Terrorism, like any other phenomena, might be explained as an affect of causes. Terrorism is invoked for multiple purposes, and thus it evidently has multiple meanings. I will actually not offer any definition of terrorism nor speak of any particular act as a terrorist act, in this post. Notice, everyone else in this thread has decided to discuss terrorism without having a definition or even pointing to a context, so im not doing something new, I just am aware of the significance of that. I will admit that from my perspective, nearly every post in this thread is pretty much propaganda or else about 'nothing' at all.
Strictly speaking, we can see that the phenomena of terrorism is viewed under separate causal frameworks depending on where it happens.
From what is written about terrorism in the Global South, terrorism is explained as a strictly political phenomena urgently related to sectarian/ethnic conflicts and failures in state-building/regional organization levels. Sunni-Shiite clashes (and notice decknites mention of moderate clerics invokes this assumption, and if we look further we see that ' the sunnis' are described as 'the moderates' most often, so convenient for Saudi Arabian aristocrats and Egyptian militaries, how unfortunate for 'Iran', and isn't it all so convenient for right-wng Israeli politicians?), Islamic terror, 'sectarian violence', palestinians are figured as terrorists but Israeli politicians straight out admit that South African apartheid is their model for 'dealing with palestinians'.
For the Global North, terrorism is given (at least) 2 possible additional ways of explaining it, first a psychological explanation that places a pathology in an individual (the lone wolf), and then there is (an) additional political explanation(s) that basically all come down to terrorism as a consequence of alienation from the democratic process (the 'rightwing wackos' and the 'leftwing enviro-terrorists').
That terrorism is the cause of alienation from a democratic process is really even too simplistic a formulation. Many 'political scientists' would just as soon say it is caused by alienation from some economic process. But the reply is just that when we say 'democratic process' it is already obvious that it is said equivocally to 'economic process'. Jumpluff mentioned how tired a debate this is becoming. Still the op asked about what can be done and so above, I have mentioned a common discussion about causes of stability: causes related to the political environment, causes related to economic conditions, etc. Expanding access to political institutions and increasing economic infrastructure could be taken as steps that address the political cause of terrorism taken as alienation that results in a particular form of violence. Political instability is obviously both a cause and consequence of 'poverty'. Thus, there are few simple steps to addressing terrorism.
Finally, there is a question about 'scope' or 'lens' of analysis with terrorism. For example: should terrorism be taken as a regional phenomena? If the democratic process is taken to be the revolution itself (this is not a leap, just a definition), then alienation from the democratic process will be a regional phenomena, this is because revolutions are always regional phenomena in so far as any counter-revolutionary activity stems from the regions' elites. Is terrorism a global phenomena? How is terrorism related to nationalism? Doesn't any nationalism, in figuring the nation, also locate the non-nation inside the nation, that which is to become the terrorist?
Someone might be critical of all the frameworks I have mentioned so far, and point out that terrorism could merely a word/term that obfuscates legitimate grievances that have been, or are desired to be, shut out of a political discourse. Thus 'terrorism' finally becomes an ideology (of security) that produces the terrorist, which never existed before. How does knowledge of the terrorist inform, intersect, become or resist, knowledge of the refugee. This is a question about how the figure of the terrorist is mobilized in discussions about particular issues or discussions about some particular context. For example, if we are saying that the terrorist is one who is alienated from a state's democratic process, and the refugee is presumably one who is necessarily unable to even be in their state safely, it seems almost too easy to view the refugee as the terrorist as analytically they tick many of the same boxes.
As for the arab spring: there is a clear pattern where 'revolutions' don't happen, no matter how many people are involved, if outside powers are willing enough to prevent it. Maybe terrorism must be given a global analysis, especially if the juxtaposition of the refugee and the terrorist is to be contextualized in actual cases of refugees becoming terrorists (how does this process unfold? in Saudi Arabia, Syria, Israel, Palestine). A cross-case analysis would no doubt illuminate the ways in which terrorism has no fixed meaning but is put to use as a term in security ideologies that have different consequences for different bodies.
My position is that terrorism belongs to a special class of phenomena that are apparent because they have no verifiable origins. Thus it can only be intervened on at a structural level, as the capacity for terrorism will not be diminished by military defeat, as weapons just get spread around more and more and terrorism was originally 'invented' as a tactic to be used in asymmetric warfare, i.e, against a militarized enemy. Terrorism exists because there are terrorists obviously, if only there were something else there (and you can wonder why
I NEVER lack for work in the oh so politically stable environs of california, but does it really seem like a conspiracy? it's not actually that difficult).
The Raven 's video is very instructive for getting at the definition of terrorism used by security firms and institutions, which basically moves to deepen or invoke a conflation between terrorism and guerrilla warfare. For them (the security) it's fine, just being safe/smart really, but as a broader political security program it isn't sustainable and mainly encourages terrorism by enticing 'the bureaucracy'/politicians in power into backing-up unpopular regimes through violence. Another consequence is that there is a real possibility, as in Iran, that a state politics established by relatively popular revolution will be viewed as a terrorist state for several generations. This becomes especially problematic for nationals of such 'pariah states' that find themselves forced to migrate, as they will be discriminated against in the next state due to their suspect nationality.
decknite you also want to eradicate the non-believers (infidels) and build a theocracy so wtf are you to wag fingers at ISIS anyway?
I would tell everyone to just trust me on this analysis of terrorism that im giving, as i actually know 'terrorists' with real files with the fbi and errything, but it's really decknite who seems to be best displaying the terrorist mentality itt so maybe you should take him at his word and strap up. You're always free to take back your misery.
The people who plan these wars and design the political objectives particular to each of the wars are not thinking about promoting moderate clerics, they're worried about what infrastructure and systems are already in place and whether they'll be able to stay long enough to entice communities to realize an externally-backed political/economic transition. Oh it's hella fucked up: the war is fucked up enough to get sickos like decknite off, and thats just a component of the politics of war that we sign up for each time we resort to violence to solve structural problems: terrorists are made of the winners and the losers. But the militaries, or at least some components of the militaries, know the actual business, at least in theory, of intervening on terrorist spawning environments and it has nothing to do with ideologies and moderate clerics.
I feel prompted to post a reply to
Bughouse 's 'assertion' that no one on these forums knows about palestinian politics. Well, I think you'd be so surprised who organized bds within the UC. I know at least two who are into pokemon pretty hardcore. So don't feel that its all so bad if this thread is full of shitty posts. you're right that so far no one has posted anything close to a realistic comment about it in this thread, but people are literally already on zionist security blacklisting websites, that means they cannot enter palestine, can never see their fam (if fam is even alive). What would it look like to 'credential up' in a thread about political instability? What if you just posted some semblance of the truth of the matter about Israel and Palestine? That would be more than enough to come up under certain laws about anti-semitism, for example. Oh yes, it would be unenforcible: you would win in court against it. But if someone wanted to, there is a law set up for them to come at you in court just that much more easily. So, speech in this thread is absolutely restricted, in many more ways than the two I just mentioned. But there is some nice propaganda itt, some pretty bs, some total obfuscation. Nothing more than I would expect to encounter in the comments section of the guardian or a facebook post from a zionist propaganda page, but beyond what youd see from mainstream western journos covering day to day events. It's all so very professional it could even seem like some conspiracy, but it's not, it's just conformity: rehearse enough lines, then they cant help but be regurgitated. It's funny to me, the consistency of the lines I see, as though all have decided that if they just repeat the lines over and over there won't be apartheid and there wont be genocide. And we know the perpetrators will silence their victims and then blame them for not speaking. Bughouse seems to implicitly suggest that it's no accident that the people who have the time to post in this thread are posting seemingly 'on behalf of' a certain end. All I will say is that the propaganda has intensified and become more violent, as defeat on the left-international stage has approached. That is reassuring in a way, unless you're liable to be sued, criminalized, disenfranchised, or physically attacked because of your participation in boycotting zionist enterprises.
