Candle vigil in southern Beirut to mourn 44 victims of suicide bomb, November, 2015. Demotix/Eduardo Lima. All rights reserved.
In the grip of the refugee crisis, the European Union is now in mourning after the horrific terrorist attacks in Paris. In the aftermath of horror, the underlying theme of the extensive media coverage and public outrage is racism: race is very relevant in two ways. Both amount to a Eurocentric self-indulgence that could frame and shape policy decisions.
First this shouts out in the binary patterns of West vs East confrontation, but also in the selective news coverage of terrorist attacks. So while the Paris attacks feature in all the global media and spark a global wave of solidarity from states and citizens, the attacks in Lebanon attract relatively small attention. The Beirut or Ankara terrorist attacks do not fit neatly into this binary frame and are consequently marginalised in the global public discourse. The same asymmetrical pattern of coverage applied back in January this year, when the Charlie Hebdo slaughter dominated headlines while Boko Haram’s Baga massacre elicited limited coverage.
The tragic events were immediately framed in the context of the recent refugee influx. This connection has not been put forward by only the ‘usual suspects’, the xenophobic ultra-far-right parties that are awaiting such tragic events to bolster their anti-immigrant causes, but also mainstream political parties opportunistically resorting to nationalist discourses. Far-right leaders’ opinions make the headlines while sensible and sober voices are hushed or even vilified.
The clash of
ignorance
Media coverage frequently uses the words "Muslim",
Islamist", "jihadist" and "terrorist" in an
interchangeable manner. The word ‘Islam’ in the west is increasingly synonymous
with ‘extremism’ and ‘fundamentalism’: you need to put other adjectives like moderate
first to make them acceptable. Also social media clearly exhibits an implied pressure
on all members of Muslim communities across the globe to publicly confess that
they condemn the attacks in order to distinguish themselves from the
terrorists. The very act of confession
manifests a power relation operating between a sinner and confessor to
elicit truth. So the default position is at the very least suspicion towards members
of a certain religion that feeds Islamophobic sentiments and jeopardises social
integration.
This simplistic stereotyping of 1.6 billion people as
extremists is not only ridiculous but has also serious political implications. The
scapegoating of Muslim communities in western countries where they are
perceived as a “5th
column” can only trigger racialised social division. The work of Professor
Farzana Shain on the educational
implication of the ‘war on Terror’, for
example, illuminates this demonization of Muslim communities.
Is the “New
Terrorism” really new?
Though the concept of ‘New Terrorism’ was coined in academia
in the 1990s, it was only after 9/11 that the idea of a ‘new’ and radically different
form of terrorism gained momentum. The role of religion in motivating terrorism
has been highlighted relatively recently. But the label ‘terrorist’ often
obscures more than it reveals, applied as it is to describe tactics used by countless
groups pursuing various goals. The standard orthodox periodization of modern
terrorism commences with an anarchist wave in the late nineteenth century, then
the anti-colonial wave that led to decolonisation, then so-called new-left terrorism,
and finally the religious wave that has its roots back in 1979.
There has also been a change in tactics. The anarchist wave
of terrorism required the assassination of top government officials, while the
anticolonial struggle involved a more complicated undertaking, the ‘new-left’
terrorist introduced new methods like airline hijacking and hostage-taking and
finally the ‘religious’ wave came up with ‘self-martyrdom’. However, the common
assumption that all recent terrorist activity is religiously motivated can lead
to a serious misreading of its political and material dimensions. Understanding
ISIS and the uneasy relationship between its recruitment
strategy and belief in extremist Islam has not attracted much attention, as
this contradicts the prevailing narrative.
So have we seen a radical transformation in the character of
terrorism that would require us to label it as ‘new’? Contemporary terrorism is
not a fundamentally ‘new’ phenomenon, but one that should be understood and
located in an evolving historical context. This is the only way we can fully
grasp its significance.
Moreover, what is achieved by so labelling it? By accepting
that the recent terrorist attacks constitute a ‘new’ phenomenon, it is easily inferred
that new measures are needed to address new challenges. The concept of ‘new’
terrorism in the aftermath of 9/11 provided the narrative that resulted in the
global ‘war on terror’.
How can we combat these horrific atrocities?
Attacks that were immediately perceived by western states as
an ‘act of war’ took place a day before the G20 summit in Antalya and will eventually
pave the way for a concerted military response.
Xenophobic forces in Europe have for a long time been anticipating
the securitization of the refugee influx that is gradually being established. The
securitization of the refugee issue serves to legitimize Islamophobia at home
and to unify the nation in pursuing foreign policy objectives against the
enemy.
We do not need to square the circle. We simply need to bring
to the surface and tackle the perilous assumptions about the ‘clash of
civilisations’ that feed bigotry and hatred. Reason and democracy should prevail
in an open public dialogue, while policy makers in Europe should stop turning a
blind eye to the concerns of people that can be manipulated in populist and
xenophobic discourse. The public discourse that will eventually shape the new
orientation in Europe should eliminate racist connotations. The binary
framework of ‘civilised’ v. ‘barbaric’ categories is a perilous one to apply in
the formation of the European Union’s policy towards refugees.
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