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Beyond Terror and Martyrdom: the Future of the Middle East |
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reviewed by Omer Aslan |
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Author: Gilles Kepel |
ISBN:
978-0-674-03138-8 |
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Publisher:
The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press |
Page:
328 |
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Type:
Hardcover |
Price:
$28.00 |
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Place of Publication:
Cambridge, Mass. and London, England |
Published in:
2008 |
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Review: |
The September 11 attacks unleashed a new era with global jihadist terrorism pitted against the US’ ‘war on terror’ rhetoric. Perhaps the greatest number of books, reports and policy briefs has been published on issues of terrorism, jihad, and Islamic radicalization, as well as on combating terrorism, and democracy promotion in those years. Yet, suggesting even helping to create a “civil democratic Islam,” these publications remained essentially conjunctural, failing to grasp that both ‘war on terror’ and ‘jihad by martyrdom operations’ were doomed to wither away, and as a consequence, making it impossible to comprehend the prevailing diversity and inner forces at work, and a different future awaiting the Middle Eastern societies.
Gilles Kepel is a prominent expert writing extensively on Middle East politics, political Islam, and the relations between the West and the Muslim world. His most recent book, Beyond Terror and Martyrdom: the Future of the Middle East, takes its merit from suggesting and manifesting why “the narratives of war on terror and martyrdom” need to be left behind. Kepel aims to demonstrate why these two destructive narratives did not bode well for the Middle East since 9/11 and offers how else the region’s future might be shaped based on the lessons gleaned from the failure of the “war on terror” and “martyrdom operations”.
The book consists of six chapters. In the first chapter, “From the war on terror to the fiasco in Iraq,” Kepel lays bare the road to the eventual failure of the U.S.-led “war on terror”. He mentions the “defensive jihad” declared by Al-Qaeda against the American occupation of Afghanistan, the scandals at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, which allowed the terrorists to exploit that “say-do” gap between American rhetoric and actions for propaganda purposes.
The second chapter, “Martyrdom operations among Shiites and Sunnis” discusses the emergence and spread of the idea of martyrdom among the Shiites and Sunnis. The author traces the origins of martyrdom operations to Shiites and its beginning to the 1980 Iran-Iraq war. He identifies Hezbollah on the Shiite side while Hamas and of course, Al-Qaeda are pointed as the flag-bearers of “martyrdom operations” in the Sunni world. The author captures well the relationship between religious institutions in the Sunni world and political regimes. As a legacy of the Ottoman Empire, the Arab regimes always had a hold on religious institutions by basically employing religious people as civil servants and paying them salaries. Kepel points out that some religious scholars did not provide sanction for martyrdom operations by al-Qaeda militants against Arab regimes, but they approved of them if done by the Palestinians against Israelis which illustrates the relationship of dependence between religious institutions and political regimes.
Having divided the emergence and spread of the idea of jihad with martyrdom operations into three phases, the author discusses the split September 11 attacks caused among jihadists in the third chapter, “The third phase of jihad.” Jihad, according to the author, moved forward in three phases: the first phase began with jihad waged against the Red Army until the Soviets were expelled from Afghanistan in 1989, the second phase lasted from 1990 until September 11 attacks and the last phase commenced with the critique of September 11 by other jihadists until Al-Qaeda was supported by only a tiny minority in the Muslim world as they started attacking fellow Muslims.
As Europe was also caught within the swirl of global jihad by martyrdom operations and the war on terror, Kepel focuses on the repercussions and reflections of these on the European soil in the fourth and fifth chapters, “Missteps of Multiculturalism” and “The Propaganda Battle in Europe”. Europe became not only a battleground in terms of display of terrorist ‘deeds’ but also it was susceptible to what is called homegrown terrorism because of the large Muslim population living in Europe. The author focuses on the integration models in Europe that allowed minority groups, especially Muslims, to develop “totally separate identities” and that he sees as missteps of multiculturalism.
The next chapter, with a focus on the European battleground, concerns the propaganda battle going on in Europe. It has been argued by Robert Pape for instance that the main reason for joining the jihadists ranks for martyrdom operations is the grievances about Muslim lands and the conviction about the West’s complicity in the oppression of Muslims. Kepel shows astutely that the same logic applied to jihadist recruitment strategies in Europe. This is why the author singles out the Danish cartoons affair, Pope Benedict XVI’s comments on the Prophet of Islam and the provocative film by Van Gogh as acts radicalizing Muslims and losing them in the propaganda battle. The lesson the author draws is that both narratives of “war on terror” and “martyrdom operations” were wrong and neither of them succeeded in the Middle East eventually.
What else can lie ahead for the Middle East in the near future and who devolves the responsibility to help shape the region are the questions Kepel tries to answer in the final part, “The Challenge of Civilization”. Kepel suggests the United States give up unilateralism of the Bush era and embrace multilateral approach to international issues. He makes a contentious argument that besides oft-heard China and India, the European Union and the Gulf are also emerging as new power centers and thus, they should assume a significant economic role in helping mitigate these crises and shape the future of the Middle East. However, this argument creates two problems for the author: first, although the author argues that the EU’s economic power and stability and the Gulf’s vast oil-fields and the flow of bankers into Gulf countries will re-compensate their weaknesses, it is still not clear how the EU will evolve and if it is going to be able turn its economic sway into political clout. The EU’s potential influence for the future of the Middle East is also doubtful under the light of the fact that the EU’s ability to bring about positive political and social changes in the Middle East has hitherto been limited despite its huge economic clout. The claim that the Gulf will also emerge as a new pole in international relations makes it necessary for the author to explicate how he defines and what he understands from an emerging “pole”. Otherwise, it seems he is putting China, India, the EU, and the Gulf into the same basket while the claim about “China’s rise” obviously has a clear military and political dimension while the Gulf’s rise does not.
Secondly, the mechanism whereby the solely economy-based roadmap the author offers for a peaceful, prosperous, and stable Middle East might yield desired outcomes for the Middle East is left unclear. The author does not tell how economic development in the region will help solve long-standing political problems such as the lack of democracy, accountability, transparency, human rights issues, and the rule of law.
The simplicity of the author’s economy-based approach gets starker where he claims that the Oslo peace process failed because a “small regional entity made up of Israel, Palestine, and perhaps Jordan and Egypt had no economic viability in the eyes of major international investors.” Such an economy-based explanation remains overtly one-sided and precludes us from seeing other reasons that are political in nature: the references to murky UN resolutions of 242 and 338 had left room for different interpretations and expectations about respective steps to be taken, the most contentious issues such as the status of Jerusalem, “right of return,” had been left to final negotiations, the end-game was not specified in the declaration principles, and the Israeli settlement activity continued.
The book suffers from one further albeit minor flaw. In the final chapter, the author mentions the rise of new powers in the Middle East to substantiate his overall premise that multi-polarity is emerging in international relations. In particular, he refers to Turkey emerging as a “new broker” in the region in reference to active Turkish involvement in the area. Yet, his claim that Turkey has been more active in the region because the West has allowed it does not submit the credit to the incumbent Turkish government it deserves. The new Turkish activism in the region cannot be adequately understood unless the contrast between the erstwhile traditional Turkish dislike of the region and disenchantment towards involvement in regional affairs and the willingness the incumbent government has demonstrated is grasped.
In conclusion, Beyond Terror and Martyrdom: the Future of the Middle East,offers a comprehensive account by an expert of what has happened for the last eight years due to the narratives of war on terror and martyrdom operations. Although the author prioritizes the economic dimension, which he thinks will spearhead a peace and prosperity campaign in the Middle East with the help of the EU and the Gulf countries, the use of the concept “an emerging pole in international relations” needs to be steered and the argument substantiated.
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about book: |
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Kepel (Al Qaeda in Its Own Words) offers an erudite critique of the narratives of both Bush and Bin Laden which considered force or violence to be a prerequisite for change in the Middle East. The book surveys the propagation of the war on terror that eventually led to the fiasco in Iraq, but unlike many critiques of the Iraq War, this study focuses on the internecine fighting between various national and sectarian Muslim groups, providing rich historical and cultural context for the internal regional politics that often have derailed U.S. policy. His analysis shifts to Europe, where he examines how different national policies of integration and multiculturalism in France and England have resulted in dramatically different experiences of terrorism. Kepel offers alternatives to the American war on terror that he believes will help to transcend terror and martyrdom and to ensure the decisive marginalization of jihadist radicalism. His prescriptions are as insightful and thoughtful as his critiques, making this a valuable read for those interested in the Middle East and current affairs generally. (Nov.) |
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