence by militants. The theoretical innovation of this study lies in the argument that the rationalization of violence by militants is independent of time and space; however, its application very much depends on time, space, and the militant group in question. The complexity of the issues analyzed in the book necessitated an interpretative method, so I endeavor to develop a meaning-making process and generate historically contingent outcomes to clarify how militants rationalize and apply violence. The book positions violence at the center of the argument and explores militants through narratives and discourses of victimization, perceptions of injustice, political conflicts, and religious paradigms, as well as cultural and social shifts. The book’s cross-disciplinary approaches to violence within the disciplines of humanities and social sciences aim to connect different political geographies with each other to find out how micro and macro dynamics interact. This broad perspective, of course, includes its own risks in approaching such a complex subject. The following chapters endeavour to eliminate some of those challenges by systemizing the presentation of the book and organizing it around two forms of violence: (i) cultural violence and (ii) structural violence. The reader will encounter the stories of militant rebels and militant jihadists in each violent form. We need to provide some historical context before delving into violent and perplexing events and complex ideologies. The historical paradigm helps us to achieve a holistic perspective so that we may conceive the ways in which both the rationalization and application of violence in the present have a relationship with the past. For this reason, Chapter 1 focuses on the historical paradigm and briefly presents the evolution of nineteenth-century Ottoman-controlled Balkans and the militant-jihad nexus starting from the emergence of Islam. This chapter aims to inform the reader about the fundamental political and social background of the Ottoman Empire so as to understand the concerns of militant rebels, on the one hand, and the role of the caliphate on the other. Chapters 2 and 3 focus on cultural violence, while Chapters 4 and 5 examine structural violence. Chapter 2 scruti-

Introduction

19

nizes arguments about and provides evidence of the cultural violence of the militant rebels and militant jihadists separately. Chapter 3 compares the rebels with the jihadists to uncover how each group rationalizes and then applies cultural violence. Chapter 4 provides arguments about and considers events of structural violence. Chapter 5 compares the militant rebels and the militant jihadists to examine how they rationalize and then apply structural violence. Chapter 3 and Chapter 5 look at these militants from a comparative perspective by deciphering the codes underlying the rationalization of cultural and structural violence. Exploring the subject mainly under two categories – cultural and structural violence – aims to resolve the contradictory conditions between the individual and society when different forms of violence characterize a social context. Furthermore, Chapters 3 and 5 will sharpen our understanding by comparing the rationalization and application process of cultural and structural violence of militant rebels with those of militant jihadists. Table I.1 and Table I.2, about cultural violence and structural violence respectively, provide the main analytical framework of the book that the reader may keep in mind while reading the next chapters. The militant rebels of the past and militant jihadists currently rationalize cultural and structural violence similarly, while committing violent acts in different ways. To explain this, I use two concepts in the following two tables: limited violence and extensive violence. Militant rebels resort to limited violence, whereas militant jihadists use extensive violence. The main reason for this difference is that militant jihadists aim to address a broader audience and therefore the attainment of a hegemonic rule is more essential to them – at least in principle, and in a certain territorial area. Chapter 6 offers an overall evaluation of the motives to apply violence by integrating the militants into the cultural and structural dynamics of contentious life. Here we reach the borders between culture and human condition as well as between structure and social life. These borders sometimes interact and intersect with each other and unveil the desperate future of human beings. Violence does not arise only from desperation; ironically, it offers hope at the same time. The human being shapes the conditions of culture and the structure of social life while paradoxically remaining under the influence of his or her cultural and structural cosmos. This existential interaction between human and cosmos informs the concerns and ideals of militants. Belief in the necessity of physical reaction is crucial for those

20

Violence and Militants

Table I.1 The rationalization and application of cultural violence cultural violence Rationalization of cultural violence Type of militant group

Principal motivation

The expected outcome

Militant rebels

Politicoreligious concerns

Militant jihadists

Politicoreligious concerns

Application of cultural violence

Dimension

Aim

The attainment of political and religious ideals

Limited violence

Establishing a political entity based on politicoreligious ideals through identifying limited targets and applying limited violence

The attainment of political and religious ideals

Extensive violence

Establishing a political entity based on politicoreligious ideals through identifying extensive targets and applying extensive violence

whose struggle paints the landscape of violent geographies. In those contested places the militant, who is either a Christian rebel or a devoted Jihadist, strives and dies, but their ideologies survive. Violence becomes a formidable force of destiny for militants, their antagonists, and their victims. The survival of ideologies encourages the next generation of militants to keep fighting for the idealized community. The death of ideologies or the meaninglessness of violent reaction, on the other hand, erases militant groups from the world except as figures in lectures illustrating the history of violence. Such was the fate of many militant rebels in the Ottoman Empire. The book aims to clarify that the violent response of the militants is attained through the rationalization of violence and then its application. During these two processes, not only the generic conditions of injustice encourage militants to use violence, but also relative deprivation and historical nostalgia empower their rationalization that violence is the only means available to them to change their situation. Cultural violence brings their identity concerns to the fore while structural violence prioritizes their powerlessness and poverty.

Introduction

21

Table I.2 The rationalization and application of structural violence structural violence Rationalization of structural violence Type of militant group

Principal motivation

The expected outcome

Militant rebels

Sociostructural concerns

Militant jihadists

Sociostructural concerns

Application of structural violence

Dimension

Aim

Elimination of socio-structural concerns

Limited violence

Changing the ruling authority and transforming social and orgaizational structures that created socio-structural concerns

Elimination of socio-structural concerns

Extensive violence

Toppling the ruling authority and leading a radical transformation within social and organizational structures

The commonality between the Ottoman rebellions and the jihadist organizations has brought violence and militants to the forefront through persistent struggle. The following chapters unveil the broad spectrum of violent events that shaped the ideals of both Ottoman rebellions and jihadist organizations. Both groups of militants sought the power to demolish the bulwarks of their opponents. In each chapter, the reader takes one step closer to the mystery encoded beyond those bulwarks. By the end of this book, I hope that the reader understands more clearly the desperate conditions many human beings face as well as the trouble they create by employing violence as a solution to these conditions.

Figure I.1 “The Trial of the Bashi-Bazouks : The Court of the First Day.” Printed on border: “Ikiades (Greek), Sadoullah Effendi (president of the court), Selim Effendi, Wassa Effendi (a Christian Turk), Mr. Baring’s dragoman, Mr. Walter Baring, Jovantcho (a Bulgarian), Counsel for the prisoner, Pertev Effendi, The prisoner.” Written on border: “J. 6, 1877.” Source note: Graphic. Illustrated Newspapers, Ltd., 1869. Source: The New York Public Library, Digital Collections

22 Introduction

1 The Historical Paradigm “Mankind are so much the same, in all times and places, that history informs us of nothing new or strange in this particular. Its chief use is only to discover the constant and universal principles of human nature.” David Hume, An Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding

History cannot be divorced from contemporary events in which militants use violence, because patterns that demystify violence as an indispensable force against opponents and as a symbol of ressentiment go back a long way in time.1 Studying tragedy, oppression, and injustice in the past helps to clarify the behaviour of militants in the present. The assignment of blame has always rationalized the use of violence, and the causes motivating militants resonate in both the Ottoman Balkans of the nineteenth century and contemporary jihadist organizations. The rise of militant jihadists in the era of modernization and weak ties of faith have been described by some as “spectacular and unforeseen.”2 However, this chapter will show that the role of jihad and its magnetic power for many observant Muslims have never been inactivate. Perhaps it is better to state that it became silent for a while but was transformed and invigorated even during this period of silence.3 The next sections in this chapter focus on the principal milestones in that historical process in order to understand the motivations of militants more clearly by comparing rebels in the nineteenthcentury Ottoman Empire to jihadists in our time. This historical paradigm elucidates the rationale behind the legitimization of violence and the collective decision to use it. Both groups interpreted past events to empower their positions. Nevertheless, the feeling of being oppressed and bearing witness to the injustice against their

24

Violence and Militants

own communities constituted their main motivation for violence. By the same token, they challenged the social and political structure of the ruling regimes through re-identifying the concepts of power and justice in line with their own ideals. “Power” and “justice” are two concepts that promulgated different priorities and narratives for each agency. This subjectivity plays a determinative role in the surge of conflict because the influence of suffering in the past creates traumatic occasions for each actor in the present.

1 militant rebels and violence The attacks and uprisings of militants composed a panorama of violence in the nineteenth-century Ottoman Empire. A dramatic landscape of dissent manifested challenges to the social, political, and cultural organization of the empire when Ottoman society was in the midst of a prodigious reform movement. The surge of violence and the prevalence of militants, however, did not appear all of a sudden in the nineteenth century, and neither did the law-making efforts of Ottoman officialdom. The grievous social and political conditions that afflicted many communities in the Ottoman Empire cannot be grasped completely if we do not revisit the milestones of the previous three centuries, noting the empire’s ups and downs. The Reasons for Rebellion The reasons for the rebellions of the previous three centuries were astonishingly diverse; however, most can be categorized under the umbrella of political and religious motives on the one hand and socioeconomic motives on the other. Many militant rebellions in the Ottoman Empire emerged because of political or religious dissent. Nevertheless, the ideals driving rebellion do not always derive their power from political or cultural conundrums; socioeconomic problems have great influence as well. Every society has its own way of defining its social organization and describing how it functions. With regard to the rise and fall of Ottoman power and the factions of Ottoman socioeconomic organization, the key concept is the Daire-i Adalet – the circle of justice. This ruling principle underpinned the relatively strong prosperity and social integrity of the Ottoman Empire until the decadence of its social system became dis-

The Historical Paradigm

25

cernible in the late sixteenth century. The four basic elements of the circle of justice were (i) the sultan’s authority; (ii) the army; (iii) the wealth of the state; and (iv) the peasantry. These elements provided social equilibrium in the dominantly agricultural society of that time and also strengthened social harmony in the vast lands of the Ottoman House. The last three elements of the circle of justice were directly related to the agricultural economy because of the integration of the rural and military economy.4 “Timar”5 temporarily granted the governance of fertile lands to members of the military class and state elites during the rise of the Ottoman Empire.6 The reaya,7 tax-paying peasants, were the principal actors of the Timar system by cultivating the land, supporting the military class, sustaining the everyday economy, and paying the necessary taxes.8 Timar was the major pillar supporting the Ottoman socioeconomic system by bringing different social classes together. The Timar system lost its importance when the Ottoman Empire stopped enlarging its territories in the late sixteenth century. This power stagnation revealed the weakness of the system, which became more obvious because of popular discontent and the activities of militants. Tax collection became implicated in both the regulation of social economy and the acceleration of conflict.9 Violence in rural areas and uprisings against misrule and taxation revealed the hidden weaknesses of the Ottoman Empire.10 The population in the mid-sixteenth century almost doubled, there were economic losses due to changing trade routes, and internal migration within the empire triggered both an increase in taxation and a decrease of economic efficiency.11 Social decline was first manifested by the attacks of militant groups who wanted to establish their own authority in local territories, and was followed by the rebellion of provincial elites against the Ottoman rule. The revolts in the sixteenth and early seventeenth century were called the Jelali revolts, referring to the first revolt attempted by a rebel leader, Seyh Celâl (Jelal), in Anatolia in 1519.12 Thus, disruptions in the social system echoed violently in many villages of Anatolia, perpetuated the Jelali revolts, and with the suppression of these revolts, centralized state authority in the sixteenth century and the early seventeenth century.13 The severe response of the Ottoman Empire against these revolts became a poignant reminder about the ravages of state violence in the collective memory of people.14

26

Violence and Militants

Tax regulations followed a critical route starting with the Jelali revolts across the impoverished territories of Anatolia.15 The great role of taxation was understandable, considering the financial dependence of the Ottoman Empire on agricultural production. Governing on the basis of social justice was the guarantee of sustainable order in Ottoman society.16 However, the violent reaction to tax revolt by the authorities rendered the social turmoil in the periphery even more vehement, and eventually produced institutional dysphasia by strengthening the malevolent position of many local elites, who abused their power by exploiting the labour of peasants. The seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Balkans witnessed social conflicts between the peasants and local elites from time to time. This spurred another transformation in the Ottoman Empire by obliterating mediaeval and patrimonial norms for a limited but responsible imperial authority.17 The number of soldiers rose more than two times and reached around 100,000 in the second half of the seventeenth century; however, this increase was not the harbinger of a strong army but created a “corrupt and demoralized Ottoman military machine.”18 The strenuous efforts of the peasants and their complaints regarding the corrupt chiflik system, in which local elites controlled most of the land, echoed tragically in Istanbul. Heavy taxation by the provincial governing class frustrated a number of sultans while the central authority was weakening in the Balkan provinces during the seventeenth and the eighteenth century.19 Koçi Bey, a high-ranking Ottoman bureaucrat who presented critical economic reports to Murat IV (r. 1623–40), blamed local bureaucrats and the patrimonial elite because they used their power for the acquisition of wealth but not for the instrumentalization of justice.20 Nevertheless, rather than looking for solutions to the problems of rural governance, Istanbul appointed new governors and punished those who ruled iniquitously.21 The reform attempts transformed land governance and the taxation system into a symbolic arena in which the weak and strong parts of the Ottoman state combined through belated, unsustainable, and inconsistent reform packages for three centuries after the Jelali revolts.22 The inability of the Ottoman Empire to sustain peace, social justice, and order in the provinces rendered administration and violence as two sides of the same coin.23 The very complex and yet dysfunctional Ottoman bureaucratic system in the sixteenth century was neglected in the seventeenth

The Historical Paradigm

27

century and finally started decaying in the eighteenth century.24 Concerted actions determined the relationship between Ottoman administration and violence. Socio-economic and political decline after the Russo-Turkish wars in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries made manifest the urgent need for major agrarian reform. What is more, each failed reform or promised but unrealized commitment of the Porte prompted a flood of angry responses from the poorer segments of communities. Some troubled peasants living in deprived areas in the eighteenth century directed violence at local Ottoman elites and rulers. These uprisings prompted repressive interventions by the state. This gradual but deepening degradation of social life conflated with a rise in corruption, beginning in the early nineteenth century.25 The Tanzimat Reforms Decentralization attempts miscarried dramatically after the failed Deed of Alliance (Sened-i Ittifak) of 1808, according to the terms of which local nobles perceived themselves to be partners of the central Ottoman central governance rather than its servants.26 The lack of success is understandable when we consider that the nineteenth century was a period of state centralization for the empire.27 Nonetheless, in comparison with attempts to centralize during the sixteenth century, these were more organized, more explicit, and more ambitious. State centralization involved more than changes in bureaucracy; it included both policies to overcome social and economic difficulties and new legal processes to cope with concerns among different ethnic and religious communities. Yet the dysfunctional governing system was so pervasive that after the appointment of a Pasha to head a province, he had to bribe numbers of Ottoman officials in the Porte merely to extend his stay for the next year.28 The taxcollectors, local governors, and military authorities in rural towns and villages vied for the monopolization of power, which eventually diminished their capacity to uphold the rule of law and guarantee public safety. A Weberian form of bureaucratic dysfunctionality – that is, a lack of officials with expert training and the consequent violation of organizational rules – caused growing insecurity in the periphery. The most striking impact of local misrule was clientelist and patronage-oriented relationships. “Personal cleavages were superimposed upon the organizational ones. Each new appointee at

28

Violence and Militants

each level of government tried to get his own protégés appointed to critical posts to safeguard his position against future intrigues.”29 On the other hand, local misrule was neither overlooked nor remained unpunished by the imperial center. In fact, the 1849 regulations, and later the 1864 regulations, clarify that together the local notables, whether Muslim or non-Muslim, endeavoured to legitimize imperial law-making in the periphery through democratic deliberation in their own councils.30 The central authority seldom perceived militant revolts as attempts at resistance by the sultan’s subjects against his “holy” authority.31 The rebellions of militants came partially from their aspirations to correct social injustice imposed on local people by local rulers.32 However, at the peak of nationalist sentiment in the nineteenth century, political and religious concerns became more insistently mixed in with social and structural concerns.33 This social dissent shaped the volatile and violent character of the empire in the nineteenth century. On the one hand, uprisings consistently included the support of armed ethnic groups resisting Ottoman rule and attempting to gain independence. On the other hand, the authorities hired and used armed men, the so-called bashibozuk (“crazy-heads”),34 as an irregular military force to repress dissent in areas of conflict.35 Consequently, an important segment of the rebellious population was labeled as looters and bandits, particularly by the local governors and pashas – in other words, high-ranking political/military officers. Violence in political and social life created formidable challenges for both the victimized subjects of the Ottoman Empire and for the governing cadre. The use of violence in the public sphere and the impotence of the Porte to prevent it effectively diminished the central power. Ethnic militants in the Balkans employed violence against state authorities, either to be fully independent or to be recognized as political entities at the principality level. The amalgamation of nationalist sentiments and the power of religious authorities over local communities aggravated political risks for the Porte in controlling its diverse territories. The increasing number of files and reports exchanged between Istanbul and its far-flung administrative regions illustrate the multifaceted relationship between the center and the periphery. The Ottoman Empire was first forced to recognize the weakness of the state and the perilous power of rebels during the Jelali revolts in

The Historical Paradigm

29

the sixteenth century.36 The influence of militants reached a similar peak in the nineteenth century when it was challenged by both internal conflicts in its own territories and external pressure in the arenas of war; for example the Russo-Turkish War of 1828–29, the national independence war of Greece from 1821 to 1829, the Crimean War in 1853–56, and a number of revolts in Balkan villages and towns. In addition, intervention by foreign states in the name of protecting religious minorities in the empire created another challenge to social harmony. In the early nineteenth century, the British representative at the Porte summarized the decadence of the Ottoman Empire thus: “Its Pachas [sic], or Governors of provinces, are yet more independent of the Porte, than were the great barons of the Crown, in the feudal times of Christendom. These Pachas indeed, admit the sovereignty of the Sultan, and even pay large sums of money to His principal Ministers, but they rule despotically in their own provinces, and are restrained from open rebellion more from distrust of each other, than from respect or love towards their Sovereign. It is the policy of the Porte, a weak and desperate policy, to divide these pachas, who are continually at war among themselves, and who lay waste the country which is the scene of their depredations.”37 This reductive narrative ignores the heterogeneous social structure of Ottoman towns and the progressive transformations of and challenges to the empire at that time. Effective rural governance was primarily dependent on the capability and character of the Vali, or governor, in any particular town. Nonetheless, the Porte was quite aware of social and political problems across the country. This was the reason that a set of extensive reform packages was drafted during the reign of Sultan Mahmut II (r. 1808–39). These reforms aimed to bring important changes in the administrative, fiscal, and military areas.38 This striving for a societal transformation was the harbinger of a more organized and centralized reform period. The declaration of a binding document addressing the concerns of diverse communities in the Ottoman Empire, including the sultan himself, was intended to ameliorate the situation. The Edict of Gülhane in 1839 was the first attempt at such a document. The Imperial Rescript of 185639 and the first Ottoman constitution in 1876 followed, in addition to other less significant reform packages implemented in this era. Even though the intelligentsia dismissed these reforms as merely “bureaucratic despotism,”40 there were not many alternatives available

30

Violence and Militants

for overcoming the challenges the empire faced. More importantly, these changes in nineteenth-century Ottoman rule cannot be reduced simply to bureaucratic reorganization. Nationalism, and the struggles among different ethnic communities, inspired rebellious groups to rise up and create independent political entities. These reforms conveyed the message that such uprisings could be averted by addressing the non-political concerns of insurgents and recognizing equality among the diverse elements of Ottoman society. Moreover, it assured the population that the authority of the Porte would be strengthened by reform because the Ottoman Empire would be perceived by all its subjects as a homeland and a just ruling force. The Edict of 1839 and the Edict of 1856 were indisputably avantgarde and promising measures for both Ottoman subjects and the state apparatus. This new political sagacity included rational procedures for establishing the rule of law and consolidating justice by making significant, if not radical, changes to social life, legal rights, cultural institutions, public regulations, and economic governance.41 All these strenuous efforts to keep the empire united and to renew its power were marked to some extent by the fundamental values of equality and justice. This new phase was eventually called Tanzimat, or “reorganization.” These reform packages also determined new values aiming to restore the broken relationship between the state and society, as well as those between the center and the periphery. The desired changes in the core principles resonated through the codes of the two edicts, and finally in the constitution. Perhaps the most important change embodied in the Edict of Gülhane was enforcement of the rule of law for all subjects whether Muslim, Jewish, or Christian. The basis of the modern and responsible state was embodied in the edicts, which imposed the recognition of the right to life and the right to property for all subjects. The Imperial Rescript of 1856 highlighted religious freedom, promoting the rights of religious minorities by extending the power of the patriarchates and recognizing the entitlement of non-Muslims to be civil servants. Though intended to improve the quality of life for its citizens, these developments still disappointed some Muslims, who lost their cultural superiority, and some male non-Muslims, who were now eligible for military conscription. Ethnic communities, particularly those in the Balkans, also realized that their dreams of autonomy were not sustainable without full independence from the Ottoman

The Historical Paradigm

31

Empire. Of course, the Tanzimat reforms were not implemented simply to overcome the concerns of dissident communities or to prevent vandalism and violence; the statesmen who drafted Tanzimat had belatedly realized that the country needed complete modernization, from education to agriculture. This was, at least, the intention of Ottoman officialdom, but the realities of everyday life did not accord with their good intentions. Though there were a number of successful cases resulting from the reforms,42 the gap between the ethical principles of Tanzimat and its application gave a strong foothold to revolt, resistance, and finally the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire after World War I.43 The events described in the following sections of this book show that the Tanzimat reforms were not solely “from the top down or from the outside in.”44 Statesmen had already confirmed the bureaucratic decadence and decline in socioeconomic power of the Ottoman empire. Their concerns reverberated dismally when desperate letters from peasants, and even from the owners of large estates, describing poor social conditions, the violence of militants, and local misrule, arrived at the Porte. Ongoing disputes between local governance and local communities made it clear that the central government was unable to coordinate the anticipated reforms harmoniously. The revolts in Niš (1841) and Vidin (1850) provided alarming confirmation of the gap between the center and the periphery.45 Perceived injustice was the dominant reason for these two uprisings; however in the second half of the nineteenth century, revolts took on a more political and religious character. The Cretan revolts in the second half of the 1860s and the April Uprising in 187646 brought international attention to the desire of different ethnic communities for independence from the Ottoman Empire. Disorder led by militant rebels and its violent suppression by the state characterized the decades following the declaration of the first Ottoman constitution. In fact, increasing public panic in the 1860s due to violence in the Balkans transformed political agitation into chaos in the first half of the 1870s.47 The Bridge on the Drina by Ivo Andrić is one of the few novels that narrates masterfully the everyday life of Catholic, Orthodox, Muslim, and Jewish people in Visegrad, a town in the Ottoman Balkans. The bridge constructed by the Grand Vizier Sokollu Mehmed Pasha becomes a symbol of the dreadful destiny of the local people, whose conflicts and conciliations represent the perplexing social, political,

32

Violence and Militants

and cultural layers of Ottoman society. In the nineteenth century, modernity and technology reached Visegrad and changed everyday life. Nationalism also took central stage. The change in political power in the town led to public panic. Andrić describes that panic when the entrance of Austrian troops threw the local people into confusion and disarray: The formal and official entry of the Austrian troops took place the following day. No one could remember such a silence as then fell on the town. The shops did not even open. The doors and windows of the houses remained shuttered though it was a warm sunny day towards the end of August. The streets were empty, the courtyards and gardens as if dead. In the Turkish houses depression and confusion reigned, in the Christian houses caution and distrust. But everywhere and for everyone there was fear. The entering Austrians feared an ambush. The Turks feared the Austrians. The Serbs feared both Austrians and Turks. The Jews feared everything and everyone since, especially in times of war, everyone was stronger than them. The rumbling of the previous day’s guns was in everyone’s ears. But even if men were now only listening to their own fear, no one living that day would have dared to poke his nose out of doors.48 This scene portrays the dramatic situation so persuasively it is hard to believe it is fiction. Traditional Ottoman cosmopolitanism was disrupted by the cultural sectarianism of the orientalists, as well as by colonialist discourses imposed by the European powers. These new influences impeded the struggle of the authorities to make progressive reforms and keep the empire united, integrated, and prosperous.49 If we were to define the Tanzimat in the Ottoman Empire by one word and one aim, that word would be “transformation” and that aim would be empowering Ottoman society and the Porte against violence, sociopolitical fragility, and disintegration. Archival documents in the next chapters will reveal that the Porte was flexible in negotiating with dissident communities regarding their social concerns, except when they posed a serious threat. Violence was employed both by the state authority and the militant rebels during these revolts and uprisings. Vying for power and seeking justice were the main reasons for confrontation. However, it is still necessary to explore how violence by militant rebels led not only to dissent among local commu-

The Historical Paradigm

33

nities but also within the Ottoman state forces themselves. For this reason, we need to revisit the dynamics of violence and also how the historical paradigm shaped the route to power and justice for the militant jihadists.

2 the historical paradigm: violence and militant jihadists If we sought a unified, centralized, and primarily peaceful period among all Muslims, that would be the era of Prophet Mohammad. His death in 632 created a huge and difficult question for the Muslim community – who would succeed him as a messenger of God and rule the entire territory that had been under his control? A relatively democratic form of governance existing at that time in Muslim communities was shura (consultation); it was usually used in regard to public issues or the election of a caliph through the votes of community members.50 Nevertheless, disputes flourished about the first successor to Mohammed. Abu Bakr received the majority of support, but the Shia community was devastated by this decision because they supported Ali Ibn Abi Talib, a cousin and son-in-law of Mohammed, and believed that this was also the wish of Mohammed himself.51 Even though Ali eventually became the fourth caliph, he only rose to this position after the assassination of the two previous caliphs, Umar and Uthman. The tensions that prevailed during the period of Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman, and Ali, which is usually known as the Rashidun Caliphs period (632–61), sometimes led to subterfuge, and even aggression.52 The First Muslim Civil War, better known as the First Fitna, erupted with the assassination of the last caliph, Ali, while he was praying in the Great Mosque of Kufa in 661. Ali’s death fostered sectarianism in Islam when his son Hasan Ibn Ali had to recognize Muawiyah of the Ummayad dynasty as the caliph of Islam. However, the followers of Ali designated his descendants as the true successors of Mohammad and Ali. The same approach led to the eventual naming of Ali as the first imam and his son, Hasan, as the second imam.53 Tensions faded during the relatively stable time of the Umayyad Caliphate, which lasted for less than a century from 661 to 744. Nonetheless that caliphate, along with its factions, governed huge territories spanning from eastern Turkey and Afghanistan to the inner lands of Spain and Morocco. The fact that it ruled more than four mil-

34

Violence and Militants

lion square miles and sixty-two million people, equal to approximately one third of the world’s population at that time, shows the huge power of the Umayyad Caliphate.54 Geographic, demographic, and economic dominance marked the Umayyad Caliphate as one of the most powerful empires in history. Those glorious times, however, came to an end with a period of internal social and political unrest. The second civil war (680–92), the Berber Revolt (740–43), and the Third Muslim Civil War (744–47) all weakened the power of the Umayyad Caliphate; it finally ended with the Abbasid revolution in 750.55 A part of the Umayyad dynasty managed to survive in the Umayyad Emirate of Córdoba (756–929) and then the Caliphate of Córdoba (929–1031). Yet another set of civil wars afflicted the Caliphate of Córdoba in 1009, and a number of small kingdoms declared themselves to be the representatives of the caliphate in AlAndalusia (Islamic Iberia) until the definitive abolition of the caliphate of Córdoba in 1031. The last vestige of this dynasty in Andalusia was abolished with the fall of the Emirate of Granada in 1492.56 The Umayyad period signifies the heterogeneous character of Islamic officialdom because several non-Muslims took important bureaucratic posts in the state governance.57 The non-Muslims of Abrahamic religions were under the protection of Islam as long as they acknowledged the superiority of Islam through the payment of additional taxes. Though the Islamic character of the Umayyad Caliphate was evident in all activities from lawmaking to the construction of great mosques, its secular dimensions were also clear, particularly in Al-Andalusia.58 Yet the role of the caliphate was weakened when the consolidation of the dynastic status quo became the priority, rather than the preservation of the religious and communal unity of Islam. What marked the Umayyad reign boldly in terms of power dynamics was its preoccupation with political conditions. This approach toward the role of the caliphate was sustained after the fall of the Umayyads, and it was consolidated during the long and fractious reign of the Abbasid Caliphate.59 The Abbasid Caliphate could not always govern the state from the same center of polity, and different local forces defied its unity as they vied for power. The change of the capital city five times, along with fragile political developments, gave clear indications of the political instability of the dynasty. Yet Bagdad protected its position

The Historical Paradigm

35

as the cultural and social hub of the Abbasid Caliphate and the zenith of Islam.60 The House of Wisdom was founded by Caliph Harun al-Rashid during his reign (786–809), and it became a symbol of the Islamic Golden Age.61 Being inspired by the Quranic injunction, the exchanges and interactions among diverse cultures, advancements in science, and the translation of great texts from Greek, Persian, and Sanskrit into Arabic marked this era as a cultural triumph, following the glorious contributions in science and art in AlAndalus.62 It was not surprising to find Arabic translations of Plato, Aristotle, Pythagoras, and Euclid in the libraries of Bagdad. Rashidal-Din Hamadani, an Iranian-born Jewish convert to Islam and the vizier of the Ilkhanate emperors Ghazan and Öljaitü, designated a scholarly group close to Tabriz in the fourteenth century to draft texts drawn from Jewish intellectuals, Kashmiri monks, Chinese envoys, and Buddhist manuscripts.63 The invasion of Bagdad in 1258 by the Ilkhanate Mongol forces abolished the Abbasid Caliphate. However, al-Mustansir from the Abbasid dynasty found refuge in the Mameluke Sultanate of Cairo in 1261, and thanks to the opportunist attempts of Sultan Baibars, alMustansir was declared caliph after the Islamic world had remained without a caliphate for three years.64 Yet “caliph” mostly became a title for religious ceremonies under the rule of Mamelukes. The Mamelukes held the caliphate title until Selim I, the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, captured Cairo and abolished the Mameluke Sultanate of Cairo in 1517. The last Abbasid puppet caliph under the rule of the Mamelukes, al-Mutawakkil III, remained in exile in Istanbul. The Ottoman Empire, as one of the most powerful empires at that time, sustained the caliphate under its own authority. Even though the caliph title was rarely used by the Ottoman sultans until the nineteenth century, the Ottoman Empire was widely accepted as the leading political authority of Islam and a culturally superior power by controlling three sacred cities, Mecca, Medina, and Jerusalem. Ottoman rule was consolidated as a great authority, but its weakening power in the eighteenth century also fostered the emergence of various religious sects. The Emirate of Diriyah, the first Saudi state, was established in 1744 in the Arabian Peninsula. The Saudis ruled Mecca and Medina until 1805 with bloodshed and repression, but their rule was terminated by the victory of the Ottoman Empire in 1818 thanks to the support of Muhammad Ali of Egypt, who sent his

36

Violence and Militants

army to defeat the insurgents.65 The Wahhabi insurgents, in response, proclaimed that their rule was the purest version of Islam and that the Ottoman rulers were nothing but heretics.66 The Ottoman Empire was composed of multi-ethnic and multireligious communities similar to the Umayyads, the Abbasids, the Mamelukes, and the Emirates in Andalusia. It controlled a large expanse of territory as well. It was the last Islamic empire in the world, and the use of the caliphate as a political instrument and a motive for mobilization only came to the forefront in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries during the reign of Abdul Hamid II. The empire had already lost its central power in the Balkans, and a series of threats emerged from the European powers against Ottoman territories in Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East in the early twentieth century. Still, though the Ottomans fought aggressively and strenuously to expand their territories, it is important to note that the jihadist understanding had never been at the forefront of Ottoman political dominance. The superior sociocultural position of the Muslims had been already crippled by the Tanzimat reforms beginning in the late 1830s.67 The first Ottoman constitution in 1876 brought equality in almost all spheres of life to different religious communities. This attempt to transform the Ottoman Empire into a modern state could not prevent its dissolution once the empire entered World War I with the Central Powers. The Ottoman Empire launched jihad under pressure from the German government, and ironically the distribution of jihad fetvas by German soldiers against the Allied Powers became the symbols of a politico-religious struggle to unite Dar al-Islam (Territory of Islam) against Dar al-Gharb (Territory of the West) that received some positive responses from Asia to North Africa.68 Considering the Christian allies of the Ottoman Empire, it was crystal clear that jihad predominantly played a political role to motivate Muslims supporting the caliph of Islam. Even so, the caliphate and jihad were still very strong symbols for Muslims in the early twentieth century throughout the diverse territories of Islam, so that Russia reacted to the call for jihad by the Ottoman Sultan (Caliph) by publishing a counter-fatwa written by the mufti (a supreme legal authority in Islam) of the Urals, which asked for the loyalty of Muslims to their fatherland.69 Great Britain drafted a number of plans to dissolve the Ottoman Empire and diminish the symbolic influence of the caliphate in order to de-

The Historical Paradigm

37

crease the possibility of Muslim revolts against its rule in the territories of the British Empire. British officials insisted that the war against the Ottoman Empire was not a religious one and that the holy sites of Islam would be protected.70 Lord Kitchener, the colonial administrator in the British Army, followed a more violent route by instigating Arabs to revolt against Ottoman rule in 1916; the success of this plan, coupled with the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in the World War I, produced a number of Arab states in the Middle East under British suzerainty.71 Devastating cultural trauma afflicted Muslims who supported the Ottoman Caliphate when the last Islamic empire fell apart and Istanbul, the center of the caliphate, was captured by the Allied Powers in 1918. This was the end of Ottoman rule, and the end of the caliphate’s power – a power which had spanned three continents and presided over more than 300 million Muslims. The Ottoman Empire was abolished with the foundation of Turkey, and the caliphate was eliminated in 1924 with the exile of the last caliph, Abdülmecid II, to Paris.72 The European colonial powers not only besieged and carved up the Ottoman Empire; they also ruled its former territories in North Africa and the Middle East, oppressed the local population when they revolted in those areas, drew borders to create new countries, and exploited the natural and human resources of regions where Muslims were the majority. The caliphate was abolished in 1924, but its symbolic power has remained as an icon of unity and identity for Muslims and “its disappearance under the double assault of foreign imperialists and domestic modernists was felt throughout the Muslim world.”73 Islamic rule as the prevalent political authority and the Ottomans as one of the most powerful empires in the sixteenth century gave way to catastrophe, at least among a number of jihadist groups in the early twentieth century. “Jihad” and “the caliphate” are two key concepts in the history of Islam that have influenced many Muslims to use violence to express individual or communal dissent. Jihad has been a powerful concept ever since Islam was first established by Mohammed and he waged the first important war, the Battle of Badr, in 624 against the Quraysh tribe of Mecca. Yet the power of jihad also arises from the diverse conflicts, contradictions, and influence of this concept over Muslims. It is conventional to claim that the meaning of jihad is “struggle,” but there is disagreement over whether this struggle is a spiritual or a

38

Violence and Militants

physical commitment to internalize the principles of Islam and to defend it if necessary.74 In its mature form, jihad has a strong attachment to the ummah (the whole Muslim community) that supersedes the ties of tribe as well as those of clientage.75 The broad encompassing impact of jihad across different geographies has gained a more formidable character with its engagement in the polity. The concept of jihad has shaped a wide political spectrum, and political forces have also exploited jihad to attain their own goals.76 This divergence in the interpretation of jihad is discernible in the language used by two different religious leaders, one from Egypt and one from Saudi Arabia. Shaykh Tantawi, the Grand Mufti of Egypt, identifies suicide bombers as martyrs, whereas the grand mufti of Saudi Arabia, Shaykh al-Sheihk, argues that suicide bombers violate the conventional norms of Islam.77 Throughout history, attachment to the idea of the caliphate was not always based on religion; often the term was simply political, and referred to the power of the Muslim authority. Nonetheless the caliphate has been enshrined within the minds and hearts of many Muslims, whereas jihad is encoded as a violent struggle only by militants. In addition to a number of kingdoms and sultanates, the rulers of the three greatest Islamic states that used “caliphate” as an institutional title exploited the cultural resonance of the idea of the caliphate and seldom employed it to leverage the political capacity of state authority.78 Shahab Ahmed’s seminal work, What is Islam?, perceives Islam as an anthropological experience; a matter of human fact in history and in the present, with all its commonalities and distinctions.79 Different movements and ideologies in Islam throughout history have led to its heterogeneous character. For instance, the Qadariyah movement in the late seventh century brought the idea of free will to the fore by arguing that the decisions made by human beings determine their destiny and that people are responsible for their behaviours.80 From this point of view, God’s intervention in the life of an individual is diminished. This pragmatic approach was strengthened with the conflation of rationalism with reason in the Muʿtazila School, which was established and developed between the eighth and tenth centuries in Basra and Baghdad thanks to the support of the Abbasid Caliphate, particularly al-Mansur and al-Mamun, and the Arabic translation of Greek physicists and philosophers.81 The judgement of Abdul Hye

The Historical Paradigm

39

regarding the methods of rationalists from the Muʿtazila School and contemporary reactions against them partially explains the relationship between rationalization and behaviours. Hye states that “the Muʿtazilite rationalists began to apply the Greek philosophical methods and ideas to the interpretation of the basic principles of Islam as well … they made reason the sole basis of truth and reality and thus identified the sphere of philosophy with that of religion … The orthodox section of the people reacted strongly against the Muʿtazilite rationalism and began to consider the Muʿtazilites to be heretics.”82 The ninth- and tenth-century Islamic world under the rule of the Umayyad and Abbasid caliphates needs to be noted as an era of philosophical developments and disputes regarding the influence of Islam on other segments of life. The early philosopher Abu al-Hasan alAsh’ari followed a more moderate path than the Muʿtazila School, but Ash’ari and his followers embraced a more progressive method than the traditionalist Salafi movement.83 Saïd Amir Arjomand explains the distinctive approach to rationality by Sunni and Shia branches of Islam through the influence of Muʿtazilite theology on the two branches differently, stating: “the historic formation of Shia Islam and its development into a world religion involved the process of Weber labeled rationalization … Muʿtazilite rational theology of the era, in fact, had a far greater impact on Imam Shia than on the Sunni mainstream.”84 The classical Twelver Shia theology brings the mutuality of reason between God and man to the fore by emphasizing human agency as a factor in which rational knowledge and the will remain in harmony.85 All these discussions relating to Islam, and in particular to the different approaches of its Sunni and Shia branches, provide insight into the concept of jihad. Al-Musannaf, a book penned by Abd alRazzaq in the ninth century, shows that after the end of the four caliphates period, jihad was transformed into an “obligatory aggressive war.” However, when it comes to the role of jihad in religious life, counter-arguments were prevalent even in the early stages of Islam. Ibn Jurayj, another Islamic jurist from the same period as Abd al-Razzaq, refuted the idea that jihad was mandatory for all Muslims and he further argued that jihad is not more important than other religious observances. The Salafi movement was part of the process of reconciling Islam with modernity and enlightenment. However, the Salafi movement

40

Violence and Militants

changed when it began to interpret Islam in line with Wahhabism in the last decades. Jihadists who observe the Wahhabi understanding of Islam implement a radical version of ijtihad (deduction of sharia), and use violence as a legitimate instrument to attain political goals.86 The Salafi jihadism which originated from the Wahhabi interpretation of Islam suggests that the attainment of utopia – the desired territory to live in – always needs to be combined with action.87 The philosophical interpretation of Islam and its reconciliation with modernity and enlightenment, particularly through striving against imperialist European powers, became popular in the last decades of the Ottoman Empire and the first half of the twentieth century.88 Both the Sunni and Shia branches were so allured by the motivating force and political benefit of jihad that Muslim societies even used the concept of jihad against each other. For example, the Sunni Iraqi regime and the Shia Iran regime declared jihad in the Iran-Iraq War (1980–88). Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, self-proclaimed Mahdi and Messiah in nineteenth-century India, made some unorthodox claims about the fundamental need for progressive reform in Islam. One of his most striking claims was that one’s behaviour in times of conflict should be based on peaceful mediation, and that one should avoid militant activities in the name of jihad and Islam. Ghulam Ahmad attracted worldwide attention at that time, though his popularity produced a flood of anger in his home country.89 More than thirty years after Ghulam Ahmad’s death in British India, the jihadists in his country rejected his non-violent road and instead followed the direction indicated by Abul A’la Maududi, whose ideals about Islam and sharia as a ruling and regulatory force in everyday life flourished through his movement, Jamaat-e-Islami, founded in 1941.90 Maududi’s approach to Islam was holistic and interventionist. For instance, the members of Jamaat-e-Islami engaged in boycotting the following behaviours, ideas, and services:91 • • • •

•

Assemblies that legislate secular as opposed to Sharia laws An army that kills “in the path of non-God” A secular judiciary; also banks based on charging interest Teaching or studying in colleges or universities, including Muslim ones, that serve the ideology of British rule Jahiliyat (Maududi called them “slaughterhouse[s]”) to signify the resemblance of his period’s social and state affairs to that prevalent in Arabia before the advent of Islam.

The Historical Paradigm •

41

Services and jobs in the antigodly system (indicating the features of secular social lifestyle)

The followers of Maududi found common ground on another continent when Sayyid Qutb in Egypt used a similar but more aggressive tone regarding Islamic life in both the private and the public spheres. Qutb built the governing philosophy of the Muslim Brotherhood, and his ideas have been so influential that Qutbism emerged as a dominant ideology of aggressive jihadist methods and conquest, particularly after the 1950s.92 Sayyid Qutb was hanged in 1966 by the Gamal Abdel Nasser regime; however his ideas have persisted in the lives of his faithful followers. It is not surprising that militant jihadists in Hamas, Hezbollah, al-Qaeda, and Isis appreciate many of the points raised by these two scholars and praise their approaches to Islam, jihad, and the legitimization of violence. The fanatical Muslim warrior intending the destruction of Western civilization has been presented by the media as arising from a homogenous framework.93 This orientalist simplification of the concept of jihad ignores the diverse and perplexing history of its meanings. By doing so, it actually supports the recruitment of those marginalized who are irritated by this vision. The true roots of Islam perhaps lie in its adaptive, innovative, and creative character, but this character has not been well disseminated because citing verses of the Quran with the aid of commentaries rather than studying it through traditional methods perverts its essential message: the goal of universal justice and the necessity of struggle on its behalf.94 The selective use of the Quran is a common tactic used by militant jihadists, who rely on a superficial understand of scripture among those they approach. Rationalizing the use of violence by citing verses from the Quran makes recruiters successful in enticing others to become “true Muslims.” In fact, the requirements to be a true Muslim are revealed in some hadiths – the traditions or sayings of Islam’s prophet, Muhammad – as well as in some verses of the Quran, but not those inciting militant behaviour. For instance, Chapter 2, verse 44 explicitly insists on the importance of questioning behaviour through reason: “Do you order righteousness of the people and forget yourselves while you recite the Scripture? Then will you not reason?”95 In this verse, reason rather than retribution is invoked. Once the decision to become a militant jihadist has been made, however, and reasoning in favour of using violence has already been completed, reversing that

42

Violence and Militants

decision becomes challenging, if not impossible. The legacy of traumatic events in the past is an influential paradigm shaping the course of actions in the present.96 In the following chapters, we will explore the panorama of cultural violence and structural violence to further understand how militant rebels and militant jihadists rationalize their use of violence.

2 Cultural Violence “Culture: The cry of men in [the] face of their destiny.”1 Albert Camus, Carnets. Mai 1935 – mars 1951

The destiny of humankind is not independent of those dreams, purposes, and actions that make our identity and give meaning to our existence on earth. Our identity, at the same time, codifies the values that we live for. We employ actions to attain those values. Culture represents the sum of those values and actions. Culture, indeed, induces and shapes action through providing legitimacy for our behaviors.2 However, action is not static. It takes different forms. These forms may include violence when violence is perceived as the only means of protecting those values according to which we live. That is why militants will resort to physical force if they perceive that their identity and values – their culture – are under existential threat. The militant rebels in the Ottoman Empire and the militant jihadists of the four organizations explored in the next sections rationalized the need for violence when they perceived the risk posed to their culture. “Culture,” in fact, is an umbrella term including our reasons for living, the values we appreciate, politics in a social space, religious practices, symbols, and rituals. The motives that canalized both the militant rebels and the militant jihadists shared common ground within the political and religious spectrum. They were both marginalized, emotionally shattered, and dispirited by politico-religious concerns. The need to eliminate those concerns and attain their ideals prompted militants to internalize and then to apply cultural violence. However, it is important to distinguish the different paths followed by these militants in the application of cultural violence.

44

Violence and Militants

cultural violence of the militant rebels in the ottoman empire Both ethnic and religious motives aggravated the conflict in the Ottoman Empire in the early nineteenth century and thereafter. Ethnic and religious motives combined to encite the use of violence. The confrontation was aimed at gaining cultural rights, but the Ottoman authority perceived demands for some of these rights as radical because they implied future aspirations to get independence from the Ottoman authority and a potential decadence in the political character of the empire. This cultural conflict shaped the militants’ identities and transformed the political and religious sphere into a horizon of cultural violence. Cultural violence was a dominant feature in the political and religious struggle because it distinguished the militant rebels from the ruling Ottoman authority. Cultural codes and the creation of emotional solidarity among the militant rebels through religious practice, ethnic identity, and even sometimes a common language, such as Albanian, Macedonian, Greek, Serbian, or Bulgarian, widened the gulf between the militant rebels and the Ottoman Empire. In the archival documents presented in this study, Christian rebels are the major actors whose rebellion made “constant trouble with their sectarian squabbles … some Christians made trouble by shifting from one millet (a confessional community)3 to another in search of political advantage and foreign protection.”4 The Porte categorized militant rebels as secret communities, violent groups, brigands, and bandits. Political uprisings, resisting villages and disobedient towns, agitating bishops, and Christian prayers were the targets of Ottoman repression. The response of the Porte depended on the form and breadth of the violence, but a harsh reaction was likely whenever the rebels defied its authority. In other words, the militants deployed violence against Ottoman rule, but suppression by the Ottoman Empire was equally violent. The French Revolution (1787–99) provided an example for the militants as well as offering them intellectual support. The Greek War of Independence (1821–29) made Greece the first Balkan nation to achieve statehood. Greek independence became a model for other Balkan nations such as the Serbs, Montenegrins, Bulgarians, and Macedonians during the long nineteenth century.5 Religious concerns among the local authorities (particularly about the support of the Russian Empire for Orthodox Christianity) clashed with the con-

Cultural Violence

45

cerns of the ethnic communities for autonomy. This formidable combination crystallized cultural conflict, leading to a reactionary response from the Ottoman Empire when its authority was the direct target of the rebels. However, rather than recognizing the cultural origin of these tensions, the Porte was prone to define political uprising as mere rebellions. Deep tensions in the political realm increased the use of violence by both the rebellious communities and the state authority, and the increasing use of violence rendered the political situation more fragile. There were more and more volatile zones in the periphery where clashes between militant rebels and the Ottoman authority occurred. One of the first significant initiatives against the empire was that led by the ruling members of the House of Petrović-Njegoš of Montenegro and their soldiers in 1852, when they seized the Žabljak castle. Initially portrayed by the Porte as simple banditry, ultimately this action was considered a direct violation of political order and a threat to public safety, and the Porte claimed that necessary steps had not been taken to prevent the attack.6 Toward this end, it employed Ömer Lutfi Pasha to break the siege of the Principality of Montenegro. The Porte made this difficult decision after receiving a letter from the local governor, Osman Mazhar Pasha, saying that “We turned a blind eye to the banditry activities of Montenegrin rebels in the region heretofore. However, the invasion of towns and villages of the Ottoman Empire by Montenegro signifies a direct declaration of war against the Empire. The current situation is unacceptable under any condition, and that may defy dignity of the state while eventually resulting with the international independence of Montenegro.”7 This letter expressed the concerns of Osman Mazhar Pasha, who was Mutasarrif 8of Shkodër at that time. The political pressure surged while rumors regarding the independence of Montenegro were spreading from one village to another in the wake of these violent attacks.9 The early 1850s witnessed increasing attempts at rebellion by the Montenegrin and Serbian ruling houses. The reaction of the Porte against the collaboration of people to defy its authority was factionist, if not fundamentalist. The Porte framed these rebellious regions with particular labels. For examples, the small towns of Zupa, Şuma, Benan, Grahova, Piva, and Derbenak in Montenegro were notoriously called Nevâhî-i Âsîyye, or “forbidden rebellions,” by the Porte.10 Bulgarians and Serbians constituted a considerable number of the population in these areas. Their religious and ethnic identity found common cause

46

Violence and Militants

with the Prince Danilo I of Montenegro, who encouraged violence as part of his own fight against the Ottoman Empire for international recognition of an independent Montenegro. The militant activities in Nevâhî-i Âsîyye and in the border towns close to Montenegro became infamous when militant rebels plundered the assets and properties of the Muslim population in the region. In particular, the Muslim residents of Çerniçe lost their properties, and their concerns about public safety increased after a series of violent events.11 These rebellious efforts by militants spurred different ethnic subjects, especially nonMuslims, to resist Ottoman rule. Prince Miloš Obrenović of Serbia was restored to power in 1858, and he wasted no time in defying the Ottomans. After a council meeting with other prominent political powers in Europe, including the Austrian Empire and Russia – in other words, the western and northern neighbors of the Ottoman Empire – he made a clear and assertive plan: a revolution needed to be organized in the region by uniting the rebels of different non-Muslim nationalities from Bulgaria, Bosnia, Albania, and Montenegro. The document issued on 6 October 1859 alarmed the Porte and highlighted how ill prepared it was to oppose the rebellion.12 Following the resistance of “Nevâhî-i Âsîyye,” the Porte was informed that Serbian militants had distributed numerous weapons to groups resisting Ottoman rule. This logistic support was intended to prepare a new rebellion. The Porte finally began taking the public reaction seriously. A sensitive balance was needed to determine the wisest method of social control. This was not an easy task, given corrupt local officials and a legacy of suppressing rebels in the periphery. A document dated 1 December 1861 ordered the confiscation of the rebels’ weapons; at the same time, it stressed the importance of preventing attacks against Christian subjects because such provocation would provide further stimulus for them to rebel.13 The Porte was eager to avoid marginalization of its Christian subjects because neglect of their sensitivities could transform the already difficult situation into a radical mobilization against the authority of the Ottoman Empire. Meanwhile, the foreign intervention and logistical support encouraged priests and other religious authorities to support the independence movement among Christian ethnic groups, which contributed to their defiance of Ottoman rule. Muslims became open targets for the militant rebels. Civil servants of the Porte questioned those priests who were caught with weapons in Bosnia and whose aim was to

Cultural Violence

47

mobilize local Christians into a new resistance. This revealed that there was implicit cooperation between the priests and the Austrian elite. However, the Porte did not take serious measures against the priests when they declared that they were preparing to return to the Austrian Empire permanently. The Porte was reluctant to punish every resistance attempt and uprising severely. By being selective in their punitive measures, they could put greater effort into dealing with more grievous cases in other parts of the country. For this reason, the Porte sent serious notifications to both the Austrian authorities and the priests prohibiting the priests from crossing the Ottoman border, and closed the inquiry concerning their activities.14 The document issued on 3 December 1860 ordered the arrest of a priest named Pereto because of his cooperation with militant Serbian rebels in encouraging Christian subjects to resist Ottoman authority.15 Priest Pereto was not alone in his mission; another priest named Şenkiltorusye played an equally important role in cooperating with the militant rebels. He was deported to Bursa in northwestern Anatolia, the former capital city of the Ottoman Empire, after it was discovered that he supported resistance in his hometown of Bihać in northeastern Bosnia and Herzegovina. However, his arrest did not stop him from realizing his goals. He escaped from Bursa and commenced exporting guns and gunpowder from Serbian towns to the areas of resistance in the inner Ottoman counties. Upon his second arrest, the Porte decided to exile him and his family to a remote place.16 The next year, a Metropolitan bishop and six other high-ranking commanders in Maleş, a town in Skopje, were blamed by local governors for hiding Eplo, a notorious militant rebel from Niš.17 Other activist priests brought cultural fragmentation to places populated by the Christians. The Porte was informed that a priest named Joseph from the village of Yanya in Prijepolje aimed at provoking peasants to resist Ottoman rule. The Porte immediately declared Joseph a şaki (rebel) who had organized attacks with the militants of Višegrad. They intended to punish Joseph and his supporters as they strove to expand the political unrest in the region.18 In the hands of militant rebels, violence was a valuable instrument which brought rapid and devastating outcomes. Political and religious clashes produced increasing trouble after the mid-1850s, when cultural division based on ethnic and religious identities was agitating the Balkans. The tiny towns of Bosnia were part of this ferocious division. The records and proceedings of the assembly of Nakşi, a

48

Violence and Militants

province of Mostar, are full of complaints about the grim realities of life in a state of constant vulnerability to aggression by rebels from Montenegro.19 Of course, Muslims were not the only victims of this enduring politico-religious conflict. Some innocent Christians suffered horrendously through asymmetric warfare and harsh suppression by Ottoman military forces. Cultural violence in the periphery was not always under the control of the Porte; that became clear when Muslim militants violated the order of the Porte and united with certain zaptiehs (the police force) in Volos, a port town in Thessaly, and lit the fire of ferocity and oppression over Christian residents.20 The militants and their rebellions further polarized the religious division between Muslim and Christian subjects in Bosnia. The Christian subjects asked for respect of and tolerance for their religious symbols and rituals when they negotiated to terminate the riots. After rebellious attempts in different parts of Bosnia – including Tuzla, Kladina, and Bihać 21 – during the 1850s, the Porte recognized the requests of the rebels. These comprised significant changes in terms of religious freedom and public regulations. Thanks to these newly recognized rights, the Christians of Bosnia were allowed to ring church bells and organize their own ceremonies. What is more, they were able to elect their own local leaders to practice administrative duties such as tax collection. Their right to own land was recognized as well.22 Thus, a set of rebellions in the Balkans and on various islands eventually prompted the empire to declare the Edict of 1856, which recognized the fundamental cultural rights of non-Muslims and affirmed equality among all subjects before the law. Elsewhere in the empire, religious support also motivated militants to create conflicts between the governors of towns and Christian authorities. One of the most prominent examples of this conflict occurred in Chania, a strategically located town in the most important region of Crete. The island had already become notorious for its uprisings against the empire in the early 1820s. That resistance was repressed by bloody attacks. The pashas of Crete were ordered to Chania to control the island. Two priests, Gomno and Partino of the Chania Gayniye Monastery close to Chania, drew the furious attention of Mustafa Naili Pasha, who had been on the island for more than three decades and had suppressed previous Greek uprisings violently. He blamed Gomno and Partino for harbouring and encouraging several militant groups. The official correspondence from Mustafa Nail Pasha to Istanbul reported serious threats, posed by the priests, to the safety and authority of Otto-

Cultural Violence

49

man rule on the island. Hence, he recommended the arrest and punishment of both priests when they visited Istanbul.23 The Porte decided to increase the number of soldiers in Crete when revolt erupted again on the island in 1866. The militant rebels were again the principal actors leading the tumult and agitating the Greek community. Taking the support for the independence of Crete to the international level was an important policy, so much so that the support of Russia was sought for this purpose.24 The Porte was well aware of anti-Ottoman sentiment on the island; that is why it decided to increase military preparations and logistical support for the remaining Ottoman forces after the majority of the troops left Crete for the Khedivate of Egypt in 1867.25 Though these rebellions challenged and disappointed the central authority in Istanbul, it would be wrong to define the relationship between Ottoman rule and the priests who defied them as one of constant hostility during this period. There were numerous clerics who cooperated harmoniously with the Porte in the prevention of militant rebellions, nationalist movements, and cultural violence. This was the era of creating a common identity which was truly cosmopolitan. Some Christian priests supported this semi-Utopian Ottoman view – or at least believed in the promising Edict of 1856. Ziso was one of them, a cleric from Almyros,26 a town in the region of Thessaly. He worked for the empire and was responsible for secretarial duties during the struggle for the Greek state. The militant rebels uttered threats against Ziso. The outcome of those threats was dramatic; they set fire to Ziso’s house. The Porte, however, did not leave him alone and helpless. They issued a decree on 1 October 1858 compensating him for the damage by giving him two thousand kuruş.27 Cultural violence was sometimes a necessary strategy in the course of political and religious conflict. Religious support for revolt against Ottoman rule not only increased the motivation of the militants but also created new conflicts between Christian authorities and their Muslim governors. The revolt in Crete gained an international character when three hundred armed insurgents and six hundred civilians tragically lost their lives after the Arkadi monastery was surrounded by Ottoman forces.28 The Arkadi monastery remained under fire, and news about the atrocity spread across Europe through various journals, magazines, and newspapers, helping delegitimize Ottoman rule over the island.29 The Ottoman victory at the monastery was intended to convey the message that cultural violence would lead to the

50

Violence and Militants

restoration of state authority through aggressive intervention. Nevertheless, more militant rebels in Crete followed this route in the following decades. Cultural violence is a never-ending process; if one person leaves it or dies for it, a new one joins until the required mission is completed. If we needed to highlight only two rebellions that received the greatest international reaction in the Tanzimat era, these would be the fire at the Arkadi monastery and the April uprising in 1876, which occurred mainly in central Bulgaria. Preparations for revolt among the Bulgarians intensified in the autumn of 1875, Todor Kableshkov, a young and ambitious nationalist educated in Istanbul’s Lycée Impérial Ottoman de Galata-Sérai, as the leader of the military council in Koprivshtitsa organized a rebellion in April 1876.30 Local Ottoman governors surrounded the leaders of the rebellion and captured Kableshkow in Troyan, in central Bulgaria in the same year. In the face of increasing political pressure, the planned attacks of the Bulgarian Revolutionary Central Committee were launched earlier than they had been scheduled. The civilian population, the Ottoman bureaucrats, and particularly the Muslim villages were the main targets of the rebels. Even though the number of victims has always remained in dispute, causalities among the Ottomans were severe in the first half of the uprising, which started in the final days of April 1876. Within a couple of days, anarchy and terror left their imprint on the landscape of the region. The Porte had already been defied harshly in Bosnia in the first half of the 1870s but the fragility of the Ottoman authority had become clear much earlier, during the Bosnian Uprising (1831–32) and the Herzegovina Uprising (1852–62). Revolt in Bosnia and Herzegovina finally reached its peak from July 1875 to August 1877. The Ottoman pashas’ and governors’ hopes were shattered by the social disorder resulting from attacks against bridges, roads, telegraph lines, government buildings, and police stations. The loss of their authority in different parts of the Balkans agitated the imperial center, which directed a relentless campaign of repression against the Bulgarian militants. The Porte did not control its response as well as it had previously. Victimization of civilians only strengthened their plans to eliminate the rebels. However, this time, the malgovernance of the Porte came to the fore internationally when violence by bashibozuks – irregular Ottoman militants – drew attention abroad. Many bashibozuks had been settled in the region after their migration from

Cultural Violence

51

territories that were governed by the Russian Empire. The cultural violence of the rebels prompted the bashibozuks to deal with them mercilessly, and many innocent non-Muslim people were victimized, particularly in Batak and neighboring villages. The bashibozuks also gained material benefits from this aggression, whether directly from the Porte or indirectly from local notables and pashas who approved of their attacks. This irregular military force was successful in suppressing the militant rebels and re-establishing Ottoman authority. Journalists and diplomats who visited the areas reported the atrocities eloquently. The foreign media, particularly the Times and the London Daily News, gave blood-spattered accounts in their pages. The stories of surviving eyewitnesses enforced the British public’s support of Bulgarian nationalism. Such a shift was in contradiction to the British state’s official politics, because an independent Bulgarian state would better serve the needs of the Russians rather than the British. Nonetheless, cultural violence influenced people to take an emotional stance rather than a pragmatic one. Even though the resistance was suppressed, and the Ottoman governance was able to assume power in central Bulgaria in mid-May of 1875, the resistance realized its goals in the long run thanks to international reaction against Ottoman repression and the atrocities of the bashibozuks. The treaty of Berlin, signed on 13 July 1878, recognized an autonomous Principality of Bulgaria. The relationship between the particular local concerns of militant groups and their hopes of realizing their ideals led them to resort to violence at different times in different towns in the Balkans. In this context, we need to ask whether the way cultural motives for violence inspire militants is independent of time and space. To give a sufficient response to this question, we need to ask another question: Was the cultural violence employed by militant rebels in the Ottoman Empire similar to the cultural violence employed by militant jihadists of today?

cultural violence of militant jihadists “To the militant, identity is everything.” Susan Sontag, Regarding the Pain of Others

Cultural violence by militant jihadists is driven by their politicoreligious concerns. They hope to not only satisfy those concerns but

52

Violence and Militants

ultimately arrive at an ideal community in which their political and religious ideals will flourish. They see the use of violence as indispensable to attain this imagined community. The marginalization of the militants by their opponents plays a great role in this conflict. Those who feel marginalized are motivated to insult their oppressors and degrade the value of their culture. This confrontation and degradation only add to their own marginalization through sowing the seeds of hatred. This is another way that political and religious motives lead to the application of cultural violence. Like jihad, sharia is another fundamental instrument that the militant jihadists use to rationalize cultural violence and motivate other people to join them. In fact, both sharia and jihad are debatable terms in Muslim communities.31 Sharia and jihad do not signify the same meaning for all the various sects of Islam and are not employed the same way by all Muslims. The different priorities of Arabs, Turks, Malaysians, Iranians, Pakistanis, and Indonesians have led to fragmentation rather than unity in the lands of Islam (dar el-Islam).32 Yet the influence of sharia in everyday life goes beyond religious domains. Sharia is the principal law system and doctrine of Islamic rule. It regulates the relationship between the individual and the community. Such a holistic regulation also assigns responsibilities to everyone who lives under the rule of sharia. The almighty social and legal system of sharia offers the radicals and ideologues a fertile situation to promote their own interpretation of Islam. Sharia’s divine dynamics provide opportunities for militant jihadists to legitimize violence by declaring jihad against infidel targets who were already culturally marginalized by them. Jihad is a part of the sharia law system. However, from the perspective of militant jihadists, it is also an instrument to help the central ideology of sharia prevail in the world through conquest. Jihad has signified different things throughout history. In the era of the Umayyad and Abbasid Caliphates and the last decades of the Ottoman Empire, jihad meant a political mission to expand the power of states. The dramatic fall of the Ottoman Empire after World War I and the abolition of the caliphate in 1924 shortly after the foundation of the Republic of Turkey created a power vacuum in the Muslim world. A number of Muslim groups have relied on the prestige of the idea of the caliphate to identify their regimes. In particular, the leaders of various Sunni Muslim groups and states have used the title of “Caliph,” starting with the Khilafat movement in India in 1919 and the Sharifian Caliphate in

Cultural Violence

53

Hejaz in 1924.33 The idea has been revived in a violent context with the rising power of al-Qaeda since the late 1980s. The governing principles of sharia and jihad also gained dramatic momentum with the foundation of Isis. The widespread understanding of militant jihadists about what jihad expects from them is that they are required to render Islam the ruling system and defeat the nemeses of Islam. In doing so, jihad is used to legitimize violence by addressing the requirements of divine scripture on the one hand, and encouraging Muslims to undertake responsibility against those requirements on the other. Indeed, the militants who take spirituality seriously are more prone to be recruited by ideologues with the guarantee of salvation on Judgment Day.34 This rationalization of waging war was embedded in early scholarly works on Islam. ‘Abdullah bin Al-Mubarak, who was one of the most prominent scholars of Islamic theology in the eighth century, collected hadiths and penned a detailed book about jihad. He noted: The slain [in jihad] are three [types of] men: a believer, who struggles with himself and his possessions in the path of God, such that when he meets the enemy [in battle] he fights them until he is killed. This martyr (shahid) is tested, [and is] in the camp of God under His throne; the prophets do not exceed him [in merit] except by the level of prophecy. [Then] a believer, committing offenses and sins against himself, who struggles with himself and his possessions in the path of God, such that when he meets the enemy [in battle] he fights until he is killed. This cleansing wipes away his offenses and his sins – behold the sword wipes [away] sins! – and he will be let into heaven from whatever gate he wishes ... [Then] a hypocrite, who struggles with himself and his possessions in the path of God, such that when he meets the enemy [in battle] he fights until he is killed. This [man] is in hell since the sword does not wipe away hypocrisy.35 Destructive physical force against their opponents is a religious responsibility in this violent cultural confrontation imposed by the militant jihadists. Their own scripture both obliges them to fight and legitimizes the use of violence. One former jihadist describes the appeal of this philosophy thus: “I liked [jihad]. It represented chivalry, honor, dignity, self-sacrifice, something bigger than yourself.”36 Radical religious groups, who believe in the recreation of the world

54

Violence and Militants

through violence, compare good and evil, portraying confrontation with their enemies as a war between God and Satan.37 Militant jihadists encode the enemy not only as non-Islamic and culturally perverted, but as a force that needs to be eliminated because it poses threats not only against their own existence but against Islam itself. Such a violent form of jihad gives little or no opportunity for dialogue or conciliation. The following sections explore the interrelationship of violence to the cultural imagination of a community in the cases of Hezbollah, Hamas, al-Qaeda, and Isis. Hezbollah Hezbollah’s use of militant tactics such as suicide bombing, assassination, and small and large-scale attacks in the first half of the 1980s made the organization the first jihadist group using violence strategically after World War II.38 The cultural reaction of Hezbollah derived from both political and religious concerns. The Shia community had become marginalized by the Christian and Sunni elites ever since Lebanon became independent in 1943, even though it made up almost one third of Lebanese society. In the 1960s, some of the marginalized Shia community joined the Palestine Liberation Organization (plo), while others joined the faction of a populist cleric, Musa Sadr, who established a group called the Movement of the Deprived, later known as the Shiite Amal militia.39 The country became crippled by a civil war between Christian groups and other religious groups which began in 1975; the political and religious concerns of the Shiites moved beyond the country’s borders after the invasion of Lebanon by Israel in 1982. A number of Shia jihadist organizations emerged in the early 1980s, their main motivation being to defeat Israel and liberate Lebanon. These organizations united under Hezbollah, which literally means “The Party of Allah.” The underground activities of Hezbollah terminated with the declaration of the Open Letter in 1985, proclaiming, “Every one of us is a fighting soldier when a call for jihad arises and each one of us carries out his mission in battle based on his legal obligations. For Allah is behind us supporting and protecting us while instilling fear in the hearts of our enemies.”40 The role of jihad, the legitimacy of their fight, and the use of physical force were the first resolutions uttered in this manifesto. Hezbollah located the tragedy of Shiite Muslims in history and legitimized their struggle by

Cultural Violence

55

evoking other concepts than jihad, including “persecution, torment, suffering, powerlessness, and insecurity”41 under the umbrella of a formidable nostalgia, which keeps old wounds open. In addition, to understand the breadth of Hezbollah’s doctrine, one needs to examine Iran’s revolution and the support and ideology of Ayatollah Ruhollah, who inspired the principles of Hezbollah.42 The religious concerns of Hezbollah were also identified with the unity of land under the rule of Muslims. Israel’s invasion of Lebanon made these religious concerns more fervent because of Israel’s expanding power in the region after the foundation of the Jewish state. The Israeli government legitimized invasion after the assassination attempt on Shlomo Argov, then Israel’s ambassador to the United Kingdom. The Abu Nidal Organization, which had a strong foothold in southern Lebanon where the Shia population resided, was targeted by Israel because of this assassination.43 Abu Nidal founded his loyal group after a split from Yasser Arafat’s Fatah faction of the plo in 1974. The invasion of southern Lebanon and the conflicts in its aftermath left between twelve and nineteen thousand dead, most of whom were civilians. The civil war in the country was not simply a national concern. Rather, Lebanon became a small arena representing a power struggle among foreign states and international actors. In the summer of 1982, Iran’s revolutionary guards trained a 1,500-man force in the Bekaa Valley to support the Shia jihadist militants. Iran ambitiously sought the spread of Islamic revolution through the Middle East while simultaneously striving to cope with the threat posed by Iraq.44 The ideological intervention of both the Syrian and Iranian regimes in support of the Shia militants became even more complicated when Israel invaded on 2 June 1982. Zeev Maoz explains the reasons for this invasion according to the mind of then Minister of Defence, Ariel Sharon, in the following manner:45 1 Destroy the plo infrastructure in Lebanon, including the plo headquarters in Beirut. The physical destruction of the plo human and material assets in Lebanon, including the killing of plo leadership was top priority. But expulsion of the plo from Lebanon would also be an acceptable achievement. 2 Drive Syrian forces out of Lebanon. Sharon knew that this could not be achieved without full-scale confrontation with the Syrians. It would have been preferable if the Syrian forces had started

56

Violence and Militants

shooting at the Israeli forces, because this would provide Israel with the political pretext for attacking the Syrians. However, if the Syrians did not play by the Israeli rules, Israel would have to initiate a direct attack on the Syrians. 3 Install a Christian-dominated government in Lebanon, with Bashir Gemayel as President. This would ensure that the military accomplishments of the war would be preserved by a political ally who could end the civil war and would ensure a strong state that was capable of making and enforcing its policies on the population, including termination of the Syrian presence in Lebanon. 4 Sign a peace treaty with the Lebanese government that would solidify the informal Israeli-Christian alliance and convert it into a binding agreement. These four elements of Ariel Sharon’s foreign and security policy illustrate an expansionist agenda rather than creating a sustainable and lasting peace, and rely on using destructive force similar to Hezbollah’s. It backfired, because this approach by Israel helped Hezbollah to legitimize its cultural violence and motivate the organization’s sympathizers to support its principles more fiercely. The civil war starting in the mid-1970s, and the later foreign intervention in Lebanon, prompted people to cling to their political and religious ideologies more intensely. The Lebanese civil war, as a result, “evolved to be a war over the redefinitions of the Lebanese collective identities.”46 Foreign intervention and civil war in the country increased pressure on Hezbollah and other militant groups to embrace non-violent initiatives, especially after the Taif agreement to terminate the civil war was signed in 1989. Yet, the number of conflicts between Hezbollah and Israel increased after Israel’s invasion of the Golan Heights in 1981. This invasion resulted in conflict regarding the situation of the Shebaa farms. Israel claims that the area does not belong to Lebanon, whereas there is an overwhelming consensus both in Lebanon and in the international community that the area is either part of Lebanon or Syria.47 The Shebaa farms remain an area of continuing conflict between the opponents. The integration of Hezbollah into the national political system has increased since the late 1990s, after their participation in local and national Lebanese elections. The last two decades have empowered its status with the public as a legitimate organization supported by an important segment of the people. Yet the Shia character of Hezbollah

Cultural Violence

57

still produces both enemies and friends at the same time. Not only Israel but also Sunni Muslim states such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar see Hezbollah as a terrorist organization, having declared it to be such in the Gulf Cooperation Council organized in March 2016.48 The decision to identify Hezbollah as a terrorist organization was also approved by the Arab League, with the reservation of the Shia-dominated Iraqi and Syrian governments. Despite this, Lebanese Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil has said that “Hezbollah enjoys wide representation and is an integral faction of the Lebanese community.”49 This symbolic voice arising from a Christian Lebanese is a strong indication of the legitimacy of Hezbollah inside the country. On the other hand, it also illustrates the ongoing conflict with international establishments and foreign countries over identifying Hezbollah as an illegitimate organization. Still, in a speech given in 2012 Hassan Nasrallah, one of the prominent leaders of Hezbollah, only blames the Americans and Jews for the organization’s bad reputation: I say that the American administration and the American mentality lacks nothing from Satanism. But that kind of behavior and that kind of mistreatment of holy books and prophets, and the prophets’ sanctities, and others’ sanctities; this behavior is Israeli and let us say it is Jewish, between quotation marks, – now they will say that this is anti-Semitism – [but] the Holy Quran told us about this people: how they attacked their prophets, and how they killed their prophets, and how they affronted their prophets, and how they affronted Jesus Christ, peace be upon him, and how they affronted Mary, peace be upon her, and how they affronted Allah’s great messenger Mohammad, May God exalt and bring peace upon him and his family. This [behavior] pattern about affronting holy books, and prophets, and messengers, and sanctities; this is their mentality, and maybe they want to push things more and more toward a religious war worldwide.50 Hassan Nasrallah’s speech demonstrates the cultural gap between jihadists and their enemies. Derogatory generalizations concerning Jews are common in the speeches of Nasrallah. Here he argues not only that they destroy the holiest materials and cultural heritage of Muslims but links that behaviour to the burning of a Quran by US soldiers in Kabul, Afghanistan in 2012 to show how they have cor-

58

Violence and Militants

rupted the West.51 His aim is to simplify the religious reasons for confrontation and the sheer necessity of using violence. The demonization of Hezbollah’s opponents by mentioning historical events is intended to empower and validate Nasrallah’s arguments and help to recruit more militants. Nonetheless, beyond the strategic implications of his discourse, Nasrallah believes that these statements present the truth. His perceptions, of course, display a dramatic opposition to those of his opponents, and each group’s perception rationalizes the use of violence. In 2005, the assassination of Rafik Hariri, the Sunni Prime Minister of Lebanon, shattered hopes about the end of the political tumult. The attacks by Israel forces in January 2015 and May 2016 resulted in the death of important Hezbollah militants. The continuing cultural conflict in the nation springs from the polarization of political and religious ideologies. This kind of polarization can transform people into violent militants determined to dominate others through the rationalization of cultural violence. As we have seen, the legitimization of such violence and struggle doesn’t just arise spontaneously; it has a strong link to the past.52 It is also projected into an idealized future. The increase of enemies both in the nation and abroad propels militant jihadists to use violence against their targets, whether these consist of bureaucrats, politicians, foreign states, or other symbolic figures who are identified as their enemies. However, the rise of Hezbollah negates the idea that militants are necessarily capable of leading their society to its destiny. They may lead the struggle for change but the emergence and evolution of the state they are working towards still depends on international factors. The intervention of foreign states and international agencies may combine with the ability of militant leaders to legitimize a violent culture. Hamas, the organization of Sunni-oriented ideological militants in Palestine, has many similarities with Hezbollah. We need to explore Hamas as well to understand the critical importance of cultural conflict in a different political geography with a similar mode of cultural violence. Hamas Similarly to Hezbollah, Hamas was founded on grievous political and religious concerns triggered by the Israeli truck incident that killed four Palestinians on 7 December 1987. The argument of Palestinians

Cultural Violence

59

was that Israeli soldiers deliberately killed four Palestinians as a response to the stabbing death of Israeli businessman Shlomo Takal in the main shopping centre of Gaza. The anger of Palestinians was manifested in riots after the funerals of the four men. On 9 December 1987, Hatem Al Sisi, a 17-year-old youth, died as Israeli soldiers opened fire against rioters.53 In a couple of days, tension rose significantly between the opponents and the grievous situation worsened with the loss of lives from both sides. Each conflicting group counted their own deaths. The emotional defeat plunged each side into greater psychological and social instability. However, the overt damage was only the tip of the iceberg; it revealed both deep dissent in Palestinian society and political uncertainty in Israeli society. We need to revisit the two decades before the death of Shlomo Takal and the truck incident to understand these divisions. The foundation of Israel in 1948 happened in the context of the 1947–1948 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine. The declaration of the State of Israel created huge concerns for Israel’s Arab neighbours. A hostile alliance of Arab states was intent on the destruction of Israel, and this intention led to Israel taking a strong psychological position to defend itself. The development of such a strong defence mechanism is not surprising when we consider both the existential struggle of Israel against the threats of its neighbours and the agony of the Holocaust, which had destroyed millions of Jews only a couple of years before the foundation of the Israeli state. The West Bank, Jerusalem, the Sinai Peninsula, and the Gaza Strip came under the full control of Israel after the Arab-Israeli War in 1967. The gradual annexation of Palestinian territories was followed by growing concerns among the Palestinian people, who worked primarily in unskilled jobs and had to cope with unemployment and social deprivation in the occupied territories. The territory was itself scarce and resources were not allocated adequately for the Palestinian population. The defeat of the Palestinians after the first Arab-Israeli War (1948–49) left an angry community. The marginalization policies of Israel from 1967 to 1987 stoked feeling of rage among them. Edward Said explains the situation of Palestinians after the ArabIsraeli War thus: “The non-Jew lives a meager existence in villages without libraries, youth centers, theaters, cultural centers; most Arab centers, according to Arab mayor of Nazareth, who speaks with the unique authority of a non-Jew in Israel, lack electricity, telephone, communications, health centers; none has any sewage systems, except Nazareth

60

Violence and Militants

itself, which is only partly serviced by one; none has paved roads or streets.”54 Since the occupation of the territories, Israel has pursued an “iron fist” policy, employed deportations, press censorship, and such forms of collective punishment such as school closings, curfews, and the demolition of homes to suppress Palestinian nationalism.”55 The degenerating social conditions, maltreatment of the Palestinians by the Israeli government and army factions, defeatist psychology after the wars with Israel in the 1960s and 1970s, and emotional solidarity among the people committed to take back their homelands mobilized many Palestinians to show their reaction against Israel. These grim realities inspired the First Intifada, which literally means “shake off.” The First Intifada consisted of civil disobedience, general strikes, boycotts of Israeli Civil Administration institutions, refusal to work in Israeli settlements on Israeli products, refusal to pay taxes, and the use of graffiti.56 The other segment of the strategy was violent, and included the throwing of stones and Molotov cocktails at the idf (Israel Defense Force) and stabbing of civilians.57 Cultural trauma both led to expanding frustration among people and at the same time fostered the hopes of Palestinians by providing methods of resistance. The First Intifada lasted for five years and nine months, and terminated on 13 September 1993. The First Intifada stimulated the establishment of Hamas in 1987; its charter was declared on 18 August 1988. This charter included thirtysix articles presenting the characteristics of the organization, its objectives, and its ideals. Hamas defines itself as a representative force of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and acknowledges its slogan in Article 8: “Allah is its goal, the Prophet is the model, the Qur’an its constitution, jihad its path, and death for the sake of Allah its most sublime belief.”58 The following article expressed the aim of Hamas: “Fighting against the false, defeating it and vanquishing it so that justice could prevail.”59 “The false” in this article includes both Israel and West; further articles in the charter mention imperialist powers and historical Crusader attempts to capture the holy city, Jerusalem. Even though religious concerns are the dominant elements of the charter, the political dimension is also very significant. From this vantage point, nationalism is perceived as part of the religious creed to liberate Palestine.60 More to the point, Article 13 rejects negotiation with the enemy and insists that jihad is the only legitimate response. Jihad appears again in Article 15 to mobilize each Muslim and impose it as an individual duty.61

Cultural Violence

61

Though Hamas belongs to the Sunni faction of Islam in contrast to the Shia origins of Hezbollah, the anti-Semitic generalizations typical of the latter group are also common in its charter. Hamas, in fact, emerged as a response to Israel’s military complex and its rule over the non-Jewish and Muslim population. Hamas subscribed to the Palestinian Forces Alliance (pfa) in January 1994 with nine other organizations to protest the Oslo agreement that brought an end to the First Intifada.62 The post-Oslo agreement signed in 1995 to conclude the First Intifada did not satisfy many people, whether from the Palestinian or Israeli factions. Yet one point was clarified. After the First Intifada, most Palestinians and Israelis concluded that there was no military solution to their conflict.63 The number of victims in this clash illustrates the fierce situation. From 1995 to 2000, 175 Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces. This was fewer than during the First Intifada, in which 1,234 Palestinians were killed.64 On the other hand, 99 Israeli civilians lost their lives both in the occupied territories and within the Green Line – the line created after the 1949 Armistice Agreements between the armies of Israel and its neighbouring countries Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria – from 1995 to 2000 as compared to casualties during the First Intifada, which numbered 172.65 The second Intifada that started on 28 September 2000 increased violent conflict, both in the occupied territories and Israel, exponentially. The bloody scenes created by suicide bombers in restaurants and busses frightened the Israeli public. More Palestinians lost their lives in the Second Intifada than the First Intifada. The Second Intifada “was associated with increasingly militarised, individualised, and masculinised resistance.”66 The Second Intifada could not capture as much sympathy as the First Intifada had generated. The loss of the public’s collective belief in the success of the Second Intifada was explained by Hamas’s most prominent woman politician, Jamila alShanti: “The First intifada was the stone-throwing intifada. Now, who now believed in stones?”67 These militant activities were employed by groups that were part of the plo, particularly in the 1970s. Section 2 of the Ten Point Program declared in June 1974 underscored the requisite of armed struggle:68 “The Liberation Organization will employ all means, and first and foremost armed struggle, to liberate Palestinian territory and to establish the independent combatant national authority for the people over every part of Palestinian territory that is liberated. This will

62

Violence and Militants

require further changes being effected in the balance of power in favour of our people and their struggle.” However, with the Oslo Accords in October 1993, the plo recognized Israel’s right to exist in peace. This non-violent change in its methods also provided international legitimacy that the plo needed, and made the plo the sole representative of the Palestinian people. Fatah and its heroic leader Yasser Arafat had previously been the dominant group in the plo. Nevertheless, Fatah’s political ideology was primarily based on international socialism, whereas the identity of Hamas was shaped by its Islamic character. The corrosive structure of the plo, the incapacity of its governing cadre to satisfy the local population, and its declining credibility among the Palestinians offered Hamas new opportunities to compete for political power. The fierce rivalry between Hamas and Fatah brought a significant defeat to the Palestine national movement during the second intifada, which came to an end after four years on 8 February 2005. Finally, Hamas defeated Fatah in the January 2006 elections. The political legitimacy of Hamas, recognition of its victory in elections, and financial assistance to the Palestine Authority were all lost when Hamas rejected a commitment to non-violence, recognition of the state of Israel, and previous agreements. Israel also implemented economic sanctions that lead to severe deterioration of the social conditions of the Palestinian people. Political tension was evident in the cadre of Hamas after the sanctions. More importantly, anger toward international actors and Israel prevailed among the Palestinians, who thought that they had been punished because of their democratic election of Hamas. Gad Yaacobi was the minister of Economics and Planning (1986–88) and minister of Communications (1987–90) in the Israeli government, and he defined the developments led by Israel during the First Intifada as a “creeping process of de facto annexation,” which increased the militant reaction among Palestinians.69 The 2008 and 2014 wars and the use of excessive force have built a strong community in Gaza where the distinction between Hamas militants and Gaza civilians is hard to identify, even though the people suffer from the military tactics of Hamas as well. The isolation of Gaza and the inhumane methods used against its civilians encourage more militant activities and decrease the probability of non-violent solutions. Ibrahim Goshah, spokesman for Hamas, stated in an interview that “Arafat wants to confront Israel’s settlement policies at Jebel Abu Ghneim without weapons. But, with-

Cultural Violence

63

out weapons, Hamas believes a genuine intifada cannot begin – I mean an intifada of armed or military resistance. We believe only this form of resistance will thwart Israel’s settlement policies at Jebel Abu Ghneim and elsewhere.”70 Political and religious concerns are the two main motives for Hamas, as they were for Fatah. With the loss of belief in a peaceful dialogue for a better future, violent response appears as the first and foremost effective response. The method of eliminating the political and religious concerns is based on devising a quick and final response, so the militants of Hamas are more prone to use violence. As a result, and similar to the case with Hezbollah, the rationalization of violence has strong validation. The 2007 Battle of Gaza between Hamas and Fatah only worsened the volatile atmosphere. 118 militants, 39 civilians and 2 un staff lost their lives in the one-week battle, which ended on 15 June 2007.71 Hamas took control of the Gaza Strip with its definitive victory over Fatah. The result was that the already fragmented Palestinian territories are now being governed by the two entities. Hamas rules Gaza and the Palestinian National Authority governs the West Bank. The isolation of Hamas also led to the emergence of new militant groups under the same faction. For example, the al-Qassam Brigades had been a formidable military wing of Hamas but, many of its members were detained or killed by Israel in the early 2000s. Even with the weakened status of the al-Qassam Brigades,72 since the capture of Gaza, hundreds of rockets have been fired at targets in Israeli territory. Abu Ahmed, northern Gaza leader for the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades stated, “We learned from Hezbollah’s victory that Israel can be defeated if we know how to hit them and if we are well prepared.”73 Violence endures and shapes the everyday life of Palestinians dramatically. Yet the same cultural violence resonates more quietly but with an expanding power among Israeli civilians. Many Israelis have to cope with perilous daily threats. Each group suffers the dissuasive impact of violence from its opponents. The response of Israel against Palestinian rockets was excessive both in the 2008–09 and the 2014 Gaza wars. The casualties and destruction in Gaza speak for themselves. 1,417 people were killed, including 926 civilians, 255 police officers, and 236 fighters in Gaza by idf; 3 Israeli civilians and 10 soldiers were killed by Hamas.74 Edward Said questioned the use of Palestinians as a labour force without providing fundamental conditions to sustain them and allow them to live peacefully. He called them “manpower without political

64

Violence and Militants

significance, without a territorial base, without cultural continuity; for the non-Jew in Israel, if he dared to remain after 1948, there was only the meager subsistence of being there, almost powerless except to reproduce himself and his misery more or less endlessly.”75 The international reaction to Hamas is polarized by different actors who have either disparaged the organization or recognized it as an elected political force. The cultural violence of Hamas has evolved through the traumatic psychology of national defeat and international isolation. The more isolation and inhumane Israeli policies the Palestinians face, the more militant organizations like Hamas are empowered because of building strong emotional relationships among the Palestinians. The casualties of the 2014 Gaza War were even more dramatic: the death toll in Gaza was 2,551 and in Israel, 72.76 Despite the increase cost of the war for Israel, the social consequences were unbearable for the people of Gaza in the long term. Thousands of homes and dozens of hospitals and health centers were destroyed. Family farms were damaged. People were suffered an insufficient supply of electricity and water. Many of these problems continue to create great challenges for sustainable life in Gaza. Using aggressive military force against Gaza neither provides Israelis a safe country nor eliminates the persistent threats imposed by Hamas. The new generation in Gaza has grown up with the ongoing trauma, and the cultural outcome of such trauma eliminates the possibility of peaceful coexistence. Palestinians continue to be humiliated and abused in the violent atmosphere created by the reactionary military strikes by Israel and the martyr agitation of an aggressive Hamas. Mark Juergensmeyer’s interview with Abdul Aziz Rantisi, the leader of the political arm of Hamas, clarifies how the militants mobilize people. The Hamas leader states that “to die in this way [through suicide bombings] is better than to die daily in frustration and humiliation.” He goes on to say that, in his view, the very nature of Islam is to defend “dignity, land and honor.” He then relates a story that the Prophet Muhammad had told about a woman who fasted daily, yet was doomed to hell because she humiliated her neighbors. The point of the story, Rantisi says, is that “dishonoring someone is the worst act that one can do, and the only thing that can counter it is dignity – the honor provided by religion and the courage of being a defender of the faith.”77 This particular way of citing Islam’s Prophet legitimizes the use of violence from a cultural point of view, since religion remains unquestionable. However, it can also be argued that the main message of that

Cultural Violence

65

story is that a true believer cannot guarantee his or her status just by observing every order of God or the holy book, because a true believer also needs to understand the essence of religious messages by demonstrating kindness towards and tolerance of other people. Moving from this point of view, Quran states in the first section of chapter 5 that “if anyone kills a person – unless in retribution for murder or spreading corruption in the land – it is as if he kills all mankind, while if any saves a life it is as if he saves the lives of all mankind”78 Suicide bombings kill innocent people just as the soldiers of state forces do. However, the verse from the Quran hardly finds a place in the discourse of speeches given by ideologues when they endeavor to mobilize more militants. Critical views of the use of violence are not able to flourish when violence and injustice make the lives of people miserable. The power of violence and the feeling of injustice create an ambiance in which our selective perceptions choose only certain parts from the holy books, interpret them according our particular goals, and finally promote more violence in the name of dignity and self-defence. Yehiya Sinwar, who was a militant belonging to the Izz ad-Din alQassam Brigades, was released from an Israeli prison in exchange for Gilad Shalit, an idf soldier, in 2011. In February 2017, he took over the role of prime minister of Gaza from Ismail Haniyeh. The shift of power in the governance of Hamas led to the declaration of a “New Charter” on 1 May 2017. In this document, the clear anti-Semitic discourse of the Charter of 1988 was transformed pragmatically by replacing “Jews” with “Zionists.” Khalid Meshal, a well-known political leader of the organization, declared the New Charter, stating: “Hamas’ struggle is not with Jews or their faith, but is a struggle against Zionism and its aggressions.”79 Rather than demanding the complete destruction of the Jews and of the Israeli state as in in the Charter of 1988, Hamas now recognized the 1967 borders, marking the official acknowledgement of the Israeli state as a neighbor country of Palestine. In so doing, the old ideology of Hamas disguised itself within more moderate codes. As a result, the declaration of the New Charter before the international media in Qatar enlarged the possibility of political maneuvers for Hamas. Hamas now aims to attain an accomplishable national agenda rather than to continue to fight over the religious dichotomy between Jews and Muslims. Following these progressive steps, Hamas signed an agreement with its longtime rival Fatah in Cairo on 12 October 2017. Administrative and financial difficulties that Hamas has faced both from Israeli and

66

Violence and Militants

Fatah forces made this conciliation a reasonable step for the future of Palestine, if not for the aspirations of Hamas itself. The agreement proposes to share power in Gaza and Palestine between Hamas and Fatah. The efforts at conciliation between the two organizations offers new opportunities to empower the Palestinian people, increase diplomacy, and limit the militant activities of Hamas. Although the cultural violence of the region, whether employed by the Israeli state or Hamas militants, still leads to confrontation between opposing ideals, the nationalist aspirations of Hamas, like those of Hezbollah, are different from those of al-Qaeda and Isis. The cultural suffering of the Palestinians was highlighted in the New Charter, which declared the Palestinian cause to be “a cause of an occupied land and displaced people, and the right of return for all Palestinians.”80 The cultural connection among militant jihadists was evident when many plo members fought in Lebanon against Israel. The same connection appeared in the speech of Osama bin Laden on the third anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. He stated, “We witnessed the oppression and tyranny of the American/Israeli coalition against our people in Palestine and Lebanon.”81 In the next section we examine how the similar modes of politico-religious concerns and ideals mobilized them and linked different militant jihadists within the spectrum of cultural violence. Al-Qaeda Two central dynamics for understanding the fundamental power of al-Qaeda are related to a person and a place. Osama bin Laden founded al-Qaeda in 1988 and shaped its ideology and organization. However, al-Qaeda could not have attained the power that it did without certain developments in the political geography of Afghanistan and Pakistan in the 1980s and 1990s. Jihad had already gained a strong foothold after the Soviet forces invaded Afghanistan in 1979, long before bin Laden found a refuge there in 1996. Militant jihadists became operational and extended al-Qaeda’s organizational structure during the Soviet-Afghan War (1979–89). In 1988, the Soviets lost the war against a determined Afghan Mujahedeen – guerrilla warrior – insurgency and withdrew their last troops from Afghanistan on 15 May 1988. After the Taliban was established with the support of Pakistani security forces in 1994, it ascended to power and controlled Afghan-

Cultural Violence

67

istan in 1997. Bin Laden’s settlement in Afghanistan generated mixed feelings. Bin Laden presented the Taliban regime as the role model of a proper Islamic state for the Muslim world in the late 1990s.82 On the other hand, the Taliban’s goal was restricted to regional dominance and it designated limited targets, whereas al-Qaeda was more eager to identify international targets and utter threats against the Western world and any Muslim countries that collaborated with the West. Tensions between these two organizations in the rule of Afghanistan were revealed a letter between the Taliban and Bin Laden.83 Al-Qaeda’s promotion of global jihad shaped its cultural violence, which evolved through intersections and contradictions with the Taliban forces.84 The core principles that made al-Qaeda notorious cannot be grasped without some knowledge of its ideologues. The praxis of alQaeda is derived from the ideas of radical Islamic scholars like Sayyid Qutb, who fiercely defended sharia law as a flawless legal system. Sayyid Qutb’s ideological radicalization is discernible in his wellknown work Ma’alim fi al-Tariq, a popular source of inspiration among militant jihadists. Qutb insists that non-Islamic materials and values are “evil and corrupt” while presenting sharia as the sum of codes that characterize a faultless social order.85 Qutb went to the USA to study educational administration and his militant jihadism shifted from the defensive to the offensive upon his return to Egypt from the US in 1951. His new values included cultural comparisons portraying American women as purely sexual objects and perceiving American taste in arts as so low as to be unworthy even of contempt.86 Qutb’s later understanding of Islam transformed it into a powerabsorbing system creating isolation and polarization in society when resistance against his own interpretation of Islam rose and was directed against him even by fellow Muslims. Sharia is generally perceived as an inclusive system determining the social, political, and cultural order in the lands of Islamic faith. The interpretation of sharia law under the Taliban regime – one of the most reactionary militant jihadist groups in the 1990s – increased a list of prohibited actions to include many which had previously been lawful in Afghanistan. These included eating pork, consuming alcohol, using different types of consumer technology, females participating in sports, and cultural activities and arts such as painting and photography.87 But although even Muslim reporters were prohibited from questioning the validity of Taliban policies, al-Qaeda went along

68

Violence and Militants

with them. Mohammed Jamal Khalifa, who married one of Osama bin Laden’s daughters and provided financial support to radical jihadist organizations, stated that “Islam is different from any other religion; it’s a way of life. We [Khalifa and bin Laden] were trying to understand what Islam has to say about how we eat, who we marry, how we talk. We read Sayyid Qutb. He was the one who most affected our generation.”88 Bin Laden targeted the Saudi royal family in his interview in 1996 due to their collaboration with the US, and their invitation to the soldiers of an infidel regime to enter the lands of Islam.89 These threats transformed into action through the catastrophic attacks that occurred on 11 September 2001. The events of 9/11 deepened the existing cultural clash between the West and Islam with the declaration of a war on terrorism by the US. In doing so, the US military gained political legitimacy to invade Afghanistan, and later Iraq. Of course, far from de-escalating terrorism, these invasions empowered the cultural position of militant jihadism because of violations of fundamental human rights by the allies, the increase of civilian causalities in the invaded lands, and the destruction of important Islamic religious symbols.90 And even though the invasion was promulgated as a humanitarian plan to liberate oppressed women and children, the prevalence of human rights violations by the invading forces created serious concerns even in the Western media.91 Furthermore, statecontrolled violence disturbed the trust between citizens and the state. The Iraqi case is a proof of this disruption through which the transubstantiory violence of Saddam’s regime shaped psychosocial change and made possible both the collapse of and the construction of power.92 A similar transubstantionary violence was manifested after the fall of Saddam’s regime in Iraq; The Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq became a symbol of Western oppression when reports of physical and sexual abuse, rape, sodomy, and murder by US troops against detainees spread and were condemned across the world.93 Al-Qaeda used the dispirited situation created by the outcomes in the Iraqi and Afghanistan invasions for propaganda purposes. After these incidents drew global attention, bin Laden stated that “the crimes at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo . . . shook the conscience of humanity.”94 In this way, al-Qaeda legitimized their own use of violence and empowered cultural conflict. In No Good Men Among the Living, Anand Gopal argues that the war in Afghanistan could have been prevented, as the Taliban would have

Cultural Violence

69

been ready to lay down their arms for conciliation. However the missed opportunities, the offensive repression of US policies, the crimes of US forces against innocent Afghan people, and the assassination of the wrong people motivated more Afghans to become militants in order to take revenge.95 The argument that the American invasion was a war against their culture and religion was successfully marketed by the Taliban forces and helped their recruitment of dissident and desperate people. Cultural confrontation and polarization are the necessary requisites for employing the ideological mission of jihadi Salafism, which is one of the most powerful movements among militant jihadists. Jihadi Salafism has motivated many to follow a radical path and use “physical jihad” to cause their own ideology to prevail.96 The increasing number of groups embracing the five pillars of Jihadi Salafism since the 1990s show its growing capacity, despite the fact that the movement consists of numerous groups that interpret Islam and jihad differently. The first two pillars are related to the unity and sovereignty of Allah. The remaining three pillars are structural rather than spiritual and relate to the defence, unity, and the resistance of their organizations. These three pillars are (i) the rejection of all innovations to Islam, (ii) the permissibility and necessity of execution of a Muslim who is defined as a kafir (non-Muslim) by his or her own creed, and (iii) the centrality of jihad against infidel regimes.97 The rejection of reformation in Islam, and the punishment of other Muslims who do not share the same principles with them, are used to defend Jihadi Salafism and protect it as promoted by al-Qaeda. Finally, there is the more mission to attack so-called infidel regimes. The story of Nasruddin, a former Salafist, gives us some important hints about how the radicalization process occurs through a culturally isolated interpretation of Islam. Nasruddin grew up in a predominantly Salafist environment in Houston, Texas. In 1997, when he was eighteen, he became convinced that he was ready to be a martyr and fight for Lashkar-e-Taba, a Pakistan-based militant group, so he went to Kashmir, India, and received intensive training. The driving force behind Nasruddin’s journey was the taped lectures of a Salafist cleric aiming to indoctrinate him into their puritanical understanding of Islam.98 In general, it is not mainstream Muslims but Salafists who are the main protagonists of jihadist recruitment.99 Jihad-oriented Salafism was also influential among members of the al-Qaeda branch in Sudan, which entrenched the motto: “Salafism in

70

Violence and Militants

doctrine, modernity in confrontation.”100 This short and influential motto expresses the centrality of a radical perspective in their ideology with modernity as their target. Ayman al-Zawahiri, the second in command of al-Qaeda after Osama bin Laden, signed a fatwa in 1998 called World Islamic Front for Jihad against Jews and Crusaders. This invoked a culture war against the US government and its citizens, as well as the allies of the Western coalition. It also assigned a duty to every Muslim to fight for jihad and liberate al-Aqsa Mosque (in Jerusalem) and the holy mosque (in Mecca) from their opponents.101 One of the first global reactions against the attacks on cultural heritage by militant jihadists after 9/11 arose when the Taliban destroyed an ancient Bamiyan Buddha in Afghanistan in 2001. The Taliban leader Mullah Omar explained the reason for the destruction as a conflict over values and priorities. He said, “I did not want to destroy the Bamiyan Buddha. In fact, some foreigners came to me and said they would like to conduct the repair work of the Bamiyan Buddha that had been slightly damaged due to rains. This shocked me. I thought, these callous people have no regard for thousands of living human beings – the Afghans who are dying of hunger, but they are so concerned about non-living objects like the Buddha. This was extremely deplorable. That is why I ordered its destruction. Had they come for humanitarian work, I would have never ordered the Buddha’s destruction.”102 The destruction of the Bamiyan Buddha was also supported by the Foreign Affairs Ministry of the Taliban regime, which declared that “we are destroying the statues in accordance with Islamic law and it is purely a religious issue.” Yet it is important to note that the encouragement of Osama bin Laden had crucial influence over Mullah Omar, leader of the Taliban regime.103 One of the prominent leaders of al-Qaeda, Ayman Al-Zawahiri, released a twenty-minute statement on 10 July 2007 entitled “Malicious Britain and its Indian Slaves” after Salman Rushdie received a knighthood. The critical perspectives of Salman Rushdie regarding Islam in his novels, and his views about the necessity of reformation in Islam, stimulated Al-Zawahiri to utter threats against both Rushdie and Britain. He said, “The message of the queen of Britain and the supreme governor of the Church of England and her prime minister was very clear. She said to the Muslims, ‘If you think you will defeat us and banish us from Iraq and Afghanistan, then we curse your prophet and his family and consider whoever does so as one of our heroes.’ Therefore, I say to Elizabeth and Blair that we got the message and we are preparing for a strong response, with God’s help.”104

Cultural Violence

71

Ayman al-Zawahiri also urged young Muslim men to carry out “lone-wolf attacks” against targets in Western nations that have intervened in Iraq and Syria, saying, “I call on all Muslims who can harm the countries of the crusader coalition not to hesitate. We must now focus on moving the war to the heart of the homes and cities of the crusader West and specifically America.”105 The phrases “the crusader coalition” and “the crusader West” reference the military campaigns of Christian European countries from the eleventh century to the thirteenth century against the Muslim states controlling the Holy Land in the Middle East. Such references are used by militant jihadists to imply that there has been continuous cultural war between Islam and Europe for centuries. The organic link between al-Qaeda and the initial leaders of militant jihadist insurgency in Iraq was evident. Al-Zawahiri wrote a letter dated 9 July 2005 to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi appreciating the latter’s achievement in Iraq. However, he also criticized al-Zarqawi’s methods, which were publicized through online videos, drawing furious attention worldwide. Al-Zarqawi’s videos showed that he beheaded his victims with a knife while uttering prayers. He became infamous in May 2004, primarily through a heinous video of the beheading of Nick Berg, a US citizen. Al-Zawahiri believed that the video might lead to delegitimizing the organization through the propaganda of Western media. He further stated, You shouldn’t be deceived by the praise of some of the zealous young men and their description of you as the sheikh (religious leader) of the slaughterers, etc. They do not express the general view of the admirer and the supporter of the resistance in Iraq, and of you in particular by the favor and blessing of God … And your response, while true, might be: Why shouldn’t we sow terror in the hearts of the Crusaders and their helpers? And isn’t the destruction of the villages and the cities on the heads of their inhabitants more cruel than slaughtering? And aren’t the cluster bombs and the seven ton bombs and the depleted uranium bombs crueler than slaughtering? And isn’t killing by torture crueler than slaughtering? And isn’t violating the honor of men and women more painful and more destructive than slaughtering? 106 Al-Zarqawi’s charisma resulted from his radical ideological mission and insistence on cultural polarization. He asserted, “We have

72

Violence and Militants

declared a bitter war against democracy and all those who seek to enact it ... Democracy is also based on the right to choose your religion [and that is] against the rule of Allah.”107 Such misinterpretation of the Quran for ideological purposes is common among both Muslims and non-Muslims; in fact, the Quran has a number of verses underlining respect and tolerance toward differences and recognition and appreciation of non-Islamic beliefs.108 Al-Zarqawi’s cruel methods have not been abandoned even though he was killed by the US Air Force on 7 June 2006; the succeeding leaders Abu Ayyub al-Masri, Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, and finally Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi followed the cultural and ideological path of al-Zarqawi. The ideology of militant jihadists revolves around the simultaneous cultural marginalization and cultural supremacy of their own group and increasing polarization between themselves and their targets. This ideological radicalization led to them targeting the cultural heritage and symbols of their enemies. Although militant jihadists from different groups have fundamental commonalities in their hatred of against the “infidel regimes,” differences between them exist as well. The distinction between the Taliban and al-Qaeda shows itself particularly in their attitudes to attacks against fellow Muslims. For example, al-Qaeda condemned the Tehrik-i Taliban Pakistan (ttp) for attacking a military high school in the city of Peshawar on 16 December 2014; an attack that killed 149 people, mostly children.109 Al-Qaeda’s regional branch declared that the militants should target only security forces. Osama Mahmood, spokesman for the South Asia section of al-Qaeda, stated, “There is no doubt that the list of crimes and atrocities of the Pakistani army has crossed the limit and it is true that this army is ahead of everyone in America’s slavery and genocide of Muslims ... but it does not mean that we should seek revenge from oppressed Muslims.”110 Women were prohibited from receiving education under the Taliban regime before the invasion of Afghanistan by the US coalition. The Taliban militants also used poison gas against a school for girls from nine to eighteen years old in Afghanistan. The gas attack resulted in the loss of consciousness of more than 300 students after the attack and sent the local community into shock.111 Al-Qaeda is less likely to attack its co-religionists than the Taliban are. After the assassination of bin Ladin by US forces in 2011, al-Qaeda continued to walk on the road of radicalization with its new leader, Al-Zarqawi. However, al-Qaeda since then has embraced a more sensitive approach, avoiding bloody attacks on other Muslims.

Cultural Violence

73

Militant jihadism has a strong foothold in history. Historical references are used to emphasize how Western imperialism decimated native Muslim populations and other non-Muslim nations.112 Indeed, the cultural polarization of militant jihadism hinges on the injustice produced by imperial powers during the colonialization process as well as its ravages afterward.113 Al-Qaeda transformed “sons of the soil” to “blood brothers” by addressing their politico-religious concerns and successfully recruiting them for a “holy mission.”114 This is how the culture of vulnerability and victimization is transformed into a culture of militancy. However, destroying the cultural heritage of non-Islamic countries is just one dimension of this culture. The other dimension is targeting the symbols of the other sects of Islam, particularly Shia Islam, which has a significant number of adherents in Iraq and Syria. Schools have also been targeted to prevent girls from receiving an education and to eliminate critiques of the ideological focus of militant jihadism that might arise from people trained in those schools. All these attacks increase the cultural capital of militant jihadism while rationalizing the violence they use. An even more radical version of this phenomenon emerged in Isis. Many al-Qaeda militants separated from the organization and joined Isis from 2013 onwards. Isis The roots of Isis are embedded in Jama’at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad (Organization of Monotheism and Jihad), which was established in 1999 in Jordan and engaged in insurgency activities in 2004 with the invasion of Iraq. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of the organization, was affiliated with al-Qaeda. The head of the sharia committee of the organization was Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who became the leader of Isis and was proclaimed by them to be the caliph of all Muslims when Isis declared itself a state in 2014 in the territories of Syria and Iraq. Even though there are ideological similarities between al-Qaeda and Isis, the methods of Isis and its use of cultural violence make it an uncommon jihadist organization.115 Salafi influence was palpable in the behaviors of Isis militants when they destroyed ancient sites, cultural heritage, and artifacts. Shirk and bid’a are the two keywords of Salafi thought that were used to legitimize this violence. Shirk mainly signifies worship of more than one Allah, so it is actually a practice in conflict with one of the most

74

Violence and Militants

important principles of Islam, tawhid (the oneness of Allah). Bid’a is the equivalent of “religious innovation,” assigning a pejorative meaning to it.116 The existence of memorial tombs or mausoleums contradicts the Salafi interpretation of Islam because its followers believe that offering prayers at tombs and praising important figures in Islamic history are heretical practices of kufr (infidelity) and shirk (associating God with others). This is the reason that many Turks react furiously when the Salafi-oriented Saudi King visits Turkey but rejects visiting the mausoleum of Ataturk in Ankara.117 Isis members transformed and centralized the prominent codes of Salafism into its strategic agenda while destroying ancient towns and artifacts. On the one hand, their destruction aimed at legitimizing their actions through using the Salafi doctrine and presenting it as the only true interpretation of Islam. On the other hand, they grabbed worldwide attention through media coverage and reaped financial benefits through trading these artifacts in the underground antique market.118 The same religious reasoning has also influenced the militants of Isis. After the invasion of Mosul in early June 2014, Isis ordered the demolition of all the churches in that ancient city.119 However, cultural violence by Isis does not target only non-Islamic sites. They even demolished a number of historically significant mosques and shrines in Iraq and Syria.120 Isis militants also destroyed the ancient city of Nimrud, once capital of the Assyrian Empire. The ruins were bulldozed, and Isis militants uploaded recordings of these barbarous scenes to the internet.121 A fate similar to Nimrud’s also marked another ancient city, Hatra, with horrendous destruction in early March 2015.122 After the ruins of Hatra were dramatically demolished, Isis released videos. The un classified all these attacks as being equivalent to war crimes.123 This followed an attack on Palmyra, which was another ancient city and one of the World Heritage Sites of Syria.124 Isis organized numerous attacks from May 2015 to September 2015 and devastated almost the entire site because it had been deemed polytheistic.125 In the early weeks of November 2016, Iraqi troops marched toward Mosul to reclaim the city from Isis, and yet again the satellite images showed that the two archeological sites were purposefully destroyed by Isis.126 The cultural destruction did not include only towns and sites. The protection of cultural heritage and transmission of cultural values to the next generation depend on the availability of scholars. For that reason, Khaled al-Ass’ad, the archaeologist who was responsible for

Cultural Violence

75

excavating Palmyra, was publicly beheaded by Isis.127 Other academics, intellectuals, and scholars have been the direct targets of Isis in Syria and Iraq since the rise of militant jihadists in the region. An important number of the targeted mosques and shrines were located in Mosul, which was a trade center of the Middle East and had been a pivotal urban hub during the Ottoman Empire.128 “We feel very sad for the demolition of these shrines, which we inherited from our fathers and grandfathers,” said Ahmed, a fifty-one-year-old resident of Mosul.129 Isis centralizes only its own interpretation of Islam and perceives other versions as a serious threat to its authority. The destruction of all cultural symbols and heritages of different religions and non-Sunni sects of Islam is a fundamental characteristic of Isis. But these militant jihadists were not alone in their destruction of ancient heritage. The US army set up a camp in the ancient town of Babylon which severely damaged the site even though Colonel John Coleman, commanding officer of the camp, argued that their presence would benefit the site as it would protect it from looters. Zainab Bahrani, a scholar of ancient Near Eastern archaeology, challenged the colonel’s claim, arguing that “the damage done to Babylon by coalition forces is both extensive and irreparable, and even if US forces had wanted to protect this ancient city, placing guards around the site would have been far more sensible than bulldozing it and setting up the largest coalition military headquarters in the region.”130 Isis has more than a local agenda. In fact, it aims to attain a hegemonic world order, a global vision more ambitious than al-Qaeda’s. Even though establishing a single state in the world is not feasible, this aim has captured the attention of large numbers of potential jihadists, who now want to be part of Isis. Isis’s international networks and recruitment are highly centralized ideologically in order to realize this goal. But this centralization does not simply signify the control of the territory from a single place. This is rather a centralization in ideology to open up new branches across the world to have a sustainable future of their ideology. For example, Isis increased its influence by extending its networks to Nigeria through an ideological link with the Jamā’atu Ahli is-Sunnah lidDa’wati wal-Jihād (People Committed to the Prophet’s Teachings for Propagation and Jihad). This group was also known as Boko Haram, which signifies “forbidden or sinful Western education.”131 The group is ideologically premised on resistance to Western forms of education and lifestyle and even connects those things with the corrupt state institu-

76

Violence and Militants

tions and political system of Nigeria. The spiritual leader of Boko Haram, Mohammed Yusuf, was influenced by the fourteenth-century Islamic scholar Ibn Taymiyyah, and Yusuf’s death in 2009, along with the suppressive policies of the government, radicalized the group.132 Boko Haram had gained infamy at the national level in the early 2000s; the abduction of 276 schoolgirls in April 2014 from Chibok, located in the north-eastern part of the country where Boko Haram has a strong foothold, made them notorious at the international level. Boko Haram’s rise to power revealed the fragile situation of Nigerian state institutions.133 This sociopolitical fragility is the elixir for militant jihadists, as was also the case when Hezbollah, Hamas, al-Qaeda, and Isis emerged in the volatile territories of Lebanon, Israel/Palestine, Afghanistan/Pakistan, and Syria/Iraq, respectively. The shockwaves created by Isis echoed dramatically in Nigeria. Isis increased its attacks in 2015, targeting Muslims and non-Muslims alike in the Middle East, Europe, and central Asia. It also claimed responsibility, through its magazine Dabiq, for the deaths of 224 people when it destroyed an airliner that departed from Sharm el-Sheikh for St Petersburg.134 Isis has used the marginalization discourse on Islam by the authorities in France to recruit more militants in that country. Such discourse exploits the statements and actions of French authorities to show how these authorities denigrate Islam. Cultural marginalization fanned by the caricature crisis in the Danish newspaper led to a more violent response with the attacks against the French magazine Charlie Hebdo on 7 January 2015.135 But those whose hostile actions are blamed by Isis in order to legitimize their own cultural violence do not merely include authorities in the West. The widening scope of their targets may include any state or civilian actor outside of their strict, narrow, and deluded interpretation of Islam. Beirut woke up to an ugly morning on 12 November 2015 when two suicide bombers blew themselves up in Bourj el-Barajneh, a southern suburb. Forty-three people lost their lives. Isis claimed responsibility for this, the worst terrorist attack to which Beirut has been subjected since the end of the Lebanese civil war. Isis released a statement after the attack: “Let the Shiite apostates know that we will not rest until we take revenge in the name of the Prophet.”136 Hatred for the Shia sect was presented as the main motive by Isis in this case, but their hatred extends to other sects that differ in their interpretation of Islam. Of course, Isis perceives its greatest enemy not to be other Muslims but European states and their cultural repertoire. The day after the

Cultural Violence

77

Beirut bombings, 13 November 2015, the French capital shook with a series of attacks starting at 21:20 local time. Paris witnessed one of the most horrendous and unexpected nights of terror since World War II. The most striking commonality among the series of attacks in Paris was that the attacks were not made against state or military buildings, but against civilians who were enjoying their evening by having dinner outside or spending their time in cultural milieux like a stadium or a theatre. Isis declared that the bombings were in response to the French contribution to the allies’ military operations in Syria and Iraq.137 The first attack was started by three suicide bombers near Stade de France in Saint-Denis. This was followed by bombings and restaurant shootings with Kalashnikov assault rifles in the 10th and 11th arrondissements. Another attack occurred in the Bataclan theatre near the Place de la Nation while the American band Eagles of Death Metal was performing. Indeed, the majority of the victims were those at the Bataclan. A total of 130 people lost their lives that night, and more than 350 were injured.138 France has the most secular character of any country in Europe. It was even the role model for the Republic of Turkey because the founding cadre of Turkey received their education in French schools in the Ottoman Empire and remained under the influence of the French Enlightenment.139 However, the French state has been hostile to its own Muslim communities, which are perceived as challenging, if not actively threatening, both the current secular character of the French state and its Christian past.140 In the last two centuries, secularism has evolved to become a main pillar of French officialdom in balancing relationships between the state and society in the political spectrum. This balance has sometimes been overseen by political repression and at other times by a strict legal mechanism. Considering the country’s aggressive relationship within the religion-society axis, terror has created division and disruption in the political landscape of France.141 This division and disruption is now shaping the direction of discussions concerning the role of religion in society. There is no limit for Isis in pursuit of legitimization of its cultural violence. They do not confine their destruction to secular European places or the artifacts of other religions. The holy sites of Islam itself have been targeted even in the holy month of Ramadan, when Muslims fast. Isis attacked the Medina mosque housing Muhammad’s tomb and also implemented strikes outside the US consulate in Jeddah and in the Shia-majority city of Qatif in Saudi Arabia on the last

78

Violence and Militants

day of Ramadan, 5 July 2015.142 Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi stated that it was the duty of every Muslim to destroy the Black Stone, al-H . ajar alAswad, in the Kaaba, identifying the monument as a material of “idolatrous worship.”143 In fact, the Black Stone has always been one of the most sacred objects of Islam. The strategy of Isis is to increase the gap between their form of Islam and other forms, as well as between Islam and other religions. Two militants affiliated with Isis killed a priest in the town of SaintEtienne-du-Rouvray in Normandy on 26 July 2016.144 One of the nuns who managed to escape from the church claimed that they shouted, “You Christians, you kill us,” while forcing their elderly victim to kneel before cutting his throat.145 After the police surrounded the church and killed the attackers, Isis claimed responsibility and stated that it was “soldiers of the Islamic State [isil] who carried out the attack in response to calls to target countries of the crusader coalition.”146 Mark Lowen of the bbc asked a number of questions to the son and mother of one of the attackers, who were living in Turkey in November 2014 when the interview was conducted. The statements of thirteenyear-old Syrian refugee Ebu Hattab show how the power of cultural violence by Isis makes militants of children. When Lowen asked Ebu Hattab whether he would attack the United Kingdom if given the opportunity, he responded, “I would attack the United Kingdom because it is a member of nato and against Isis … I would also attack Turkey if I am ordered to do so … The West will see the end soon.”147 His mother also offered dramatic backing; women like her may be among the main forces transforming youths into militants. She stated, “I support some ideas of Isis and reject others. However, I believe that they (Isis) came to help the Syrians … If my son kills the people from the West, I will not be sad. I am embarrassed by my other sons who participated in peaceful civil society organization. If my son, Ebu Hattab, dies while fighting for Isis, this makes me very happy.”148 The cultural violence of Isis is premised on political and religious accounts that demonize any Islamic or non-Islamic groups whose interpretation of Islam conflicts with theirs. Global jihad is an essential concept for mobilizing the transformation of Muslims into mujahedeen (guerrilla warriors). The rationalization process for cultural violence does not appear out of thin air, as is clear from the statement of Ebu Hattab. Violence has its own concerns, ideals, and aims.

3 The Rationalization and Application of Cultural Violence “The more the concept of reason becomes emasculated, the more easily it lends itself to ideological manipulation and to propagation of even the most blatant lies … Subjective reason conforms to anything.” Max Horkheimer, Eclipse of Reason

motivation and the expected outcome This statement by one of the most important critical theorists of the twentieth century clearly explains how reason can be reduced and manipulated once it is weakened. Horkheimer’s argument provides an important perspective on how militants rationalize cultural violence by subjective reasoning. Such thinking may sometimes manipulate events and information and can be strengthened as ideas originating from politico-religious concerns start shaping actions, rather than the other way around. This is how the rationalization of cultural violence by militant rebels and militant jihadists explored in the previous chapter came about: it was based on subjective reasoning. Similar motives and expected outcomes can be seen in the use of cultural violence. Militant rebels and militant jihadists express different priorities and sometimes demonstrate contradictory characters. However, the process by which they rationalize their use of violence has some strong commonalities. Cultural preconditions such as ideological isolation from the wider society stimulate the process of rationalizing violence by militants and encourage solidarity among them.1 Their use of rationalization to convince themselves to resort to violence is the first step in transforming their beliefs into actions. This

80

Violence and Militants

rationalization involves two common principles: (i) the motivation to use cultural violence; and (ii) the expected outcome from the use of cultural violence. Political and religious concerns motivate militant rebels and militant jihadists in similar ways. Even though these two groups belong to different social geographies and may be members of different religions, their rationalization of cultural violence follows similar routes. Christian militants in their rebellions against the Ottoman Empire were and militant jihadists in modern times are inspired by both political and religious motives, and the expected outcome of cultural violence is the attainment of their political and religious ideals. Religious concerns combined with cultural traits, language, and ethnic identity in the struggles of militant rebels against Ottoman rule. The divorce of politics from cultural formation is impossible in the discourse of nationalism because the nationalist idea needs a durable homogeneity binding the members of a community together in a particular political space. A strong attachment to cultural formations always characterizes nationhood. This is the reason that political unity influences national unity formidably as both of the clusters are “congruent” constituents of nationalism.2 When cultural violence is used, political and religious concerns are manifested. The use of violence also signals the cultural goals of the militants. When religious legitimacy runs deep in everyday life, dogma will prevail in time. Weber explores the enigma of religious evolution by asking how it is “that a power which is said to be at once omnipotent and kind could have created such an irrational world of undeserved suffering, unpunished injustice, and hopeless stupidity.”3 Irony reigns when the peaceful world promoted by religion leads to the followers of that religion interpreting sacred scriptures in order to justify attaining that ideal by using physical force. The pillars of cultural violence are rational behaviours that open up the path of legitimacy for militants, even though others in the same social setting may perceive this violence as irrational. Violence ushers in a process of irrationality when the more powerful actor is merely interested in ruling. Those in power often fail to notice other dynamics that may diminish their capacity to rule in the long term. The consolidation of power by violence may even topple the rulers themselves, although the same rulers perceive their behaviour to be fundamentally rational, and thus legitimate.

Rationalization and Application of Cultural Violence

81

How did this rationalization process influence militant rebels and militant jihadists? To give a sufficient response to this question, we need to consider political and religious conditions at the community level, and psychological conditions at the individual level. After the expansion of its territories in the Balkans in the late fourteenth century and the fall of Constantinople in 1453, the Ottoman Empire was gradually transformed into a multi-ethnic and multireligious society. The social and cultural organization of the Ottoman Empire was based on religious and social rather than ethnic or political classifications. The millet system of the Ottoman Empire created confessional communities to rule Muslims through Sharia, Christians through Canon law, and Jews through Halakha. The religious leader of each community was responsible for resolving social and legal problems within it. After the bloody and volatile years of the first three quarters of the nineteenth century, particularly in the Balkans, the confessional communities were gradually replaced by ethno-religious communities. For example, the recognition of Bulgarians as an independent community occurred with the Ottoman imperial decree in 1870 that was read in the Bulgarian church of St Stephen in Istanbul. The decree allowed Bulgarians to pray in their own language and affirmed that in addition to his religious duties, their priest would be responsible to the Sultan. A direct connection between the community and the Sultan was established by eliminating the dependency of Bulgarians on the Greek Patriarch. This development in the Tanzimat rendered ethnic background more influential than religion in the state-society nexus. The cases examined in the previous pages document the struggle of militant rebels to establish independent political entities. An overwhelming number of these rebels were Christians. Considering the importance of religion in the governance of communities, it was not surprising that many priests supported national uprisings against the Ottoman Empire from the nineteenth century onward. These supports created great frustration at the Ottoman palace. For instance, Patriarch Gregory V was hanged after the order of Sultan Mahmud II on 22 April 1821, even though he had excommunicated the militant rebels upon the Sultan’s request one week earlier.4 Rumours that he had supported rebellion coupled with his inability to prevent uprisings in Greek communities made his death inevitable.

82

Violence and Militants

In 1829, Greece became the first ethnic community in the Balkans to gain independence from the Ottoman Empire. Many militant rebels from other ethnic communities embraced the same mission as the Greeks. Resistance against Ottoman rule had both a political and a religious character. Although the Edict of 1839 – and more particularly the edict of 1856 – proposed significant reforms to mitigate the unequal status of ethnic and religious minorities, the imperial ideology of Ottomanism still aimed to keep the empire united and triumphant through a common identity. Their continuing desire for political and religious freedom was the principal motivation for militant rebels to revolt against Ottoman rule. Establishing an independent state represented the epitome of their political ideals. At the same time, the identity of each independent state was to be established in accordance with the respective religion of each group of militant rebels. In a similar way, political and religious concerns provide significant momentum for the motivation of militant jihadists. These concerns have been shaped by the historical legacy and socioeconomic and political dominance of Western powers, which consolidated their power more deliberately after the Industrial Revolution. The invasions of Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003, the violation of fundamental human rights by the invading forces, and the death of hundreds of thousands of people after these invasions increased the political concerns of militant jihadists.5 The invasions were perceived by militant jihadists as another exploitative attempt at colonization camouflaged by the War on Terror story. Yet politico-religious concerns are not only under the influence of the colonialist legacy or the present socioeconomic and political agenda of the post-imperialist powers. The internal political concerns among some of the militant jihadist groups such as al-Qaeda and Isis are equally important. For instance, these two groups have denounced the political regimes of Shia rule and all other forms of Islam for conflicting with their own interpretation of Islam. In addition, the militant jihadists from Hezbollah and Hamas raise their religious concerns through a rejection of secularism in everyday life in predominantly Muslim societies. Turkish society was one such society in which secularism was an important pillar of everyday life until the early 2000s. These political and religious concerns give militant jihadists the impetus to recruit more members and rationalize cultural violence both against Dar-al-Kufr (the infidel regimes) and Muslim groups other than

Rationalization and Application of Cultural Violence

83

their own. Jihad and sharia both structure the motivation to fight and determine the outcome of this fight. The call of militant jihadists to jihad invites every Muslim to join their struggle for the idea of Islamic hegemony and makes their community multi-ethnic and multicultural, formed by dozens of nations across the world. The two nationalist jihadist organizations, Hezbollah and Hamas, also seek opportunities in cyberspace to promote their causes and receive financial support. Although the heterogeneity of militant jihadists may mislead us into thinking that such a community lacks the unity and solidarity of militants fighting for national independence, they are still bound together by a common ideal. “The nation is always conceived as a deep, horizontal comradeship. Ultimately it is this fraternity that makes it possible, over the past two centuries, for so many millions of people, not so much to kill, as willingly to die for such limited imaginings”6 Politicized ethnicity paves the way for the use of violence in ethnic wars.7 On the other hand, the rationalization process for using cultural violence is based on an imagined community, which needs to rebel only on the basis of political and/or religious concerns. An individual belonging to this imagined community transfers his or her psychological solidarity to this cohesive ideal. At the same time, this imagined community is presented by the ideologues to prospective militants, assuring them that they will be relieved from all further challenges if it is attained in the future. Both the national and jihadist struggles we have been studying aimed to create the idealized fraternity of cultural community by rationalizing violence to create a common value system for the imagined community. These common values set the character of the imagined community and motivate its members, who employ cultural violence to achieve an independent state (in the Ottoman rebellion examples) or a jihad-oriented ruling system (in the Islamic ones). Cultural violence plays a functional role in creating that imagined community through rationalizing the process in accordance with the value system of militants. Understanding the “sublimation” process gives insight into the rationalization of cultural violence at the individual and community levels. Sublimation is a term used by Freud to explain the way we control our instincts in order to gain the affirmation of the community that we live in. Human beings are fragile, and one of the features of

84

Violence and Militants

neurosis is fear in an insecure situation.8 Yet sublimation may be distinguished from a neurosis. “The difference between a neurosis and sublimation is evidently the social aspect of the phenomenon. A neurosis isolates; a sublimation unites. In a sublimation, something new is created – a house, a community, or a tool – and it is created in a group for the use of group.”9 Evolution from “animal man” to “human being” creates a safer environment with limited repression because human beings follow desires and seek liberation.10 Ed Husain, a British citizen, became radicalized by believing the interpretation of Quran presented to him by other militants and combining it with Qutb’s Milestones and Wahhabi literalism. For him as for the militant jihadists of Hamas, Hezbollah, al-Qaeda, and Isis, socially acceptable values became the basis for violent behaviour. His autobiographical book, The Islamist, reveals that Husain knows neither Arabic nor Persian, the two most prominent languages of Islamic civilization. One needs to read religious sources in their original language and also to think critically in order not to be manipulated. Ed Husain’s memoir exposes how fanatics exploit the existence of racial injustice and discrimination in Britain in exactly this manner.11 By emphasizing Islam as their identity rather than as a religion, they create social cohesion. The existence of repression produces unsafe conditions and fosters feelings of insecurity which may lead to resistance. Political and religious concerns may be sublimated into violent behaviours when the community approves the use of violence as a rational response. The sublimation process at the community level dictates responsibilities to its members and renders the efforts of each member meaningful and satisfying. This kind of sublimation is strong in political and religious conflicts.12 Both a militant rebel and a militant jihadist undergo a sublimation process by which they rationalize the use of violence to overcome their political and religious concerns at the individual level, while fighting for the political and religious ideals at the community level. In fact, the martyr status many hope to obtain represents the ultimate rationalization of violence through violent sublimation. Social psychologists argue that the rationalization of violence is related to how we perceive our opponents and how these perceptions legitimize our behaviours by creating a gulf of values between the one who employs violence and the one who is subject to that violence. Opponents in a militant conflict attack each other with insults

Rationalization and Application of Cultural Violence

85

intended to dehumanize each other. The lack of moral concern for and alienation from one’s opponent play important roles in the process of dehumanization. Herbert C. Kelman has outlined the three steps of dehumanization: (i) processes of authorization, which define the situation and release the individual from personal moral choice (ii) processes of routinization, in which raising moral questions and making moral decisions are given no space; and (iii) processes of dehumanization, which eliminate the attachment to identity both at the individual and community level.13 In this regard, “post hoc rationalization occurs when, confronted with evidence a person or his or her group has harmed others in the past, he or she sees these victims as lesser humans.”14 The perception of “lesser humans” derives from the assumption that harmed people actually deserve that harm because they are representative of inhuman values. Hannah Arendt’s analysis of totalitarianism demonstrates that the brutality of massacres in the past could be repeated with a new form of governance, as happened with Nazi rule.15 Such regimes are perilous for everyone who lives under them because the ruling cadre have the power not only to destroy their enemies through omnipotent propaganda but also to transform people into machines who stop asking questions and cooperate with evil. The person who employs violence categorizes their opponents as a savage peril, as something less than fully human. This dehumanization allows them to mute their moral concerns.16 This cultural shift in the cosmos of a militant disconnects them from the ideal world that they fight for. Richard J. Bernstein adapts Arendt’s argument to expose the relationship between violence and power.17 The difference he discusses between violence as empowerment and violence as power helps us to distinguish between public freedom and the extension of the rulers’ capacity for social control.18 When we look at the militants’ process of rationalizing the use of violence, we recognize it involves concepts of power. This creates a conundrum whether violence functions to empower the militants or simply as power prima facie.

application of cultural violence: dimension and target The motivation and the expected outcome are the two key influences on the rationalization process for both militant rebels and militant jihadists. Yet there are also distinctions between the two groups which

86

Violence and Militants

are mainly the result of differences in their application of cultural violence. These are related to the dimension of their rebellion and the targets of their violence. The principal goal of militant rebels was limited to establishing their own state or, at the very least, demanding political and religious concessions from the Ottoman authority. They struggled to guarantee their political and religious privileges rather than continuing the same level of violence after establishing their own authority. The extent of the violence they employ as well as the broad range of opponents they identify make distinguish the militant jihadists from the militant rebels in the Ottoman Empire. Moreover, the militant jihadists discussed here have global goals; they wish to rule the world in line with their own ideologies. Hezbollah and Hamas do not work steadily towards global domination, whereas al-Qaeda and Isis expend more strenuous efforts to transform this dream into reality. Al-Qaeda is more pragmatic than Isis in this regard, since it aims to rule that part of the world where Muslims already live as a majority of the population and then extend its branches across the world. But like Isis, it intervenes in the affairs of other countries, as evidenced through its involvement in the Syrian civil war and its networks in Africa. Though they are more attached to their national agendas than to a global caliphate, Hezbollah and Hamas both collaborate internationally and target multiple enemies. The main similarity between the four jihadist organizations in the application of cultural violence is related to their principal aim, which is establishing a political entity based on politico-religious ideals through identifying extensive targets and applying extensive violence. However, each group uses different methods because of where they are located and the internal dynamics of their organizations. The militant rebels in the Ottoman Empire didn’t have a socio-legal framework as powerful as the one that jihad and sharia provide to the militant jihadists. Since their principal aim was the acquisition of a sovereign territory, many of the militant rebels sought conciliation after getting independence. The Kingdom of Greece and the Principalities of Serbia and Bulgaria all developed relationships with the Ottoman Empire, even though that empire had been their nemesis during their struggles for independence. The militant jihadists have been striving to establish a community based on their political and religious ideals. Since neither Hezbollah

Rationalization and Application of Cultural Violence

87

nor Hamas has succeeded in fully achieving their nationalist political agendas, it is hard to imagine what they would do if they ultimately found themselves in control of an independent state of some kind. Would they be able to negotiate and co-operate with their former enemies the way the militant rebels did with the Ottoman Empire? This seems unlikely, since their religious sentiments offer powerful motivations for the jihadists to engage in cultural violence on a global scale. The militants of Hamas and Hezbollah have not attached to the global jihadist principle as much as al-Qaeda and Isis, but their international collaborations indicate that they are sympathetic to the global rule of Islam, even if not to the particular versions envisioned by alQaeda and Isis. The Ottoman state authority and their representative forces in the periphery were the main targets of the militant rebels. The dimension of cultural violence was relatively limited for the militant rebels when compared with the militant jihadists. However, the political and religious goals of militant jihadists produce psychological pressure, and this pressure motivates them to apply cultural violence not only against the ruling authority but also against some members of Ummah (the entire Muslim community) who perceive and practice Islam differently from the jihadists. The hegemonic orientation of militant jihadists has increased the number of their enemies. Their external enemies are identified as infidel states and other Muslim societies when they reject the dictates of the militant jihadists. Their internal enemies include people who live in territories under their control and resist them or refuse to cooperate with them. Many of these internal enemies have been forced to migrate to neighbouring countries or have lost their lives. The resistance of militant rebels or any other group that revolts in order to determine their own destiny by founding an independent state may garner more supporters from different social and cultural backgrounds. However, the greater dimension of cultural violence and the extensive nature of their targets increase the enemies of militant jihadists and widen the opposition to them.

from the concerns of cultural identity to the practices of cultural violence Matthew Arnold promulgated idealist values to define culture and its role in Culture and Anarchy, which he published in 1869. The

88

Violence and Militants

Arnoldian perspective offered a homogenous but also categorized interpretation of culture, the values of which should aim to make the world a better place through “sweetness and light.”19 According to this perspective, sweetness and light represent beauty and intelligence, respectively.20 Three years after the publication of Culture and Anarchy, Edward Burnett Tylor, chiefly known as the founder of cultural anthropology, proposed a more realistic definition of culture in his landmark work, Primitive Culture, describing it as a “complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, arts, morals, law, customs, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society.”21 This non-hierarchical definition of culture conveys the message that every type of society has a culture because every society possesses morals, laws, customs, knowledge, and a belief system. Contemporary discussions of culture still tend to either the idealist or realist approach. Ironically, militants consolidate their cultural ground by using both of these approaches to define their struggle. The means of culture, which the militants fight for, creates an idealist panorama based on politico-religious concerns and ideals. This idealism is then remade by violence, and by consultation with their beliefs, customs, law system, morals, and the knowledge only available within the boundaries of that idealist cultural definition. Cultural violence erodes cosmopolitan values such as living together peacefully. Living together despite our contradictory identities is related to our approaches to thinking about the issues that make such a utopic occasion possible. How we deal with this possibility depends on our methods of listening to opposing views, or views which are merely different from ours and which may pose deliberate risks of the unknown. Norbert Elias states in his prominent work on civilization and power that “the way in which individual members of a group experience whatever affects their senses, the meaning it has for them, depends on the standard forms of dealing with, and thinking about, these phenomena gradually evolved in their society”22 The method that we use to think about political and religious issues has a direct impact both on our private lives and on the communities we live in. How we negotiate or deal with these issues shapes the cultural form and breadth of society. Some of the militant jihadists rejected the glorious past of Islamic civilization and its legacy in fields like science in order to not be in

Rationalization and Application of Cultural Violence

89

conflict with their own propaganda and missions. When Caliph Umar captured Jerusalem in 637, he and the patriarch Sophronius signed a treaty, and Umar promised protection to all residents of Jerusalem and to the cultures of religious minorities, including the Christians.23 It read in part, “This is the assurance of safety which the servant of God, Umar, the Commander of the Faithful, has given to the people of Jerusalem. He has given them an assurance of safety for themselves for their property, their churches, their crosses, the sick and healthy of the city and for all the rituals which belong to their religion. Their churches will not be inhabited by Muslims and will not be destroyed. Neither they, nor the land on which they stand, nor their cross, nor their property will be damaged. They will not be forcibly converted. No Jew will live with them in Jerusalem.” This treaty does not offer religious equality nor entire freedom to believers of all three local religions, as Jews were excluded. However, in a marked difference from the oppressive Byzantine rule, later on during the rule of Umar, Jews were allowed to enter Jerusalem and pray in front of the Wailing Wall.24 Islamic history was not always peaceful; the violent division and wars between the Sunni and Shia communities are another dimension of its formidable past. However, the same violent divisions do exist in other religions and beliefs as well; consider the long rivalry between the Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant communities in Christianity. The manipulation of scripture for ideological purposes may be a powerful instrument in the hands of militants and disrupt the hopes of those wishing to live together peacefully despite their differences. If physical force is used as well, it eventually creates victims, and revenge then emerges as the driving force in the continuity of violence. Cultural violence has strong historical, sociological, and psychological leitmotivs. Feelings such as anger, revulsion, and revenge lead to emotional solidarity among those who feel oppressed and give them incontestable motivation to defy their enemies.25 The ideal of individualism is eroded and replaced with the fulfilment gained by helping the community, supposed to be under great threats. These claims of victimization may be legitimate, but are at other times illusions, yet fundamental cultural differences between victims and their oppressors always accompany these claims. This ideological polarization leads to a set of rationalized and emotion-

90

Violence and Militants

ally charged reasons to use violence to eliminate the risk – whether real or imagined – toward the cultural integrity of the community. Religious concerns play a great role in the decision to die for one’s ideals.26 However, this does not mean that the decision is completely irrational. Still, it is hard to distinguish the political grievances of a militant from the politico-religious motivation for which he is willing to die. Human beings engage in violence consciously, with a cruelty and destructiveness that distinguish them from other mammals.27 Erich Fromm argues that conformist aggressors obey authority rather than enacting their personal desire and passion for violence.28 In this respect, militant rebels and militant jihadists cannot be categorized as simply conformist aggressors because their rationalization of cultural violence is highly influential on their personal desire to destroy the enemy. Meanwhile, they follow the commands of their leader, and they want to put their leaders into authority over others. In relation to the militant rebels and militant jihadists, this aggression does not derive entirely on their submission to any higher authority beyond the authority that they fight for. That’s why psychological and social motives are strongly interconnected in the case of an individual’s decision both to be a militant and to select an authority to submit to. Each militant is driven by his or her reasons for aggression at an individual level, whether on the basis of political or religious sentiments, or possibly both. More importantly, this desire is encoded within powerfully rationalized motives. The strength of a political or religious ideology lies in its persistence in working towards its ideals over time. Any ideology needs time to transform both itself and society, and depends on the evolution of ideas that “could be completely realized only in some distant time, [and] in the course of continuous development of the present becomes a norm, which applied to details, effects gradual improvement.”29 The solidarity of a militant group blocks the possibility of empathy for ideas and arguments conflicting with their own interpretation. Yet independence and self-critique may change one’s point of view, as happened to Sayyed Imam Al-Sharif, known as Dr Fadl among his fellows in al-Qaeda. Dr Fadl was an important figure in the global jihadist movement. After 9/11 he was arrested and detained in Sudan and three years later, he was transferred to Egypt, where he wrote Wathiqat Tarshid Al-’Aml Al-Jihadi fi Misr w’Al-’Alam (translated and published under the title of Rationalizing Jihad in

Rationalization and Application of Cultural Violence

91

Egypt and the World.) In this book, he rejects the violence he had embraced when he had been affiliated with al-Qaeda, stating that “There is nothing that invokes the anger of God and His wrath like the unwarranted spilling of blood and wrecking of property.”30 Throughout Rationalizing Jihad, Fadl says that most forms of terrorism are “illegal under Islamic law and restrict the possibility of holy war to extremely rare circumstances.”31 Fadl still remains one of the few militant jihadists who has criticized the use of violence. The independence of the individual and the value of cosmopolitan humanism lose their importance for militants when violence interferes. Most jihadists lose “the readiness to listen to the voice of one’s humanity … [which] … is independent of orders given by anyone else.”32 The moral justification for violence is common to in-groups in many different social-psychological experiments.33 After the cruelty of Nazi rule, violence studies in social psychology became more popular in the US. Stanley Milgram’s famous book, Obedience to Authority, is one of the best known studies in this area. His experiments on obedience to authority at Yale University in the 1960s demonstrated that people to resort to violence under authoritarian rule.34 Violence is not restricted to politically or religiously oriented groups such as the militants in our case studies. Judgment in the rationalization process is subjective. The subjectivity of meaning-creation does not permit critical perspectives when those who want to use violence justify its use. Knowledge is not stable, because bias leads people to incorporate errors into what they think they know. Even though the correct facts may be stored in memory, being exposed to propaganda and fabrication changes the perceptions of people.35 As is demonstrated in the Introduction, the methods and goals of the militant rebels and militant jihadists distinguish them from each other. The rebels in the Ottoman Empire used limited violence when compared to the jihadists. This difference is related to time and space, and to the aims of each group. The nineteenth-century social and political context, the resources available for using cultural violence, and their relatively regional goals distinguish the militant rebels from the militant jihadists. The militant jihadists have more advanced methods because of the role of media and technology in our age. What is more, the global tendencies and global networks of the militant jihadists broaden their lines of confrontation, so that their aspirations are larger. Menacing threats about the permanent destruction

92

Violence and Militants

of opponents are frequent in the discourse of militant jihadists. One must conclude, therefore, that although the motivation to use violence is independent of time and place, its application is culturally bound. Because cultural violence is related to time and place, militant groups will always have particular characters.

4 Structural Violence “All violence consists in some people forcing others, under threat of suffering or death, to do what they do not want to do.” Leo Tolstoy, The Law of Love and the Law of Violence

A turbulent social environment creates its own conflicting agencies. Violence in a turbulent place becomes a coercive physical force. Suffering or even death can be unsurprising outcomes in places of conflict. However, the most suffering occurs when violence targets the everyday life of people. Bombed roads, demolished bridges, and ruined houses are often the outcomes of violent confrontation. Not only the conflicting groups but also the innocent become part of this confrontation and suffer from despondency and hopelessness as a consequence. The militant rebels in the Ottoman Empire and the militant jihadists of Hezbollah, Hamas, al-Qaeda, and Isis rationalized violence due to perceived deficiencies the socio-structural system that afflicted their lives. The violence they engaged in was intended to defy the organizational capacity of their opponents. At the same time, this defiance strengthened their own solidarity. This process transcends different time periods and diverse places wherever perceived injustice is used to legitimize violence.

structural violence of the militant rebels The Tanzimat reforms were aimed at relieving the socio-structural concerns of minority populations within the Ottoman Empire. However, perceived social injustice, socioeconomic challenges, and

94

Violence and Militants

difficulties in the implementation of these reforms generally rendered the efforts of the central authority futile. The dysfunctionality of local governance only exacerbated already notorious problems in the governance of land. The expansion of social justice and consolidation of a culture of lawlfulness continued to be major concerns for the public and for the Porte in the midst of the Tanzimat reforms. The militant rebels used structural violence with the expectation of eliminating these problems. Their ultimate goals were diverse but included punishment of the local ruling classes, attainment of equality in everyday life, and the establishment of social justice and the rule of law. These goals influenced their choice of targets, who were the local governors, pashas, and other representatives of and collaborators with the state authority. Misrule by these targets was believed to be responsible for the problems they were facing. This is the reason that, although the militant rebels sometimes resorted to cultural violence against innocent citizens, such attacks remained limited when structural violence was used. If we remember the example of Nevâhî-i Âsîyye in Montenegro, narrated in Chapter II, the violent attacks against Muslim residents included both political and religious motives. Many Muslim residents were victimized brutally. On the other hand, as we witness in violent scenes in this chapter, attacks shifted towards Ottoman state officials and this shift, in fact, distinguishes cultural violence from structural violence. Socio-structural concerns such as economic hardship, misgovernance, and injustice were the driving forces that persuaded dissident militant groups to use violence. The tax revolts in Niš in 1841 and Vidin in 1850 are good examples of these socio-structural concerns. These two revolts became symbols that described the gap between the expectations of the center and the realities of the periphery. The Porte hoped to bring social justice through reforms, but militant rebels identified the local authorities as incapable, corrupt, abusive, and dysfunctional. The ensuing disputes between local governance and the local community made it evident that the central government was ineffective at coordinating the reforms harmoniously. “The Sultan does not know what the pashas are doing, and the pashas what the voevodes1 are doing, likewise the voevodes what the subashis2 are doing, and so on down the line.”3 This pessimistic judgment refers to the fact that local governors did not pay the salaries

Structural Violence

95

of public workers even though the Porte had sent those salaries to them. An iniquitous taxation system was one of the biggest problems for tax-paying subjects, who were mostly peasants obliged to pay precise charges on time. The reaya (the tax-paying lower class) intermittently became victims of corruption by rapacious local rulers, the mültezim (tax collectors), and later the mutasarrıf (local governors), who managed the financial and social relationship between the people and the Porte.4 The contentious tax-resistance movement in the periphery forced the Porte to rearrange tax liabilities and payment times. For example, the deferral of tax payments was tolerated from time to time when the reaya were not able to pay. In many towns and villages, the hopes of the reaya concerning their future had been crippled by a lack of trust in local governance long before the Edict of Gülhane was issued. The elites and bureaucrats were infamous in remote territories far from the imperial center, and it was hard to change the oppressive legacy of a mültezim in the peripheries and provinces. In principle, the Edict of Gülhane included ambitious codes drafted by aspiring reformers. For instance, angarya, a forced labor contribution, and iltizam5 (a type of tax farming) were abolished. These taxes, collected outside of the rules set by the Porte, became illegal. The Edict also acknowledged that bribery was rife in the country and so declared that corrupt officials, including the viziers, would be punished. Additionally, the central governance in Istanbul encoded small but symbolically significant regulations. For instance, the Porte prohibited Ottoman officials from asking for favours from subjects. These favours included requests for free barley and straw6 by the zaptiehs7 and soldiers, from peasants, to feed their horses. The bureaucrats in the Porte designed the reform packages elaborately. The complaints and the problems of reaya had a considerable weight in the preparation of the Edict. The drafting process of the two major edicts did not happen all at once; there had been a scattered struggle for reform in the Ottoman Empire ever since the seventeenth century. The Edict of 1839 and the Edict of 1856, however, were indisputably promising for both Ottoman subjects and the state apparatus. The sagacious new codes included in the edicts endeavoured to consolidate the rule of law by making significant, if not radical, changes in social life, legal rights, cultural institutions, public regulations, and economic governance.8

96

Violence and Militants

Decisions and policies of local rulers which violated these edicts gave legitimate reasons for the local people to protect the militant rebels and even to cooperate with them. The Porte was aware that corrupt rulers were rampant in the periphery and a cause of social dissent and, therefore, replaced them after many uprisings in which militant rebels played an important role. Sometimes they were harshly punished; sometimes merely fired. Despite these attempts to convey a message to the public, community life in the periphery continued to be chaotic because of social injustice and uprisings remained mostly unresolved. The policies of the Porte to address the roots of this problem were neither radical nor effective. For example, changing the methods of tax collection was intended as an instrument to ameliorate the socio-economic challenges that the Ottoman governance had to overcome. However, this led to the inexorable rise of economic costs. The Porte’s perception of the uprisings which followed was that they were controlled by malevolent agitators and agents of social disorder. This perception was particularly influential when the militants asked for independence rather than seeking negotiations with the Porte. As a result, the uprisings were seen threats to state authority rather than as evidence of discontent in the everyday lives of the Sultan’s subjects, who were mostly poor and disadvantaged in a hierarchically-organized agricultural economy. Dissent in the country created its own militant culture. The needs of local people, the incapacity of the state to respond to the people’s needs, the dysfunctional governing system, and the superior position of the governing class over the reaya, all motivated many ordinary people to join the ranks of the militant rebels. The incompetence and ineptitude of administrative bureaucrats in the periphery were barriers facing progressive reformers during the Tanzimat era. Arthur Evans9 summarizes these barriers by stating that even a Vali – a governor – could be ineffective at achieving reforms in the Vilayet (the town he presided over), despite his good intentions: The Vali, in spite of the characteristic indifference of an Osmanli to the suffering of reayahs, has not been without ambition of improving the material condition of his Vilayet; but he has seen himself thwarted from above by the corruption of Stamboul (Istanbul), and below by the impenetrable ignorance of his own officials. ‘What is the use?’ he would complain to consular sympa-

Structural Violence

97

thizers when desirous of introducing this or that reform. ‘What is the use of giving such orders to the Mutasarif or Kaimakam? They cannot understand them, and if they did they could not carry them out; the people would laugh at their reforms or throw them off!10 Considering the political and social landscape of the changing empire and the diversity of the cases it faced, it is difficult to agree with Evans’ contention that every Ottoman governing cadre was indifferent to the suffering of the local community. Indeed, some of the archival documents referred to in this chapter show that many of those in authority made sincere efforts to allay the concerns of people in the periphery. On the other hand, as Evans claims, the same cases also support the argument that corruption and misrule were rife in the nineteenth-century Ottoman Empire. The prevalence of corrupt administration in rural areas created great concern among the members of the central government in Istanbul. This culture of corruption manifested itself in different guises. For example, the father of Kostandi offered a bribe to Lieutenant Selim Ağa, with the help of Anagonos, to release his son, who had been sent to prison because of militant activities. When this news reached the Porte, Lieutenant Selim Ağa, the father of Kostandi, and Anagonos were all interrogated.11 Yet such bribery was only one small dimension of a decaying social and administrative system. Taxation was a much greater problem, as were difficulties in economic governance and adaptation to the new codes and decrees. One of the first and most remarkable uprisings in the Tanzimat era occurred in 1841 in Niš, a strategically positioned border town which was a few miles away from the Principality of Serbia. Thousands of peasants left their homes and migrated to the Principality of Serbia because of tax concerns. Leaving one’s homeland behind was a terrible experience and led to an even greater resentment of the governing agency. Most importantly, their precipitous migration conveyed an alarming message to the Porte: that these social upheavals could become continuous, despite the egalitarian expectations fostered by the Edict of Gülhane in 1839. Indeed, social dissent in Niš was clearly discernible before the revolt. The first signal of social unrest echoed in the streets of town just a few months before the migration. On the one hand, the

98

Violence and Militants

grievous tax concerns of the peasants mobilized the uprising from the bottom. On the other hand, some of the reactionary notables of the town, whose powerful social status was at risk due to the codes imposed by the Edict, gave an additional impetus to the uprising.12 This amalgam of dissent among lower and higher social factions gave a powerfully hybrid character to the mobilization. More than two thousand people gathered in a church located in the suburb of Niš and asked that tax registers be confiscated from the local governors in order to examine whether they were accurate. Even though they received the tax registers and kept them for two days, they were not convinced that the tax was calculated correctly.13 Their position was clear and straightforward: Any claim for extra taxes was a violation of the Edict. The militants and the peasants, who were overwhelmingly Orthodox Christians, acted together in their fight against the local Ottoman authorities to resolve their tax problems and diminish malpractice by the local elites. Resistance in each village and town would have had a great probability of bringing about a domino effect and convulsing the entire region if the number of militant rebels had increased as well. The reaya complained to the Porte that their annual gross income was falsely listed at double its actual amount in the tax registers. Besides, as opposed to the provisions of the Edict of Gülhane, extra tax was put on both raki and wine.14 Historical malpractice in tax collection had deepened the cultural gap between the state and the reaya. The tax system was the most important contributor to the social inequality that vitally affected the lives of the reaya. The ratio of tax was kept at 3 kurush and 12 para15 for every 100 kurush of each subject’s annual gross revenue in Niš. Despite this rule, the reaya claimed that the tax was actually charged as 8 kurush and 12 para.16 What is more, the residents of Niš asserted that local elites and bureaucrats demanded additional taxes in order to enhance their salaries. These claims were debunked by Yakup Pasha, who was appointed by the Porte to investigate the uprising.17 However, a Serbian council member named Milte affirmed the claims of the subjects. First, he blamed local bureaucrats for violation of the taxation rules. Second, he blamed Sabri Pasha, the governing authority, for insufferable violence as he had set fire to numerous villages in the region and even displayed the heads of thirty militant rebels on the bridge at Niš.18

Structural Violence

99

The Porte strove to overcome the crisis by expending strenuous efforts to bring back subjects who had migrated. Accomplishing this was expected to be a potent symbol of its authority that would reestablish the regular socioeconomic life of the region. But the reaya still demanded the removal of disreputable state officials. This dismissal included, first and foremost, the aggressive Sabri Pasha, and then the tax collectors of Albanian origin who had followed him. Other demands included compensation for damages, because their houses had been burned down and their household goods and personal materials had been seized. They also asked for the prevention of brigandage in the region. The Porte accepted most of their demands in order to convince the peasants to return to their homes with their animals. Nonetheless, the Porte rejected one of the crucial requests: the subjects asked for the right to select tax collectors from among people in their own communities. The Porte had reservations about the decentralization of tax collection, because this request would open the door to ethnic and religious independence and severely weaken its authority. This was, in fact, the opposite of the Ottoman Empire’s aim in issuing the Edict of Gülhane; almost every code of the Edict emphasized the necessity of a central government either implicitly or explicitly. It was believed that only such centralization could lead to the harmony of state institutions and the cessation of vandalism and violence in the country. Despite the Porte’s intransigence about who should collect taxes, more than fifty thousand animals and hundreds of peasants returned to their homes in the villages and towns of the province of Niš in 1841.19 The conflicts had not been resolved completely, and militant rebels engaged in more insurgency in the following decades. However, the most aggravating social problems were postponed, at least for a while. The re-organization of the empire was not as easy in practice as it appeared to be on paper. Hopes for saving the empire from dissolution withered with every uprising, and resistance persisted until the collapse of the Ottoman empire with the end of World War I. Niš, Çarşamba, and Vidin were the first towns to revolt and became infamous in the eyes of the Sultan when attacks by militant rebels, uprisings among the reaya, and letters of complaint from state representatives were made known.20 Local officials imperiled public order while suppressing rebellions that principally arose because of their

100

Violence and Militants

own actions. Petitions concerning the misconduct of local bureaucrats did not fall on entirely deaf ears. One of these letters reached Istanbul in 1856, and the Porte promptly sent an urgent notice to İslimye province 21 ordering the immediate discontinuation of the unjust policies and the unacceptable behaviours of the local authorities.22 The Porte strictly forbade violation of the rule of law by state officials, and from time to time harshly punished them after holding an inquiry. Karlovo, a town in central Bulgaria, was also a hotbed of accusations against the local state government. Claims were made that the deputy governor of the town refused to clear the streets of the corpses of those who lost their lives to militant rebels. What is more, it was argued that he asked for extra payment from the reaya to do his job.23 The Porte usually insisted on a detailed inspection when charges were made against its own administrators, so there was an inquiry into the validity of these claims about the deputy governor. Nevertheless, the Ottoman Empire was faced with continuing challenges because even replacing corrupt officials did not eliminate dissent. In fact, forcing state representatives in the periphery to embrace ethical codes of conduct was more arduous than drafting the necessary laws in Istanbul. What rendered the situation even more urgent were attacks by militant rebels. These rebels found a new method to attack the state from the inside by planting one of their own militants in the role of a zaptieh, or police official. The local people and some of the bureaucrats reported such illegal collaborations to the Porte. However, the Porte was suspicious of each instance of cooperation between state forces and the rebels. For instance, a letter issued on 11 November 1850 asked for more information for the investigation of a zaptieh who was accused of being the head of a militant group.24 In order to avoid such scandals, the Porte warned the local governors to hire “honourable and “trustworthy” people as zabtiehs.25 Officials sent the interior minister’s secretary, Mümtaz Efendi, to the Balkan region the same year to investigate reports of troubles.26 Dissent in rural community life spurred and mobilized militants from the bottom up. There was only a blurry distinction between the militants and civilians and the state sometimes misidentified innocent people as militants. The Porte received complaints about a number of incidents in Prizren.27 One letter stated that innocent people were being detained and put behind bars as if they were members of

Structural Violence

101

a militant rebel group. Tragically, those suspects lost their lives in the jail due to the squalid prison conditions. Debar, a sanjak (administrative) center of the Scutari province, became disreputable because of an attack by militant rebels against Mecnun Talib Bey, recently appointed as the new mültezim. In Debar, as in many other towns in the region, mültezim were notoriously unwelcome figures of Ottoman governance. Mecnun Talib Bey was taken hostage in May of 1836.28 There is no trace in the archival documents about his situation after this incident, but kidnapping a civil governor gives clear evidence about the kind of people who became targets of structural violence. Mültezims were not the only Ottoman officials subject to attacks. Heated accusations materialized when militants in Shkodra kidnapped the governor, Muhassil Hafiz Pasha.29 The spring of 1836 saw more public disorder as the Debar rebels advanced from Ohrid to Monastir.30 The rebels of Shkodra and Debar alarmed other mültezims in the neighbouring towns of Mat and Tirana. They anxiously took up positions to repel the militants while waiting for the asâkir-i muntazama, the newly organized regular army of the empire, to arrive from Salonika under the command of İskender Pasha.31 Dozens of troops were sent to Debar with the approval of Sultan Mahmud II. The militants changed the reason for their uprising in the face of the formidable Ottoman army. They declared, “We did not rebel to make a war; our resistance is based on religious purposes.”32 Religion offered a sensitive cover for them and the possibility of avoiding severe punishment. Had they presented socio-structural concerns as their motivation, it might have been delegitimized by the ruling authorities. After the rebels’ implicit submission to Ottoman authority, the troops of İsmet Pasha and the governor Mahmud Hamdi Pasha consolidated the security of Debar under the rule of the Porte for a short period of time without any significant casualties.33 Nevertheless, militant rebels were not expected to vanish from the region. The Sultan’s hatt-i sharif (imperial edict) gives ample proof of serious concern about their activities. The hatt-i sharif expressed the urgent need to consign soldiers to Monastir, which was one of the most significant centers of the empire in the Balkans. Its aim was repression of the recently ignited resistance, and in this case, it succeeded. The militants of Shkodra were defeated severely in the autumn of 1835.34 A few years after this event, the militant rebels of Debar and Shkodra appeared one more time in the same region, and yet again the major-

102

Violence and Militants

ity were destroyed by intensive military operations in the winter of 1839. These consistent efforts by the Porte, which had been intimidated severely by the militants’ attacks, once again brought victory, at least on the battlefield.35 The risks these attacks posed to the territorial integrity of the state produced scenarios with enormous social and political impact of the kind that would usually only be seen during great wars. One letter of the time argues that if the militants of Shkodra had been brought under control, social order in the entire region of Albania could have been maintained, and the submission of all subjects to the Sultan’s decrees could have been guaranteed.36 The violent reaction of the Porte against the rebels limited the scope of counterpolicies to military measures. However, the principal inspiration for these revolts was the lawlessness, injustice, and the untrustworthiness of the Ottoman bureaucracy itself. Instead of the implementation of radical land reforms to ameliorate the peasants’ concerns, the usual solution offered by the Porte was to reassign the offending governor to a “punishment” post, or to postpone tax collection for some time. Frequently, violent and repressive responses of the empire to attempts at rebellion were followed by the demand to appoint a new governor or mültezim, as occurred in the case of the Debar rebellion.37 We need to revisit the story of a Bulgarian national hero to contextualize better how militant rebels rationalized and then applied structural violence. Vasil Ivanov Kunchev, popularly given the heroic nickname “Levski,” or “lion-like,” came from Karlovo in central Bulgaria. He was one of the most prominent examples of a militant rebel using structural violence successfully. During the 1860s, Levski deftly mobilized people, established a secret network, and created insurrections in numerous towns and villages in Bulgaria. The Sultan recognized the Bulgarians as an independent millet like the Greeks with the establishment of the Bulgarian Exarchate in 1870.38 Levski and other militant rebels contributed to the foundation of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church in 1870 and thereby significantly increased nationalist sentiments among Bulgarian subjects of the Ottoman Empire, which gave them the confidence necessary to avoid assimilation and domination by the Greek authorities. Levski’s insurgency convinced other non-militants to work for the establishment of a new social order. Even though he was a Bulgarian patri-

Structural Violence

103

ot, his dream of an independent Ottoman Bulgaria did not include culturally relativist discourses about the hierarchy of nations or merely nationalist discourses romanticizing independence. He did not embrace the anti-Turkish sentiments, ethnic superiority, and religious degradation that were popularly practiced at that time by the majority of the rebels with nationalistic agendas in Montenegro, Serbia, Bosnia, Herzegovina, Macedonia, and Greece. Levski clarified his position by targeting the Ottoman governance but not the Turkish people in the uprisings he led. He believed in equality among nations, free will, and the absence of tyrannical rule. His inclusive understanding of equality was based on recognition that neither religious nor ethnic orientation was a major determining factor in the oppression of people of the lowest social class, mostly peasants, by the empire. This understanding informs his statement that “we do not chase away the Turkish people, or their religion, but the emperor and his laws, in a word, the Turkish government, which rules barbarously not only over us, but over the Turks themselves.”39 Accordingly, Article 10 of the constitution of the Bulgarian Revolutionary Central Committee, published in 1870, expressed their struggle against the Ottoman government as follows: “We do not revolt against the Turkish nation, but against the Turkish government and against those Turks who support and defend it. We consider all nations and nationalities who sympathize with our holy and honorable cause as friends, regardless of faith or nationality.”40 This proviso found its place in Article 3, which called for unification of other Balkan nations around the shared ideal of independence. The article stated, “We, the Bulgarians, desire to live with all our neighbors in peace, especially with the Serbs and the Montenegrins, who have the same aspirations, and with the Rumanians, with whom our fate is closely interwoven; and we wish to establish with them a federation within our free countries.”41 The constitution also indicated a group of enemies, the chorbadjis (Bulgarian bourgeoisie who were loyal to the Sultan) and other local rulers who collaborated with the Ottoman authority.42 The Porte aimed to sustain social control and eliminate rebellions by trusting local elites. However, neither renting lands to the peasants nor trying to connect to the peasants with the help of local elites guaranteed social and political stability for the Porte. Militant rebellions were one of the clearest examples of the sociostructural dissent.

104

Violence and Militants

Levski’s insurrectionary committees struggled to consolidate their networks throughout Bulgaria with the help of local patriots. However, the Porte had already labelled Levski and his supporters as notorious rebels like other illicit, secret, and revolutionary organizations resisting the dominant authority by physical force. Activists from Levski’s ideological orbit, including Bulgarians and other Christian ethnicities, attacked Ottoman postal services in Arabalıkonak in 1872 without Levski’s knowledge.43 Their arrest and interrogation revealed Levski’s secret network, leading to his capture in February 1873. The man who had brought faith and confidence in a renewed country to his believers was hanged in the outskirts of Sofia.44 Even though Levski’s struggle was motivated by primarily socio-structural concerns, his name was used in the construction of epic symbols of Bulgarian nationalism after his death and his ideas about social justice were mostly ignored in pursuit of Bulgarian nationalism. The structural incapacity of the state led to the rising up of militant rebels in response to corruption, social injustice, misrule, and tax concerns. State fragility appears as an enemy to itself in such cases. For this reason, the militant rebels resisted and attacked state officials and local nobles who were part of the higher strata of Ottoman society. The rebels became a more formidable force because of their ethnic and religious sentiments, which increased both the intensity and the number of uprisings during the second half of the nineteenth century. Bulgarians, Serbs, Montenegrins, Greeks, Macedonians, Albanians, and Bosnian rebels organized numerous attacks against the Ottoman authority in order to gain independence in the Balkans. The combined agitation of ethnic/religious motives and the socio-structural concerns of everyday life ushered in a new phase of radicalization. The suppression of militant rebels, however, was primarily violent. It was common for the Porte to use irregular soldiers when conflicts were not resolved through negotiations between the government and the rebels. Nevertheless, the Ottoman governance implemented generous policies to provide state support both for injured state officials and for the civilian population affected by violence. One such response was that to the assassination of Hüseyin, a zaptiye (police officer) in Mitrovica, a town located in the northern part of Kosovo. After his assassination by militant rebels, the government issued a letter on 12 March 1859 giving his family a pension and ordering the arrest of his killers.45 Hurşid, who was also a zaptiye, lost his life while

Structural Violence

105

chasing militants from Montenegro and Austria. A pension was once again assigned to his family by the Ottoman government immediately after his death.46 Similar support was provided to the family of Ibrahim, who lost his life like Hurşid.47 The decision to compensate the families of loyalists depended on a separate evaluation in each case. The case of Agrafa noted below illustrates how the incidents were assessed case by case, considering the circumstances. Agrafa, a mountainous region in central Greece, hosted infamous rebels. The militants had an advantageous position in such remote areas since the topography provided good shelter. Militants in this inaccessible place managed to defeat various forces from the Ottoman army in 1867, when a junior officer and five soldiers lost their lives. The Porte decided to give money to the sons of the soldiers, but a regular salary was not assigned.48 By contrast, one year after the Agrafa incident, the Porte put the family of Yahya Ağa on a salary when he lost his life while chasing militants. Yahya Ağa was a Tabur Ağası, a high-ranking army officer.49 The empire was working under a budget deficit during the second half of the nineteenth century, and the cost of fighting the rebels and compensating their victims and those victims’ families aggravated its already fragile financial situation. The cases of cultural violence in the previous chapter clarified the role of political and cultural concerns among the militants. However, the struggles of other nationalists show that structural violence was also employed by militant rebels inspired by socio-structural concerns such as inequality, local misrule, and injustice. Indeed, this structural violence had more importance in everyday life and was a more concrete reason to convince people to rebel against the empire. Militants targeted the ruling authority by defying its influence in the public sphere. And their use of structural violence determined the response of state authority.

structural violence of militant jihadists Both the reasons for and outcomes of structural violence are related to the structure of society, whether at the local or the international level. The cases presented in the following sections suggest that the reasons for structural violence by militant jihadists are twofold. The first is that the rationalization of structural violence is motivated by concerns such as injustice, class oppression, bureaucratic corruption,

106

Violence and Militants

discrimination, or socioeconomic vulnerability. Those structural concerns have an impact in the socioeconomic and institutional spheres. The second reason for structural violence is that after rationalizing such violence, militant jihadists aim to destroy those they identify as enemies by attacks against state institutions or officials. Their inclination to identify more targets and use greater force distinguishes them from the militant rebels in the Ottoman Empire we have just been studying. The nemesis of militant jihadists consists of the dominant rulers of the world order and those states and institutions which are influential at the local level through social and political agencies. Apart from these international targets, however, militant jihadists need a territory in which to establish and practice their own social order. Hence, territorial domination is the driving force shaping their application of structural violence. Militant jihadists’ motivations for structural violence are different from the ones for cultural violence and in some cases, social problems may even appear more important than those politico-religious concerns which were the catalyst for their uprisings. This is because of the ultimate goal of militant jihadists; unlike that of the militant rebels in the Ottoman Empire, their goal is to capture the maximum amount of territory and destroy the authority of those institutions identified as belonging to the enemy by employing extensive violence. Isis has gone beyond Hezbollah, Hamas, and al-Qaeda in this regard by declaring a worldwide caliphate and wishing to dominate the world. They refuse to negotiate with those they see as infidels to create sustainable peace and conciliation – or such negotiation remains very limited. Hezbollah Hezbollah emerged in the mid-1980s in reaction to Israel’s invasion of a strip of south Lebanon in 1982. The invasion not only legitimized Hezbollah in the cultural sphere but more importantly, it fostered the mobilization of the local population to defend their homeland. The defence of territory unified militants around the same ideal. A number of planned attacks relied on the help of Muslim clerics and the support of Iran. The identification of enemies and objectives was declared by Hezbollah through a manifesto in 1985: “These are Lebanon’s objectives; those are its enemies. As for our friends, they are all the world’s oppressed peoples. Our friends are also those

Structural Violence

107

who combat our enemies and who defend us from their evil. Towards these friends, individuals as well as organizations, we turn and say: Friends, wherever you are in Lebanon ... we are in agreement with you on the great and necessary objectives: destroying American hegemony in our land; putting an end to the burdensome Israeli Occupation; beating back all the Phalangists’ attempts to monopolize power and administration.”50 Hezbollah’s open letter identified the invasion of the country from outside with the unjust distribution of power within it, or at least the perception of too much influence on the part of the Phalangists, who were pro-Christian and pro-secular. Hezbollah portrayed the invasion as the source of the social injustice that the local people suffered in their everyday lives. More strategically, Hezbollah targeted the invasion when they engaged with the Lebanese population in order to create public policies for change. Impoverished youth have been the main pool from which Hezbollah has been able to mobilize supporters. The protection of territory in Lebanon and the development of unity and welfare for the country are the major socio-structural concerns of Hezbollah. The ugly results of the civil war as well as the invasion of Israel include unemployment, poverty, and insufficient urban infrastructure. Yet eliminating these concerns has been a challenging task, because social concerns need political resolutions. To overcome those socio-structural concerns requires political capacity. An important segment of the Lebanese population raised the same socio-structural concerns as Hezbollah. These shared concerns and principles partially explain why Hezbollah still holds significant power in Lebanon. Hezbollah has not remained simply a military and political organization. Its welfare policies have brought a certain degree of prestige to the organization in the eyes of local people. The advocacy of social welfare policies before the elections convinced many people that Hezbollah would be the right choice, which was confirmed when the party won the elections, and it has been part of the government since 2005.51 Although others saw it only as terrorist group because of its military activities, Hezbollah’s rise to political power prompted a number of countries to recognize as a legitimate organization.52 Moreover, the social development programs of Hezbollah increased the quality of social services from the health sector to the education sector. For example, Hezbollah provided water to res-

108

Violence and Militants

idents of Beirut during the 2006 Lebanon War when Israel was bombing the city.53 The activities of the Jihad al-Binaa (the “reconstruction campaign”) is a remarkable example of how structural renewal can render an organization an influential force to mobilize people. The exportation of the Jihad al-Binaa organization from Iran to Lebanon in the early 1980s is a model of international influence by welltrained human capital in community development projects. Judith Swain Harik, an expert on Hezbollah, states that “this is an interesting organization because it is chock full of professionals – contractors, engineers, architects, demographic experts – anything to do with reconstruction … and because many of them were educated abroad and came back to a depressed job market, Hezbollah had a huge pool of professionals to choose from for this reconstruction work.”54 Providing social services, making the everyday lives of people easier, and bringing about progress have resulted in positive perceptions about the organization. Hezbollah has gained legitimacy at the local level and even been recognized by some of the international actors. It may sound ironic from this perspective that it has also been inclined to use structural violence. But this orientation lies in its core mission, which is territorial dominance. Controlling a certain piece of territory is a requisite for practicing jihadist ideals and realizing the imagined community in that social setting. More importantly, the territory implies more than simply an area to live in; it is a homeland, and the focus of national sentiments. The relationship between physical territory and the imagined community connects the rationalization of cultural violence with the rationalization of structural violence for militant jihadists. That is, it offers a place within which to attain political and religious ideals while, at the same time, eliminating socio-structural concerns. The capturing of territory or its defence against enemies makes the use of structural violence crucial. This strategic intervention increases the importance of a well-planned operation and organizational solidarity. This is why Hezbollah’s mandate has always included the use of violence to liberate the occupied territories. Another section in the manifesto of 1985 is crystal clear in conveying this message: “No one can imagine the importance of our military potential as our military apparatus is not separate from our overall social fabric. Each of us is a fighting soldier. And when it becomes necessary to carry

Structural Violence

109

out the Holy War, each of us takes up his assignment in the fight in accordance with the injunctions of the Law, and that in the framework of the mission carried out under the tutelage of the Commanding Jurist.”55 Starting from 1982, suicide attacks made Hezbollah a prominent power in the region. The organization’s Shi’a-dominated ideology also helped it receive logistic and financial support from Iran and Syria. The guerrilla war in south Lebanon was successful in driving Israel out from the occupied territories on 24 May 2000. The foundational ideology of Hezbollah also called for the destruction of the state of Israel.56 But the legitimacy of Hezbollah in the nation derives as much if not more from its political structure and social services. This diversity makes the organization a difficult target for its enemies and a reliable ally for its sympathizers. All these various facets of its mandate are aimed at accomplishing the ultimate goal of Hezbollah – ruling Lebanon.57 This goal has gained a violent character with the employment of military force and suicide bombings. Hezbollah’s international character has never been as strong as that of Al-Qaeda or Isis. However, it remains an important political actor in the Middle East. Its structural violence has mainly targeted Israeli forces since 2006. Hezbollah was considered responsible by Europol and Bulgarian authorities for the attacks against Israeli civilians in Cyprus and Burgas, Bulgaria, in 2012.58 To take revenge for an attack against a military convoy of Hezbollah and Iranian fighters, the organization targeted an Israeli military convoy, which resulted in the deaths of two Israeli troops and the wounding of seven on 28 January 2015.59 Today Hezbollah faces challenges to keep the balance between sustaining peace and social progress in Lebanon on the one hand, and devotion to its foundational principles on the other.60 These foundational principles do not only include a vision for the people of Lebanon but also utter threats against the existence of Israel. However, the political context in today’s world is different from that in place when Hezbollah was founded in 1985. More than thirty years of experience in politics and international developments now force the militants of Hezbollah to rethink their position on the control of territory and response against their opponents more strategically. Defiance of the enemy through weakening its power and achieving territorial control are critical practices to guarantee social and political power at home. The greater dimension of structural violence attempt-

110

Violence and Militants

ed against targets aims to increase the power of the organization. The accumulation of power by Hezbollah depends on the weakening of the enemy’s institutional and moral capacity both in the nation and abroad. The sectarian political context of Lebanon and the country’s fractious political atmosphere make structural violence an apt instrument of Hezbollah. The use of structural violence by Hezbollah in today’s Lebanon is not as frequent as it used to be in the past. However, it continues to be an influential method when necessary. The increasing involvement of Hezbollah in the Syrian civil war on the side of the Syrian government shows that the organization seeks opportunities to strengthen the structural capacity of its allies, weaken its enemies, and extend its territorial influence. Hamas The invasions of Lebanon by Israel in 1978 and 1982 cannot be separated from the struggle of Fatah61 against Israel, which targeted the organization and its well-known leader, Yasser Arafat. The persistence of Yasser Arafat led to the establishment of the Palestine Liberation Organization (plo) in 1964 to propagate the liberation of Palestine through armed struggle. The organization gained international legitimacy with its recognition as the sole representative of the Palestinian people by over a hundred states. The rise of Fatah and the plo in the defence of Palestine also made both groups fragile because of the friction between them, even though both fought under the umbrella of resistance.62 The role of religion and politics in this struggle made Palestine not only a place struggling for freedom, but also a territory of ideological division. If there was a shared practice among these antagonistic groups, it was the rationalization of violence against their common enemy in the cultural and social spheres. Social injustice dramatically worsened the lives of Palestinians during the political conflicts in the 1970s and the 1980s. These difficulties in everyday life found an important place in Article 20 and 21 of the Hamas Covenant declared in 1988. The article stated the social mission of their movement: “The enemy has opened detention camps where thousands of people are thrown and kept under sub-human conditions. Added to this, are the demolition of houses, rendering children orphans, meting cruel sentences against thousands of young people, and causing them to spend the best years of their lives in the dungeons of prisons … Mutual social responsibil-

Structural Violence

111

ity means extending assistance, financial or moral, to all those who are in need and joining in the execution of some of the work. Members of the Islamic Resistance Movement should consider the interests of the masses as their own personal interests. They must spare no effort in achieving and preserving them.”63 When a resisting organization is delegitimized because of its inability to eliminate social concerns, a rival organization may take its place. There is no room for stalemate in a politically driven situation. Fatah lost its moral authority with the rise of concerns over mismanagement and corruption.64 The landmark 2006 election brought victory to Hamas as the ruling authority of the Gaza Strip, and pre-election policies have legitimized its situation not only as a militant organization but also as a prominent voice of the Palestinians. The self-identification of Hamas as a resistance movement has not changed since its establishment. Nonetheless, Hamas has also developed more inclusive policies aiming to improve social conditions for Palestinians. In the pre-election campaign, the convention declared by Hamas included an “Electoral Platform for Change and Reform” section through which numerous policy promises, from educational and administrative reforms to social welfare and anticorruption policies, resonated.65 These socio-structural concerns were the outcome of legal and security measures implemented after the invasion of Palestinian territories by Israel and its discrimination against the Palestinian people.66 Fatah’s failure to resolve social problems and its abuse of power increased emotional support for Hamas and eventually consolidated its legitimization after the 2006 elections. The need to solve socio-structural concerns and ease the plight of their people clarifies the rationalization of structural violence by Hezbollah and Hamas. Bernard Rougier shows clearly that the fundamentalist jihadist network finds common ground in Hezbollah and Hamas because both organizations recruit Palestinians and motivate them through the outcomes of unemployment, poverty, and despair in everyday life.67 As with Hezbollah, Hamas perceives structural violence as indispensable both to achieve territorial control and for retaliation. Hamas has less recognition at the international level than Hezbollah does.68 Yet the people of Gaza have received global support and empathy from many who have described the Gaza Strip as “the world’s largest prison camp” because of the Israeli military forces’ maintenance of a buffer zone in the region.69 These extreme restrictions marginalize militant

112

Violence and Militants

jihadists and encourage their structural violence against Israelis. Rocket attacks, which have killed Israeli civilians from time to time, are one response to this marginalization. They show that Hamas is still strong enough to defy their enemies, and encourage the people of the Gaza Strip to hold onto their belief and trust in Hamas. The immorality of Israel keeping the people locked in and leaving them impoverished by limiting fundamental resources is also ‘strategically unwise.’70 Noam Chomsky criticized the lack of recognition of the election results in Gaza and the punishment of Gazans with excessive military force as follows: Punishment of Gazans became still more severe in January 2006, when they committed a major crime: They voted the “wrong way” in the first free election in the Arab world, electing Hamas … Gazans committed a still greater crime a year later by blocking the coup attempt, leading to a sharp escalation of the siege and attacks. These culminated in winter 2008–09, with Operation Cast Lead, one of the most cowardly and vicious exercises of military force in recent memory: A defenseless civilian population, trapped, was subjected to relentless attack by one of the world’s most advanced military systems, reliant on US arms and protected by US diplomacy.71 The military operations legitimized both Hezbollah and Hamas in the eyes of the people of Gaza. The increase in civilian deaths and the deteriorating social conditions also prompted the two organization to plan and practice large-scale structural violence to preserve their local power and control the territory. What rationalized structural violence for Hezbollah and Hamas created a similar foundation for the commitment to use structural violence employed by al-Qaeda and Isis. On the other hand, the application of this violence has grimmer realities for the people who live in territories controlled by al-Qaeda and Isis. Al-Qaeda The eradication of suffering is only possible if one identifies the reason for suffering. Sometimes what is identified is an enemy, and those who are suffering perceive themselves as being victims of oppression or discrimination. This was the case for Hezbollah and Hamas and also for al-Qaeda. Their perspective is that the US and its allies are the

Structural Violence

113

main cause for the injustice experienced by local people when they move into Islamic countries, whether by military invasion or by other means. The dynamic involved may be very complicated. Consider the invasion of Afghanistan by the Soviets in 1979 and the lucrative financial and logistical support the US gave to al-Qaeda in order to defeat the Soviets at that time. The Taliban emerged as the de-facto authority after the US coalition removed the Soviets from Afghanistan in 1989 and empowered the human capital and operational capacity of al-Qaeda.72 The victory against the Soviets brought confidence and structural durability to al-Qaeda. In fact, the cia, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan created a brutal enemy by supporting al-Qaeda73; as a result, jihadist recruitment gained an international character by recruiting more members from different countries.74 The deployment in Somalia of the US-led United Nations-sanctioned multinational force, the Unified Task Force (unitaf) from December 1992 to May 1993 greatly angered al-Qaeda. This anger grew after the US reluctantly intervened in the massacre of Bosnian Muslims in the war in Kosovo from 1998 to 1999.75 Three years before the 9/11 attacks, John Miller interviewed Usama bin Laden, who said something enigmatic that foretold the terrorism to come. Bin Laden said at the end of the interview that “my advice to American journalists is: do not ask why we did what we did, but ask what their government had done that forced us to defend ourselves.”76 The territorial expansionism of the US and its allies was perceived by bin Laden as the “West’s monstrous plots to dominate Muslims and plunder their wealth.”77 He told Americans in a video broadcast on the sixth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks that “It has now become clear to you and the entire world the impotence of the democratic system and how it plays with the interests of the peoples and their blood by sacrificing soldiers and populations to achieve the interests of the major corporations.”78 The reliance of the US on the oil resources of Saudi Arabia and the arms trade between these two countries makes the US vulnerable to the Saudi regime’s support of militant jihadist organizations.79 A former cia operative, Robert Baer, defined the relationship of the US with the Saudi regime as “sleeping with the devil.”80 The invasion of Iraq by the US-led coalition and the power vacuum after the Syrian civil war created the necessary social conditions for the emergence of extreme jihadist organizations like Isis. Isis is different from the alQaeda organization in terms of its hierarchical structure, its tactical

114

Violence and Militants

position on the use of violence, and its interpretation of Islam.81 The invasion of Iraq illustrated that the excessive use of military force rather than restoring order led to yet more violence from militant jihadists who perceived the invasion as a cause celebre.82 The invasion disrupted the lives of local people severely and opened a gate for the advancement of Isis.83 Not all problems leading to the recruitment of militant jihadists come from outside, however. The consolidation of jihadist power in a country is directly related to its occupants having been exposed to corruption, maladministration, and social injustice for a long time.84 Demands to change the social structure need to be in accord with the principles of the majority. The values of those who control a particular territory also make an important contribution to its social structure. To illustrate this point, consider the Syrian-born Abu Musab al-Suri’s career in al-Qaeda. Abu Musab rose to power gradually in the 1980s and became a leading strategist and a member of the inner council, helping shape the policies of the organization. He asserted that “the greatest loss was not the destruction of the terrorist organization but the downfall of the Taliban, which meant that al-Qaeda no longer had a place to train, organize, and recruit.”85 The loss of its territorial base made the attainment of its imagined community even more uncertain. This is the reason that structural violence has continued to be used by al-Qaeda and Isis in order to gain control of new territory. After the fall of the Taliban in Afghanistan in the early 2000s, six tapes were discovered that gave important hints for understanding the management of violence. Abu Musab states in one of these tapes that the operational side is crucial for the strength of al-Qaeda, such as “how to keep jihadist cells secure and how to create contingency plans if an original plan fails.”86 Jabhat-al-Nusra, who was a top Sharia official in the Syrian jihadist group, acknowledged that Abu Musab inspired their strategic methods. “The strategies derived from Abu Musab’s guidelines to win hearts and minds are largely four-fold: provide services to people, avoid being seen as extremists, maintain strong relationships with communities and other fighting groups, and put the focus on fighting the regime.”87 Unification and solidarity among the militant jihadist groups constitute the essentials of the strategic plan. A well-known book among the militant jihadists of al-Qaeda, The Management of Savagery by Abu Bakr Naji, was published in 2004 on

Structural Violence

115

the internet. The Al Arabiya Institute for Studies claimed that Abu Bakr Naji was a pseudonym for the actual author of this book, Mohammad Hasan Khalil al-Hakim, the head of media and propaganda for al-Qaeda.88 Al-Hakim himself was killed in a US airstrike on Pakistan in 2008.89 The book lists the goals and methods of al-Qaeda in propagating the use of violence. The following passage explains the goals of violence and determines the dimension and target in the application of violence: Large steps will be taken towards the stage of the management of savagery and forcing the weak, neglected troops of apostasy who are abandoned in the peripheries (of the country) and the crowded regions – since the elite and the well-equipped forces are scattered between guarding the governments and the Crusaders and guarding the economic regions and the regions of amusement and tourism – to choose between killing or joining us, or fleeing and abandoning their weapons. They leave the management of the regions to us, which will have begun to suffer from the weakness of the authorities in it and from the growth of gangs and insecurity within them. We must deal with it and manage this savagery.90 The book focuses on methods for making the salafi jihadist fight sustainable in the long term while maximizing the territories ruled by the organization through a deft management of savagery. The sophisticated methods in the book explain the way that the rationalization of structural violence is connected to its application. The people can make their dreams come true according to the following criteria: Simplifying the preceding plan on specific points: This plan requires: – A military strategy working to disperse the efforts and forces of the enemy and to exhaust and drain its monetary and military capabilities. – A media strategy targeting and focusing on two classes. (The first) class is the masses, in order to push a large number of them to join the jihad, offer positive support, and adopt a negative attitude toward those who do not join the ranks. The second class is the troops of the enemy who have lower salaries, in

116

Violence and Militants

order to push them to join the ranks of the mujahids or at least to flee from the service of the enemy.91 This shows how the defensive culture of al-Qaeda has become transformed into an offensive culture. This strategy is coherent because it increases the strength of resistance when the enemy suffers attacks. This emphasis on offence both motivates militants to dehumanize the enemy and becomes the means to belittle the enemy by emphasizing how weak they are. This is a gradual change in the direction of route from the silent empowerment of an organization to the extensive destruction of its enemy. We can see this in the video bin Laden released shortly after the 9/11 attack. “Here is the United States. It was filled with terror from its north to its south and from its east to its west … What the United States tastes today is a very small thing compared to what we have tasted for tens of years. Our nation has been tasting this humiliation and contempt for more than 80 years.”92This statement gives evidence of the interrelationship between a defensive and an offensive culture within a historical framework. The example of Anwar al-Awlaki, a Yemeni-American preacher, shows how the propagandists of al-Qaeda pose threats against their targets. In 2011, Al-Awlaki was the first US citizen killed by a US drone strike. He had already become infamous in 2009, when he encouraged Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab to dedicate himself for a “martyrdom mission” by blowing up himself with explosives hidden in his underwear while he was travelling by plane to Detroit.93 The contraption did not explode but it burned Abdulmuttalab severely. He was attacked by passengers and the cabin crew and the bomb was defused. His interviews with fbi agents paint a picture of a young man who had left a promising career for an unknown future. Abdulmuttalab was born into an affluent Nigerian family; he attended University College London to study engineering and lived in a luxury residence there with his brother. Most of us do not expect a well-educated person coming from a high social class to explode himself out of the blue. Even if such a person is religious, we do not assume that such a person will be a threat. But the radicalization of Abdulmuttalab was, in fact, similar to that of many other militant jihadists. When his interest in religion increased, an Islamic bookstore in London directed him towards the writings of al-Awlaki. The ideas of al-Awlaki influenced him so much that he

Structural Violence

117

decided to go to Yemen to meet with him. First Abdulmuttalab moved to Dubai and then, in 2009, left Dubai for Yemen where alAwlaki resided. This meeting sealed his fate when he was only twenty-three years old. Had he not submitted to the authority of alAwlaki in Yemen, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab would not have attempted to blow himself up. After the failure of his suicide attack, he was sent to prison with four life terms plus an additional fifty years’ incarceration.94 The success of organized violence depends on conditions such as human resources, material needs, and aggressive methods of attack. Local territories are transformed into an auxiliary force determining the strength of all these conditions. The main organization diversifies structural violence for operational reasons. This diversification eventually leads to the emergence of new actors that belong to the same ideological orbit. The al-Nusra Front95 is one such organization, founded in 2012 by al-Qaeda to establish an Islamic state in the Levant, particularly in Syria and Lebanon. Al-Qaeda leader Ayman alZawahiri instructed al-Nusra Front leader Jolani to pursue the following five goals: •

• •

•

•

Better integrate his movement within the Syrian revolution and its people Coordinate more closely with all Islamic groups on the ground Contribute towards the establishment of a Syria-wide sharia judicial court system Use strategic areas of the country to build a sustainable al-Qaeda power base Cease any activity linked to attacking the West96

Attachment to the local territory and capturing the sympathy of its people are essential in order to get the most benefit from the application of structural violence. In line with these strategic outcomes, the al-Nusra Front declared its divorce from al-Qaeda on 26 July 2016.97 This was not an ideological division but a structural reorganization approved by al-Qaeda in order to be more efficient in their struggle in Syria.98 The group also changed its name, announcing, “We declare the complete cancellation of all operations under the name of Jabhat al-Nusra, and the formation of a new group operating under the name ‘Jabhat Fath al-Sham’ noting that this new organization has no affiliation to any external entity.”99 But although the al-Nusra Front

118

Violence and Militants

changed its name to increase its structural capacity in Syria, it still fights for the same objectives as al-Qaeda. The fall of the Ottoman Empire and the removal of the caliphate in modern Turkey in 1924 created a moral shock for many devoted Muslims. The more radicalized ones never gave up the struggle to reestablish the caliphate, and cultural violence continues to motivate many to participate in attacks against enemies identified by the militant jihadists. Structural violence, however, is entrenched in the methods used to defy the enemy at the operational level. Acquiring a local territory plays a strategic role in strengthening organizational capacity through recruitment, training militants, and organizing attacks against the territories of the enemy. Control of territory is still an essential element in the structural violence of al-Qaeda.100 The reason that different factions are created by al-Qaeda is to gain as much territory as possible, gradually, and sometimes secretively. Efforts to spread its power to other territories in Africa and the Middle East force alQaeda to face national challenges to its ideology of global rule.101 The local branches of al-Qaeda propagate its cultural influence but make the organization weaker at the structural level. Thus, success at spreading cultural violence does not always indicate success in organizing structural violence. In the events, discourses, materials, and plans of al-Qaeda, reasons for using structural violence differ from the reasons for using cultural violence. In the previous chapters, we saw the way cultural violence was used to create conflict, legitimize violence through their perceived morality, and mobilize more militants through the formidable force of ideology. However, structural violence is used to increase the capacity for aggression, to make the enemy dysfunctional while increasing the operational capacity of militants and, more importantly, to gain territory. Thus, these differences are not only based on the reasons behind cultural and structural violence but also on their expected outcomes. This is most clear in the use of structural violence by Isis. Isis The central factor in establishing the authority of a state, according to Weber, is the monopolization of violence in the territory it rules.102 State legitimacy in the use of violence offers relative security rather than chaos, though this relative security is the guarantor nei-

Structural Violence

119

ther of justice nor of peace. But this monopolization of violence does provide the state with public recognition of its right to rule. Nobert Elias also focused on the centralization of violence in his theory of civilization, and pointed out that the control of violence contributes to the development of civilization.103 The use of violence by states throughout history has led to the use of terms such as a “just “ or an “unjust” war, and led to much discussion about when and how violence needs to be limited in order for civilization to progress. Isis, being self-identified as a state, uses unconventional methods and strategies – including exploitation of the media – which violate both the fundamental principles of war between states and the traditional practices of Islam.104 The methods used by Isis make it the most radical, systematic, and violent movement of its kind.105 Although there are many commonalities between al-Qaeda and Isis, including the movement of militants from one organization to the other, Isis distinguishes itself from its cousin through its dimension of structural violence, its hasty approach to attaining its ultimate goal, and its capacity for online mobilization.106 On the other hand, as with Hamas, Hezbollah, and al-Qaeda, territorial control is essential to the strength of the organization. Conversely, the capacity of Isis for violence depends on the structural weakness of its enemies. Using its media outputs to record beheadings disseminates the message that there is no limit or ethical standard to be observed by Isis when they target their enemies. When it invaded Iraq and Syria, Isis was able to take control of a huge amount of territory because its untraditional methods in the use of violence astonished its opponents and discouraged them from believing they could oppose it. Greater violence always brings greater attention. This fact lies behind the growth strategy of Isis. Such a methodological shift in the application of violence has forced the West to rethink its own methods when it fights Isis. What makes the violence of Isis more effective than that of other jihadist organizations is its prodigious ability to use global publicity about violence to lure disaffected Muslims to join them in “an exalted campaign of purification through sacrificial killing and self-immolation.”107 The extensive violence of Isis is premised on its principal goal, which is to establish a worldwide caliphate. This goal was clearly expressed in the fifth edition of Dabiq magazine, which was published by Isis for its ideological propaganda. It stated that the “blessed flag ... covers all eastern and western extents of the Earth, filling the world

120

Violence and Militants

with the truth and justice of Islam and putting an end to the falsehood and tyranny of jahiliyyah [state of ignorance], even if America and its coalition despise such.”108 This propaganda aims to recruit more members to establish a jihadist world order. Accordingly, Isis members released a video in 2014 declaring their intention to invade Rome, Al-Andalus in Spain, and Jerusalem.109 Similarly, in 2015 a Turkish magazine published by Isis, Konstatiniyye, boasted of their future conquest of Constantinople (Istanbul).110 Two Isis-affiliated suicide bombers exploded themselves on 10 October 2015 in front of the Ankara central railway station and killed 103 civilians. This was the deadliest terrorist attack in the history of modern Turkey.111 Isis also targeted a peace rally protesting the Turkish government’s attacks against Kurdish militants in the southeastern part of the country because Kurdish militants in southern Syria and Iraq posed serious challenges to Isis.112 Their resistance irritated its leaders, who ordered members to target peacefully marching people. In addition, measures against Isis by the Turkish government had increased shortly before the attack. The alliance with the US-led coalition and airstrikes fortified the Turkish government’s position against Isis, which weakened and frustrated the organization. On the evening of 28 June 2016, three Isis suicide-bombers from Uzbekistan, Kirghizstan, and Dagestan targeted Istanbul’s Ataturk Airport. They killed forty-three people and wounded more than two hundred.113 Turkish police had already searched local Isis cells after the Ankara attack and had found plans for a number of potential targets, including Ataturk airport and four other major airports in the country. In one of these documents, the encoded dialogue between the leader of the Gaziantep114 branch of Isis and the alleged leader of Isis in Turkey, Ilhami Bali, declared: “Yet Turkey declared war on us. They captured our brothers and sisters and sent them back to their own countries. They declared an explicit war on us so we declare too. He says attack against Pkk, touristic areas or the Turkish military forces indifferently. My brother will send you the men that you need. Relieve your Muslim brothers and sisters, target Pkk, Turkish people and touristic destination so we shall celebrate this.”115 What is more alarming is the unlimited threat from Isis that may bring physical and psychological ruin to countless people if they acquire weapons of mass destruction. Indeed, the capture of Ersan Çelik, who was the technology commander for Isis, clarified its plans

Structural Violence

121

in this regard. The plea of Çelik to the Gaziantep prosecutor indicated that Isis is not far from creating large-scale destruction by means of chemical bombs. Çelik states, Long-range missiles obtained from the Assad regime are based in Membiç village. There is an empty factory in the center of Raqqa where chemical weapons are prepared under the supervision of ‘Chechen Umar. There is also chlorine in a factory near another operational zone to produce chemical weapons. Three fighter jets ready to be used in an attack are located in al-Tabqa airport among 71 aircraft seized from the Assad regime. There are efforts to make powerful hydrogen bombs in the Aleppo power station. Engineers in the organization said that they will destroy everything within a forty-mile blast zone. In close proximity to the Turkish border, there are liquid explosive materials prepared by Azerbaijani militants. I know that the militants managed to smuggle tnt and glucan explosives into Turkey through Elbeyli. I purchased a model and remote-controlled helicopter costing thirty thousand dollars given to me by Abu Yahya Şamiye from Istanbul. Two helicopters were also purchased to organize a chemical attack. One helicopter is able to carry seventeen kilos and the other fifty kilos of chemical weapons.116 The strategies of Isis reveal that it has a sophisticated system for creating mass destruction. Sleeper cells also have particular importance for its use of structural violence. Gaziantep, a town in southern Turkey that borders on Syria, is the locus of many Isis cells. The Office of the Public Prosecutor in Ankara revealed in its indictment how Isis members infiltrated Turkey and planned their attacks. The indictment’s main source is a confiscated computer belonging to Yunus Durmaz, the leader of Isis in Gaziantep. Data in the computer reveal how the salaries of Isis militants are assigned and distributed. The costs recorded in that computer also indicate accountability in terms of spending money. Between 40 and 75 Isis militants received combined monthly payments amounting to a total of $25,000. If this amount was distributed evenly, each militant would have received between $330 and $625. Considering that the minimum salary in Turkey at the time was approximately $400 a month, the compensation for militants was sufficient to survive while being trained to be suicide bombers. Perhaps the most striking revelation in the docu-

122

Violence and Militants

ment is that the planned invasion of Gaziantep was to employ four hundred Isis militants. Durmaz’s notes indicate the strategies for structural violence to be used in the invasion: •

•

•

•

•

•

The Turkish militants who arrive in Turkey from Syria must not get in contact with their own families here. Our brothers have to learn how to camouflage themselves in public. The persons who supply and accommodate ordnance must be very careful. The number of militants must be increased and the sustainability of the mission must be guaranteed if the militant assigned to that duty fails. Information must be gathered from our brothers in Turkey who completed their compulsory military service in the last five years. The people of the Republic of Turkey are fond of worldly desires so it is important to target law enforcement to assimilate the entire population. I swear to God the devils of this nation will be utterly destroyed.117

Similarly, conversations between Isis militants in Jordan ask for the recruitment of Jordanian citizens to organize attacks against their own country.118 By relying on local sympathizers, Isis lessens the risks of being caught importing militants to the country where an attack is planned. The attacks in France committed by French jihadists also reveal the importance of employing a local cadre who can easily target people and institutions and lead to public panic. Using militants against the country where the militants grew up is the most effective method because the militants know the geographical conditions, speak the language, and can adjust their behaviour to fit the cultural codes of that society. Similar structural violence has occurred in Turkey, Jordan, and France. Targeting the happiness of innocent people is part of this strategy. This is the reason that attacks similar to those in Nice and Paris happened in Berlin and Istanbul. A truck was deliberately driven into the Christmas market beside Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church at Breitscheidplatz in Berlin on 19 December 2016. The driver, who killed twelve people and left fifty-six people with non-fatal injuries, was an Isis operative of Tunisian origin.119 The next target of Isis was Reina, a popular night club in Istanbul. Abdulkadir Masharipov,120 an

Structural Violence

123

Uzbek national trained in Afghanistan, killed thirty-nine people with a series of random shootings during a few minutes on New Year’s Eve, 2017. Isis had previously been reluctant to claim responsibility for attacks in countries like Turkey where the majority of the population observes Sunni Islam. They didn’t want to alienate potential followers and harm their recruitment policy because of the horror of and public reaction to the deaths of so many innocent people. But the strategy of Isis has changed since 2016. In fact, the Nashir Media Foundation, controlled by Isis, had already published threats before the New Year celebrations, inciting its followers to “replace their fireworks with explosive belts and devices, and turn their singing and clapping into weeping and wailing.”121 A video disseminated by Isis also portrayed the people in Reina as infidels, even though many of them were Muslims. The victorious attacks of Turkey against Isis in Syria in the last quarter of 2016 frustrated militant leaders. “Protector of the Cross” is the new name Isis has given Turkey.122 This demonization of Turkey reveals a strategic shift in the design of attacks. They aim to weaken the country on the one hand and prevent the estrangement of fanatic Muslims on the other. The attacks against the joy of people are the most deliberate illustration of the way that cultural violence is combined with structural violence to bring a moral defeat to the public and make the enemy incapable of governing its territory. The spread of Isis in Afghanistan aims to take control of more territory. The first time Isis allowed a meeting with a journalist was when Najibullah Quraishi, an Afghan journalist with Al-Jazeera, visited one of the Isis camps in the Khorasan region of Afghanistan in 2015. He both interviewed militants and filmed them.123 The film shows that the power of the organization kept increasing even while they were engaging in conflict with al-Qaeda militants in the region. The conflict between Isis and al-Qaeda resulted from the Isis declaration that al-Qaeda militants must join with their forces. In front of journalist, Isis militants blew up ten older men because they had accommodated al-Qaeda militants. Despite the clashes, some of the militants of alQaeda joined Isis. One Isis militant, who introduces himself as Abu Rashid, says,“We were fighting jihad under the leadership of [the] Taliban … At the time, fighting with them was the right thing to do because there was no caliphate ... But God says that once there is a caliphate, to leave any other group and to follow the caliphate, the Quran and the Islamic system.”124

124

Violence and Militants

A small, crumbling building in the film appears to be used as a classroom to indoctrinate children as young as five years old. The militants train these Afghan children how to use guns and bombs in the name of jihad. Hatred and polarization constitute the theoretical basis of this training, which later transforms into deadly peril. There are no moral limits to Isis, so they open “jihad schools” in the territories under their control to train children, even those under ten years old, how to use methods of torture considered by the un Human Rights Council to be war crimes.125 In the same way, Isis captured Yazidi children in northern Iraq and indoctrinated them, first by identifying their own families as deviants. These children were also used either as sex slaves or suicide bombers.126 The methods of indoctrinating children change in each country. For example, the chief state prosecutor in Ankara prepared an indictment for the prosecution of Ahmed Doğan, whose code name in the organization is Ebu Eslem. The indictment accused Doğan and twenty more militants of opening branches in various districts of Ankara, including Sincan, Altındağ, and Etimesgut ve Çubuk, to brainwash children who attended those mesjids (small mosques) where the training occurred. The police found dozens of prohibited books praising Isis. One of the most popular was Şehadet Yolunda Cihad Erleri, which means “Men of Jihad on the Path of Martyrdom.”127 Territorial control is the key dimension for the militants. The reasons militant jihadists need to increase their membership are also partly related to the social realities of occupying a territory. The decision to join a militant group brings structural benefits. For example, when a group of people register with Isis, they immediately gain hierarchical superiority in their villages or towns. One of the peasants living in a village under the control of the Iraqi government and Kurdish regional officials near Mosul claimed that “when Isis invades a village, they cut off the telephone network and allow only Isis militants to use mobile phones in a special location. Using the phone in that location equals signing one’s death certificate. This is only one small benefit. When they – our neighbors – spend more time with Isis, they start oppressing others.”128 Territorial control and the social prestige that comes with authority lure some residents to join the ranks of Isis to reap the benefits of power.129 Structural violence, therefore, expands the territory of Isis while increasing the capacity of its human resources. The territorial expansion of Isis also implies more than acquiring an area to establish its authority: capturing more territories, particularly lucrative ones,

Structural Violence

125

helps Isis make payments to militants and provides authority over local people. All these efforts to satisfy the financial needs of its people aim to give a message to the local people that the jihadist militants can govern them better than the former regime could. Isis received criticism and reaction from al-Qaeda because of its ruthless methods and hunger for power, which alienated many Muslims and drew fierce attention from the West. The methods of Isis are perceived to be detrimental to the ultimate long-term goal of alQaeda, which is the establishment of sharia law, and eventually the caliphate. Isis was even disparaged by Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi, a prominent global jihad theorist, a respected authority for al-Qaeda supporters, an opponent of any form of democracy, and an ideologue of the Salafi movement. Al-Maqdisi objected to Isis because “a state ruled under sharia was meant to unite Muslims, but the group was divisive and a deviant organization.”130 Isis lost a significant amount of its territory in 2015, and this trend continued with the loss of 12 per cent of its territory in the first half of 2016.131 Dominating the social structure and the rule of economy are the fulcrums of its social power. Nevertheless, Isis’s revenues come primarily from oil fields and refineries.132 In addition to the loss of territory and related human resources, the group’s media activities diminished by 70 per cent after the death of its chief of media operations, Abu Muhammed al-Furqan, in September 2016.133 The loss of territory since 2015 has led to frustration among Isis members. It was also the reason for widening the scope of jihad to the global level through lone wolf attacks: such attacks were felt to increase the moral and structural capacity of Isis outside the territories it controls. A spokesman for Isis, Abu Mohammad al-Adnan, encouraged lone wolf attacks, stating, “If the tyrants close the door of migration in your faces, then open the door of jihad in theirs and turn their actions against them.”134 This command has been sufficient to inspire a number of Isis sympathizers, including a seventeen-year-old Afghan refugee who attacked German train passengers with an axe and knife but was shot dead by the police afterwards.135 After the operation by coalition forces to liberate Mosul, Al-Baghdadi uttered a similar threat on his video, stating his intention to “Turn the nights of the unbelievers into days, to wreak havoc in their land and make their blood flow as rivers.”136 The rationalization of structural violence is premised on sociostructural concerns, which function very similarly for Hamas, Hezbol-

126

Violence and Militants

lah, al-Qaeda, and Isis. The militant rebels in the Ottoman Empire, who were motivated to use structural violence, were also under the influence of socio-structural concerns. Yet the application of structural violence varies from one militant group to another, among both the militant rebels and the militant jihadists. In fact, these differences illuminate the character of space, time, and the organizational structure of militants. The next chapter explores similarities and differences in the rationalization and application of structural violence.

5 The Rationalization and Application of Structural Violence “The force of circumstances ... is stronger than even the strongest government.” Theodor Mommsen, The History of Rome

motivation and the expected outcome The strongest governments may be defeated by the force of circumstances, which write the fate of governments and their opponents in times of conflicts. The conflict between Soviet Russia and the US created the opportunity for a number of power-hungry jihadists such as bin Laden to take over. These same circumstances weakened them by challenging their status quo thereafter. The political ambitions of Saddam Hussein set in motion the circumstances that led to the Iraq-Iran war, and we witnessed the fall of his regime with the invasion of the US-led coalition forces after 9/11. Militants flourished after the chaos created by this invasion, which nurtured appropriate circumstances for them to govern the territory. Circumstances are the hidden forces of our destiny. They are unleashed by the intervention of actors who aim to change society. As Mommsen points out, the strongest government can fall because of the force of circumstances beyond that government’s control. The circumstances that define and shape an event, an occasion, or an issue also determine the capacity of force in a social setting. The circumstances themselves may transform into the most important force if people are unable to control them. In a turbulent social environment, the force of circumstances determines the destinies of both

128

Violence and Militants

society in general and of the governing authorities. The governing cadre might be omnipotent; however, when that same cadre is not able to control circumstances, its very existence is at risk. A tiny crack in the hierarchical structure of the most totalitarian organizations may be the beginning of the end for such establishments, which are supposed to be solid and all powerful. From that point forward, the collapse of the entire system can become inevitable. A similar path may be followed when dissent rules society and takes control of circumstances. It may take some time after cracks appear in a social structure before the system collapses, but the use of violence makes that path shorter. However, the activation of violence as a physical force does not happen rapidly. The conditions that motivate dissident agencies to follow a violent path also play a part in rationalizing this decision. The rationalization process for using structural violence had similar implications for the militant rebels in the Ottoman Empire and militant jihadists across the world in our time. Both groups rationalized structural violence in two principle ways: (1) the motivation to use structural violence and (2) the outcome that is expected to emerge with its employment. As with the rationalization of cultural violence, the rationalization of structural violence is also independent of time and space. What characterizes motivation in the process of rationalizing structural violence are socio-structural concerns and the expected outcome when structural violence is used to cope with those concerns. Each region has different social issues and the dissident people in every region have different priorities, but there is common ground in their perceptions about macro determinants such as injustice and the organization of state and society. Macro dynamics also shape micro dynamics through increasing dissatisfaction with the burdens of everyday life. The lack of social infrastructure, poverty, and individual troubles constitute the micro dynamics of structural violence through reactions such as frustration, grievance, and reprisal. Not only general conditions of injustice but also relative deprivation and social precarity determine the fate of militants and their opponents. Each place, whether the Balkans, the Middle East, or Central Asia, has its own social structure of institutions and networks, but they share parallel dissents that stimulate the rationalization of structural violence. The rationalization of structural violence is a process, and, like all processes, it can be terminated: in this case, when those sociostructural concerns that provoked it are eliminated.

Rationalization and Application of Structural Violence

129

Injustice, exploitation by the powerful, the uneven distribution of social resources, and abuses of political and legal authority in everyday life make it difficult to attain harmony and social integrity; militants use these factious conditions to mobilize people in line with their own agendas. Disillusion and mystification combine with truth and suffering in such volatile environments. This perplexing conflation makes it difficult to distinguish facts from perceptions in the approach used by militants. What is clear in hindsight is that injustice is the principal commonality. Scapegoating allows militants to blame their opponents for the challenges that they have to bear with.1 Although some of these challenges really are the fault of their opponents, others may be fabricated for effective propaganda. Petra Kelly was one of the first activists to elaborate the strong relationship between social injustice and structural violence by exposing problems of the developing world such as starvation, malnutrition, and disease among children.2 Kelly blames the rise in violence in such places on the hypocritical claims of political institutions that fail to guarantee the security of their citizens. She states, “We are told that we have a ministry responsible for our security. It is called the Ministry of Defence. However, there can be no defence for our country in the event of war. There can only be destruction. So, why not call it by its proper name, ‘Ministry of Destruction’! … Security policy has led us into the direst insecurity the world has ever faced.”3 The repression of militants by state authorities, without addressing the problems that motivated the militants to use violence, brings shortterm relief. Unsurprisingly, these unresolved problems may lead to the emergence of new militant groups after the earlier militants have faded away. Dissolution of the Ottoman Empire after World War I created new states, so the socio-structural problems in the region were sustained in new forms even after the number of militant groups diminished and dissidence lost its focal power. Militant jihadists remained relatively silent after World War I, but this silence only indicated that the jihadists had lost their influence – not that they were gone. They simply remained operational at a slower pace after the fall of the Ottoman Caliphate in 1924. The power of jihad as a formidable motivation has never declined within Muslim social geography because of the ravages of colonialism and the degraded quality of life for those living there. Both in the rebellions of militants in the Ottoman Empire and in the attacks of militant jihadists, social inequality, general conditions of

130

Violence and Militants

injustice, and dissatisfaction with everyday life played a prominent role in the employment of structural violence. In his landmark work, The Sense of Injustice, Edmond Cahn remarks that justice is “not a state but a process; not a condition but an action. ‘Justice,’ as we shall use the term, means the active process of remedying or preventing that which would arouse the sense of injustice.”4 The militant rebels in the Ottoman Empire and the militant jihadists of Hezbollah, Hamas, al-Qaeda, and Isis resorted to structural violence because they believed that they were being oppressed and treated unjustly. The experience of injustice fosters the sense of victimization, especially when the victim lacks the necessary power to resist the authority perceived to be responsible for the injustice. A crescendo of frustration prevails with the increase of powerlessness. This powerlessness leads to a new form of reaction, which exposes the power of discontent because “the victimized groups generally lack control over the resources, such as money, guns and official position, that are immediately related to economic, military and political power. Their primary sources are discontented people and having justice on their side.”5 The road of rebellion is paved by their antagonists who, either implicitly or explicitly, frustrate or subjugate them. Revenge-seeking militants are mobilized by several motives rather than a single one: motives such as nationalist struggle, the call to jihad, or the desire for revenge.6 The attacks in Westminster, Manchester, and London that occurred in March, May, and June of 2017 respectively were the products of jihadist-inspired Isis militants to take revenge for attacks by the Western allies. Emotional solidarity emerges with the sense of injustice and unifies the militants. Such a unification under the umbrella of perceived injustice fosters the rationalization process of physical violence. However, what shapes this physical violence is social marginalization in the application of structural violence. The perception of victimization inspires militants, who are convinced that the eradication of injustice depends on taking revenge on those responsible for it. This is how they rationalize the use of structural violence against their opponents. Militant rebels and militant jihadists are also motivated by the emotional force of revenge, which is disruptive and subversive. Civilians lose their innocence for the militants, because people under the rule of antagonist states are seen as instrumental objects who must be eliminated so as to make the state weak and vulnerable in the eyes of its citizens.

Rationalization and Application of Structural Violence

131

The role of territory is central to conceiving structural violence, whether through its mode of governance or because of claims of ownership by conflicting groups. Grievance and territory were powerfully related from the perspectives of both the militant rebels in the Ottoman Empire and the militant jihadists. The relative deprivation and lack of distributive justice in those territories also lead to a similar feeling of grievance.7 The dysfunctıonal land governance by the Ottoman authority mobilized many militants; territory also plays a pivotal role in the continuing rationalization of structural violence by militant jihadists. The occupation of a land, whatever the reason, disrupts everyday life and creates dissent among the local people. The hostile relationship between Israel and Hezbollah has led to social tensions. A similar relationship is also evident between Israel and Hamas, particularly since Gaza was isolated by Israel. The conflict over territory as well as the struggles of people living there make the land itself part of the grievance. Al-Qaeda’s goal to govern Afghanistan has been followed by Isis as the first step toward establishing a worldwide Caliphate – an impossible objective, but sufficient to lure many jihadists to join their ranks. For instance, in the video by Isis released in early July 2016, there was a significant reference to the fall of the Ottoman Empire and the decay of Muslim power in the world. The video argues that this decline in the structural power of Muslims is caused by the Muslims allowing their territories to be “usurped” by the West.8 Structural violence is rationalized through everyday challenges, unavailability of resources, and institutional barriers to seeking justice. Militant jihadists exploit these challenges more ambitiously than the militant rebels by providing an illusory discourse in which truth and deception are combined in the same appeal to recruit more militants. From this point of view, structural violence has concrete foundations in the macro dynamics of the social structure but directly targets the everyday life of people through its micro dynamics. On the other hand, when the issue is the rationalization process, the elimination of problems may be disguised as a holy cause so that militants may be eager to die to attain emancipation at both the individual and collective level. Martyrdom is a highly strategic concept that symbolizes their devotion to this multidimensional emancipation.

132

Violence and Militants

application of structural violence: dimension and the target The target and the dimension of structural violence are the main distinctions between militant rebels in the Ottoman Empire and today’s militant jihadists. The militant rebels in the Ottoman Empire used a limited form of structural violence compared to the jihadists. Rationalization of structural violence is independent of time and space, whereas time and space determine the application of structural violence. This is the reason that the application of structural violence is different for the two groups. Indeed, the methods used by jihadist groups may be particular feature to each militant organization. Militant jihadist organizations use cultural violence in addition to structural violence at all times. However, some militant rebels in the Ottoman Empire used only cultural violence, whereas others used only structural violence. Some of the nationalist militant rebels employed both cultural and structural violence at the same time to mobilize people. Yet this combination was not refined when we compare it with that of the militant jihadists. For example, the utility of people, as a source of power, is premised on their number, their personal qualities, and the social cohesion of their group.9 These are the essential qualities for applying structural violence by means of many zealous militants trained and eager to perform their assigned duty. Principles based on their own interpretation of Islam form the foundational doctrine of a sociopolitical order that the militant jihadists aim to establish and consolidate. This grandiose plan needs jihadists who are eager to sacrifice their lives by being suicide bombers or engaging in deadly clashes. In fact, the submissiveness of the people under their control is as important as the social cohesion of the militants in order to effectively rule the territory and defend it against their opponents. There may not be limits, even for Isis, to changing the fundamental rules of Islam. Structural violence establishes a bulwark against the attacks of opponents through making legal changes and designing new orders to be obeyed by the local population. The strength of the social structure governed by the militants also depends on regulations that are adaptive. For example, Isis declared that prayers in Mosul should take place at three set times of day, violating the Islamic obligation to pray five times daily. It made this change compulsory because going to the mosques and using public spaces less often during the day would protect the civilian population and help to mobilize more

Rationalization and Application of Structural Violence

133

people for the defence of the city. Violation of this order led to offenders being beaten by a whip.10 Hezbollah and Hamas have certain divergences in terms of their dependence on a universal caliphate. Hezbollah, as members of Shia community, do not praise the caliph as much as Hamas does, as evidenced in Article 21 of the Charter of Hamas (which mentions their anger with the fall of the Ottoman caliph, who was Sunni).11 Even though Sunni and Shia interpretations of Islam and approaches to the use of violence are different, as explained in the first chapter, religion has been an indispensable part of forming their identities and determining their ideals within a nationalist discourse. The brotherhood of Islam has connected different communities around the world and rendered the causes of both Hezbollah and Hamas more popular globally. Similarly, although al-Qaeda and Isis have embraced different methodological nuances in order to attain their goals, the achievement of a universal social order plays a significant role in their application of structural violence. Al-Qaeda is more pragmatic about the possible destruction of the global social order than Isis, which is more idealistic. Such nuances between these jihadist militants, small but divisive, lead to sectarianism within each organization and then, eventually, to new organizations. One of the most remarkable examples of this division occurred in al-Qaeda in 2005. “Zarqawi’s foot soldiers bombed three hotels in Amman, Jordan, killing more than 60 Jordanians. Al Qaeda’s leadership was furious. ‘Policy must be dominant over militarism,’ wrote Atiyah Abd al-Rahman, an al Qaeda [sic] commander in Iran, to Zarqawi three days after the Amman bombing.”12 Isis rose rapidly to power in its first two years of operation, when it captured large territories in Iraq and Syria. But later, it lost both structural power and territory. In fact, after losing the highly strategic city of Deir-ez Zor to the Syrian government in November 2017, Isis controlled only a small area of Iraq. However, the loss of territory and erosion of structural capacity do not indicate the death of ideology. Isis militants simply started migrating to different countries and still remain a threat at the time of this writing. The structural capacity of Isis has certain limitations when we consider its worldwide goals, but this could not prevent Isis from attacking al-Qaeda members in Afghanistan in order to become a principal authority among jihadists and lure even more militants into its organization. The application of structural violence is identical among Hezbollah, Hamas, al-Qaeda, and Isis. As compared with the militant rebels

134

Violence and Militants

in the nineteenth century, the jihadists use extensive violence as a method and their aim is more fundamental, addressing their global social network. Time and space, as a result, play the most important role in the differences between the militant rebels and the militant jihadists when the issue is the application of violence. A further distinction between the four jihadist groups is the methods they use in the application of structural violence. Hamas and Hezbollah apply violence in a more strategic manner on a small scale, whereas alQaeda and Isis aim to provoke a furious reaction from their enemies by using extremely violent methods. These differences are related to how the groups are organized, their short-term and long-term goals, and their ideological approaches. The militant rebels in the Ottoman Empire targeted the institutional and structural capacity of the state; their targets were more local and less inclusive than those of the militant jihadists. Although cultural violence and structural violence were employed simultaneously when the issue was gaining independence, structural violence did not always accompany cultural violence as in the suicide attacks of Hezbollah in the 1980s, the intifadas organized by Hamas, the fighting tactics described in al-Qaeda’s playbook, Management of Savagery, and the mass destruction of ancient cities by Isis. In this context, the most significant difference in the application of structural violence by militant jihadists lies in their use of structural violence to attain territory from the enemy and destroy the enemy’s power at both the national and international levels. The territorial focus and the international dimension of structural violence are essential to their vision of establishing a new social order and ruling the territories under their dominance. The Ottoman Empire established its own social order with great difficulty. In some cases, the Porte engaged in negotiations with the leaders of militant rebels to control their attacks, while in other cases the Porte suppressed the militant rebels violently. Attacks by rebels against state institutions were rarely met without a punitive reaction when those rebellions had a political character. Similarly, both the national and international opponents of militant jihadists can be challenged on the battlefield when structural violence is employed. Responding to this violence with advanced military technology creates devastation in the territories and civilian populations suffer tragically. The invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan by the coalition forces, the surrounding of Gaza, and the inclusion of international actors in the civil war in Lebanon dramatically worsened the

Rationalization and Application of Structural Violence

135

situation of civilians in these geographies. These are clear examples of the way the use of structural violence disrupts the everyday life of civilian population.

from the concerns of social organization to the practices of structural violence All perceptions of rationality are subjective. Alan Sica puts it aptly in his reading of Max Weber, stating that “rationality is a subjectively disclosed and apprehended quality of action and thought, and any behavior, if assessed by the actor involved, is considered rational. Only the external observer’s inability to analyze thoroughly enough another’s actions leads to the appellation irrational.”13 What rationalizes the behaviour of a militant when structural violence is employed depends on the perception that defines the injustice perpetrated by the opponent’s organization. The militant, as an extralegal physical force, identifies the legal or superior authority of the state as the producer of violence. Social injustice and dysfunctional and discriminatory public policies are perceived as forms of violence, drastically shaping the lives of people and transforming them into future militants. The rise of social conflict galvanizes resentment of the state’s inability to eliminate socio-structural problems. The people who identify themselves as victims of these concerns show their anger against social organizations controlled by the state. The connection between victimization and the socio-structural concerns manifests the state as “the key influence in the production, control, and sanctioning of violence.”14 Social conflict exceeds physical reaction in zones of violence, and the same social conflict is exploited deftly by militant ideologues, sometimes concretely and other times delusively. If we sought a common concept to identify both the struggle of militant rebels in the Ottoman Empire and militant jihadists today from Afghanistan to the cities of Europe, that concept would be “suffering.” The emotional power of suffering highlights both social injustice and its outcome for an individual militant and the community to which that militant belongs. From this point of view, the rationalization process for militants has an anthropological locus. The rationalization and legitimization processes help us to understand human nature. Not only general conditions of injustice but also their relative poverty put the militant rebels and militant jihadists on the same path of violent reaction.

136

Violence and Militants

The story of an Ottoman rebel reveals the sense of injustice from the perspective of that militant. The kernel of that story is similar to the discourse of a militant jihadist seeking vengeance for his or her suffering. The sense of injustice appears as the main motive leading both kinds of militants to commit themselves to resistance against the dominant social order. It is no surprise that even if we are portrayed by “different histories, sustained by different social dynamics, we assume, nonetheless, that the outcome in trauma and suffering is the same.”15 The dominant – and sometimes oppressive – power of the state or the leading political authority leads militants to perceive themselves as victims. Leaders and ideologues exploit the perceived injustice and victimhood for propaganda purposes to increase recruitment. Military victory or loss and the resistance of paramilitaries and social movements produce macro-violence, and generally this physical destruction is the result of social and emotional destruction designed to break down the opponents’ organization.16 Such violence aims to partially or completely destroy the social organization that is at the root of socio-structural concerns. With the help of organizational structure, the rationalization of violence in the perception of each militant is transformed from micro-level violence into macrolevel destruction. As Siniša Malešević says, “it is social organization that transforms chaotic and incoherent micro-level violence into an organized machine of macro-level destruction.”17 The huge territorial losses of Isis in 2016 and 2017 may indicate the erosion of its structural power; in this case, the decline of its prestige in the eyes of its sympathizers is inevitable. However, it is likely that many of the Isis militants who left Iraq and Syria will remain silent for a period of time but later come together under a different name, organization, flag and leader, while uttering the same motto and furthering the same mission they did as devotees of Isis. The letter of Al-Zawahiri recounted in the previous chapter shows that he legitimizes the violence of al-Qaeda and other militant jihadists by invoking the violence inflicted by the US. He asks: “isn’t the destruction of the villages and the cities on the heads of their inhabitants more cruel than slaughtering? And aren’t the cluster bombs and the seven ton bombs and the depleted uranium bombs crueler than slaughtering? And isn’t killing by torture crueler than slaughtering?” Of course, the aim here is also to convince other militants that the extreme violence they use is not wrong at a moral level. Torture is a kind of moral injury that degrades its victim, and humiliation dis-

Rationalization and Application of Structural Violence

137

connects the individual from society.18 The words of Al-Zawahiri transform into weapons when he gives the example of torture in Iraq and state violence in other Muslim countries. Individuals who were tortured or witnessed the torture and humiliation of their loved ones become ready to listen to calls for vengeance and to submit to the direction of a preacher who perceives violence as the only moral response to their opponents. Differences between the militant rebels and the militant jihadists in the application of structural violence, particularly in terms of its dimension and target, also hinge on social organization. Territorial control by militant jihadists depends on social control of the population who live under the dominance of the jihadists. Isis imposes a large monetary fine or the confiscation of land upon peasants when their rules are violated.19 The use of violence as an instrument of public order makes Isis an unpopular authority, but one that is hard to resist. Their punishment of local populations by severe methods includes pushing gay men from tall buildings and raping Yazidi women. The use of children as suicide bombers is also another strategy to increase the application of structural violence. One of these children, caught shortly before exploding himself, stated: “They taught us how to use a Kalashnikov and a PKC machine gun and then transferred us to Hawija. There were four older men who would teach us about heaven and stuff like that. Twenty-four hours a day they’d teach us about this stuff. There were 60 of us born from 2002 onwards.”20

structural violence as a source of dissent and instrument of power Structural violence becomes a source of dissent when militants explain their victimization by blaming their enemies who use structural violence against them. On the other hand, the militants, as is clear from the Ottoman rebellions and jihadist attacks, use structural violence to attain their goals and change the dynamics of authority to extend their power. As a result, structural violence appears both as a source of dissent and an instrument of power, whether to weaken the enemy or to strengthen the organizational structure of the militant groups. Structural violence is used not only against states but also against local populations to discipline them and guarantee their obedience to the militants’ authority. The use of violence by the militant rebels in

138

Violence and Militants

the Ottoman Empire against the civilian population was based on the same dynamic, to subdue more people and realize the ultimate goal. However, social control and structural violence against the local population is less common for nationally-oriented jihadists such as Hezbollah and Hamas than it is with Isis and al-Qaeda. The territories controlled by Hezbollah and Hamas and their relatively more engaged status within the international system limit the use of structural violence against local populations. Yet these two organizations are very prone to deploy structural violence against their opponents. The militant rebels in the Ottoman Empire consisted of many different ethnic communities; they challenged the Porte and paralyzed its ability to eliminate the source of dissent. Considering the cosmopolitan character of the Ottoman Empire, this was to be expected. On the other hand, militant jihadists embrace a supranational character rather than sticking to a single ethnic or national character. Even in the case of Hezbollah and Hamas, their international networks and the global discourse of jihad are as important as their national agendas. Jihadist organizations are therefore able to recruit militants from diverse ethnic and national backgrounds. Nationalism, as a result, disguises itself both as a unifying ideology for state institutions and a discordant factor for the militant jihadists who are under the influence of a global ideology such as Isis has put forth. Nationalism also transformed the territories into zones of conflict.21 But when it comes to the operation of this kind of conflict, we need to understand its diverse meanings for different actors. The influx of identities, in the case of both militant rebels and militant jihadists, renders structural violence an effective instrument to change the social order. It is structural rather than cultural violence that leads to systematic disruption in the public order and everyday life at the same time. The relationship between structural violence and militants derives from daily struggle as well as strategic planning to attain their long-term goals. Nonetheless, structural violence has different characteristics when employed, respectively, by the militant rebels and the militant jihadists. The dimension and aim of the militant jihadists force many members of these organizations to use extensive violence along with advocating for radical change in the social system. The militant rebels in the Ottoman Empire, on the other hand, used limited violence and embraced more moderate targets.

6 From a Violent Past to a Desperate Future “. . . men are not gentle creatures, who want to be loved, who at the most can defend themselves if they are attacked; they are, on the contrary, creatures among whose instinctual endowments is to be reckoned a powerful share of aggressiveness.” Sigmund Freud, Civilization and its Discontents

Freud’s comments above remind us that human beings embrace aggressive behaviours while simultaneously clinging to an idealistic view of themselves as superior creatures. The bloody conflicts and great loss of human life in our history make us question the presence of the gentleness and love that are supposed to exist within human beings. Violence is revealed by many dark and cruel chapters in the story of humankind. The history of violence has a special importance for militants. The historical paradigm – in other words, the forces of tragedy and struggle in the past – shapes their cosmos. History keeps wounds open and inspires those who don’t question truth in pursuit of their ideals. Reality, hyper reality, fantasy, and propaganda inspire them to create an imagined community. The journey toward the imagined community connects ideals with actions and shortens the path from the rationalization of violence to its application. This journey is neither easy nor comfortable. Culture and the human condition determine the main roads militants follow, whereas structure and social organization create new pathways to address the concerns of everyday life and help the militants realize their goals.

140

Violence and Militants

culture and the human condition “Life has no meaning a priori … It is up to you to give it a meaning, and value is nothing but the meaning that you choose.” Jean-Paul Sartre, Existentialism

Value-creation commences within our thoughts, and the existence of thoughts depends on how we value these thoughts. This is the reason that there is a strong interconnectedness between value-creation and thoughts. The battle between different values offers us the necessary perspective to imagine the changing human condition in a troubled cultural geography. The values of different militant groups are shaped by their thoughts and the protection of those values require dedication. However, violence might disconnect this dedication from those same values. When we remain in a battle between the values that make our existence meaningful and circumstances working to reverse those values, a struggle starts to protect the values that give meaning to our existence. This duality works rather differently for a militant, who may be eager to undermine his opponents at any cost, even if this may also undermine the values he ostensibly is inspired by. That is to say that the existential struggle of militants may violate the ideals they claim to hold. Confrontation and compromise, sometimes with enemy and sometimes with their values, make the militants fierce and determined rather than conciliatory and pacified. Clifford Geertz’s well-known definition of culture limits it to contexts where power is elaborated and articulated through what he calls “thick description.” He asserts that “Culture is not a power, something to which social events, behaviours, institutions, or processes can be causally attributed; it is a context, something within which they can be intelligibly – that is, thickly – described.”1 We understand different cultures by defining, describing, and raising questions about them. Our analysis can be based on anything from a single narrative or subject to multiple accounts. For example, the exploitation of human and natural capital in nineteenth-century colonialism was dependent upon categorizing imperatives deriving from the interaction between different communities and cultures. Relating with the unknown in different geographies brought new perspectives to enquiries into culture and led to the recognition that every type of society has a cultural form because

Violent Past to Desperate Future

141

each society possesses morals, a legal system, customs, knowledge, and beliefs. The European Enlightenment embraced idealist approaches related to humanity in the seventeenth and eighteenth century. Even though the European Enlightenment promoted liberty, reason, and progress for humanity, it could not create equal conditions for the unknown and became disenchanted and alienated in the process of modernity.2 The contemporary understanding of culture is subject to idealistic approaches. These idealistic approaches structure the universal meaning of culture and its importance for the progress of humanity. Its realistic approach, whatever its constituent forms, plays a central role in conceptualizing culture and determining our perceptions. Yet this judgment is not independent of the time and place we live in. The argument for an idealistic view of civilization, sometimes, takes its departure from orientalism and marginalizes the “other,” either implicitly or explicitly. Its implicit character is hidden, which obscures the roots of this marginalization. On the other hand, its explicit character imposes a hierarchical vision, which normalizes the categorization of different civilizations. Terror of different agencies, whether state or non-state forces, creates violent disasters similar to each other. Violence creates desensitization among communities who have been subject to violence too long. Desensitization against terror can be acquired by psychological blocking (the inability to practice a skill previously performed without difficulty), undermining the empathy of militants when they use violence against people.3 Horror is an inevitable outcome when public panic is created; it leads to the acquisition of yet more power by its orchestrators. In this way, each civilization is responsible for crimes against humanity. As Walter Benjamin says: “There is no document of civilization, which is not at the same time a document of barbarism.”4 What marginalizes a militant also gives moral strength to his struggle. Militants paint an idealized landscape of the society that they would like to live in. Politico-religious concerns and motivations to use cultural violence form their main reasoning, and a depraved story of struggle heralds this new world. Their idealistic quest is under the control of beliefs, customs, law systems, morals, and knowledge only available within the boundaries of their own cultural and social network. Human beings are adaptive creatures, like other mammals. Their adaptation is grounded in psychological tension and shaped by social environments. The struggle to attain one’s ideal combines with a fea-

142

Violence and Militants

sible method to realize that ideal and designate the future of community. The rationalization of an action, violent or otherwise, is similar in diverse places and different periods of time. The rationalization of violence determined the fate of the Ottoman rebellions and now it is shaping the destiny of jihadist organizations. The presentation of religion to the public includes many paradoxes and contradictions. However, attacks against religion’s inconsistencies seldom diminish any believer’s trust. Sigmund Freud explores these contradictions in his early work, Civilisation and Its Discontents, arguing that religion helps diminish personal suffering even though it includes errors and delusions which hamper human development.5 Freud’s critical approach to religion elucidates both religion’s function to protect the individual from anguish, and religion’s manifestation of threats against human beings. This manifestation also makes humankind more conscious and prepared to fight individual and collective trauma. Freud highlights these threats and our fragility when we interact with ourselves, the external world, and other people, stating,“We are threatened with suffering from three directions: from our own body; which is doomed to decay and dissolution and which cannot even do without pain and anxiety as warning signals; from the external world, which may rage against us with overwhelming and merciless forces of destruction; and finally from our relations to other men. The suffering which comes from this last source is perhaps more painful to us than any other. We tend to regard it as a kind of gratuitous addition, although it cannot be any less fatefully inevitable than the suffering which comes from elsewhere.”6 Trauma is like a snowball, growing larger with each threat and each occasion of suffering. An individual’s experience of collective trauma is publicized and shared sympathetically by other members of community. A militant’s death becomes the mourning of everyone who suffers similarly and believes in the same ideals. The people who share the individual trauma sit at the table of desperation and share in a common tragedy. More than a century ago, Georg Simmel concluded that what defines the term “tragic” is actually twofold: (i) the tragedy of culture and (ii) sociological tragedy.7 The tragedy of culture connects the self with societal desperation and paves the way for sociological tragedy. Yet desperation is neither static nor merely an emotive experience for militants. It clarifies the reasons for their concern, identifies their opponents, and sets future plans to eliminate desperation. All these steps also indicate an imag-

Violent Past to Desperate Future

143

ined and idealized community to be realized. This imagination of community in the mind of a militant takes on a rapid rhythm when thoughts transform into violent actions. A contentious form of culture generates politico-religious dissent and makes the use of physical force a necessity. There has been an increasing power of religion in the politics of our age with the development of political theologies by religious communities whose approaches and methods may sometime be in opposition to those of the state. Some have argued that the shift of power towards these non-state actors within the religion-politics nexus brands the twenty-first century as “God’s century.”8 However, neither the community’s vision of God nor the same community’s devotion to religious obligations is independent of the cultural breadth of that community. The spread of culture – whether religious/national or secular/cosmopolitan – connects an individual with a community. Both religious and national communities extend their cultural breadth by forming a connection with God/spirituality or with nationalist/stateoriented values. Raymond Williams defines culture under three general clusters. The first cluster is an idealized culture, implying a process of human perfection based on absolute and universal values. The second cluster is documentary culture, which records human thought, experience, and intellectual work and produces critiques about this record. The third cluster is social culture, which is described as a particular way of life and is interested in clarification of meanings, symbols, production, organization of society, and institutions.9 These three cultural clusters explicate the required obligations, functions, and objectives for militants. The idealized culture is exalted by the community that they are striving to create in the future. The documentary culture records their past experiences, including suffering, oppression, and injustice. Finally, social culture expresses the values as well as the organizational and institutional regulations to control everyday life and to respond to the daily needs of the community. All these different cultural forms are interconnected to attain the idealized community in the future. This connection between the ultimate goals of the three cultural clusters is clearly discernible in the activities of Hezbollah, Hamas, alQaeda, and Isis, though it remains opaque when we look at the Ottoman rebellions. That is, the Ottoman rebellions cannot always be characterized by the goal of creating an idealized community. On

144

Violence and Militants

the one hand, if we remember the story of Vasil Levski and the constitution declared by the Bulgarian Revolutionary Central Committee, an idealized community, its structure, political regime, and objectives were clearly identified by each article. On the other hand, the militants of Tuzla, Kladina, and Bihać engaged in dialogue with the Ottoman Empire in the 1850s and were satisfied when their social and religious requests were met. Nonetheless, reference to perceived injustice in the past is evident in both the story of Vasil Levski and that of the militant rebels of Bosnia, as well as in the declarations of the militant jihadists of Hezbollah, Hamas, al-Qaeda, and Isis. Therefore, we can draw the conclusion that documentary culture, recording the dissent and tragedy of the past, contributes to the rationalization of cultural violence in both time periods whereas its application differs. It is the human condition to perceive dissent as an existential threat. The use of violence, however, is not the same as the mere thought of it. Violence is real; tangible in its inescapable outcomes. It is intrusive; seeping into the lives of those afflicted by it, touching their loved ones, relatives, the community around them, and other stakeholders with its ravages. It is also temporal in nature, damaging not only the community in its present form but echoing across time and inflicting its malice on future generations. This is the reason that the control of cultural violence is sometimes an impossible task for militants. Its legacy carries the heavy burden of pain, paralyzing the members of the community. Militants are both the reasons for and the outcomes of their own desperation. The desperate path of violence is idiosyncratic in its methods but universal in its motives. However, “Even those who assert culture’s dominant role in shaping the experience of violence have trouble describing precisely how violence’s ‘social meaning’ is formed.”10 Therefore, we need to consider the role of structure and social life in affecting the social meaning of violence and its broader impact in everyday life.

Violent Past to Desperate Future

145

structure and social life “There were always the words of love, morality, and beauty. But there must have been evil somewhere. Afterwards, why are all these things in conflict? (Is it because of the number of stairs that take them to God?)” Oğuz Atay, Korkuyu Beklerken (While Waiting for Fear)11

Oğuz Atay is a reputable writer in his native Turkey, though less known internationally, but his well-crafted sentences carry universal significance. He deftly expresses that a conflict can be both structural and superficial. “The number of stairs” is used sarcastically to draw attention to the concerns emerging from the structural and yet superficial relationship between the conflicting agencies. The same sarcasm also implies a more important issue mystified by confrontation in which we understand that the evil is legitimized to attain good for some. The result is the degeneration of the values that are perceived to be highly important such as beauty, love, and morality. Yet an ideal world is not comprised simply of a value system. It must also include a strategy for how to materialize that ideal. For example, imagine a world where mandatory work is four hours a day for a four-day week but you would still receive the same salary if you worked for eight hours a day for a five-day week. Or alternatively, imagine a world where your moral values are accepted by everyone; a society whose members do not know the meaning of conflict. To materialize these idealized imaginations, to make them real, you would need to change the social system, or the way people think. Otherwise, it would be impossible to live in such a world. Absolutism leads to conflicts when we aim to concretize ideals through our practices in everyday life. These practices shape the structure of social life. We organize social classes, determine ways of communication, set rules and regulations, and assign duties and responsibilities to people and institutions to functionalize the system we desire to attain. Social life can be governed by totalitarian, democratic, oligarchic, or anarchic methods. Problems emerge when the system is not functionally operative. And dysfunctionality in the social system leads to dissidence from people who suffer and eventually rebel against the methods and outcomes of governance. What distinguishes structural violence is its rationalization because of the social injus-

146

Violence and Militants

tice, unequal conditions, and administrative barriers that render everyday life a never-ending struggle. Even in ancient Greek mythology, feelings of victimization and injustice led to prodigious sympathy for Atlas, who was condemned by Zeus to support the earth on his shoulders. Circumstances may make an individual’s life not only challenging, but also desperate. And the loss of hope for nonviolent change leads to desperation. Militants identify the reasons for their dissent, but they also need additional reasons to legitimize their struggle. The common sense of wider society has little importance as long as they may fortify their assertions. Structural violence encompasses the whole process, including efforts to increase the capacity of militants and destroy the safe havens of the enemy. To this end, militants blame their opponents for the challenges that they have to bear.12 Some of these challenges are real and others are fabricated. In the fabrication process, as in Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, a militant is trapped in the cage, but this is a cage of dissent. On the other hand, the militants wear their chains eagerly and welcome the fantasies presented to them by their ideologues. What shaped the past is now structuring the present. John Steinbeck notes the difference between our accumulation of experience and our unwillingness to learn from it. He says that “our species has learned nothing, can, as a race, learn nothing – that the experience of ten thousand years has made no impression on the instincts of the million years that preceded.”13 The structural organization of militants and the struggle of their communities cannot always cross the borders of imagination, fabrication, and provocation. On the one hand, this structural limitation makes them more solid and consistent. On the other hand, they remain in conflict with the essence of their struggle and sometimes violate the very values that they fight for. Structural violence is also an outcome of structural problems in society. State policies and psychological isolation may produce a militant from a marginalized individual. John Georgelas, known as Yahya Abu Hassan in Isis, is an example of this process. Graeme Wood investigated the story of John Georgelas. When Wood spoke to John Georgelas’s father, what Wood found was a striking transformation from an isolated and easily-manipulated young man to a prominent Isis leader. John met people from a jihadist network in his native town, College Station, Texas. After spending some time in the jihadist group, he decided to learn to speak Arabic fluently and develop other qualities characteristic of a charismatic person such as telling inspir-

Violent Past to Desperate Future

147

ing stories, being a good public speaker, informing the community with his expertise, and appearing as a self-confident leader in order to be respected by fellow militants. John’s father said, “Kids are away from home for the first time, vulnerable and subject to influence. They hear the message and they’re hooked, and that’s what happened to John. John took the name Yahya, and sold his pickup truck to buy a plane ticket. In December 2001, the family received an email from Yahya announcing that he was in Damascus learning Arabic.”14 Graeme Wood found the remarks of John’s father puzzling. “The Yahya I had encountered online, and the one Musa Cerantonio – a preacher for Isis and the contact of Graeme Wood – described, was nothing like a sheep, and no pathetic follower. He was not the boy his father described. At some point, Yahya had shape-shifted into a wolf, into a leader of men.”15 John, a lonely and marginalized person in his previous life, found respect in and admiration from militant jihadists. The story of John Georgelas clarifies the relationship between the psychology of degradation and the sociology of the unexpected. Degradation canalizes an individual to discover a context where new roles can be assigned to him. A militant always rebels for a reason, and the solidarity of community in supporting the rebel is astonishing. The ego of a militant is empowered not simply through individual glorification but also through the collective mission. The community’s support is a mythical and practical elixir that makes the rebel’s life less complicated and more powerful. Albert Camus argues that “an act of rebellion is not, essentially, an egoistic act. Of course, it can have egoistic motive. The rebel demands respect for himself, of course, but only in so far as he identifies himself with a natural community … When he rebels, a man identifies himself with other men and so surpasses himself, and from this point of view human solidarity is metaphysical.”16 The story of John Georgelas is not only the story of an individual; it is also the story of a community. The participation of Georgelas in the jihadist network in his hometown was not solely a loss to his family and a gain to his jihadist network. Such a structural change clarifies the weakness of society and threatens its values. Yahya Abu Hasan represents the strong bond between an individual militant and the community that assigns him prestige and credibility. In the outcome of structural violence, we can identify both the visible and the invisible forms of structural violence. Structural violence has more specific goals than making the enemy fearful, but they

148

Violence and Militants

are not always apparent. The visible violence of September 11th was the response of militant jihadists to the less visible violence they believed that the people of Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Palestine, and Chechnya were subjected to by the hegemonic powers.17 The combination of cultural and structural violence threatens to engulf the entire world in the declaration of Isis. Isis published a propaganda video in early July 2016 revealing critical information regarding their cultural mission and structural strategy. Abu Bakr alBaghdadi is presented as the Caliph of Isis in the video, and his six principal duties are listed as: (i) Upholding and spreading the religion, (ii) defending the homeland, (iii) fortifying the fronts, (iv) preparing the army, (v) implementing the hudud (borders), and (vi) enforcing the people’s adherence to sharia rulings.18 Two forms of violence find common ground in this declaration. The first order maintains cultural violence, and the others show how to attain it through the codes of structural violence. The rationalization of violence identifies dissent and the reasons that produce it. Rethinking the origins of dissent is the starting point for the process of rationalization. After the completion of this process, a militant perceives that violence is the most effective answer to the threats he/she perceives. Violence, whether cultural or structural, is not applied without such rationalization. The changes in the organization of attacks, the dimension and target of attacks, strategies, and the capacity of the conflicting parts reveal the importance of structure and social organization. Violence expels the militants into a tunnel of darkness where the future always remains uncertain. They seek different ways to get out of this tunnel, but they all follow the same route of rationalization before ending up there.

the desperate future ahead of us “Each atom of that stone, each mineral flake of that night-filled mountain, in itself forms a world. The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man’s heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.” Albert Camus, “The Myth of Sisyphus,” in The Myth of Sisyphus, and Other Essays

Sisyphus’s notorious crime against the gods is narrated in Homer’s Odyssey, Book XI. Later, he is condemned to an eternity of punishment pushing an enormous stone to the top of a hill and then watch-

Violent Past to Desperate Future

149

ing the stone roll back down. This divine punishment, according to Albert Camus, ironically portrays Sisyphus as happy while he fulfills his assignment. This persistence of hope in a desperate situation partly explains the militant’s willingness to die for an ideal. If the two forms of violence could be endowed with the cognitive and physical faculties of a human being, cultural violence would constitute our psychology and emotions, whereas structural violence would make up our brains and spinal columns. The combination of cultural and structural violence undoubtedly helps the struggle of militants to realize their ideals, if not guarantees this realization. In Ivo Andrić’s The Bridge on the Drina, Pavle makes a dramatic statement after losing his assets and shop: “everyone teaches you to work and to save … then, all of a sudden, the whole thing turns upside down … when those who have made their money honestly … with the sweat of their brows lose both their time and their money, and the violent win the game.”19 The disappointment of Pavle in nineteenth-century Ottoman Bosnia is echoed by the story of Kadhem Sharif after the invasion of Iraq in 2003. “If I were a criminal, I would rebuild the stone statue of Saddam Hussein.”20 His hopes were crippled when the dictatorial and depraved Iraqi regime was replaced by social disorder and uncertainty thirteen years after he had smashed the statue. Indeed, some parts of his country are still in chaos at the time of this writing. Kadhem Sharif is not himself a militant, but the process that he has been subject to may transform other dissidents into militants. Social and cultural catastrophe shape the destiny of tormented communities. Vying for power is the most obvious way to survive when those communities demand a change. Violence represents the degeneration of universal values throughout the history of humanity. Wisdom, peace, social harmony, and justice are positive attributes and shared values of humankind independent of time and space. The values of militants are not shared universally, but their reasoning takes its origin from the same values and shapes it according to their own perspectives, experiences, and objectives. The militants are convinced that those values can only be attained by physical force, but a violent response may actually hinder the possibility of a sustainable and prosperous future embodying their ideals.21 The same virulent cycle repeats itself in different places and devastates the lives of people who are innocent and powerless and may not even be part of the conflict between militants and their opponents.

150

Violence and Militants

We keep hearing the appalling stories of such victims from Syria to Afghanistan today. When rationalization makes violence itself victorious, whether employed by militants or their opponents, our common sense, which envisions a peaceful society, is erased. Each violent conflict is the harbinger of succeeding violent confrontations. The hope that we need to survive such cycles of violence depends on communal dialogue.22 Steven Pinker documents in The Better Angels of Our Nature that violence is not as prevalent as it was in the previous centuries thanks to the state monopoly on the use of violence, technological advancement, and human progress. He declares that we are now in the “pacification process.”23 Even though this is partially true in terms of the number of homicides in the North, the time spent in battle, and average life expectancy, our age has its own peculiar dangers and threats. Michael Mann disagrees with Steven Pinker, stating that all these developments “render war less visible and less central to Northern culture, which has the deceptive appearance of being rather pacific. Viewed from the South the view has been bleaker both in the colonial period and today, partly due to interventions from outside. Globally war and violence are not declining, but they are being transformed.”24 Neoliberal governments across the world are marketing and promoting violence through the entertainment sector and thereby normalizing different forms of violence from mass incarceration to surveillance. This makes it more challenging to be intolerant of violence. Thus, the desperate situation of injustice that we endure overshadows our hope to build the future with non-violent instruments.25 Norbert Elias argues that the control of violence plays a critical role in the process of civilization, because the state has a monopoly on the use of violence. The fear of state authority may transform the behaviour of people – whether victims or offenders – to prevent anarchy, terror, and the ravages of violence.26 According to this interpretation, the organization of social life, the creation of bureaucracy, and the control of society through “law and order” limit violence and restrain those who might otherwise use physical force and coercion. Macro changes echo at the micro level by shaping the behaviour of people. This also signifies that organized violence might be a more effective instrument for states than disorganized violence. In this context, the question arises: what if a dissident person disapproves of state violence and rebels against it? The expected outcome will be conflict and the elimination of the dissident person by a more powerful agency,

Violent Past to Desperate Future

151

whether the state, its organizations, or other people, because the violence of militants against the state may be seen as a reaction against civilization itself. Ironically, as Zygmunt Bauman clarifies very well, civilization functions thanks to the instruments of modernization, communication, and social control; the very instruments which allowed the Nazi government to oversee the Holocaust by means of rational bureaucratic culture, moral indifference, and moral invisibility.27 Civilization, therefore, is neither prima facie evidence of the progress of humanity nor of the decline of injustice. The advancement of civilization also leads to new forms of violence. The desperate consequences of the advancement of civilization accompanied by moral indifference cannot be explained better than in Primo Levi’s book If This Is A Man. In the “Journey” chapter, he narrates how Italian Jews found themselves in the inferno of different violent forms: Dawn came on us like a betrayer; it seemed as though the new sun rose as an ally of our enemies to assist in our destruction. The different emotions that overcame us, of resignation, of futile rebellion, of religious abandon, of fear, of despair, now joined together after a sleepless night in a collective, uncontrolled panic. The time for meditation, the time for decision was over, and all reason dissolved into a tumult, across which flashed the happy memories of our homes, still so near in time and space, as painful as the thrusts of a sword. Many things were then said and done among us; but of these it is better that there remain no memory.28 Moving from the dramatic and factual narrative of Primo Levi, I may suggest that violence reveals the predilection of humankind to oppress each other as machines of cruelty. Not only militant jihadists but also their opponents become violent when culturally relativist politicians blame an innocent Muslim community. Jihadist militants deftly exploit the rhetoric of demagogues and hate-mongering politicians in the West who seek dividends within their own societies. The militant organizations need reasons to mobilize more people. These reasons must include genres of legitimization that sound rational. The propaganda of militant organizations functions effectively by addressing emotional fragility among the people they aim to recruit. Indeed, Nicolas Hénin, who was held captive by Isis for ten months, expressed the idea that Isis fears the unity of its victims more than the air strikes targeting it.29

152

Violence and Militants

Provocation for recruitment, legitimization of violence, and application of violence for the realization of ideals increase the physical and emotional capacity of militants. The amalgamation of all these factors creates an attractive and powerful reasoning sometimes consisting of truths that are distorted to tarnish their opponents. This intentional distortion by militant ideologues takes advantage of the emotional power of vengeance, on the one hand, and malfunctioning social systems on the other. The mobilizing forces behind militants embrace totalitarian methods because totalitarianism consolidates its power through the collective support of people “for whom the distinction between fact and fiction (i.e., the reality of experience) and the distinction between true and false (i.e., the standards of thought) no longer exist.”30 The imagination works powerfully to transform beliefs into behaviours; nowhere more powerfully than in the cosmos of a militant. By the same token, the captivating discourse of militant leaders agitates people to persuade them to be militants. The beheading videos disseminated by jihadists militants show sadistic satisfaction in the horrors they create. In these bloodstained scenes, all dignified values of humanity are at their lowest ebb; meanwhile, public panic reaches a peak. Max Weber’s well-known saying, “the fate of our times is characterized by rationalization and intellectualization and, above all, by the disenchantment of the world,” helps us to understand the dissent of militants today, the rationalization process, and its influence on their fates. Of course, this does not mean that historical factors have no influence on the rationalization of violence. But as Henri Bergson states, “consciousness indeed informs us that the majority of our actions can be explained by motives.” And similar motives inspired the rationalization of violence by Balkan rebels in the nineteenth-century Ottoman Empire and jihadist militants from Central Asia to the Middle East today. On the other hand, those similar motives did not lead to similar outcomes because the role of time and space becomes more crucial when the motives lead to actions. Hence, the level of violence, the instruments to use violence, the ideals and structural capacity of the militant group in question, technology, and communication channels shape the level of violence differently in the militant rebels and militant jihadists we have been considering. Seyla Benhabib explains the conditions which contribute to these violent situations thus: “Under conditions of extreme terror, isolation, domination, and violence, the public realm as a common world may be

Violent Past to Desperate Future

153

deeply damaged.”31 The rulers of violence, whether militants or their opponents, can be both omnipotent and brutal at the same time through each destructive attack against innocent people intended to erode the public realm. The outcome of violence, the motivations behind it, and how we deal with its perpetrators underscore the collective defeat of humankind. Militants are both the reasons for, and the outcomes of, desperation, and we can imagine a desperate future ahead when we conceive of the trauma of militants in the past and understand their aspirations for the future. Yet this understanding may only prepare us to wait in fear unless the reasons that lead to cultural and structural violence are addressed. After millennia of violence and bloodshed, we human beings are trapped somewhere between a violent past and a desperate future. And the place where we are standing now, unfortunately, is neither a venue in which to overcome the burden of our past nor one where we may imagine a bright future. When violence is crowned in the place of despondency, the words narrating the suffering of militants transform into the lyrics of a mournful song marking the place with their own tragedy and revenge. This is the place that ironically manifests at once the moral weakness and the physical strength of humankind. Collective violence becomes an expected outcome when using it against innocent people is normalized.32 Sorrowful milestones in the course of humanity’s history mark the power of violent scenes in which victims cry out but remain unredeemed and vulnerable. Violence creates fragility and shapes the character of place, the organization of society, and the behaviours of people. Militants were at the center of grievous concerns in the past and are now defining new places of cultural and social gravity. They will inaugurate new centers of violence in the future. We must learn from times of conflict to anticipate violent behaviours from a dissident individual, a militant, or an offender when they rationalize their behaviours. The future is influenced by our experiences and the lessons we take from past events. In the past, the militant rebels of the Ottoman Empire followed the path of violence. Now the militant jihadists are walking on the same path while observing a different method in the application of violence. It is not prophetic to expect new militant groups to follow similar paths across the world. We cannot dismiss either militants or violence when we are trying to comprehend the bigger picture. The militants represent a fraction of the social order; a social order whose concepts of power and

154

Violence and Militants

justice signify oppression and injustice to them. A common destiny unifies militants and makes them the precursors of a dramatic expectation of change. Independent of the triumph or failure of this common destiny, what is left to us is desperation, which is the new normal in our rapidly transforming world. This violent transformation is full of grief, like the larger history of humankind. The ideals and actions of militants echo in the fear they generate within the public. The future of our planet depends on humanity’s capacity to defend itself against such threats. The rationalization of violence shapes the next route of dissent, the expectations governing militant behaviours, and the outcomes of violent actions. Cultural violence encodes these actions through an idealistic perspective while structural violence reveals its realistic paradigm. Thus, the rationalization of violence by militants is the most enormous dimension of defence mechanisms for them, and leads to a culture of revenge. Perhaps the cosmos of a militant is not mysterious for many of us, but it remains mostly incomprehensible. These two forms of violence offer new avenues to reveal the reason for dissent and the harmonious system that is imagined and fought for by the militants. Violence changes the character of power today as it did in the past. Violence is transforming the world today and it will continue doing so in the future. The tragedy of human beings is exposed by victims crushed under the rubble of their own fear. Militants are the harbingers of the fear that they already experience themselves; they then make their opponents feel it by engaging in acts of violence. This dreadful expansion of fear represents the sum of everything that a militant believes in and fights for. It eventually produces a reaction from and strategies of suppression by their opponents. That is to say that every ideology instigates a counter ideology. This opposition leads to confrontation, and the initial form of dissent is the core factor that influences whether such confrontation is violent or non-violent. We live in an era of constant change. We question the macro dynamics of our world, from the deepening cracks in the capitalist system to shifts in the political centers. Something new and unknown is approaching through circumstances we are not able to control. Violence has been the expected outcome in all periods of chaos, whether in early civilizations in Africa or during European civil wars. Violence makes us forsake our mission to mend the ruptures in universal justice. Despite triumphs in science and progress in human development, public panic might become standard in our future. Ironically,

Violent Past to Desperate Future

155

what makes our future more perilous is twenty-first century technology, which offers enormous powers of destruction. Humanity experienced the most devastating tragedy in Hiroshima, a manmade cataclysm created by state authorities. Militants are not even limited by the kinds of legal responsibility states are usually subject to, so can we imagine the perils they pose when they are angry, full of vengeance, and without limits? In January 2017, Iraqi state forces found laboratories at Mosul University that had been used by Isis to produce chemical weapons. Luckily the weapons lacked the sophisticated delivery systems required to create mass destruction.33 In addition, five years after its emergence, in early 2018, Isis lost significant territorial power. Yet, this does not mean that either Isis or the issues that led to its empowerment have been eliminated. Many militants who joined Isis after its foundation in Syria and Iraq are now returning to their native countries. Hundreds of these angry and defeated militants are going back to their homes in Malaysia, Indonesia, Australia, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Turkic countries, Russia, Turkey, and other North African and European countries.34 In some Turkish cities such as Gaziantep and Adiyaman, members of Isis still propagate their ideology for a small but strong group without any clear plan for action, but their reemergence will not be surprising if appropriate conditions arise in the future.35 How safe are we if militants like these acquire nuclear arms, or other weapons of mass destruction? There is no other creature on earth who can wage war and make peace in such sophisticated ways. Human beings have certain distinctive qualities such as abstract thought, the accumulation of wisdom, and the supreme ability to think and to reason. Nevertheless, whenever violence reigns, as it does today, we rapidly lose these qualities. Without dignity and respect for human life, we become each other’s enemies. Despots, tyrants, and dictators have a close relationship with oppression. Every oppressor use power to produce victims, and these oppressors are deaf, unable to hear the voices of their victims. Violence makes noise, sometimes to paralyze the powerful and other times to make the voices of victims heard. A militant is created from a dissident individual when the application of violence leads to desperation. We are all vulnerable in the face of manmade problems. This vulnerability diminishes our capacity to remain hopeful in the future, despite all the advancements we have made for thousands of years to live a better life.

156

Violence and Militants

Slavoj Žižek draws our attention to systemic violence, the subtler forms of violence that enable the interaction of the two main subjects – the dominant and the exploited.36 Militants perceive that the origins of violence lie in the ability of their opponents to use power in a systematic way to oppress them. These perceptions provide a paradigm to motivate the militants for vital reasons. Such reasons might be different for each militant. For some of them, it might be comradeship and for others glorification of their identity. The diversity of subjective judgements and perceptions in the use of violence by militants complicate this issue. That is why Richard English asks two other important questions in his book Does Terrorism Work?: for whom does it work, and at what level.37 A militant is not an irrational being walking rashly towards death. The old roadblocks to non-violent struggle have never disappeared completely. A militant has bitter justifications for rationalizing and using violence. These justifications indicate a violent past, the victims of which are still suffering in the present. When violence is an indispensable instrument for furious militants and a method of social control for state institutions, we reach the last point of cultural and social trauma. Militants make ambitious efforts to defeat their enemies. These efforts give them a feeling of reassurance and make sense of their own cosmos. Stopping such militants requires a persistent battle because when one militant dies, another arises. Yet each death also invokes defeated hopes. The future of militants remains opaque with the recurrence of failed violent activities. Positive change is possible and needs to be sought, but we have prodigious tendencies to wear the mask of fear in the carnival of strangers. John A. Hall describes in his landmark book, The Importance of Being Civil, how the erosion of civility is highly related to the rise of violence, conflict, and war. Our fears limit opportunities to recognize the challenges ahead and illuminate the darkness that hides them. Desperation obfuscates hope and makes it less visible. Creating a better place depends on the force of our hopes, which become more discernible when we take action. Human brutality has a long past and it is more apparent when social dynamics shape the human condition.38 The contradiction between the capacity of human beings to create positive changes and our proneness to isolate, categorize, marginalize, and then antagonize each other is a sad truth. The ironies of humankind are self-destructive; they write our death certificate. This book has illustrated violence by both militant groups

Violent Past to Desperate Future

157

and state forces, the conditions rationalizing the use of violence and then normalization of violence. All these narratives illustrate the fragility of the human project to create positive change. Violence springs from desperation and functions as a wrecking ball, tearing down human dignity. The impossible art of our time is the elimination of public violence. We will be subject to unpredictable transformations in this century. Yet some elements of these transformations are crystal clear when the issue is the use of violence by militants. We will bear witness to vendettas between militants and their opponents. A new age of anarchy is coming with a different change of phase, the reason for dissent on the one hand and the ravages of violence on the other – a catastrophe for every great expectation.

158

Violence and Militants

Notes

PREFACE

1 Richard Bernstein, “Violence,” Political Concepts 3 (2015), 1. 2 Hannah Arendt, On Violence (New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovitch, 1970), 56. 3 The Ottoman Archives has been part of the president’s office since 2018. All documents from the Ottoman Archives in this study are abbreviated as “O.A” hereafter. INTRODUCTION

1 There are discussions among scholars regarding the beginning and the end of the Tanzimat era in the Ottoman Empire. I use the period between 1839 and 1876 in this book. There are two reasons for this choice. First, two important documents were signed in 1839 and 1876: The Imperial Edict of Reorganization (The Gülhane Hatt-ı Şerif) on 3 November 1839 and the first Ottoman constitution (Kânûn-ı Esâsî) on 23 December 1876. Second, an overwhelming majority of the archival sources consulted in this book relate to events that happened in this period. 2 Jürgen Osterhammel, The Transformation of the World: A Global History of the Nineteenth Century, trans. Patrick Camiller (Princeton, nj: Princeton University Press, 2009). 3 The Almanach de Gotha was a directory of Europe’s royalty and higher nobility, providing statistical data by country. It has been a genealogical and diplomatic reference since 1763. 4 Zafer Gölen, “Almanach de Gotha yıllıklarına göre Tanzimat döneminde Osmanlı Devleti’nin Balkan Toprakları,” Sosyal ve Libarel Bilimlerde Yeni Yönelimler 2 (2016): 625.

160

Notes to pages 6–10

5 Maria Todorova, Imagining the Balkans (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), chapters 2 and 3. 6 The Sublime Porte (Bâb-ı Âli) is a metonym which was used by the Ottoman state and European governments to signify the Ottoman central government in Istanbul. 7 David Cook claims that extremists embrace a single narrative and an exclusive approach – as the militant jihadists practice – in radical Islam. See Understanding Jihad (Los Angeles, ca: University of California Press, 2005), 32, and also his essay “The Recovery of Radical Islam after the Fall of the Taliban,” Terrorism and Political Violence 15 (2003): 31–56. 8 Asma Afsaruddin, Striving in the Path of God. Jihad and Martyrdom in Islamic Thought (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013). 9 Gilles Kepel, Jihad: The Trail of Political Islam, trans. Anthony F. Roberts (Cambridge, ma: Harvard University Press, 2002), x. 10 See the important essay by Elisabeth Kendall and Ewan Stein on jihad in different places and spaces, “Contextualising Twenty-First Century Jihad,” in Twenty-first Century Jihad: Law, Society and Military Action, ed. Elisabeth Kendall and Ewan Stein (London: I.B. Tauris, 2015). 11 J. Harold Ellens, The Destructive Power of Religion: Violence in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (Westport, ct: Greenwood Publishing Group, 2007), 34. 12 Michael Bonner, Aristocratic Violence and Holy War: Studies in the Jihad and the Arab-Byzantine Frontier (New Haven, ct: American Oriental Society, 1996), 124. 13 Al-Hafiz Ibn Kathir, Tafsir Ibn Kathir: The Exegesis of the Grand Holy Qur’an, trans. Muhammad Mahdi Al-Sharif (Beirut: Dar Al-Kotob AlIlmiyah, 2006), 301. 14 The Qur’an, a new translation by M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, Oxford World Classics (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 177. 15 Bruce Riedel, “Al Qaeda’s Ayman Zawahiri Criticizes Turkey, Seeks Ottoman Restoration,” Daily Beast, 30 July 2010, accessed 20 August 2018. https://www.thedailybeast.com/al-qaedas-ayman-zawahiri-criticizes-turkey-seeks-ottoman-restoration. 16 John S. Koliopoulos, “Brigandage and Irredentism in Nineteenth-century Greece,” European History Quarterly 19 (1989), 195. 17 John S. Koliopoulos, Brigands with a Cause (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1987). 18 Aleksander Petrović, “The Role of Banditry in the Creation of Nation States in the Central Balkans during the 19th Century.” (ma thesis, Simon Fraser University, 2003), 24–34.

Notes to pages 10–13

161

19 Gilles Kepel, The Revenge of God: The Resurgence of Islam, Christianity, and Judaism in the Modern World (University Park, pa: Penn State University Press, 1994). 20 Diego Gambetta and Steffen Hertog, “Engineers of Jihad,” Sociology Working Papers, number 2007–10 (Department of Sociology, University of Oxford, 2007). 21 David Martin Jones and M.L.R. Smith, Sacred Violence: Political Religion in a Secular Age (Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014). 22 Michael Bonner, Jihad in Islamic History: Doctrines and Practice (Princeton, nj: Princeton University Press), 171. Modern suicide attacks started with the 1983 Beirut bombings during the Lebanese civil war targeting US and French military forces. 23 Olivier Roy, Globalized Islam: The Search for a New Ummah (New York: Columbia University Press, 2004). For a similar argument, see Olivier Roy, Jihad and Death: The Global Appeal of Islamic State, trans. Cynthia Schoch (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017), 27. 24 Robert Muchembled, A History of Violence: From the End of the Middle Ages to the Present, trans. Jean Birrell (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2012), 7. 25 David Garland, The Culture of Control: Crime and Social Order in Contemporary Society (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), 101. 26 Georges Sorel, Reflections on Violence (1915), trans. T.E. Hulme (New York: Peter Smith, 1941), 177. 27 Zeev Sternhell, Mario Sznajder, and Maia Ashéri, The Birth of Fascist Ideology: From Cultural Rebellion to Political Revolution (Princeton, nj: Princeton University Press, 1994), 93. 28 Muchembled, A History of Violence, 7. 29 David Riches, The Anthropology of Violence (Oxford: Blackwell), 8. 30 Myrdene Anderson and Cara Richards, “Introduction: The Careless Feeding of Violence in Culture,” in Cultural Shaping of Violence: Victimization, Escalation, Response, ed. Myrdene Anderson (West Lafayette, in: Purdue University Press, 2004), 2. 31 Northrop Frye, Northrop Frye on Modern Culture, ed. Jan Gorak (Toronto, Buffalo, and London: University of Toronto Press, 2003), 158. 32 Anthony Giddens, The Nation State and Violence (Berkeley, ca: University of California Press, 1985), 20. 33 Tony Waters and Dagmar Waters, Weber’s Rationalism and Modern Society: New Translations on Politics, Bureaucracy, and Social Stratification (London and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), 115. 34 Vittorio Bufacchi presents these two concepts within a distinctive clus-

162

35

36 37 38 39 40 41

42 43 44 45

46 47 48 49 50

Notes to pages 13–17

ter in Violence and Social Justice (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007); see chapter 1. Hannah Arendt, “A Special Supplement: Reflections on Violence,” The New York Review of Books, 27 February 1969, accessed 7 March 2014, http://www .nybooks.com/articles/1969/02/27/a-special-supplement-reflections-onviolence/. After this article in the New York Times, Arendt published a book deepening her theoretical intervention on violence. See On Violence (Orlando, Austin, New York, San Diego, London: Harvest Books, 1970). Arendt, “Reflections on Violence.” Ibid. Judith Butler, Precarious Life: The Powers of Mourning and Violence (London: Verso, 2004), 4–5. Johan Galtung, “Cultural Violence,” Journal of Peace Research 7 (1990), 291. Johan Galtung, “Violence, Peace, and Peace Research,” Journal of Peace Research 6 (1969): 167–91. James D. Fearon and David D. Laitin, “Ethnicity, Insurgency, and Civil War,” American Political Science Review 97 (2003): 75–90. A similar important argument explaining the relationship between a failed state and the rise of insurgency was raised by Natasha M. Ezrow and Erica Frantz in Failed States and Institutional Decay: Understanding Instability and Poverty in the Developing World (London: Bloomsbury, 2013). David Lesch, The Fall of the House of Assad (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2013). Charles Tilly, The Politics of Collective Violence (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 4. James Scott, Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts (New Haven, ct: Yale University Press, 1990), ix. Paul Farmer, Infections and Inequalities: The Modern Plagues (Berkeley, ca: University of California Press, 1999), 79. See also Paul Farmer, “On Suffering and Structural Violence: A View from Below,” Daedalus 125 (1996): 261–83. Anderson and Richards, “Introduction,” 3. Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition. 2nd edition (Chicago, il: University of Chicago Press: [1958], 1998), 263. Richard J. Bernstein, Violence: Thinking without Banisters (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2013), 182. Michael Mann, The Sources of Social Power (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986). Charles Taylor, Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 206.

Notes to pages 23–5

163

CHAPTER ONE

1 “Ressentiment” refers to a psychological state that influences behaviour because of feelings of hatred, the perception of injustice, and suffering. See Panu Minkkinen, “Ressentiment as Suffering: On Transitional Justice and the Impossibility of Forgiveness,” Law and Literature 19 (2007): 513–31. 2 Geertz cites the work of Gilles Kepel regarding the “spectacular” and “unforeseen” rise of Islam. See Clifford Geertz, “Which Way to Mecca? Part 2,” New York Times, 3 July 2003, accessed 8 January 2016. http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2003/07/03/which-way-to-meccapart-ii/. For the work of Kepel, see Jihad: The Trail of Political Islam, trans. Anthony F. Roberts (Cambridge, ma: Harvard University Press, 2002). 3 Perhaps the most interesting evidence related to my argument here is that gathered by Ahmed Rashid to demonstrate that the emergence of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan is not independent of historical paradigms in Central Asia and the Middle East. See Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia (New Haven, ct: Yale University Press, 2000). 4 Linda T. Darling, Tax Collection and Finance Administration in the Ottoman Empire, 1560–1660 (Leiden; New York; Koln: Brill, 1996). See also Heather Lynn Ferguson, “The Circle of Justice as Genre, Practice, and Objectification: A Discursive Re-mapping of the Early Modern Ottoman Empire” (PhD thesis, University of California, Berkeley, 2009). 5 A socioeconomic system in the Ottoman Empire that was in practice from the fourteenth century throughout the sixteenth century, the Timar hinged on granting land to Ottoman nobles, local rulers and sipahis, and to members of the cavalry and the army in return for their services. The system was not sustainable when, after the Ottoman Empire reached its peak in the sixteenth century, there came a decline in the size of the territories it governed. 6 Darling, Tax Collection and Finance Administration in the Ottoman Empire, chapters 2 and 3. 7 Reaya traditionally means the tax-paying subjects, but in the nineteenth century there was a common tendency to use the term for non-Muslim subjects. Tebaa, an inclusive term for all Ottoman subjects, also remained in practice at the time. 8 Şevket Pamuk, A Monetary History of the Ottoman Empire (Cambridge:

164

9

10 11

12

13

14 15 16 17

18

19

20 21

Notes to pages 25–6

Cambridge University Press, 2000), 128. See also another important study in this area, Oktay Ozel, “Limits of the Almighty: Mehmed II’s ‘Land Reform’ Revised,” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 42 (1999): 226–46. Halil Inalcik, “Ottoman State: Economy and Society, 1300–1600,” in An Economic and Social History of the Ottoman Empire 1300–1914, ed. Halil Inalcik and Donald Quataert (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 88–9. Halil Inalcik, “Tanzimâtın Uygulanması ve Sosyal Tepkileri,” Belleten 28 (1964): 623–90. Sina Aksin, Turkey from Empire to Revolutionary Republic: The Emergence of the Turkish Nation from 1789 to the Present (New York: New York University Press, 2007), 15–16. Jean-Louis Bacqué-Grammont, “Études turco-safavides, III, notes et documents sur la révolte de Sãh Veli b. Seyh Celal,” Archivum Ottomanicum 7 (1982): 5–69. Karen Barkey’s seminal work on bandits explains how their power in the periphery instigated state centralization. See Bandits and Bureaucrats: The Ottoman Route to State Centralization (Ithaca, ny: Cornell University Press, 1994). Karen Barkey, Empire of Difference: The Ottomans in Comparative Perspective (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008), chapter 5. Ibid., chapter 1. Reşad Kasaba, The Ottoman Empire and the World Economy: The Nineteenth Century (Albany, ny: State University of New York Press, 1988). Baki Tezcan identifies the era from 1580 to the removal of janissaries in 1826 as “the Second Ottoman Empire.” See The Second Ottoman Empire: Political and Social Transformation in the Early Modern World (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 232. Ilkay Sunar, “State and Economy in the Ottoman Empire,” in The Ottoman Empire and the World-Economy, ed. Huri Islamoglu-Inan (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 71. Charles Jelavich and Barbara Jelavich, The Balkans in Transition: Essays on the Development of Balkan Life and Politics Since the Eighteenth Century. Center for Slavic and East European Studies University of California (Berkeley, ca: University of California Press, 1963). Sunar, “State and Economy in the Ottoman Empire,” 71. Bruce McGowan, Economic Life in Ottoman Europe: Taxation, Trade and the Struggle for Land, 1600–1800 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981).

Notes to pages 26–8

165

22 Tax revenues from agricultural products accounted for 46 per cent of the entire tax collected in 1862. The unjust methods of tax collection by middlemen were examined by Mehmet E. Palamut in “Aşar ve Düşündürdükleri,” in Prof. Dr. Sabri Ülgener’e Armağan, (Istanbul: Istanbul Üniversitesi Iktisat Fakültesi Mecmuası, 1987), 72. See also Metin Cosgel, “Taxes, Efficiency, and Redistribution: Discriminatory Taxation of Villages in Ottoman Palestine, Southern Syria, and Transjordan in the Sixteenth Century,” Explorations in Economic History 43 (2006): 332–56. 23 Ali Yaycioglu, Partners of the Ottoman Empire: The Crisis of the Ottoman Order in the Age of Revolutions (Stanford, ca: Stanford University Press, 2016), 100. 24 Bernard Lewis, “Some Reflection on the Decline of the Ottoman Empire,” Studia Islamica 9 (1958): 113. 25 Kasaba, The Ottoman Empire and the World Economy, 88. 26 Yaycioglu, Partners of the Ottoman Empire. 27 Donald Quataert, The Ottoman Empire, 1700–1922 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 54. 28 Virginia Aksan, Ottoman Wars, 1700–1870: An Empire Besieged (Harlow, London, New York: Pearson Longman, 2007), 479. See also Barbara Jelavich’s introduction to The Balkans in Transition and the chapter by Nicolas Spulber in the same book, “Changes in the Economic Structures of the Balkans, 1860–1960,” 356. 29 Ziya Karamursal, Osmanlı Mali Tarihi Hakkında Tetkikler (ttk: Ankara: 1940), 202. See also Metin Heper, “Center and Periphery in the Ottoman Empire: With Special Reference to the Nineteenth Century,” International Political Science Review/Revue internationale de science politique 1 (1980): 86. 30 M. Safa Saraçoğlu, “Economic Interventionism, Islamic Law and Provincial Government in the Ottoman Empire,” in Law and Legality in the Ottoman Empire and Republic of Turkey, ed. Kent F. Schull, M. Safa Saracoglu, and Robert Zens (Bloomington, in: Indiana University Press, 2016), 88. 31 Michael Ursinus, Grievance Administration (Şikayet) in an Ottoman Province: The Kaymakam of Rumelia’s ‘Record Book of Complaints’ of 1781–1783 (London: Routledge Curzon, 2005). 32 E. Atilla Aytekin studies the role of social injustice and local misrule by analysing three rebellions (Vidin, Canik, and Kisrawan) that occurred in the Balkans, the Black Sea region, and the Levant in “Peasant Protest in the Late Ottoman Empire: Moral Economy, Revolt, and the Tanzimat Reforms,” International Journal of Social History 57 (2012): 191–227.

166

Notes to pages 28–31

33 The combination of politico-religious and socio-structural concerns is evident in the participation of klepths and armatoloi in the Greek rebellions against the Ottoman rule. The foundation of a new regime would provide the klepths and armatoloi new opportunities in order to consolidate their power in rural Greece. For more information, see Panagiotis Stathis, “From Klephts and Armatoloi to Revolutionaries,” in Ottoman Rule and the Balkans, 1760–1850. Conflict, Transformation, Adaptation (Rethymno: Proceedings of an International Conference, 2003), 169. 34 “Bashibozuk” was used in the late 1820s and afterwards to denote an irregular soldier who was employed because the cost of regular soldiers was high for the Porte. It mainly implied that irregular soldiers lacked discipline and obedience. 35 Abdulkadir Özcan, “Başı Bozuk,” in İslam Ansiklopedisi V (Istanbul: dia, 1986), 130. 36 Barkey, Bandits and Bureaucrats, chapter 1. 37 pro, fo 78/40, Drummond to Hawkesbury, 7 June I802, cited by Dennis N. Skiotis, “From Bandit to Pasha: First Steps in the Rise to Power of Ali of Tepelen,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 2 (1971): 219. 38 Carter Vaughn Findley, Bureaucratic Reform in the Ottoman Empire: The Sublime Porte, 1789–1922 (Princeton, nj: Princeton University Press, 1980), 140. See also Avigdor Levy, “The Ottoman Ulema and the Military Reforms of Sultan Mahmud II,” Asian and African Studies 7 (1971): 13–39, and Stanford J. Shaw, “The Nineteenth-Century Ottoman Tax Reforms and Revenue System,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 6 (1975): 421–59. 39 The Edict of 1856 in the era of Abdulmecid I was a progressive document based on the principle of equality. It used the term vatandaş, fellow-citizen, for the first-time when referrıng to Ottoman subjects, thereby recognizing the fundamental rights of non-Muslims. It also enforced conscription of non-Muslims into the army. In other words, it minimized, at least in principle, the social and legal differences among different religious communities in order to strengthen the cultural fabric of Ottomanism. For a more systematic evaluation of the Tanzimat era, see Kemal Karpat, “The Transformation of the Ottoman State, 1789–1908,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 3 (1972): 237–74. 40 Betty S. Anderson, A History of the Modern Middle East: Rulers, Rebels, and Rogues (Stanford, ca: Stanford Univeristy Press, 2016), 170. 41 Quataert, The Ottoman Empire, 1700–1922, 66. 42 The governance of Midhad Pasha and the implementation of Tanzimat reforms in Danube brought social relief to the town by consolidating

Notes to pages 31–3

43

44 45

46

47 48 49

50 51

167

the principles of justice and equality among the subjects. Yet the political uprising in Danube erased that relatively peaceful era in the 1860s. For more information, see Milan V. Petrov, “Everyday Forms of Compliance: Subaltern Commentaries on Ottoman Reform, 1864–1868,” Comparative Studies in Society and History, 46 (2004): 730–59. Köksal’s work shows that weak local networks at the community level failed to implement Tanzimat reforms in accord with the rhythm of state centralization. On the other hand, dense communal networks among ethnic and religious communities created new barriers to state centralization and to the promotion of Ottomanism. See Yonca Köksal, “Rethinking Nationalism: State Projects and Community Networks in 19th-Century Ottoman Empire,” American Behavioral Scientist 51 (2008): 1498–1515. See also Kasaba, The Ottoman Empire and the World Economy, 67. Roderic H. Davison, Reform in the Ottoman Empire, 1856–1876 (Princeton, nj: Princeton University Press, 1963), 406. Inalcık, “Tanzimâtın Uygulanması ve Sosyal Tepkileri.” See also Mark Pinson, “Ottoman Bulgaria in the First Tanzimat Period – The Revolts in Niš (1841) and Vidin (1850),” Middle Eastern Studies 11 (1975): 103–46, and Ahmet Uzun, Tanzimat ve Sosyal Direnişler. Niş Üzerine Ayrıntılı Bir İnceleme (1841) (Istanbul: Eren, 2002). Khaled Abou El Fadl, The Great Theft: Wrestling Islam from the Extremists (San Francisco, ca: HarperCollins Publishers, 2007), 222. See also Maria Nikolaeva Todorova, Imagining the Balkans (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977), chapter 4. Davison, Reform in the Ottoman Empire, chapters 6 and 8. Ivo Andric, The Bridge on the Drina, trans. Lovett F. Edwards (Chicago, il: Phoenix Fiction, University of Chicago Press, 1977), 123. Ussama Makdisi explores cultural sectarianism in Lebanon and the role of orientalist and colonialist pressure against Ottoman patriotism in the nineteenth century. The examples cited demonstrate that the same mindset contributed to the rise of cultural violence. Ussama Makdisi, The Culture of Sectarianism. Community, History, and Violence in Nineteenth-Century Ottoman Lebanon (Berkeley, ca: University of California Press, 2000). Antony Black, The History of Islamic Political Thought: From the Prophet to the Present (New York: Routledge, 2001), 15, 29, 157. Lesley Hazleton, After the Prophet: The Epic Story of the Shia-Sunni Split in Islam (New York: Doubleday, Random House, 2009), parts 1 and 2. See also Wilferd Madelung, The Succession to Muhammad: A Study of the Early Caliphate (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), part 4.

168

Notes to pages 33–6

52 Tayeb El-Hibri, Parable and Politics in Early Islamic History: The Rashidun Caliphs (New York: Columbia University Press, 2010), chapters 1 and 5. 53 William L. Cleveland and Martin Bunton, A History of the Modern Middle East (Boulder, co: Westview Press, [1994], 2016), 14. 54 Gerald R. Hawting, The First Dynasty of Islam: The Umayyad Caliphate AD 661–750 (London and New York: Routledge, 1986), chapter 1. 55 Ira M. Lapidus, A History of Islamic Societies (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), chapter 8. 56 Peter C. Scales, The Fall of the Caliphate of Córdoba: Berbers and Andalusis in Conflict (Leiden, New York, Koln: Brill, 1994). See the introduction, and chapter 4. 57 Lapidus, A History of Islamic Societies, chapter 18. 58 Janina M. Safran, The Second Umayyad Caliphate: The Articulation of Caliphal Legitimacy in Al-Andalus (Cambridge, ma: Center for Middle Eastern Studies, 2000), chapter 5. 59 Muhammad Qasim Zaman, Religion and Politics under the Early ‘Abbāsids: The Emergence of the Proto-Sunnī Elite (Leiden: Brill, 1997), chapter 3. 60 Amira K. Bennison, The Great Caliphs: The Golden Age of the ‘Abbasid Empire (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2009), chapter 5. 61 Jonathan Lyons, The House of Wisdom: How the Arabs Transformed Western Civilization (London: Bloomsbury, 2009). 62 Jim Al-Khalili, The House of Wisdom: How Arabic Science Saved Ancient Knowledge and Gave Us the Renaissance (New York: Penguin Books, 2012). 63 Chase F. Robinson, Islamic Civilization in Thirty Lives: The First 1,000 Years (Berkeley, ca: University of California Press, 2016), part I. 64 Linda Northrup, From Slave to Sultan: The Career of Al-Mans. ūr Qalāwūn and the Consolidation of Mameluke Rule in Egypt and Syria (678–689 A.H./1279–1290 A.D.) (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1998). 65 Wayne H. Bowen, The History of Saudi Arabia (Westport, cn: Greenwood Press, 2008), chapter 5. 66 Michael Crawford, “Religion and Religious Movements in the Gulf, 1700–1971,” in The Emergence of the Gulf States: Studies in Modern History, ed. J.E. Peterson (London: Bloomsbury, 2016), 63. See also the important work of David Commins, The Wahhabi Mission and Saudi Arabia (London and New York: I.B. Tauris, 2006), 40. 67 Davison, Reform in the Ottoman Empire. 68 Eugene Rogan, The Fall of the Ottomans: The Great War in the Middle

Notes to pages 36–8

69

70 71

72

73 74

75

76 77 78

79 80

169

East, 1914–1920 (New York and London: Basic Books and Penguin, 2015), chapter 5. See also Sean McMeekin, The Berlin-Baghdad Express: The Ottoman Empire and Germany’s Bid for World Power, 1898–1918 (London: Allen Lane, Penguin Books, 2010), chapter 6. Kees van Dijk, “Religion and the Undermining of British Rule in South and Southeast Asia during the Great War,” in Islamic Connections: Muslim Societies in South and Southeast Asia, ed. R. Michael Feener and Terenjit Sevea (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2009), 111–12. van Dijk, “Religion and the Undermining of British Rule in South and Southeast Asia during the Great War,” 113. Joel Dawson Rayburn, The Greatest Disaster: The Failure of Great Britain’s Ottoman Empire Policy, 1914 (West Point, ny: Military Academy, 2002), 118. Kemal H. Karpat, The Politicization of Islam: Reconstructing Identity, State, Faith, and the Community in the Late Ottoman State (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 394. Bernard Lewis, The Crisis of Islam: Holy War and Unholy Terror (New York: Random House, 2004), XVII. Diane Morgan, Essential Islam: A Comprehensive Guide to Belief and Practice (abc-clio, 2010), 87. Abou El Fadl, Khaled expresses that Quran has not a concept of Holy War, but the fight to defend Islam is always legitimized through qital. From this point of view, jihad is presented as a broader term. See The Great Theft: Wrestling Islam from the Extremists (New York: HarperOne, 2007), 222. Michael David Bonner, Aristocratic Violence and Holy War: Studies in the Jihad and the Arab-Byzantine Frontier (New Haven, cn: American Oriental Society, 1996), xiv. John L. Esposito, Unholy Wars: Terror in the Name of Islam (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), chapter 2. Ibid, 100. Kennedy’s important book shows us that the idea of the caliphate has been subject to transformations since the death of Prophet Mohammed, so that it has included both a tolerant policy and one leading to traumatic conflicts in different time periods. See Hugh Kennedy, Caliphate: The History of an Idea (New York: Basic Books, 2016). Shahab Ahmed, What Is Islam? The Importance of Being Islamic (Princeton, nj: Princeton University Press, 2016), 5, 6. Eric Linn Ormsby, Theodicy in Islamic Thought: The Dispute Over AlGhazali’s Best of All Possible Worlds (Princeton, nj: Princeton University Press, 1984), 20.

170

Notes to pages 38–41

81 Wilferd Modelung, “Universality in Mu’tazili Thought,” in Universality in Islamic Thought: Rationalism, Science and Religious Belief, ed. Michael Morony (London and New York: I.B. Tauris, 2014), 11, 17, 23. 82 M. Abdul Hye, “Ash’arism,” in A History of Islamic Philosophy, ed. M.M. Sharif. (Lahore: Pakistan Philosophical Congress, 1966), chapter 11. 83 Emraahim Moosa, What Is a Madrasa? (Chapel Hill, nc: University of North Carolina Press, 2015), 106, and see chapters 4 and 5 for other schools in Islam. 84 Saïd Amir Arjomand, Sociology of Shiʿite Islam: Collected Essays (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2016), 17. 85 Hossein Kamaly, God and Man in Tehran: Contending Visions of the Divine from the Qajars to the Islamic Republic (New York: Columbia University Press, 2018). 86 Quintan Wiktorowicz, “Anatomy of the Salafi Movement,” Studies in Conflict and Terrorism 29 (2006): 207–39. 87 Shiraz Maher, Salafi-Jihadism: The History of an Idea (London: C. Hurst and Co., 2016). 88 Sayyid Jamāl al-Dīn al-Afghānī, Muhammad Abduh and Khudai Khidmatgar, Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan can be noted as the progressive Islamic thinkers in that period. 89 Yohanan Friedmann, Prophecy Continuous – Aspects of Ahmadi Religious Thought and Its Medieval Background (Berkeley, ca: University of California Press, 1989). See also Simon Rose-Valentine, Islam and the Ahmadiyya Jama’at (London/New York: Hurst and Co., 2008), introduction. The followers of Ahmadiyya community are mostly identified as non-Muslims and the state authorities in Pakistan implement aggressive policies against the followers of Ghulam Ahmad. 90 Charles J. Adams, “Maududi and the Islamic State,” in Voices of Resurgent Islam, ed. John L. Esposito (New York: Oxford University Press, 1983), 99–103. See also Vali Reza Nasr, Mawdudi and the Making of Islamic Revivalism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996). 91 Irfan Ahmad, “Islam and Politics in South Asia,” in The Oxford Handbook of Islam and Politics, ed. John L. Esposito and Emad El-Din Shahin (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013), 327. 92 John Calvert, Sayyid Qutb and the Origins of Radical Islamism (New York: Columbia University Press, 2011), introduction. See also Ahmad S. Moussalli, Radical Islamic Fundamentalism: The Ideological and Political Discourse of Sayyid Qutb (Beirut: American University of Beirut, 1992). 93 Esposito, Unholy Wars: Terror in the Name of Islam, 17, 18. 94 Fazlur Rahman is interested in the ethical approach of the Quran; he

Notes to pages 41–5

171

argues that Islam is a religion open to transformation, but that this is mostly undermined by its conventional commentaries. See Revival and Reform in Islam: A Study of Islamic Fundamentalism (Oxford: Oneworld Publications, 1999). He recounts his own experience of reading Quran from a different perspective, which refutes its current interpretation as dominated by the commentaries, in “My Belief in Action,” in The Courage of Conviction, ed. Philip L. Berman (New York: Dodd, 1985), 55. 95 Kur’an Yolu Tefsiri Cilt: 1 (Istanbul: Diyanet İşleri Başkanlığı, 2014), 116–17. 96 Ariel I. Ahram, Proxy Warriors: The Rise and Fall of State-Sponsored Militias (Stanford, ca: Stanford University Press, 2011), chapter 1. CHAPTER TWO

1 Author’s translation of “Culture: le cri des hommes devant leur destin.” 2 Ann Swidler, “Culture in Action: Symbols and Strategies,” American Sociological Review 51 (1986): 273. 3 Millet literally means “nation.” However, the religious division between different peoples in the Ottoman Empire effectively made this term signify a confessional community whose members had the permission of Sultan to rule themselves according to their own religious jurisdiction. Jews were subject to Halakha, Orthodox or Catholic Christians were subject to Canon Law, and Muslims were subject to Sharia Law. The religious leaders of these communities were responsible for the peace and organization of their own people. Starting from the era of Mahmud II (r. 1808–39) and with the Tanzimat reforms, millet signified legallyprotected religious minority groups in the country. 4 Roderic H. Davison, Essays in Ottoman and Turkish History, 1774–1923: The Impact of the West (Austin, tx: University of Texas Press, 1990), 121. 5 Paschalis M. Kitromilides, “‘Imagined Communities’ and the Origins of National Question in the Balkans,” European History Quarterly 19 (1989): 149–94. 6 oa. a.mkt.um. 121/1, 1 R.Evvel 1269 – 13 December 1852. See also a.mkt.um. 120/9, 24 R.Ahir 1269 – 4 February 1853. 7 oa. a.amd., 41/44, 9 Rebiülevvel 1269 – 21 December 1852. 8 A Mutasarrıf was an administrative authority who was appointed by the central government, taking the approval of Sultan to deal with the governing issues of the commune where the Mutasarrıf was on duty. A Mutasarrıf in sanjaks was responsible for sustaining civil order and gov-

172

9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24

25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33

34

Notes to pages 45–53

erning issues. The term was institutionalized and consolidated during Tanzimat reforms of the 1860s. oa. i.hr., 89/4370, 5 Ramadan 1268 – 23 June 1852. Zafer Gölen, “1852–53 Karadağ Askerî Harekâtı ve Sonuçları,” History Studies 1 (2009): 220. Ibid. oa. a.mkt.um. 376/15, 9 R.Evvel 1276 – 6 October 1859. oa. a.mkt.um. 528/62, 28 C.Evvel 1278 – 1 December 1861. oa. hr.mkt. 320/51, 7 C.Evvel 1276 – 2 December 1859. oa. a.mkt.mvl. 123/79, 19 C.Evvel 1277 – 3 December 1860. oa. a.mkt.mvl. 146/88, 25 Zilkade 1278 – 24 May 1862. oa. oa. a.mkt.um. 505/67, 6 R.Evvel 1278 – 11 September 1861. oa. TŞRBNM. 16/20, 10 Şevval 1280 – 19 March 1864; see also TŞRBNM. 16/33, 12 Şevval 1280 – 21 March 1864. oa. a.mkt.um. 327/90, 25 Safer 1275 – 4 October 1858. oa. mvl. 991/93, 4 Muharrem 1281 – 9 June 1864. “Bihke” was the official name of this city during the Ottoman Empire. Gölen, “1852–53 Karadağ Askerî Harekâtı ve Sonuçları,” 127. oa. a.mkt.um. 130/11, 19 C.Evvel 1266 – 2 April 1850. Pinar Senisik, The Transformation of Ottoman Crete: Revolts, Politics and Identity in the Late Nineteenth Century (London and New York: I.B. Tauris, 2011), 10. oa. i.mtz.gr. 34/1409, 17 C.Evvel 1284 – 16 September 1867. “Ermiye” in Ottoman Turkish. oa. a.mkt.mvl. 111/17, 4 R.Evvel 1276 – 1 October 1859. Senisik, The Transformation of Ottoman Crete, 76. William J Stillman, The Cretan Insurrection of 1866–67–68 (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1874), 87. Duncan M. Perry, Stefan Stambolov and the Emergence of Modern Bulgaria (Durham, nc: Duke University Press, 1993), 31, 245. Reuven Firestone, Jihad: The Origin of Holy War in Islam (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 16–19. Gilles Kepel, Jihad: The Trail of Political Islam, trans. Anthony F. Roberts (Cambridge, ma: Harvard University Press, 2002), 24. John L. Esposito, Islam and Politics (Syracuse, ny: Syracuse University Press, 1998), 92–3. See also Gail Minault, The Khilafat Movement. Religious Symbolism and Political Mobilization in India (New York: Columbia University Press, 1982). Quintan Wiktorowicz and Karl Kaltenthaler, “The Rationality of Radical Islam,” Political Science Quarterly 121 (2006): 295.

Notes to pages 53–7

173

35 ‘Abd Allah bin Al-Mubarak, Kitab al-jihad (Beirut: Dar al-Tali’a, 1971), 30. 36 Fariba Nawa, “American Sufi from Texas to the Taliban, and Back,” Foreign Affairs, 12 October 2016, accessed 5 November 2016. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/2016–10–12 /american-sufi. 37 Catherine Wessinger, How the Millennium Comes Violently: From Jonestown to Heaven’s Gate (New York: Seven Bridges Press, 2000), 39. 38 Adam Shatz, “In Search of Hezbollah,” The New York Review of Books, 29 April 2004, accessed 10 March 2016. http://www.nybooks.com/articles/ 2004/04/29/in-search-of-hezbollah/. 39 Jeffrey Goldberg, “A Reporter at Large: In the Party of God (Part I),” The New Yorker, 14 October 2002, accessed 5 November 2015. http://www.jeffreygoldberg.net/articles/tny/a_reporter_at_large_in_the _par.php 40 “An Open Letter: The Hizballah Program,” Council on Foreign Relations, 1 January 1988, accessed 4 December 2015. http://www.cfr.org/terroristorganizations-and-networks/open-letter-hizballah-program/p30967. 41 Ahmad Nizar Hamzeh reveals the historical paradigm intriguingly in his important book In the Path of Hezbollah (Syracuse, ny: Syracuse University Press, 2004), 7. 42 Ibid, 27. See also Augustus R. Norton, Hezbollah: A Short History (Princeton, nj: Princeton University Press, 2007), 35–6. 43 Kai Bird, The Good Spy: The Life and Death of Robert Ames (New York: Random House, 2014), 288. 44 Shatz, “In Search of Hezbollah.” 45 Zeev Maoz, Defending the Holy Land: A Critical Analysis of Israel’s Security and Foreign Policy (Ann Arbor, mi: University of Michigan Press, 2006), 181. 46 Asher Kaufman, Reviving Phoenicia: The Search for Identity in Lebanon (London and New York: I.B. Tauris, 2004), 238. 47 For a meticulously detailed account of the role of Shebaa farms in the escalation process of violent conflicts, see Asher Kaufman, Contested Frontiers in the Syria-Lebanon-Israel Region: Cartography, Sovereignty, and Conflict (Washington, dc: Woodrow Wilson Center Press and Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014), chapters 12 and 13. 48 “Arab League Declares Hezbollah ‘Terrorist Organization,’” Annahar, 11 March 2016, accessed 5 April 2016. 49 Ibid. 50 The transcript of Hasan Nasrallah’s speech in Nabi Sheet on 24 Febru-

174

51

52

53 54 55 56

57 58

59 60 61 62 63 64

65 66 67 68

Notes to pages 58–61

ary 2012. Lebanon’s (Official) National News Agency, accessed on 7 January, 2016. http://www.webcitation.org/65hMOL3hg. “Obama Apologizes for Quran Burning in Afghanistan,” San Francisco Chronicle, 23 February 2012, accessed 14 March 2015. http://www.web citation.org/65hOKsVaf. Baashir Saade, Hizbullah and the Politics of Remembrance: Writing the Lebanese Nation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016), Chapters 2 and 5. Jean-Pierre Filiu, Gaza: A History, trans. John King (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016), 194. Edward Said, The Question of Palestine (New York: Vintage Books, 1979, 1992), 105, 106. Mark A. Tessler, A History of the Israeli and Palestininan Conflict (Bloomington and Indianapolis, in: Indiana University Press, 1994), 677. Amal Jamal, The Palestinian National Movement: Politics of Contention (Bloomington and Indianapolis, in: Indiana University Press, 2005), see chapters 1 and 2. Ruth Margolies Beitler, The Path to Mass Rebellion: An Analysis of Two Intifadas (London: Lexington Books, 2004), chapter 5. Beitler, The Path to Mass Rebellion, 129. “Hamas Covenant 1988,” The Avalon Project. Yale Law School. 18 August 1988, accessed 4 May 2015. http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/ hamas.asp. See Article 9 in the Covenant. See Article 12 in the Covenant. See Articles 13 and 15 in the Covenant. Graham Usher, Dispatches from Palestine: The Rise and Fall of the Oslo Peace Process (London: Pluto Press, 1999), 24. Alan Dowty, Israel/Palestine, third edition (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2012), 220. “Fatalities in the First Intifada,” B’Tselem – The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, accessed 7 May 2016. http://www.btselem.org/statistics/first_intifada_tables. Ibid. Laura Junka-Aikio, Late Modern Palestine: The Subject and Representation of the Second Intifada (London and New York: Routledge, 2016), 32. Beverley Milton-Edwards and Stephen Farrell, Hamas: The Islamic Resistance Movement (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2010), 85. The Ten Point Program. Approved by the Palestine National Council at the 12th Session, 8 June 1974. Israel and Judaism Studies, accessed 5 June 2015. http://www.ijs.org.au/The-Ten-Point-Program-/default.aspx.

Notes to pages 62–6

175

69 Penny Johnson, Lee O’Brien and Joost Hiltermann, “The West Bank Rises Up,” Intifada: The Palestinian Uprising against Israeli Occupation, ed. Zachary Lockman and Joel Beinin (Cambridge, ma: South End Press, 1989), 32. 70 Usher, Dispatches from Palestine, 141. 71 Gaza and West Bank – ICRC Bulletin No. 22/2007, accessed 5 June 2015. https://www.icrc.org/eng/resources/documents/news-release/2009and-earlier/israel-palestine-news-150607.htm. 72 The original name of the organization is Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades. 73 “Report: Hamas Weighing Large-Scale Conflict with Israel,” Ynetnews, 3 October 2006, accessed 7 July 2015. http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/ 0,7340,L-3310425,00.html. 74 “Confirmed Figures Reveal the True Extent of the Destruction Inflicted upon the Gaza Strip,” Palestinian Centre for Human Rights. If Americans Knew. 19 March 2009, accessed 7 July 2016. http://www.ifamericansknew.org/cur_sit/figures.html. 75 Said, The Question of Palestine, 106. 76 Report of the Independent Commission of Inquiry on the 2014 Gaza Conflict - A/HRC/29/52, accessed 5 August 2016. http://www.ohchr .org/EN/HRBodies/HRC/CoIGazaConflict/Pages/ReportCoIGaza.aspx. See also the casualties of Israel: “50 Days of Israel’s Gaza Operation, Protective Edge – by the Numbers,” Jerusalem Post, 28 August 2004 accessed 8 August 2016. http://www.jpost.com/Operation-Protective-Edge/50days-of-Israels-Gaza-operation-Protective-Edge-by-the-numbers372574. 77 Mark Juergensmeyer, Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence (Berkeley, ca: University of California Press, 2003), 190. 78 The Qur’an. A New Translation by M.A.S. Abdel Haleem (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 71. 79 “Hamas Presents New Charter Supporting Palestinian State along 1967 Borders,” Hareetz, 1 May 2017, accessed 8 May 2017. http://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/palestinians/1.786754. 80 “Read the Full Translated Text of the Leaked Hamas Charter,” Mondoweiss, 5 April 2017, accessed 7 May 2017. http://mondoweiss.net/2017 /04/translated-leaked-charter/#sthash.GzG8qh6x.dpuf. 81 “Full Transcript of Bin Ladin’s Speech,” Al Jazeera, 1 November 2004, accessed 5 September 2016. http://www.aljazeera.com/archive/2004/11/ 200849163336457223.html.

176

Notes to pages 67–8

82 Christopher Blanchard, “Al-Qaeda: Statements and Evolving Ideology,” Congressional Research Report for Congress, Order Code, RL 32759, updated 9 July 2007, 14–15. 83 Alex Strick van Linschoten and Felix Kuehn, An Enemy We Created: The Myth of the Taliban / Al-Qaeda Merger in Afghanistan, 1970–2010 (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012). 84 Gary D. Solis, The Law of Armed Conflict: International Humanitarian Law in War (Cambridge, ma: Cambridge University Press, 2016), 594. 85 Qutb, Milestones, 90. 86 Adnan Musallam, From Secularism to Jihad. Sayyid Qutb and the Foundations of Radical Islamism (Westport, ct: Greenwood Publishing, 2005), 51, 151. 87 Afghanistan, Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, 2001, US Department of State, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor. 4 March 2002. See also Ahmed Rashid, Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000), 107. 88 Lawrence Wright, The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 (New York: Knopf, 2006), 76. 89 Robert Fisk, “Interview with Saudi Dissident bin Laden,” Independent, 10 July 1996, accessed 9 November 2015. http://www.independent.co.uk/ voices/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-a-close-encounter-with-the-manwho-shook-the-world-2278035.html. 90 Michael Welch, “Trampling Human Rights in the War on Terror: Implications to the Sociology of Denial,” Critical Criminology 12 (2003): 1–20. 91 Carol A. Stabile and Deepa Kumar, “Unveiling Imperialism: Media, Gender and the War on Afghanistan,” Media, Culture and Society 2005 (27): 765–82. See also Jean Bricmont, Humanitarian Imperialism: Using Human Rights to Sell War (New York: New York University Press, 2006). 92 For the innovative “transubstantiory violence” concept, see Monica Ingber, The Politics of Conflict: Transubstantiatory Violence in Iraq (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2015). 93 Seymour M. Hersh, “Chain of Command. How the Department of Defence Mishandled the Disaster at Abu Ghraib,” The New Yorker, 17 May 2004, 38–43. See also Susan Sontag, “Regarding the Torture of Others,” The New York Times Magazine, 23 May 2004, accessed 7 April 2015. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/23/magazine/regarding-thetorture-of-others.html?_r=0.

Notes to pages 68–72

177

94 Usamah Bin Laden, “The Way to Save the Earth,” Inspire (2010), 9. 95 Anand Gopal, No Good Men among the Living: America, the Taliban, and the War through Afghan Eyes (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2014). 96 Kepel, Jihad, 24. 97 Mohammed M. Hafez, Suicide Bombers in Iraq. The Strategy and Ideology of Martyrdom (Washington, dc: USIP Press, 2007), 66. 98 Nasruddin later abandoned his Salafist ideas and returned to the US where he embraced a tolerant and mystical Sufi version of Islam. For more information about Nasruddin, see Fariba Nawa, “American Sufi from Texas to the Taliban, and Back,” Foreign Affairs, 12 October 2006, accessed 23 November 2016. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles /united-states/2016–10–12/american-sufi. 99 Peter Neumann, Radicalized: New Jihadists and the Threat to the West (London and New York. I.B. Tauris, 2016) 100 Jamal Al-Sharif, “Salafis in Sudan: Non-Interference or Confrontation,” Al Jazeera, 3 July 2012, accessed 7 March 2015. http://studies.aljazeera .net/en/reports/2012/07/20127395530326675.html. 101 “World Islamic Front for Jihad against Jews and Crusaders: Initial ‘Fatwa’ Statement,” Al-Quds al-Arabi, London. 23 February 1998, accessed 5 May 2016. https://www.library.cornell.edu/colldev /mideast/fatw2.htm. 102 Mohammad Shehzad, “The Rediff/Interview Mullah Omar,” Rediff, 12 April 2004, accessed 7 September 2015. http://www.rediff.com/news /2004/apr/12inter.htm. 103 Lewelyn Morgan, The Buddhas of Bamiyan (Cambridge, ma: Harvard University Press), 20–1. 104 “Al-Qaeda Threatens Britain over Rushdie Knighthood,” npr, 10 July 2007, accessed 19 June 2015, http://www.npr.org/templates/story /story.php?storyId=11852174. 105 Alice Harrold, “Al-Qaeda Leader Ayman Al-Zawahri Urges Young Muslim Men to Launch Lone-Wolf Attacks on American Homes,” Independent, 13 September 2015, accessed 7 November 2016, http://www .independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/al-qaeda-leader-ayman-alzawahri-urges-young-muslim-men-to-launch-lone-wolf-attacks-onamerican-10498615.html. 106 Ayman al-Zawahiri, “Letter from al-Zawahiri to al-Zarqawi,” 9 June 2005, accessed 8 June 2016, http://hdl.handle.net/10066/4798. 107 “Purported al-Zarqawi Tape: Democracy a Lie,” cnn International, 23

178

108

109

110

111

112

113 114 115

116

117

Notes to pages 72–4

January 2005, accessed 3 June 2016, http://edition.cnn.com/2005 /WORLD/meast/01/23/iraq.main/. Ali S. Asani,‘“So That You May Know One Another’: A Muslim American Reflects on Pluralism and Islam,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 588 (2003): 40–51. “More than 100 Children Killed in Taliban Attack on Pakistan School,” The Guardian, 16 December 2014, accessed 2 July 2016, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/dec/16/taliban-attack-armypublic-school-pakistan-peshawar. “Al-Qaeda ‘Bursting with Pain’ over Pakistan School Attack,” Times of India, 21 December 2014, accessed 4 August 2016, http://timesofindia .indiatimes.com/world/south-asia/Al-Qaida-bursting-with-pain-overPakistan-school-attack/articleshow/45594154.cms. “Afghanistan: 300 Schoolgirls Hit by Suspected Taliban Poison Gas Attacks in Herat, International Business Times, 4 September 2015, accessed 3 October 2016, http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/afghanistan-300schoolgirls-hit-by-suspected-taliban-poison-gas-attacks-herat1518418. James Toth, Sayyid Qutb: The Life and Legacy of a Radical Islamic Intellectual (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2013). See also Nikkie R. Keddie, An Islamic Response to Imperialism (Berkeley, ca: University of California Press, 1968) and Efraim Karsh, Islamic Imperialism: A History (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2007). Farhad Khosrokhavar, Inside Jihadism: Understanding Jihadi Movements Worldwide (Boulder, co: Paradigm Publishers, 2009). Syed Saleem Shahzad, Inside Al-Qaeda and the Taliban: Beyond bin Laden and 9/11 (London: Pluto Press, 2011), part 3. William McCants, isis: Inside the Army of Terror (New York: Macmillan, 2015), chapter 1. See also Fawaz A. Gerges, isis: A History (Princeton, nj: Princeton University Press, 2016), chapter 2. ‘Abdul ‘Azeez Bin Yahyaa, one of the most important Salafi scholars and the Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia, emphasizes the importance of shirk, tawhid, and bid’a for converts to Islam. Shaikh ‘Abdul ‘Azeez Bin Yahyaa Al Bur’ee, A Concise Manual for the New Muslim (USA: Salafi Ink Publications, 2012). For more information about the role of shirk and traditional discussions about it, see An Explanation of Muhammed Ibn Abd al-Wahhab’s “Kashf al-shubuhat”: A Critical Analysis of Shirk, trans. Yasir Qadhi (Birmingham, uk: Al-Hidaayah, 2003). “MHP ve CHP’den Gul’e Suudi Kral Tepkisi,” cnn Turk, 12 November 2007, accessed 10 September 2016, http://www.cnnturk.com

Notes to pages 74–5

118

119

120

121

122

123

124

125

126

127

179

/2007/turkiye/11/12/mhp.ve.chpden.gule.suudi.kral.tepkisi /404242.0/ “How an Arrest in Iraq Revealed Isis’s $2 Bn Jihadist Network,” The Guardian, 15 June 2014, accessed 7 June 2015, https://www.theguardian .com/world/2014/jun/15/iraq-isis-arrest-jihadists-wealth-power. See also Michelle Nichols, “un Security Council Ups Pressure on Islamic State Financing,” Reuters, 12 February 2015, accessed 8 June 2015, http://www .reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-un-idUSKBN0LG1YN20150212. Hawar Berwani, “isil Orders Destruction of All Churches in Mosul,” Iraqi News, 16 June 2014, accessed 19 July 2016, http://www.iraqinews .com/iraq-war/isil-instructs-to-destroy-churches-in-mosul/. “Isis Destroys Historic Christian and Muslim Shrines in Northern Iraq,” The Guardian, 20 March 2015, accessed 18 July 2015, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/20/isis-destroys-historicchristian-muslim-shrines-iraq. “Shock New Video Shows Isis Thugs Smashing Historic Iraqi City Nimrud,” Azerbaijani News Network, 13 April 2015, accessed 3 May, 2015, http://ann.az/en/shock-new-video-shows-isis-thugs-smashing-historic-iraqi-city-of-nimrud/#.WGyu0vIl_Ho. “Islamic State: 2,000-Year-Old Ruins in Ancient Hatra City Destroyed by Militants,” ABC News, 7 March 2015, accessed 6 May 2015, http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015–03–08/islamic-state-militants-razeiraq-ancient-hatra-city/6288618. “Hatra Destruction ‘War Crime’, Says un Chief in Wake of isil Destruction of Heritage Site.” un News Centre, 7 March 2015, accessed 4 May 2015, http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=50273. Though Isis lost control of Palmyra later, they managed to retake it in December 2016. See “Islamic State Retakes Historic City of Palmyra,” The Guardian, 10 December 2016, accessed 12 December 2016, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/dec/11/islamic-state-retakespalmyra-syria. “Isis Blows up Arch of Triumph in 2,000-year-old City of Palmyra,” The Guardian, 5 October 2015, accessed 7 October 2015, https://www.the guardian.com/world/2015/oct/05/isis-blows-up-another-monument-in2000-year-old-city-of-palmyra. “isis Has Reportedly Bulldozed Two of the World’s Most Important Ancient Cities,” Science Alert, 11 November 2016, accessed 13 November 2016, http://www.sciencealert.com/two-iconic-ancient-cities-havereportedly-been-destroyed-by-isis-in-iraq. “It’s Time to End the Boycott of Iraqi and Syrian Academics,”

180

128

129

130

131

132

133

134

135 136

137

Notes to pages 75–7

Worldpost, 7 January 2016, accessed 5 February 2016, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/its-time-to-end-the-boycott-ofiraqi-and-syrian-academics_us_57768eb7e4b04164640fb5ff?cfrib fohftmi8jjor. The important book by Dina Rizk Khoury explains the relationship between the state and the province in Mosul successfully. See State and Provincial Society in the Ottoman Empire: Mosul 1540–1834 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997). “In Iraq, Islamic State Jihadists Destroy Ancient Mosques, Shrines,” India Times, 5 July 2014, accessed 27 July 2014, http://timesofindia .indiatimes.com/world/middle-east/In-Iraq-Islamic-State-jihadistsdestroy-ancient-mosques-shrines/articleshow/37852766.cms. “The Battle for Babylon,” The Guardian, 16 April 2006, accessed 15 April 2016, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2006 /apr/16/thebattleforbabylon. Paul Newman, “The Etymology of Hausa Boko,” Mega-Chad Research Network, 2013. http://lah.soas.ac.uk/projects/megachad/misc .html. Mohammed Aly Sergie and Toni Johnson, “Boko Haram. CFR Backgrounders,” Council on Foreign Relations, 5 March 2015, accessed 6 April 2015, http://www.cfr.org/nigeria/boko-haram/p25739. “Nigeria: Government Knew of Planned Boko Haram Kidnapping but Failed to Act,” Amnesty International uk, 9 May 2014, accessed 19 May 2015, https://www.amnesty.org.uk/press-releases/nigeria-governmentknew-planned-boko-haram-kidnapping-failed-act. “Isis Claims ‘Schweppes Can Bomb’ Blew up Russian Metrojet Flight 9268 in Egypt’s Sinai – Dabiq,” International Business Times, 18 November 2015, accessed 14 December 2015, http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/isisclaim-schweppes-can-bomb-blew-russian-metrojet-flight-9268-egyptssinai-dabiq-1529374. Cook, Understanding Jihad, X. “43 Killed, 239 Wounded in Beirut Twin Blasts; Islamic State Claims Responsibility,” Firstpost, 13 November 2015, accessed 15 November 2015, http://www.firstpost.com/world/41-killed-200-wounded-in-beiruttwin-blasts-is-claims-responsibility-2504508.html. “Paris Attacks: Day after Atrocity – As It Happened,” The Guardian, 14 November 2015, accessed 4 December 2015, https://www.theguardian .com/world/live/2015/nov/14/paris-terror-attacks-attackers-dead-masskilling-live-updates.

Notes to pages 77–8

181

138 “Paris Attacks Death Toll Rises to 130,” RTE News, 20 November 2015, accessed 1 December 2015, http://www.rte.ie/news/2015/1120/747897paris/. 139 George W. Gawrych, The Young Ataturk: From Ottoman Soldier to Statesman of Turkey (London and New York: I.B. Tauris, 2013), 6. See also Erik-jan Zurcher, The Young Turk Legacy and Nation Building: From the Ottoman Empire to Ataturk’s Turkey (London and New York: I.B. Tauris, 2010). 140 John R. Bowen, Can Islam Be French? Pluralism and Pragmatism in a Secular State (Princeton, nj: Princeton University Press, 2010). See also “After Paris Attacks, a Darker Mood toward Islam Emerges in France,” New York Times, 16 November 2015, accessed 3 December 2015, http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/17/world/europe/after-paris-attacks-adarker-mood-toward-islam-emerges-in-france.html. 141 For the impact of terror on the political landscape of France, see the important work of Christophe Chowanietz, Bombs, Bullets, and Politicians: France’s Response to Terrorism (Montreal and Kingston: McGillQueen’s University Press, 2016). 142 “Suicide Bombers Attack Sites in Saudi Arabia Including Mosque in Medina,” The Guardian, 5 July 2016, accessed 4 August 2016, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jul/04/saudi-arabia-bombings-jeddah-medina-prophets-mosque-qatif. 143 “isis Leader Al-Baghdadi Calls for Destruction of Kaaba Stone,” World News Daily Report, 28 June 2016, accessed 4 July 2016, http://worldnews dailyreport.com/isis-leader-calls-for-destruction-of-kaaba-stone/. 144 “isil Claims Deadly Attacks in France and Germany,” Hurriyet Daily News, 26 July 2016, accessed 27 July 2016, http://www.hurriyetdaily news.com/isil-claims-deadly-attacks-in-france-and-germany.aspx?page ID=238&nID=102123&NewsCatID=351. 145 “You Christians, You Kill Us,” Daily Mail Online, 26 July 2016, accessed 27 July 2016, http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3708394/Twomen-armed-knives-people-hostage-French-church.html. 146 “isil Releases Video of Church Attackers Pledging Allegiance,” Politico, 27 July 2016, accessed 28 July 2016, http://www.politico.eu/article /video-church-attackers-terrorists-allegeance-is-released/. 147 “Türkiye’de yaşayan 13 yaşındaki cihatçı: IŞİD isterse Türkiye’ye saldırırım,” Cumhuriyet, 6 November 2014, accessed 17 June 2016, http://www.cumhuriyet.com.tr/haber/turkiye/137881/Turkiye_de_yasay an_13_yasindaki_cihatci__ISiD_isterse_Turkiye_ye_saldiririm.html. 148 Ibid.

182

Notes to pages 79–85 CHAPTER THREE

1 Fathali M. Moghaddam, “Cultural Preconditions for Potential Terrorist Groups: Terrorism and Societal Change,” in Understanding Terrorism: Psychosocial Roots, Consequences, and Interventions, ed. Anthony J. Marsella (Washington, dc: American Psychological Association, 2004), 103–17. 2 Ernest Gellner, Nations and Nationalism (Ithaca, ny: Cornell University Press, 1983), 1. 3 Max Weber, From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology, trans. H.H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills (New York: Oxford University Press, 1946). See also Bryan S. Miller’s preface to a later edition (London and New York: Routledge, 2009), 122. 4 Charles A. Frazee, The Orthodox Church and Independent Greece, 1821–1852 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 56. 5 It is estimated that over a half million people lost their lives after the invasion. See Amy Hagopian, et. al., “Mortality in Iraq Associated with the 2003–2011 War and Occupation: Findings from a National Cluster Sample Survey by the University Collaborative Iraq Mortality Study,” PLoS Medicine 10 (2013): 2. 6 Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London: Verso, 1991), 6–7. 7 James D. Fearon and David D. Latin, “Review: Violence and the Social Construction of Ethnic Identity,” International Organization 2000 (54): 851. 8 Karen Horney, Neurosis and Human Growth: The Struggle toward Self-Realization (New York: W.W. Norton, 1950). 9 Géza Róheim, The Origin and Function of Culture (New York: Nervous and Mental Disease Monographs, 1943), 74. 10 Herbert Marcuse, Eros and Civilization: A Philosophical Inquiry into Freud, second edition (Boston, ma: Beacon Press, 1966), 12. 11 Ed Husain, The Islamist: Why I Joined Radical Islam in Britain, What I Saw Inside and Why I Left (New York: Penguin Books, 2007). 12 See Oskar Verkaaik’s article regarding the situation in Karachi, “Notes on the Sublime: Aspects of Political Violence in Urban Pakistan,” Terror and Media 11 (2013): 109–19. 13 Herbert C. Kelman, “Violence without Moral Restraint: Reflections on the Dehumanization of Victims and Victimizers,” American Psychologist 27 (1973): 25. 14 Nick Haslam and Steve Loughnan, “How Dehumanization Promotes Harm,” in The Social Psychology of Good and Evil, second edition, ed. Arthur G. Miller (New York: Guildford Press), 150.

Notes to pages 85–91

183

15 Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1951). 16 Haslam and Loughnan, “How Dehumanization Promotes Harm,” 152. 17 Richard J. Bernstein, Why Read Hannah Arendt Now? (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2018). 18 Ibid. 19 Matthew Arnold, Culture and Anarchy: An Essay in Political and Social Criticism (London: Smith, Elder and Co., 1869), 38–9. 20 Ibid, 69. 21 Edward Burnett Tylor, Primitive Culture: Researches into the Development of Mythology, Philosophy, Religion, Language, Art, and Custom (London: John Murray, 1871), 1. 22 Norbert Elias, Norbert Elias on Civilization, Power, and Knowledge: Selected Writings, ed. Stephen Mennel and Johan Goudsblom (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1998), 218. 23 Ehsan Yar-Shater, The History of al-Tabari. Volume XII, trans. Yohannan Friedmann, ed. Ehsan Yar-Shater (Albany, ny: State University of New York Press, 1992), 191. 24 Karen Amstrong, “Jerusalem: The Problems and Responsibilities of Sacred Space,” Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations 13 (2002): 189–96. 25 Riaz Hassan, Suicide Bombings (Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 2011), 79. 26 The strategic importance of jihadist suicide bombers is underlined by Robert A. Pape in Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism (New York: Random House, 2005) and Mia Bloom, Dying to Kill: The Allure of Suicide Terror (New York: Columbia University Press, 2005). 27 Erich Fromm, The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1973), 4. 28 Ibid, 207. 29 Karl Mannheim, Ideology and Utopia: An Introduction to the Sociology of Knowledge (London: Routledge, 1936), 202. 30 Manus I. Midlarsky, Origins of Political Extremism: Mass Violence in the Twentieth Century and Beyond (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 362. 31 Lawrence Wright, “The Rebellion within: An Al Qaeda Mastermind Questions Terrorism,” The New Yorker, 2 June 2008, accessed 6 July 2016, http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2008/06/02/the-rebellion-within. 32 Erich Fromm, The Revolution of Hope: Towards a Humanized Technology (New York: Harper and Row, 1968), 90. 33 Stephen Reicher, S. Alexander Haslam, and Rakshi Rath, “Making a Virtue of Evil: A Five-Step Social Identity Model of the Development of

184

Notes to pages 91–5

Collective Hate,” Social Personality and Psychology Compass 2 (2008): 1313–44. See also S. Alexander Haslam and Stephen Reicher, “Beyond the Banality of Evil: Three Dynamics of an Interactionist Social Psychology of Tyranny,” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 33 (2007): 615–22. 34 Stanley Milgram, Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View (London: Tavistock Publications, 1974). 35 Lisa K. Fazio, Sarah J. Barber, Suparna Rajaram, Peter A. Ornstein, and Elizabeth J. Marsh, “Creating Illusions of Knowledge: Learning Errors that Contradict Prior Knowledge,” Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 142 (2013): 1–5. CHAPTER FOUR

1 Voivode is a Slavic term meaning “military commander,” but it was mostly used by the Ottoman Empire as the title of the governor of a town in the Balkans. 2 Subashi (Subaşı) is an official Ottoman title which signifies the commander or governor of a town or a castle. 3 Mark Pinson, “Ottoman Bulgaria in the First Tanzimat Period – The Revolts in Niš (1841) and Vidin (1850),” Middle Eastern Studies 11 (1975): 142. This phrase used by Pinson was derived from D. Kosev, ‘V’stanieto na Selianite v Sverozapadna B’lgariia prez 1850 g. i Negovite Prichini,’ Istoricheski Pregled (hereafter ‘I. P.‘), VI, kn. 4–5, (1949–50), 482. 4 Immanuel Wallerstein, Hale Decdeli, and Reşat Kasaba, “The Incorporation of the Ottoman Empire into the World-Economy,” in The Ottoman Empire and the World-Economy, ed. Huri Islamoğlu-Inan (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 90. A mültezim was a risktaker and entrepreneur who mainly collected tax but sometimes governed the town. Tax collection was awarded to the highest bidder in the Ottoman Empire, so if a mültezim collected more than he needed to send to the Porte, he made a profit. If the mültezim failed to send the contractual amount, however, his assets might be confiscated, or he might go to prison. This system led to mültezims victimizing local people. See Murat Çizakça, A Comparative Evolution of Business Partnerships: The Islamic World and Europe with Specific References to Ottoman Archives (Leiden: Brill, 1996), 141. 5 İltizam was a form that empowered local elites by granting them the right to collect the farm tax on behalf of the state. 6 Halil İnalcık, “Tanzimatın Uygulanması ve Sosyal Tepkileri,” in Osmanli

Notes to pages 95–102

7 8 9 10

11 12 13 14

15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34

185

Imparatorluğu Toplum ve Ekonomi Üzerinde Arşiv Çalışmaları ve İncelemeleri, ed. Halil İnalcık (Istanbul: Eren Yayıncılık, 1993), 369. Law-enforcement agencies which performed the duties of the police. Donald Quataert, The Ottoman Empire, 1700–1922 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 66. Arthur Evans was an archaeologist, a sympathizer with the insurgents, and an English traveler in Bosnia at that time. Arthur J. Evans, Through Bosnia and the Herzegovina on Foot during the Insurrection, August and September 1875: With an Historical Review of Bosnia, and a Glimpse at the Croats, Slavonians, and the Ancient Republic of Ragusa (London: Longmans, Green, 1877), 346. bao. mvl. 911/32, 19 Receb 1274 – 5 March 1858. Ahmet Uzun, Tanzimat ve Sosyal Direnişler. Niş Üzerine Ayrıntılı Bir İnceleme (1841) (Istanbul: Eren, 2002), 37. Uzun, Tanzimat ve Sosyal Direnişler, 47. Halil İnalcık, “Tanzimatın Uygulanması ve Sosyal Tepkiler,” in Tanzimat. Değişim Sürecinde Osmanlı İmparatorluğu, ed. Halil Inalcik and Mehmet Seyithanoğlu (İstanbul: Türkiye İş Bankası Yayınları, 2006), 188. 1 kurush (kuruş) equals 40 para. İnalcık, “Tanzimat’in Uygulanmasi ve Sosyal Tepkiler,” 188. Uzun, Tanzimat ve Sosyal Direnişler, 47–9. Ibid., 51–2. Ibid., 77–8. Ibid., 13–15. The present name of this province is Sliven oa. a.mkt.um. 238/99, 5 Şevval 1272 – 9 June 1856. oa. a.mkt.um. 413/46, 19 Z.hicce 1276 – 8 July 1860. oa. a.mkt.um. 38/95, 8 Muharrem 1267 – 13 November 1850. oa. a.mkt.um. 296/68, 19 R.ahir 1274 – 7 December 1857. oa. hat 408/21251 F, 13 Z.hicce 1254 – 27 February 1839. oa. hr.mkt. 138/52, 1 Receb 1272 – 8 March 1856. oa. hat 405/21176 B, 25 Ramadan 1251- 14 January 1836 and hat 40521176 A, 27 Ramadan 1251 – 16 January 1836. oa. hat 414/2146, 29 Z.hicce 1251 – 16 April 1836. The present name of this is Bitola. oa. hat 408/21246 O, 19 R.ahir 1251 – 14 August 1835. oa. hat 408/21246 H, 17 R.ahir 1251 – 12 August 1835. oa. hat 408/21246 A, 21 Receb 1251 – 12 November 1835 and hat 408 21246 B, 21 R.ahir 1251 – 16 August 1835. oa. hat 422/21739 C, 25 C.ahir 1251 – 18 October 1835.

186

35 36 37 38

39

40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50

51

52 53

54

Notes to pages 102–8

oa. hat 413/21454 B, 29 Z.hicce 1254 – 15 March 1839. oa. hat 413/21455 N, 26 Safer 1251 – 23 June 1835. oa. hat 408/21251 F, 13 Z.hicce 1254 – 27 February 1839. Rumen Daskalov, The Making of a Nation in the Balkans: Historiography of the Bulgarian Revival (Budapest and New York: Central European University Press, 2004). Maria N. Todorova, Bones of Contention: The Living Archive of Vasil Levski and the Making of Bulgaria’s National Hero (Budapest and New York: ceu Press, 2009), 181–2. Vangel K. Sugareff, “The Constitution of the Bulgarian Revolutionary Central Committee,” The Journal of Modern History 4 (1932), 74. Ibid., 573. Ibid. Richard. J. Crampton, Bulgaria (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 89. Crampton, Bulgaria, 90. oa. a.mkt.mvl. 105–78, 7 Sha’aban 1275–12 March 1859. oa. a.mkt.mvl. 117–24, 6 Muharrem 1277 – 25 July 1860. oa. a.mkt.nzd. 183–65, 22 Sha’aban 1272 – 28 April 1856. oa. i.dh. 562/39130, 26 Z.hicce 1283 – 1 May 1867. oa. i.dh. 579/40345, 24 R.evvel 1285 – 15 July 1868. Hizbollah, Open Letter, 16 February 1985. The manifesto was published under the title of “Nass al-Risala al-Maftuha allati wajahaha Hizballah ila-l-Mustad’afin fi Lubnan wa-l-Alam,” in al-Safir (Beirut). The translation of the text can be found at http://web.archive.org/web/20060821 215729/http://www.ict.org.il/Articles/Hiz_letter.htm. See also Itamar Robinovich and Jehuda Reinharz, Israel in the Middle East: Documents and Readings on Society, Politics, and Foreign Relations pre-1948 to the Present (Waltham, ma: Brandeis University Press, 2008), 425. Melani Cammett, Compassionate Communalism: Welfare and Sectarianism in Lebanon (Ithaca, ny: Cornell University Press, 2014), 71–2. Hezbollah has participated in the elections since 1992 and gained two seats in the cabinet in the 2009 elections under the Loyalty to the Resistance Bloc. Judith Palmer Harik, Hezbollah: The Changing Face of Terrorism (London: I.B. Tauris, 2004), see chapter 7. “Hezbollah’s Secret Weapon,” cnn, 26 July 2006, accessed 22 January 2018, http://edition.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/07/24/schuster .hezbollah/index.html. Jackson Allers, “Hezbollah ahead of Lebanese Govt in Reconstruction,” 13 September 2016. http://www.antiwar.com/scheuer/?articleid=9694.

Notes to pages 109–11

187

55 Ibid. 56 See the ideological playbook of Hezbollah, Yom Eddin, which means “The Day of Faith.” Amir Tahari, Holy Terror: Inside the World of Islamic Terrorism (Bethesda, md: Adler and Adler, 1987), 276. 57 Filippo Dionigi, Hezbollah, Islamist Politics and International Society (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), chapter 4. Matthew Levitt, Hezbollah: The Global Footprint of Lebanon’s Party of God (London: Hurst and Co., 2013), 11. 58 Barak Ravid, “Man Detained in Cyprus Was Planning Attack on Israeli Targets for Hamas,” Haaretz, 14 July 2012, accessed 17 July 2016, http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/man-detained-in-cyprus-was-planning-attack-on-israeli-targets-for-hezbollah-1.451000. See also “Bulgaria Blames Hezbollah in Bomb Attack against Israelis,” Reuters, 5 February 2013, accessed 10 March 2016, http://www.reuters.com/article/us-bulgariabombing-idUSBRE9140TZ20130205. 59 “Tel Aviv Diary. Netanyahu Loses His Security Edge,” Newsweek, 12 January 2015, accessed 13 June 2016, accessed 3 August 2016, http://europe.newsweek.com/tel-aviv-diary-netanyahu-loses-his-securityedge-302676?rm=eu. 60 Dominique Avon and Anaïs-Trissa Khatchadourian, Hezbollah: A History of the “Party of God” (Cambridge, ma: Harvard University Press, 2012). 61 The original name of Fatah was Harakat al-tah. rīr al-wat. anī al-Filast. īnī, which means “The Palestinian National Liberation Movement.” The organization gained an institutional character in 1965 after its recognition as a political party. 62 Jonathan Schanzer, Hamas vs. Fatah. The Struggle for Palestine (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), 2. 63 “Hamas Covenant 1988, the Covenant of the Islamic Resistance Movement,” 18 August 1988. The Avalon Project Document. Yale Law School, accessed 5 June 2016, http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/hamas.asp. 64 Greham Usher, “The Democratic Resistance: Hamas, Fatah, and the Palestinian Elections,” Journal of Palestine Studies 35 (2006): 20–36. See also Khaled Hroub, Hamas: A Beginner’s Guide (London: Pluto Press, 2006). 65 Khaled Hroub, “A ‘New Hamas’ through Its New Documents,” Journal of Palestine Studies 35 (2006): 6–28. 66 Ilan Pappé, The Bureaucracy of Evil: The History of the Israeli Occupation (Oxford: One World Publications, 2012). 67 Bernard Rougier, Everyday Jihad: The Rise of Militant Islam among Palestinians in Lebanon, trans. Pascale Ghazaleh (Cambridge, ma.: Harvard University Press, 2009).

188

Notes to pages 111–13

68 Turkey and Qatar are the countries that most explicitly defend Hamas and recognize it as a legitimate political party. 69 Alistair Dawber, “Tales from Gaza: What’s Life Really Like in ‘The World’s Largest Outdoor Prison,” The Independent, 12 April 2013, accessed 5 May 2015, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world /middle-east/tales-from-gaza-what-is-life-really-like-in-the-worlds-largestoutdoor-prison-8567611.html. 70 “Open Gaza’s Crossings,” editorial in Haaretz, 7 June 2015, accessed 9 June 2015, http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/1.659942. 71 Noam Chomsky, “My Visit to Gaza. The World’s Largest Open-air Prison,” interview with Alistair Dawber, Truthout, 9 November 2012, accessed 6 December 2015, http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/12635noam-chomsky-my-visit-to-gaza-the-worlds-largest-open-air-prison. 72 Rodric Braithwaite, Afgantsy: The Russians in Afghanistan (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), see part 3. 73 Alex Strick van Linschoten and Felix Kuehn, An Enemy We Created: The Myth of the Taliban-Al Qaeda Merger in Afghanistan (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), chapters 4 and 5. 74 Steve Coll, Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the cia, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001 (New York: Penguin Press, 2004). 75 Stephen Holmes, “Al-Qaeda, September 11, 2001,” in Making Sense of Suicide Missions, ed. Diego Gambetta (New York: Oxford University Press), 165. 76 John Miller, “Usama Bin Laden: ‘American Soldiers Are Paper Tigers,’” The Middle East Quarterly 1998 (5): 73–9. 77 Holmes, “Al-Qaeda, September 11, 2001,” 169. 78 “Bin Laden Takes on Capitalism,” Los Angeles Times, 8 September 2007, accessed 4 October 2016, http://articles.latimes.com/2007/sep/08/world/fg-binladen8. 79 Robert Mason, Foreign Policy in Iran and Saudi Arabia. Economics and Diplomacy in the Middle East (London and New York: I.B. Tauris, 2015), chapter 3; Peter Dale Scott, Drugs, Oil, and War: The United States in Afghanistan, Colombia, and Indochina (Lanham, md: Rowman and Littlefield, 2003), chapter 2; Kylie Baxter and Kumuda Simpson, “The United States and Saudi Arabia through Arab Uprisings,” Global Change, Peace and Security 27 (2015): 139–51. 80 Robert Baer, Sleeping with the Devil: How Washington Sold Our Soul for Saudi Crude (New York: Three Rivers Press, 2004). See chapters 4 and 5.

Notes to pages 113–16

189

81 Patrick Cockburn, The Rise of Islamic State: Isis and the New Sunni Revolution (London: Verso, 2015). 82 David Cortright and George A. Lopez, “Strategic Counter Terrorism,” in Uniting Against Terror: Cooperative Nonmilitary Responses to the Global Terrorist Threat, ed. David Cortright and George A. Lopez (Cambridge, ma: mit Press, 2007), 5. 83 Benjamin Isakhan, “Introduction: The Iraq Legacies: Intervention, Occupation, Withdrawal and Beyond,” in The Legacy of Iraq: From the 2003 War to the ‘Islamic State,’ ed. Benjamin Isakhan (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2015), 1–18. Along with this important article, other essays in this book shed light upon the legacy of invasion in Iraq and how it led the surge of violence in the region. 84 Abdel Bari Atwan, Islamic State: The Digital Caliphate (London: Saqi Books, 2015), chapter 6. 85 Lawrence Wright, “The Master Plan: Annals of Terrorism,” The New Yorker, 11 September 2006, accessed 5 October 2015, http://www.newyorker .com/magazine/2006/09/11/the-master-plan. 86 Peter L. Bergen, The Osama Bin Laden I Know: An Oral History of Al Qaeda’s Leader (New York: Free Press, 2006), 244. 87 Hassan Hassan, “A Jihadist Blueprint for Hearts and Minds Is Gaining Traction in Syria,” The National, 4 March 2014, accessed 5 March 2014, http://www.thenational.ae/thenationalconversation/comment/a-jihadistblueprint-for-hearts-and-minds-is-gaining-traction-in-syria. 88 “From Agassi to Al Nusra. Assad experience in jihadi investment!” Al Arabiya Institute for Studies, 6 July 2013, https://web.archive.org/web /20141016223117/http://estudies.alarabiya.net/content/agassi-al-nusra assad-experience-jihadi-investment. 89 “Al-Qaeda Propaganda Chief Killed in Pakistan Strike,” Irish Times, 1 November 2008, accessed 4 December 2015, http://www.irishtimes.com /news/al-qaeda-propaganda-chief-killed-in-pakistan-strike-1.830986. 90 Abu Bakr Naji, The Management of Savagery: The Most Critical Stage through Which the Umma Will Pass, trans. William McCants and John M. Elin (Boston, ma: Institute for Strategic Studies at Harvard University, 2006), 44. 91 Ibid., 21. 92 “Full Text: Bin Laden’s Warning,” bbc News, 7 October 2001, accessed 5 June 2015, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2455845.stm. 93 “Inside Al Qaeda’s Plot to Blow Up an American Airliner,” The New York Times, 22 February 2017, accessed 25 February 2017, https://mobile.ny

190

Notes to pages 117–19

times.com/2017/02/22/us/politics/anwar-awlaki-underwear-bomberabdulmutallab.html?referer. 94 Ibid. 95 The official name of Al-Nusra is Jabhat an-Nus. rah li-Ahli ash-Shām, which literally means “The Support Front for the People of Al-Sham.” 96 “An Internal Struggle: Al-Qaeda’s Syrian Affiliate Is Grappling with Its Identity,” Huffington Post, 31 May 2015, accessed 4 June 2015, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/charles-lister/an-internal-struggle-alq_b_7479730.html. 97 “Syrian Nusra Front Announces Split from al-Qaeda,” bbc News, 28 July 2016, accessed 2 August 2016, http://www.bbc.com/news/worldmiddle-east-36916606. 98 “Nusra Confirms Split with al-Qaeda ‘To Protect the Syrian Revolution,’” Middle East Eye, 28 July 2016, accessed 2 August 2016 http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/nusra-front-announces-officialsplit-al-qaeda-520293064. 99 “Al-Nusra Leader Jolani Announces Split from al-Qaeda,” Al Jazeera, 28 July 2016, accessed 3 August 2016, http://www.aljazeera.com/news /2016/07/al-nusra-leader-jolani-announces-split-al-qaeda-1607281637 25624.html. 100 It is also important to note that in the early 2000s, even though the US believed that al-Qaeda was severely weakened, the organization could still activate its regional and global networks. For more information on this matter, see Daniel Byman, Al Qaeda, the Islamic State, and the Global Jihadist Movement: What Everyone Needs to Know (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015). 101 Barak Mendelsohn, The al-Qaeda Franchise: The Expansion of al-Qaeda and Its Consequences (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016). In another important study, Mendelsohn argues that the organization’s extreme ideology defies its structural capacity on the designation of global order. See “Al Qaeda and Global Governance: The Constraining Impact of Rigid Ideology,” Terrorism and Political Violence 26:3 (2014), 470–87. 102 Max Weber, “Politics as a Vocation,” in From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology, trans. H.H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills (New York: Oxford University Press, [1919] 1946), 77–128. 103 Norbert Elias, The Civilizing Process, trans. Edmund Jephcott (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1994). 104 Jihad and violence were not monopolized nor used exploited excessively in early Islam, but these concepts were debated and instrumental-

Notes to pages 119–20

105 106 107

108

109

110

111

112

113

114

115

191

ized when Islam was used as leveraging power and politicized accordingly during the Abbasid period and thereafter. For more information, see Asma Afsaruddin, “Views of Jihad throughout History,” Religion Compass 1 (2007), 165–9. Jason Burke, The New Threat from Islamic Militancy (London: The Bodley Head, 2016), chapter 8. Jessica Stern and J.M. Berger, Isis: The State of Terror (London: HarperCollins, 2015), chapters 1, 2, and 7. Scott Atran and Nafees Hamid, “Paris: The War Isis Wants,” The New York Review of Books, 16 November 2015 accessed 18 November 2016, http://www.nybooks. com/daily/2015/11/16/paris-attacks-isis-strategychaos/. Thomas Joscelyn, “US Counterterrorism Efforts in Syria: A Winning Strategy?” FDD’s Long War Journal, 29 September 2015, accessed 3 October 2015, http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2015/09/us-counterterrorism-efforts-in-syria-a-winning-strategy.php. Imogen Calderwood, “Isis Spells Out Historic Plan to Take Andalucia,” The Olive Press, 10 August 2014, accessed 4 March 2015, http://www.the olivepress.es/spain-news/2014/08/10/isis-spells-out-historic-plan-toretake-andalucia/. Isis published a magazine in Turkish called Konstantiniyye (Istanbul’s historic name) in 2015 in which it expressed its goal of conquering Istanbul. https://ia601509.us.archive.org/4/items/Konstantiniyye01 /Konstantiniyye%2001.pdf. The same issue of the magazine labeled Turks as apostates, arguing that they violate the rules of Islam. “Iki canlı bomba ve TNT,” Anadolu Ajansi, 10 October 2015 accessed 4 November 2015, http://www.cnnturk.com/turkiye/anadolu-ajansi-ikicanli-bomba-ve-tnt. See also “Ankara Explosions Leave almost 100 Dead – Officials,” bbc News, 10 October 2015, accessed 5 December 2015, http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-34495161. Elizabeth Ferris and Kemal Kirişci, The Consequences of Chaos: Syria’s Humanitarian Crisis and the Failure to Protect (Washington dc: The Brooking Institute Press, 2016), chapters 1 and 4. “Atatürk Havalimanı’nda saldırı: 42 ölü,” bbc Türkçe, 29 June 2016, accessed 2 July 2016, http://www.bbc.com/turkce/haberler/2016/06 /160628_istanbul_havalimani_saldiri. Gaziantep is a city in southern Turkey which shares a border with Syria. The city has become notorious for its increasing number of Isis members. “IŞİD Türkiye’ye savaş ilan etti,” Hurriyet, 1 July 2016, accessed 6 July

192

116

117 118

119

120

121

122

123

124 125

126

127

Notes to pages 121–4

2016, http://www.hurriyet.com.tr/isid-turkiyeye-savas-ilan-etti40124111. “IŞİD’in teknoloji emiri’nden korkunç ifadeler,” Hurriyet, 30 June 2016, accessed 3 July 2016, http://www.hurriyet.com.tr/isidin-teknolojiemirinden-korkunc-ifadeler-40124186. “150 canlı bomba,” Hurriyet, 5 July 2016, accessed 2 August 2016, http://www.hurriyet.com.tr/150-canli-bomba-40130838. “Islamic State Extends Reach as It Suffers from Defeats,” The Wall Street Journal, 5 July 2016, accessed 4 August 2016, http://www.wsj.com /articles/islamic-state-extends-reach-as-it-suffers-defeats-1467681163. “Berlin Attack Suspect ‘Pledged Allegiance to Isil’, as Questions Raised over How He Travelled 1,000 Miles across Europe before He Was Shot Dead by Police in Milan,” The Telegraph, 23 December 2016, accessed 24 December 2016. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/12/23/berlinchristmas-market-attack-suspect-anis-amri-reportedly/. Abdülkadir Masharipov studied physics and computer science at university. He first joined al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and later moved to the ranks of Isis. “Reina saldırısının zanlısı Abdulkadir Masharipov hakkında neler biliniyor?” T24, 17 January 2017, accessed 17 January 2017. http://t24.com.tr/haber/reina-saldirisinin-zanlisi-abdulkadir-masharipovhakkinda-neler-biliniyor,383684. “Islamic State Supporters Call for More Holiday Attacks in Europe,” Reuters, 28 December 2016, accessed 29 December 2016, http://www .reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-message-idUSKBN14H1TN. “Istanbul: isil Claims Responsibility for Reina Attack,” Al Jazeera, 2 January 2017, accessed 3 January 2017, http://www.aljazeera.com/news /2017/01/isil-claims-responsibility-turkey-nightclub-attack-17010208 2008171.html. “Isil and the Taliban,” Al Jazeera English, 1 November 2015, accessed 4 December 2015 http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/specialseries /2015/11/islamic-state-isil-taliban-afghanistan-151101074041755.html. Ibid. Nathan Francis, “Isis ‘School of Jihad’ Teaching Young Children to Torture and Behead Enemies,” Inquisitr, 24 October 2016, accessed 2 November 2016, http://www.inquisitr.com/1560290/isis-school-ofjihad-teaching-young-children-to-torture-and-behead-enemies/. “Yazidi Children Turned into Suicide Bombers by Isis,” Chanel 4, 27 February 2017, accessed 1 March 2017, https://www.channel4.com /news/yazidi-children-turned-into-suicide-bombers-by-isis. “IŞİD, Ankara’da ‘eğitim’ amaçlı okul açıp çocuklara karne dağıtmış,”

Notes to pages 124–9

128 129 130

131

132 133

134

135

136

193

Diken, 3 March 2017, accessed 3 March 2017, http://www.diken.com.tr /isid-ankarada-egitim-amacli-okul-acip-cocuklara-karne-dagitmis/. “4’lü Mahmur Dansı,” Hurriyet, 6 July 2016, accessed 3 August 2016, http://www.hurriyet.com.tr/4lu-mahmur-dansi-40133587. Michael Weiss and Hassan Hassan, Isis: Inside the Army of Terror (New York: Reagan Arts, 2015), chapter 9. Thomas Joscelyn, “Influential Jordanian Ideologue Argues against Islamic State’s Caliphate,” FDD’s Long War Journal, 2 July 2014, accessed 4 August 2016, http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2014/07 /_moral_pressures_had.php. “Isis State Has Lost Grip on 12% of Territory in Six Months – Study,” The Guardian, 11 July 2016, accessed 3 August 2016, https://www.the guardian.com/world/2016/jul/11/islamic-state-has-lost-grip-on-12-ofterritory-in-six-months-study. Sami Moubayed, Under the Black Flag: At the Frontier of the New Jihad (London: I.B. Tauris, 2015). “isis’s Media Capabilities Have Decreased by 70%,” Al Shahid, 5 December 2016, accessed 7 December 2016. https://alshahidwitness .com/isis-media-capabilities-decreased-70/?utm_source=twitter&utm _campaign=161107_WeeklyTW&utm_medium=cpc. “As ‘Caliphate’ Shrinks, Islamic State Looks to Global Attacks,” Reuters, 31 July 2016, accessed 7 August 2016, http://www.reuters.com/article /us-europe-attacks-is-propagandaidUSKCN10B0IP?utm_campaign=true Anthem:+Trending+Content&utm_content=579e4bde04d30139cd3fd1 8e&utm_medium=trueAnthem&utm_source=twitter. “isil Flag Found in Room of German Train Attacker,” Al Jazeera English, 19 July 2016, accessed 9 August 2016, http://www.aljazeera.com /news/2016/07/germany-man-stabs-train-passengers-slashing-attack160718210931703.html. “isis Leader Baghdadi Unbowed by Mosul Battle in Purported Recording,” cbc News, 3 November 2016, accessed 4 December 2016, http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/baghdadi-recording-isis-mosul-turkey1.3834123. CHAPTER FIVE

1 Michael P. Arena and Bruce A. Arrigo, The Terrorist Identity: Explaining the Terrorist Threat (New York and London: nyu Press, 2006), 72. 2 Petra Kelly, Fighting for Hope (Boston, ma: South End Press, 1984). 3 Ibid., 12.

194

Notes to pages 130–5

4 Edmond Cahn, The Sense of Injustice: An Anthropocentric View of Law (New York: nyu Press, 1949), 13. 5 Morton Deutsch, “Awakening the Sense of Injustice,” in Conflict, Interdependence, and Justice: The Intellectual Legacy of Morton Deutsch, ed. Peter T. Coleman (New York: Springer, 2011), 155. 6 E. Souleimanov and H. Aliyev, The Individual Disengagement of Avengers, Nationalists, and Jihadists: Why Ex-Militants Choose to Abandon Violence in the North Caucasus (New York and Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), 26. 7 Faye Crosby and A. Miren Gonzales-Intal, “Relative Deprivation and Equity Theories: Felt Injustice and the Undeserved Benefits of Others,” in The Sense of Injustice: Social Psychological Perspectives, ed. Robert Folger (New York and London: Plenum Press, 1984), 142. 8 “isis Releases New Video Explaining ‘the Structure of the Caliphate,’” Heavy.com, 6 July 2016, accessed 9 July 2016, http://heavy.com/news /2016/07/new-isis-islamic-state-daesh-al-furqan-media-amaq-newspictures-videos-the-structure-of-the-khilafah-full-uncensored-youtubevideo-mp4-download/. 9 Deutsch, Awakening the Sense of Injustice, 156. 10 “IŞİD 5 Vakit Namazı 3 Vakte İndirdi! Uymayanlara Kırbaç Cezası Var,” Haberler, 10 October 2016, accessed 13 October 2016, http://www .haberler.com/isid-5-vakit-namazi-3-vakte-indirdi-uymayanlara-8845158haberi/. 11 “Charter of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) of Palestine,” trans. Muhammad Maqdsi. Journal of Palestinian Studies 22 (1993): 122–34. 12 Brian Fishman, “The Man Who Could Have Stopped the Islamic State,” Foreign Policy, 23 November 2016, accessed 3 December 2016. http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/11/23/the-man-who-could-have-stoppedthe-islamicstate/?utm_content=bufferccb2f&utm_medium=social &utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer. 13 Alan Sica particularly refers to Robert E. Goodin’s “The Politics of Rational Man” and John Rawls’ A Theory of Justice regarding the relationship between rationality and its perception by the outsiders. See Sica, Weber, Irrationality, and Social Order (Berkeley and Los Angeles, ca: University of California Press, 1988), 35. 14 Philip Smith, “Civil Society and Violence: Narrative Forms and the Regulation of Social Conflict,” in The Web of Violence: From Interpersonal to Global, ed. Jennifer E. Turpin and Lester R. Kurtz (Urbana and Chicago, il: University of Illinois Press, 1996), 93.

Notes to pages 136–44

195

15 Arthur Kleinman, “The Violences of Everyday Life: The Multiple Forms and Dynamics of Social Violence,” in Violence and Subjectivity, ed. Veena Das, et al. (Berkeley, ca: University of California Press, 2000), 235. 16 Randall Collins, “Micro and Macro Causes of Violence,” International Journal of Conflict and Violence 3 (2015): 9–22. 17 Siniša Malešević, The Sociology of War and Violence (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 8. 18 J.M. Bernstein, Torture and Dignity: An Essay on Moral Injury (Chicago, il: University of Chicago Press, 2015). 19 “Erosion of Daesh Control: Life under Daesh,” Global Coalition, 12 December 2016, accessed 15 December 2016, http://theglobal coalition.org/erosion-daesh-control-life-daesh/ 20 “Islamic State Training Child Suicide Bombers in Special Camp,” Sky News, 18 December 2016, accessed 19 December 2016, http://news.sky.com/story/islamic-state-training-child-suicide-bombersin-special-camp-10700852. 21 John Hutchinson, Nations as Zones of Conflict (New York: Sage Publication, 2005). CHAPTER SIX

1 Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays (New York: Basic Books, 1973), 14. 2 Jürgen Habermas, The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity, trans. Frederick Lawrence (Cambridge, ma: mit Press, 1987). 3 Jeffrey Ian Ross, Political Terrorism: An Interdisciplinary Approach. (New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 2006), 108. 4 Walter Benjamin, “Theses on the Philosophy of History,” trans. Harry Zohn, in Illuminations, ed. Hannah Arendt, (New York: Schocken Books, 1969), 256. 5 Sigmund Freud, Civilisation and its Discontents (London: Hogarth, 1930). 6 Ibid., 77. 7 Georg Simmel, On Individuality and Social Forms: Selected Writings, ed. Donald L. Levine (Chicago, il: University of Chicago Press, 1971), xi. 8 Monica Duffy Toft, Daniel Philpott, and Timothy Samuel Shah, God’s Century: Resurgent Religion and Global Politics (New York and London: W.W. Norton, 2011), chapter 1. 9 Raymond Williams, The Long Revolution (London: Chatto and Windus, 1961), 57–8. 10 J. Carter Wood, “The Process of Civilization (and Its Discontents): Vio-

196

11 12 13 14

15 16 17 18 19 20

21

22 23 24 25

Notes to pages 145–50

lence, Narrative and History,” in Discourse of Violence – Violence of Discourses: Critical Interventions, Transgressive Readings, and Post-National Negotiations, ed. Dirk Wiemann et. al. (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2005), 117. The translation of this quotation to English belongs to the author. Michael P. Arena and Bruce A. Arrigo, The Terrorist Identity: Explaining the Terrorist Threat (New York and London: nyu Press, 2006), 72. Jackson J. Benson, The True Adventures of John Steinbeck, Writer: A Biography (New York: Penguin, 1990), 456. Graeme Wood, The Way of the Strangers: Encounters with the Islamic State (New York: Penguin, 2016). Part of this book was published online as “The American Leader in the Islamic State,” The Atlantic, accessed 28 December 2016, https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017 /03/the-american-leader-in-the-islamic-state/510872/?utm_source=twb. Wood, “The American Leader in the Islamic State.” Albert Camus, The Rebel: An Essay on Man in Revolt, trans. Anthony Bower (New York: Knopf Doubleday, 1956), 16–17. Tariq Ali, The Clash of Fundamentalisms: Crusades, Jihads and Modernity (London: Verso, 2003). isis Releases New Video Explaining ‘the Structure of the Caliphate,’” Heavy.com, 6 July 2016. Ivo Andric, The Bridge on the Drina, trans. Lovett F. Edwards (Chicago, il: Phoenix Fiction, University of Chicago Press, 1977), 307. “Saddam Huseyin Heykelini deviren Irakli: Yeniden dikmek isterdim,” T24, 6 July 2016, accessed 24 December 2016, http://t24.com.tr/haber /saddam-huseyin-heykelini-deviren-irakli-yeniden-dikmek-isterdim, 348701. Richard J. Bernstein explores the ideas of Hannah Arendt on revolution and public freedom concludes that spontaneous violence cannot bring about the most effective outcome for an oppressed community. See Why Read Hannah Arendt Now? (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2018). Richard J. Bernstein, Violence: Thinking without Banisters (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2013), 179–82. Steven Pinker, The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined (New York: Viking Books, 2011). Michael Mann, “Have Wars and Violence Declined?” Department of Sociology, ucla, 2018, 1. Brad Evans and Henry Giroux, Disposable Futures: The Seduction of Violence in the Age of Spectacle (New York: City Lights Books, 2015).

Notes to pages 150–6

197

26 Norbert Elias, The Civilizing Process, Vol. 2, State Formation and Civilization (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1982). 27 Zygmunt Baumann, “Sociology after the Holocaust,” The British Journal of Sociology 39 (1988): 469–97. 28 Primo Levi, If This Is a Man, trans. Stuart Woolf (New York: The Orion Press, 1959), 7. 29 Nicolas Hénin, “J’ai été otage de l’État islamique. Daesh craint plus notre unité que nos frappes aériennes,” The Guardian, 19 November 2015, accessed 14 December 2016, https://www.theguardian.com /commentisfree/2015/nov/19/etat-islamique-daesh-syrie. 30 Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (Cleveland and New York: Meridian Books, 1958), 474. 31 Seyla Benhabib, The Reluctant Modernism of Hannah Arendt (Lanham, Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 2003), 128. 32 See the important work of Daniel Rothbart and Karina V. Korostelina, Why They Die: Civilian Devastation in Violent Conflict (Ann Arbor, mi: University of Michigan Press, 2011). They argue convincingly, with reference to numerous cases, that identity politics erase the notion of innocence, and that this leads to civilian devastation. 33 “Chemical Weapons Found in Mosul in Isis Lab, Say Iraqi Forces,” The Guardian, 29 January 2017, accessed 29 January 2017, https://www.the guardian.com/world/2017/jan/29/chemical-weapons-found-in-mosul-inisis-lab-say-iraqi-forces. 34 Richard Barrett, Beyond the Caliphate: Foreign Fighters and the Threat of Returnees. The Soufan Center, October 2017. 35 Doğu Eroğlu, IŞİD Ağları. Türkiye’de Radikalleşme, Örgütleme, Lojistik (Istanbul: Iletisim Yayinlari, 2018). 36 Slavoj Žižek, Violence. Six Sideways Reflections (London: Profile Books), 8. 37 Richard English, Does Terrorism Work? A History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016). 38 Siniša Malešević, The Rise of Organised Brutality (Cambridge: University of Cambridge Press, 2017), 40 and chapter 2.

198

Notes to pages 000–000

Index

Abbasid, 11, 34–9, 52 Abd al Razzaq, 39 Abdul Hamid II, 36 Abdullah bin Al-Mubarak, 53 Abdülmecid II, 37 Abdulmutallab, Umar Farouk, 116–17 Abu al-Hasan alAsh’ari, 39 Abu Bakr, 33 Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, 72–3, 78, 148 Abu Bakr Naji, 114–15 Abu Mohammad al-Adnan, 125 Abu Muhammed al-Furqan, 125 Abu Musab, 114 Abu Nidal Organization, 55 Abu Rashid, 123 Afghanistan, 8, 33, 70, 76, 148, 155; in 2001, 82; in 2012, 57; to govern, 131; invasion by US coalition, 68, 72; Soviets, 66, 113; structural violence, 133–5; from Syria to, 150; Uzbek national, 123 Agrafa, 105 ahkam, 11 Ahmad, Mirza Ghulam, 40 Ahmed, Shahab, 38 Al Arabiya, 115

Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, 63 al-Hajar al Aswad, 78 Ali, 33 Ali Ibn Abi Talib, 33 al-Mamun, 38 Almanach de Gotha, 6 al-Mansur, 38 al-Maqdisi, 125 al-Mustansir, 35 al-Mutawakkil III, 35 al-Nusra Front, 117 Al-Qassam Brigades, 63 al-Shanti, Jamila, 61 Al Sisi, Hatem, 59 Anatolia, 6, 25–6, 47 Andalusia, 34, 36 Andrić, Ivo, 31–2, 149 angarya, 95 Ankara, 74, 120–1, 124 Ansar al-Sharia, 8 Anwar, al Awlaki, 115–17 April uprising, the, 31, 50 Arabalıkonak, 104 Arab League, 57 Arabs, 37, 52 Arafat, Yasser, 55, 62, 110 Arendt, Hannah, 13, 16, 85

200

Index

Argov, Shlomo, 55 Aristotle, 35 Arjomand, Saïd Amir, 39 Arnold, Matthew, 87 asâkir-i muntazama, 101 Atay, Oğuz, 145 Atlas, 146 Austrian Empire, 46–7 Austrians, 32 Bagdad, 34–5 Bali, Ilhami, 120 Balkans, the, 4–8, 28, 30–1, 36, 47–8, 51, 81–2, 101; agitated the imperial center, 50; in the late fourteenth century, 81; independence, 104; the Middle East or Central Asia, 128; of the nineteenth century, 23; Ottoman, 9; Ottoman controlled, 18; the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, 26 bashibozuk, 28, 50, 51 Basra, 38 Bassil, Gebran, 57 Bataclan, 77 Batak, 51 Battle of Badr, 37 Bauman, Zygmunt, 151 Beirut, 55, 76–7, 108 Benhabib, Seyla, 152 Benjamin, Walter, 141 Berber Revolt, 34 Berlin, 122; the treaty of, 51 Bernstein, J., Richard, 9, 16, 85 Bihać, 48, 144 Bin Laden, Osama, 66–8, 70, 113, 116, 127 bishop, 44, 47 Bosnia, 46–8, 50, 103, 144, 149 Bosnian Uprising, 50

Bridge on the Drina, 31, 147 Britain, 36, 70, 84 British Empire, the, 37 Bulgaria, 10, 22, 44–5, 50–1, 81, 102–4, 109, 144 Bulgarian Revolutionary Central Committee, 50, 103, 144 Bursa, 47 Cairo, 35, 65 caliphate, 8, 11, 33–9, 56, 125; global, 86; in modern Turkey, 118; Ottoman, 129; the role of the, 18; Sharifan, 52; Ummayad, 33; universal, 133; worldwide, 106, 125, 131 Camus, Albert, 43, 147–9 Çarşamba, 99 Catholic(s), 6; communities, 89; people, 31 Celâl, Seyh, 25 Çelik, Ersan, 120 Chan, Edmond, 130 Chania, 48 Charter, 60; of 1988, 65; of Hamas, 133 Chechnya, 148 chiflik, 26 Christian, 8, 47, 48; allies, 36; authorities, 48; of Bosnia, 46; ethnic groups, 46; houses, 32; kings, 12; prayer, 44; rebel, 20, 44; subjects, 46; Turk, 22 Christianity, 44, 89 Chomsky, Noam, 112 chorbadjis, 103 church(es), 48, 78, 89, 98; in 1870, 102; Breitscheidplatz in Berlin, 122; of England, 70; in Mosul, 74; of St Stephen in Istanbul, 81

Index

cia (Central Intelligence Agency), 113 civilization, 12, 119, 141, 150–1; in Africa, 154; development of, 119; and its discontents, 139; Freud, 139; Islamic, 84, 88; and power, 88; western, 41 civil war, 4, 16, 33–4, 54–6, 59, 76, 86, 107, 110, 113, 134, 154 communism, 17 Constantinople, 81, 120 Córdoba, 34 Crete, 48–50 Crimean War, 29 cultural conflict, 44–5, 58 Dabiq, 76, 119 Daire-i Adalet, 24 Dar al-Gharb, 36 Dar al-Islam, 36 Dar-al-Kufr, 82 Debar, 101–2 Deir-ez Zor, 133 deprivation, 20, 59, 128, 131 dissent, 3–4, 9, 14–16, 28, 96–8, 128, 143–4; among local communities, 32, 131; a cage of, 146; collective, 7; communal, 37; manifested challenges, 24; the origins of, 148, 152, 154, 157; in Palestinian society, 59; in rural community, 100; socio-structural, 103; source of, 12, 137 Drina, 31, 149 Dubai, 117 Durmaz, Yunus, 121–2 Eagles of Death Metal, 77 Eastern Europe, 10, 17 Edict of 1839, 30, 82, 95

201

Edict of 1856, 30, 48–9, 82, 95 Edict of Gülhane, 29–30, 95, 97–9 Egypt, 35, 38, 41, 49, 60–1, 90–1, 148 Elias, Norbert, 88, 119, 150 Emirate of Diriyah, 35 English, Richard, 156 eşkiya, 9 Euclid, 35 Fadl, Dr, 90–1 Fatah, 55, 62–3, 65–6, 110–11 fbi (Federal Bureau of Investigation), 116 fetva, 36 First Fitna, the, 33 First Intifada, 60–62 Fitna, 33 Freud, Sigmund, 83, 139, 142 Galtung, Johan, 14–15 Gayniye Monastery, 48 Gaza, 59, 62–4, 111–12, 131, 134 Gaziantep, 120–2, 155 Geertz, Clifford, 140 Gemayel, Bashir, 56 Georgelas, John, 146–7 Ghazan, 35 Ghneim, Jebel Abu, 62–3 Golan Heights, 56 Great Mosque of Kufa, 31 Greece, 9, 29, 44, 82, 86, 103, 105 Gulf Cooperation Council, 57 hadith, 7, 41, 54 haiduks, 10 Hall, A. John, 156 Hamas Covenant, 110 Haniyeh, Ismail, 65 Harik, Judith Swain, 108 Hariri, Rafik, 58

202

Harun al-Rashid, 35 Hasan Ibn Ali, 33 Hattab, Ebu, 78 Hawija, 137 Hejaz, 53 Hénin, Nicolos, 151 Herzegovina, 47, 50, 103 Hiroshima, 155 Horkheimer, Max, 79 House of Wisdom, the, 35 hudud, 148 Hume, David, 23 Husain, Ed, 84 Hussein, Saddam, 3, 68, 127, 149 Hye, Abdul, 38–9

idf (Israel Defense Force), 60, 63, 65 ijtihad, 40 Ilkhanate, 35 iltizam, 95 imam, 33, 39, 90 Imperial Rescript, 29–30 India, 16, 40, 52 Indonesia, 8, 155 Indonesians, 52 insurgents, 9, 30, 36, 49 Iran, 40, 55, 106, 108–9, 127, 133 Iranians, 52 Iran-Iraq War, 40 Iraq, 3, 57, 70–1, 73–7, 82, 113–14, 119–20, 148–9, 155; Isis, 133, 136; Saddam, 68; state violence, 137; Sunni, 40; threat posed by, 55; Yazidi, 124 Islam, 33–41, 52–4, 67–9, 74, 78, 82, 120, 133; by the authorities in France, 76; differently from the jihadists, 87; and Europe 70; the holy sites of, 76; as an identity,

Index

82; interpretation of, 132; and jihad, 69; Salafi interpretation, 74 Islamic Golden Age, 35 Istanbul, 7, 26, 28, 35, 37, 48, 50, 81, 95–7, 100, 120–2 Jabhat-al-Nusra, 114 Jahiliyat, 40 jahiliyyah, 120 Jamaat-e-Islami, 40 Jelali, 25–6, 28 Jemaah Islamiah, 8 Jerusalem, 35, 60, 70, 89, 120 Jew(s), 6, 32, 57, 59, 65; and crusaders, 70; were excluded, 89; through Halakha, 81; Italian, 151 Jihad al-Binaa, 108 Joseph, 47 Juergensmeyer, Mark, 64 “just war”, 7, 12 Kaaba, 78 Kableshkow, 50 Kabul, 57 Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church, 122 Karlovo, 100, 102 Kelly, Metra, 129 Kelman, Herbert C., 85 Kepel, Gilles, 10 Khedivate of Egypt, 49 Khilafat movement, 52 Kladina, 48, 144 klepht, 9–11 Koçi Bey, 26 Konstatiniyye, 120 kufr, 74 Lebanon, 54–6, 58, 61, 66, 76, 106–10, 117, 134

Index

Levi, Primo, 151 Levski, 102–4, 144 Libya, 8 London Daily News, 51 Lord Kitchener, 37 Lycée Impérial Ottoman de GalataSérai, 50 Macedonia, 44, 103–4 Mahdi, 40 Malaysians, 52 Maleş, 47 Malešević, Siniša, 136 Mamelukes, 35–6 Management of Savagery, The, 114–15, 134 Mann, Michael, 17, 150 Masharipov, Abdulkadir, 122 Maududi, Abul A’la, 40 Mecca, 35, 37, 70 Medina, 35, 77 Meshal, Khalid, 65 Middle East, 6, 55, 71, 75–6, 109, 118, 128; in the early twentieth century, 36; today, 152; under British suzerainty, 37 millet, 44, 81, 102 Mitrovica, 104 Mohammad Hasan Khalil alHakim, 115 Mohammad, Prophet, 8, 33, 57 Mommsen, Theodor, 127 monastery, 48–9, 50 monks, 35 Montenegro, 45–6, 48, 94, 103, 105 Mostar, 48 Mosul, 74–5, 124–5, 132, 155 Muawiyah, 33 mufti, 36, 38

203

Muhammad Ali of Egypt, 35 Mujahedeen, 66, 78 mültezim, 95, 101–2 Musab, Abu, 114 Muslim Brotherhood, 41, 60 Muslim Civil War, 33–4 Mussolini, 12 Mustafa Nail Pasha, 48 mutasarrif, 45, 95, 97 Muʿtazilite, 38–9 Nakşi, 47 Nashir Media Foundation, 123 Nasrallah, Hassan, 57–8 Nasser, Gamal Abdel, 41 Nazareth, 59 Nazi, 85, 91, 151 Nevâhî-i Âsîyye, 45–6, 94 Niš, 31, 94, 97–8 non-Jew, 59, 64 North Africa, 6, 36–7, 155 Odyssey, 148 Olivier, Roy, 11 Öljaitü, 35 oppression, 7–9, 68, 105, 155; over Christian residents, 48; or discrimination, 112; and injustice, 23, 143, 155; of people, 103; and tyranny, 66 orientalism, 141 Oslo, 61; Accords, 62 Ottoman constitution, 31, 36 Pakistan, 8, 52, 66, 69, 72, 76, 113, 115, 148 Pakistanis, 52 Palestine, 54, 58–60, 62, 65–6, 76, 110, 148 Paris, 37, 77, 122

204

Index

pasha, 27–8, 31, 45, 48, 50–1, 94, 98–9, 101 Patriarch, 81, 89 Pereto, 47 pfa (Palestinian Forces Alliance), 61 Phalangists, 107 Philippines, 8 Pkk, 120 Plato, 35, 146 plo (Palestine Liberation Organization), 54–5, 62, 66, 100; headquarters in Beirut, 55; recognized Israel’s right to exist, 62 poverty, 15, 20, 107, 111, 128, 135 priest, 46–9, 78, 81 Prijepolje, 47 Primitive Culture, 88 Prince Miloš Obrenović, 46 Pythagoras, 35 Qadariyah, 36; movement, 38 Qatar, 57, 65 Qatif, 77 Quraishi, Najibullah, 123 Quran, 7, 35, 41, 57, 65, 72, 84, 123–4 Qutb, Sayyid, 41, 67–8 Rantisi, Abdul Aziz, 64 Rashidal-Din Hamadani, 35 reaya, 25, 95, 96, 98–100 revolt, 25–9, 31–2, 37, 87, 94, 102; Crete, 49; Niš, Çarşamba, and Vidin, 97, 99; against Ottoman rule, 82; against the Turkish nation, 103 Rougier, 111 Ruhollah, Ayatollah, 55 Rushdie, Salman, 70

Russia, 34, 44, 46, 49, 51, 127, 155 Sabri Pasha, 98–9 Sacred Mosque, 7–8 Said, Edward, 59, 63 şaki, 9, 11, 47 Salafi, 39, 40, 69, 73–4, 115, 125 sanjak, 101 Sanskrit, 35 Sartre, Jean-Paul, 13, 140 Saudi, 35, 38, 57, 68, 74, 77, 113, 148, 155 Sayyaf, Abu, 8 Scott, James, 16 Second Intifada, 61–2 Selim Ağa, 97 Sened-i Ittifak, 27 Serbia, 44–7, 86, 98 Serbs, 32, 44, 103–4 shahid, 52 Sharif, Kadhem, 3, 149 Sharifian Caliphat, 52 Sharon, Ariel, 55 Shaykh al-Sheihk, 38 Shaykh Tantawi, 38 Shebaa farms, 56 Shia, 33, 39, 40, 54–7, 61, 73, 76–7, 82, 89, 133 Shiite Amal militia, 54 shirk, 74 shura, 33 Simmel, Georg, 142 Sinwar, Yehiya, 65 Sisyphus, 148–9 Skopje, 47 Sofia, 104 Sokollu Mehmed Pasha, 31 Sontag, Susan, 51 Sorel, Georges, 12–13 Sublime Porte, 6

Index

sultan, 25–6, 28–9, 35–6, 81, 94, 96, 99, 101–2 Sunni, 39–40, 52, 54, 57–8, 61, 75, 89, 123, 133 Syria, 16, 55–7, 61, 71, 73–8, 109, 117–20, 122–3, 133, 136, 150, 155 Tabriz, 35 Taif agreement, 56 Takal, Shlomo, 59 Taliban, 66–70, 72, 113–14, 123 Tanzimat, 4, 27, 30–2, 36, 50, 81, 93–7 Taylor, Charles, 17 Ten Point Program, 61 Thessaly, 48–9 Tilly, Charles, 16 Timar, 25 Times, 51 Tolstoy, Leo, 93 Troyan, 50 Tunisia, 8; Tunisian origin, 122 Turkey, 33, 37, 52, 74, 77–8, 118, 120–3, 145, 155 Turks, 32, 52, 74, 103 Tuzla, 48, 144 Twelver Shia, 39 Tylor, Edward Burnett, 88

Umar, 33, 89, 117, 121 ummah, 38, 87 Ummayad, 33 unitaf (Unified Task Force), 113

205

uprising, 24–5, 27–8, 30–2, 44–5, 47–8, 96–8, 103–4; Bosnian, 50; catalyst, 106; in the face of the formidable Ottoman army, 101; against the Ottoman Empire, 81; among the reaya, 99 Urals, 36 Uthman, 33 Vali, 29, 96 Vidin, 31, 99 Vilayet, 96 Visegrad, 31–2, 47 Volos, 48 wahhabi, 36, 40, 84 Wahhabism, 39 Wailing Wall, 89 Weber, Max, 13, 39, 80, 118, 135, 152 West Bank, the, 59, 63 Williams, Raymond, 143 Wood, Graeme, 147 world war, 31, 36–7, 52, 54, 77, 99, 129 Yaacobi, Gad, 62 Yanya, 47 zaptieh, 48, 95, 100 Zawahiri, Ayman, 8, 70–1, 117 Zeus, 146 Ziso, 49 Žižek, Slovaj, 156

206

Index