Global Terror, Global Vengeance?

• Published in: SubStance 2008-01, Vol.37 (1), p.72-97
• Main Authors: Hénaff, Marcel, Lapidus, Roxanne, Doran, Robert
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Asad, Talal; Buddhism; Christianity; Islam; Mimesis; Modernity; Muslims; Political violence; Politics; Religion; Religious terrorism; Revenge; Terrorism; Violence; War
• ISSN: 0049-2426; 1527-2095; 1527-2095
• DOI: 10.1353/sub.2008.0010

[...]if there can be a legitimate act of violence (of a military nature against an oppressive regime), there is no such thing as a legitimate terrorism, since terrorism always implies an armed struggle that goes beyond the confines of an ethico-political framework. Terrorist action of this third type functions according to the implicit hypothesis that the domain of legitimate authority is limited to a small group of competent, doctrinally sound "guides" (espousers of a social or national ideology or religious denomination). [...]this type of terrorist action implicitly affirms precisely the opposite of what it claims to be fighting for—i.e. that sovereign (political) power can only belong to a very small group whose authority is self-proclaimed and that the proposed liberation can only lead to dictatorship by this enlightened minority. Because their act of revenge situates itself in a religious context (as dubious as this might seem in such a violent form) it can be understood, even though we find it curiously "archaic": an act of punishment or, more exactly, of general and indiscriminate vengeance against a random portion of the population of a country that supposedly incarnates the negation of the values associated with the attackers' beliefs. What makes trans-formation difficult in Muslim societies is that underlying the crisis of modernity is the question of religion. Since Islam does not separate faith from culture, fully assimilating itself to globalization appears to weaken their faith and deny their culture.