Religiously
Motivated Violence Is Terrorism
by
F. H. Fox
Creating a single definition for
all terrorism is problematic and is a bit like a doctor attempting to cure all
ailments of the human body with a single aspirin. While it can be done as a
superficial exercise, the overall result is less than ideal. Political
Scientists have the same problem as medical doctors. No single definition is
adequate to define all aspects of terrorism, nor should it be. Instead, the
better solution is to create multiple definitions of terrorism so that each
subset of terrorist activity can be defined in useful ways. In this way, better
strategies can be created to help curb the violence.
With
that in mind, this paper addresses and attempts to define one specific subset
of terrorism, “Religiously Motivated Violence (RMV).” Obviously, not all
violence associated with religion can be described as terrorism, but specific
forms of RMV must be considered terrorism. In other words, violence in the name
of, and for the sake of religion, is terrorism; however, other forms of
violence associated with religion may not be terrorism. Furthermore, in the
case of RMV, it does not matter who the violence is directed against because
within the RMV perimeters, anyone not part of the religious group may be a
justifiable target. For this reason there is no need to distinguish between
combatants and noncombatants. However, although the qualifier of noncombatants
is gone, there are other qualifiers that must be met.
For
example, besides simple or complex violence being employed by the group, there
must be a a religiously motivated charismatic leader directing the group to use
violence. There are also distinctions between individuals doing violence in the
name of religion, and groups doing violence in the name of religion. While this
may sound confusing, it can be thought of as stratifications or layers of
opportunity that group members may be able to be part of. Furthermore, the
violence must be done in the name of religion, and not for some other reason
that uses religion as a scapegoat. However, not everyone agrees.
Since
September 11, 2001, few U.S. federal government policy makers now attempt to
analyze terrorism using scientific methods because to do so may limit funding
opportunities. Instead, by keeping a more broad and sweeping view of terrorism,
Federal government groups are more likely to get funding approved. This was
shown after September 11, 2001, when the Bush administration began defining the
enemy who attacked the United States of America as a specific group of
terrorists seemed like a logical course of action, but then abruptly changed
its policy to suddenly lumped the nation’s entire response, "Into a
single, undifferentiated enemy undermined efforts to devise an effective
strategic strategy."[1]
In this situation, undifferentiated
meant that for the Bush government, all forms of terrorism were one thing and
would be treated the same way. This proved ultimately problematic for several
reasons.
The
newly consolidated terrorism definition shifted the needed resources to deal
many different groups and individuals collectively identified as terrorists
into a single broad and ill-conceived plan of attack that stretched the limited
U.S. resources to dangerously low levels. Therefore, it is easy to see how
President Bush's conception of the threat then produced a flawed strategic
response that continues to plague the U.S. national defense today. As Graham
Allison pointed out, "When initial conceptions of the enemy are flawed,
the policies that follow will be similarly confused: objectives will be
inflated and imprecise, resources will be misallocated, and the scope of the
response, both geographically and moral, will be diffused."[2]
Furthermore,
attempting to eradicate terrorism by using one description, again a strategy
based on an ill conceived definition, to define what terrorism is, is a lot
like producing a “Grand Unification Theory” in particle physics; for example,
while physicists seem to have a solid core understanding of how everything
works together, as the scale changes to ever more precise measurements, their
understanding breaks down and uncertainty prevails.[3] The same
thing can then be said of terrorism. For example, while political scientists
seem to have an overall understanding of terrorism, like physicists, when
pressed for ever more precise definitions of terrorism, political scientists,
and just about everyone else, fail to deliver as the scale of investigation
becomes increasingly more precise. Consequently, while this short paper cannot
hope to attempt to produce a single unified theory of terrorism, it will
examine one aspect of terrorism while attempting to answer the question, “When
does religious violence become terrorism?”
First,
it is abundantly clear that not all religious violence is terrorism. Throughout
history, numerous examples of religious groups doing violent things are not
defined using the word terrorism. One primary example that comes to mind is the
fifteenth century Mayans. No political scientist today would consider the
Mayans people terrorists for a variety of reasons. Mayan violence was state
sponsored religiously motivated celebrations that did not attempt to produce
political change. Furthermore, Mayan violence was normally directed towards the
enemy captured enemy combatants. Lastly, the Mayan violence was part of their
shared culture that did not escalate over time in the name of religion.
In
a second example, it is unlikely any nonsectarian group using violence would be
associated with religious violence. However, it is likely nonsectarian groups
may invoke religion as part of their strategy or to use religious schools and
places of worship to enlist individuals to take on the violence. However, that
is not the same as a religious group using violence against all others because
they see themselves as religiously pure.
Lastly,
as mentioned earlier, the “lone wolf,” with one possible exception that the
person is also the charismatic leader, is a person who hears “command directed
voices.” Command directed voices are voices only the individual can hear. Some
voices are beneficial, like what most people consider their conscious. However,
other voices can be so forceful the person feels compelled to follow their
instructions. If the commands are benevolent, the person may lead a normal
life. However, if the voices promote violence, the person may be directed to
ever more violent tendencies and is considered to be psychologically
unbalanced. The once exception to this rule may be if that person is part of a
religious group, and then uses his voices as a way to orchestrate violence
against others by getting the group to follow him as a charismatic leader. Jim
Jones would be an example of a charismatic leader that promoted violence.
However, it is not known if he heard voices or not.
So
what is religiously based violence? While David Bromley does not specifically
answer the question, he does state, "By collective violence I refer to
acts committed by individual in the name of some religious movement or the acts
committed against religious individuals or movements by agents of social
control and legitimated by some organizational purpose."[4]
In that way, Bromley’s definition quantifies the violence using the word
“collective” makes it clear that any definition of religious terror must use
collective action. Additionally, to Bromley, it would seem that it is group
behavior that mitigates or propels individuals into action or inaction. In that
way, Bromley states leadership is ultimately important, especially when the
group has reached its apex of development. Bromley then goes on to say, only
when the leader feels he is losing control over the movement’s destiny will he
may, “Authorize or guide the use of force.” While this may not be the only way
a group moves to violence, it does illustrate the point that any group may end
up radicalized, and either harm others, external violence, or themselves,
internal violence. Some examples of external violence includes Solar Temple and Aum Shinrikyo, “Whose leaders gave direct orders to initiate
violence.” Internal violence that ultimately was directed towards its own
membership included Jim Jones’ White
Night Drills, and Marshall Applewhite’s Heaven’s
Gate. In both the latter cases, members killed themselves and others within
the groups.[5]
The
question then becomes whether all religious cults, when their charismatic
leaders feel threatened, have the propensity to become violent if they were not
first based on violence? Mark Juergensmeyer seems to think so. He pointed out
that over half of the thirty of the most dangerous groups listed in 1998 by the
U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright were religious. However,
Juergensmeyer does not mention any larger study of violent groups, or what
those percentages would be. For example, of the top one thousand most dangerous
groups, would the same percentages be considered religiously motivated? Even so,
Juergensmeyer is correct when he claims most people feel that religion should
provide tranquility and peace, and not terror. “Yet in many of these cases,
religion supplied not only the ideology, but also the motivation and the
organizational structure for the perpetrators."[6] This,
Juergensmeyer, points out, points out one of the more problematic issues
concerning terrorism, “Whether or not one uses “terrorist” to describe violent
acts depends on wether one thinks that the acts are warranted.” For example,
Juergensmeyer states the world is at peace and violence occurs, then it might
be considered terrorism, but if the world is at war, then the violence would
considered legitimate.[7]
However, that would obviously depend entirely on the definition of terrorism
used. Furthermore, from the point of view of the violent instigator, while the
world may consider him a terrorist, he may see himself either as a legitimate
soldier, or as a mercenary. For
example, if that violent instigator honestly thought his group at war, then in
his mind, his violent actions are justified and legitimate courses of action.
However, even if the key point that terrorism is a matter of perception, clear
definitions of terrorism continue to be needed because then a strategic plan
can be created to better deal with the various kinds of violence.
Jessica
Stern seems to agree, point of view is important. She used the Kalfan Khamis
Mohamed bombing at the American Embassy at Tanzania to illustrate the point.
Mohamed told the FBI in 1999 that he even though he had been caught, he thought
the operation had been a success because since the bomb worked, it sent a
message to America and kept American officials preoccupied with the
investigation. Furthermore, he stated that if he had not been caught, he would
have continued participate in the jihad against America. If released, he vowed
to bomb Americans again. However, Mohamed also, “Wanted Americans to understand
he and his fellow warriors are not crazy, gun-wielding people, but are fighting
for a cause.”[8]
In Mohamed’s case, this religiously motivated bombing was choreographed by a
large religiously motivated group called Al Qaeda. However, that raises one of
the more troubling aspects to discussing the religious ramifications of
terrorism, whether the charismatic leadership of groups prone to violence may
have one agenda while the people carrying out the acts an entirely different
one. For this reason, the question of wether Kalfan Khamis Mohamed was religiously or politically motivated is
potentially problematic because Stern fails to adequately demonstrate whether
Khamis would have acted the same with just a religious goal in mind.
Even
so, from Mohamed’s we can see there seems to be four levels of hierarchy, but
only the lowest of the tier, those who are not even official Al Qaeda members
that provide the fodder for suicide missions.[9] That would
seem to establish, at least of Al Qaeda, that the people blowing themselves up,
because they are not full members, may not agree with the Al Qaeda leadership.
If so, that may also indicate the suicide bombers are either more or less
religiously and politically motivated then their leadership. More so,
demonstrates they are more devoted to their religion than the leadership. In
that case, religion is simply a means to an end for the leadership. However, if
suicide bombers are really either more or less devoted to religion than the Al
Qaeda leaders, then the reverse may be true. Only by making thorough studies of
individual groups may an answer be found, but only for that one group because
every group is different.
While
this much is clear, that there are all types of groups that use religious ideas
as part of their version of terrorism, what not everyone agrees on is how
important the role of religion is and how it is used in violence and terrorist
activities. Worse yet, attempting to declare what constitutes a religion may be
equally problematic. For example, William T. Cavanaugh indicates that Western
nations cannot afford to allow religion to gain power in the Middle East
because the changing dichotomy could potentially be problematic for national
security. Specifically, he wrote, “I would make clear what groups might be
declared religious but are in fact not.”
Religion-and-violence
arguments serve a particular need for their consumers in the West. These
arguments are part of a broader Enlightenment narrative that has invented a
dichotomy between the religious and the secular and constructed the former as
an irrational and dangerous impulse that must give way in public to rational,
secular forms of power. In the West, revulsion toward killing and dying in the
name of one's religion is one of the principal means by which we become
convinced that killing and dying in the name of the nation-state is laudable and proper. The myth of the religious
violence also provides secular social orders with a stock character, the
religious fanatic, to serve as enemy.[10]
In other words, Cavanaugh claims because
secular nations cannot directly use religion as a way to motivate its people,
but instead must uses religion to motivate indirectly, as a kind of mirror to
convince its people that it is perfectly acceptable to die either for one’s
country or die for one’s religion. While some may claim there seems to be a
problem with using violence and terrorism interchangeably, and that Religion
might justify or not the killing of civilians, in the end, if my definition is correct, in that religious
violence really is terrorism, then any killing outside of the religious sect is
justified by the group.
So
who is right? Are people motivated by religion to commit violent acts on the
orders of charismatic leaders who feel they are loosing control over the
direction their group is taking, or are religiously motivated people naturally
drawn to people who have violent tendencies? While this may make it sound like
religion creates violence, the only
way to decide for sure is to continue examining ideas that will lead to a
specific definition for religious terrorism. In doing so, we must now attempt
to find a reasonable definition of religious violence.
By
comparing Pape and Abrahms and Tilly, it seems likely that likely answer must
be somewhere between all the extremes. For example, while Pape and Abrahms
argue about rational and social ideas along with conceptions of terrorism
motivation, others like Tilly, Gurr, and Stern argue for different ideas why
some people may be prone to either be violent, or be willing to join violent
groups.[11]
While this may make it easy to expand this paper to include ever widening areas
of thought for clarity, for the purposes of brevity, they must be excluded.
Instead, I shall make use of their ideas along with the works already sited to
make the case to clarify my own definition of religious terror.
First,
as Cavanaugh stated, it may in the interest of the West to convince its own
people that religiously motivated terror and violence is the normal outcome of
religious extremists and even fundamentalism because then it may be easier to
get people to fight for the sovereignty of the nation. So even though the
sovereignty is not really at risk, fear of death is the real problem. If so,
then the created definition used for religious violence must be very specific,
so as not to become a political motivator for all other religious
organizations. However, in doing so, we also must also not forget that some
religious leaders become violent over time, and while they begin as benevolent
leaders, may later direct their followers towards a path of violence. This may
be true even though when the group was created, there was no violent
tendencies. Second, when formulating the definition, we must consider that the
leaders directing the violence may have a different agenda than the people
doing the violence, or vice versa. That means there may often be a
multidimensional aspect to consider for each tier of any violent religious
group.
So
now, having been given several important ideas what religious terrorism is, it
is now possible to provide a specific definition for Religiously Motivated
Violence (RMV). For example, the overall definition must first include the idea
of collectivism. Furthermore, the definition must include charismatic
leadership. Additionally, the religious group must want some kind of change.
Lastly, the definition of RMV may not be a secular movement. So for the sake of
argument, my definition of RMV is the following: “Religious Motivated Violence
RMV is considered terrorism when the violent act is made by any collective
religious group, designed to change the status quo for either the individual
members or for others. The religious group must be led by a charismatic leader,
and that person must be religiously motivated. Lastly, RMV must use violence
and it does not matter who the intended targets were, combatants or
noncombatants. As stated earlier, unlike many other definitions of terrorism,
there is no reason to differentiate between combatants and noncombatants as the
targets of the intended violence of religious groups because in any true RMV,
any person outside the religious group is a potential target.
In
conclusion, attempting to create a single definition for all terrorism is folly
for many reasons. However, by examining every aspect of terrorism in a concrete
and scientific ways, by creating subcategories and genus, and then beginning
with very specific definitions for each group, subgroup, and type or kind of
terrorism, we may then find effective answers to the overall problem of
terrorism. In that way, we may also find ways to eradicate violence associated
with all terroristic groups. However, as noted, the one major drawback to using
scientific investigational techniques is that there will never be a simple, all
encompassing definition for every form of terrorism. Instead, multiple
definitions of terrorism must be produced to deal with each kind of terrorism,
and even for every level within each terrorist organization. Consequently, that
means terrorism cannot be diagnosed or fought using any single technique, tool,
or method, anymore than doctors can fight multiple ailments with a single
aspirin. However, by producing very specific definitions, better ways and
strategies may be found to eliminate much of the associated violence.
Bibliography:
Abrahams, Max, “What Terrorists Really
Want: Terrorist Motives and Counterterrorism Strategy,”
International Security, Vol. 32, No.
4, Spring 2008.
Juergensmeyer, Mark. Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence, Berkeley:
University of California Press, 2000.
Lewis, James R., ed. Violence and New Religious Movements, Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2011.
Robert A. Pape, “The Strategic Logic of Suicide
Terrorism,” American Political Science
Review, Vol.
97, No. 3, Aug 2003.
Randall, Lisa, Knocking
on Heaven’s Door, New York: Collins, 2011.
Stern, Jessica. Terror in the Name of God: Why Religious Militants Kill, New York: Harpers-Collins,
2003.
Tilly, Charles, and Tarrow, S., Contentious Politics, Boulder: Paradigm
Publishers, 2007.
[1]
Stuart Gottlieb ed. Debating Terrorism
and Counterterrorism: Conflicting Perspectives on Causes, Contexts, and
Responses, (Washington, D.C.: CQ Press, 2010), page x.
[2]
Stuart Gottlieb ed., Debating Terrorism
and Counterterrorism: Conflicting Perspectives on Causes, Contexts, and
Responses, page xi.
[4]
James R. Lewis, ed. Violence and New
Religious Movements, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), page 27.
[6]
Juergensmeyer, Mark. Terror in the Mind
of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence, (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 2000), pages 5-6.
[7]
Juergensmeyer, Mark. Terror in the Mind
of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence, (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 2000), pages 8-9.
[8]
Stern, Jessica. Terror in the Name of
God: Why Religious Militants Kill, (New York: Harpers-Collins, 2003), pages
244-245.
[9]
Stern, Jessica. Terror in the Name of
God: Why Religious Militants Kill, (New York: Harpers-Collins, 2003), page
249.
[10]
William T. Cavanaugh, The Myth of
Religious Violence: Secular Ideology and the Roots of Modern Conflict,
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), pages 4-5.
[11]
Robert A. Pape, “The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism,” American Political Science Review, Vol.
97, No. 3, Aug 2003. pp. 343-361, and Max Abrahams, “What Terrorists Really
Want: Terrorist Motives and Counterterrorism Strategy,” International Security, Vol. 32, No. 4 (Spring 2008), pp. 78–105,
and Charles Tilly and Sidney Tarrow, Contentious
Politics, (Boulder: Paradigm Publishers), pp. 45-66.
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