Terrorism

The Power and Weakness of Fear

Juan Romero

• Editore: Routledge
• Anno: 2022
• ISBN:
  9781000547467
• Edizione: 1
• Argomento: Storia
• Categoria: Storia tedesca

This book adopts an innovative historical approach to Terrorism, focusing on the weaknesses of terrorist states and organizations as reflected in the ideologies, methodologies and propaganda of Russian populist, National Socialist and Islamic Terrorism.

Drawing upon multilingual primary sources, the book challenges the oft repeated claim that the Nazi regime and Islamic State produced propaganda of superior quality, instead arguing that the manipulation of information is the Achilles heel of terrorist organizations. It offers a critical examination of the fears of terrorists themselves, as opposed to the traditional focus on the fear instilled by terrorist organizations in governments and citizens. Taking a multidisciplinary approach and long-term history perspective, the book provides a method for exploring the minds of terrorists and the inner workings of their organizations and traces the evolution of terrorist thought and methodology across time and place.

This is the ideal volume for researchers of Terrorism within the fields of History, Politics, Security Studies, Religious Studies and Legal Studies.

1Ancient, medieval and early modern extremist movements

DOI: 10.4324/9781003260943-2

Introduction

Terrorism in one form or another has been a part of human history since ancient times. From an historical perspective, it is therefore appropriate briefly to touch upon three early movements from very different historical periods, leading up to the main focus of this volume on modern terrorism and extremist ideologies. The three movements examined in this chapter are the Jewish Sicarii of the first century C.E., the Ismaʽili Nizaris (Assassins) of the Middle Ages and the Sunni Muhawwid (Wahhabi) movement of the eighteenth century. The comparative analysis offered in this chapter reveals that there are similarities between the Sicarii and Nizaris with regard to methodology. Furthermore, the three movements also display similar exclusivist interpretations of human interaction and religion. Finally, an examination of the Sicarii, Nizari and Muwahhid movements also yields surprising similarities between these militant extremist movements of the past and those of modern times despite the centuries and even millennia which separate us from those periods and notwithstanding the evolution of human societies.

Technological progress and advancements in science and education do not preclude the perpetuation of certain phenomena and the continuous appeal of intolerant and violent ideologies to some human minds. Ironically, human progress in many areas has placed ever more powerful means at the disposal of movements which oppose the moderate interpretations of religions, political ideologies and philosophies embraced by a clear majority of mankind. We know the latter claim to be true even without an opinion poll taken by every individual on this planet since most people have not joined militant organizations, which, in turn, is a major cause of concern for every such group or movement. As the present study progresses, the reader will find convincing evidence of the validity of both these claims, namely, that militant groups benefit from technological progress in society and that violent and exclusivist ideologies do not cease to appeal to certain individuals despite advancements in education. The fact that most human beings do not embrace violence as a lifestyle is without doubt reassuring, but the fact that increasingly powerful means have become easily accessible to adherents to militant ideologies will appear as a serious challenge to the former assumption since it might actually drastically reduce the importance of numbers. Fortunately, an historical and critical approach to the study of terrorism allows us convincingly to demonstrate that the powerful technologies employed by militants to make the world fit into their ideological Procrustean bed may actually lead to their undoing. The obvious reason for this is that advanced technologies which enable discontented extremists to wage asymmetric warfare against enemies who possess superior resources might lead to an overemphasis on such technologies at the expense of other aspects of their cause and have a detrimental impact on their legitimacy.

The three movements briefly examined in this chapter can be described as revolutionary and traditional at the same time. First, they all resorted to violence in order to realize their political and religious agenda. Second, this militancy was justified by reference to a higher power – God – who had presumably sanctified coercion to rectify what was perceived as serious ills of society and religious misperceptions. Furthermore, the members of these movements saw themselves as guardians of the true religion, a fact which caused them to have very little patience with diversity and pluralism. As a result, they resorted to drastic measures to enforce conformity within each particular movement and the society at large. Moreover, the movements were revolutionary in the sense that they strove to overthrow the existing order by force but not to the extent that they wished to replace the old system with a new one. In this respect, the three movements were revivalist, since they attempted to reintroduce what their leaders believed was the original and unadulterated religion as opposed to the diluted contemporary religion and the immorality of society.

The Sicarii

The most detailed primary source on the Sicarii available to historians is Flavius Josephus’s account of the movement. Despite this fact, Western scholars were long at variance over the identity of the Zealots and Sicarii, with traditional scholarship arguing that the two movements were one and the same. In the early twentieth century, some historians gradually came to distinguish between Zealots and Sicarii. Kirsopp Lake contended that Josephus had not used the term ‘Zealots’ in reference to a political party prior to 66 C.E. Lake therefore concluded that Josephus used the term when referring to a particular party which was not identical with the ‘fourth philosophy’, a movement founded by Judas of Galilee in 6 C.E., which later became the Sicarii. The misperception that the Zealots and Sicarii were identical probably arose from the term ‘zeal’ which must have circulated and been applied to individuals who did not belong to the party before the party derived its name from the term.¹ Richard Horsley concurs with the interpretation that Zealots and Sicarii were two different groups and argues that they were active in different parts of Judea and at different times of the Jewish Revolt against the Roman Empire 66–70 C.E.² Discontent with Roman rule and taxation had begun to grow as early as the beginning of the Common Era, when the Romans conducted a census in order to impose taxes on the Judean population. In opposition to these Roman activities, Judas of Galilee formed a protest movement the leadership of which was passed on to his son or grandson Menahem who became the leader of the Sicarii when an open revolt, the so-called Jewish War, erupted in 66 C.E.³

The major reasons for the Jewish War were economic, administrative and religious. The unrestrained building projects of the ruler before the Common Era and in the early years of the Common Era together with Roman double taxation and the tithe due to the priests for the upkeep of the Temple created a situation in which the population of Judea suffered greatly.⁴ These hardships led Judas the Galilean to incite Jews to resist Roman control and the rule of their high priests in 6 C.E. His primary justification of this call for action was that the census that the Romans had decreed would result in slavery. The only way to prevent this from occurring was to rise up against the Romans. Judas’s activities quickly earned him a death sentence, which was carried out.⁵ Later in the first century, in the 60s C.E., the attempts of the Roman Procurator to run the affairs of the Temple, the High Priests’ exploitation of the Jewish population and their cooperation with the Romans caused a popular uprising supported by the lower priests first against the upper echelons of the sacerdotal establishment and then against the Romans as well in 66 C.E. The main reasons for the Roman intervention in the revolt were the deteriorating security situation in the province and the insurgents’ ban on offering sacrifices and gifts to the Roman Emperor in the Temple.⁶ Several Jewish factions, amongst which were the Zealots and the Sicarii, were involved in the initial revolt against the high priests. Infighting among the factions as a result of the oppressive rule of one of the leaders, Menahem, the son or grandson of Judas the Galilean, later led to the Sicarii withdrawing from direct involvement in the Jewish War, limiting their operations to the area surrounding their stronghold on Masada.⁷ The religious rationale for Judas’s incitement and the Jewish War in the 60s C.E. was the argument that God will not offer assistance unless Jews actively fight to address their suffering.⁸ There were thus both religious and secular reasons for the unrest in Judea in the first century C.E.

The fourth philosophy, a doctrine espoused by Judas the Galilean, was the religious and ideological rationale for his movement in the early first century C.E. and his heirs, the Sicarii, of the 60s C.E. The four main pillars of this philosophy were the concept of oneness of God, establishment of the true kingdom of God, the idea that God’s assistance in an undertaking can only be expected if the faithful themselves act and the exclusivist approach to anyone who does not embrace this doctrine.⁹ The first pillar meant that recognition of the Roman Emperor equaled idolatry. The reason was that such recognition involved offering sacrifice to the emperor in the Temple, which implied usurpation of God’s power and idolatry and a violation of God’s law which commanded that Jews have no other god besides Yahweh.¹⁰ Exodus states unequivocally that the punishment for such an act is the destruction of whomever offers the sacrifice.¹¹ According to Judas the Galilean, the second pillar, establishment of the kingdom of God, entailed human agency. If humans insisted on the realization of this notion, then God would see to it that it would come true.¹² The form of government which Judas and the Sicarii envisioned was most likely a theocracy, a conclusion that can be drawn based upon the movement’s rejection of worldly rulers. The appointment of a theocratic ruler was clearly democratic in nature since the leader was selected by lot and not based upon hierarchic position or erudition.¹³ Since Judas regarded idolatry as a serious sin, he decreed that resistance to alien rulers be considered a religious duty, being the first to do so.¹⁴ In summary, the fourth philosophy constitutes clear evidence of continuity regarding religious doctrine between Judas the Galilean and his heirs the Sicarii, half a century later.

The ‘pillars’ discussed above harked back to earlier concepts in Jewish religion such as zeal and herem. The term zeal can be understood as a duty to implement Jewish law, including readiness to punish Jews who violate God’s law. During the Jewish War, this duty was interpreted by many insurgents as a need to ‘cleanse the people or the land of “apostate” Jews’.¹⁵ The Old Testament contains precedents for the zeal embraced by the Zealots and Sicarii in the 60s C.E. to the effect that pious Jews were allowed to put to death Jews who disobeyed God’s commands in return for which Yahweh promised salvation to the faithful. The difference between how zeal was applied in ancient times and in the mid-first century was, however, that some insurgents in the Jewish War added the interpretation that it could be used against Israel’s external enemies as well.¹⁶ Another concept from the Old Testament, closely related to zeal, is herem, Holy War. The war which God had commanded Jews to launch against the Canaanites to wrest control from them over the Promised Land. The Bible refers to the terror which herem was supposed to unleash on the Canaanites and the duty of Israel to ‘dest...

Indice dei contenuti

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1 Ancient, medieval and early modern extremist movements
• 2 Was Russian terrorism a true instrument of the people?
• 3 Methodology of Russian terrorism
• 4 Ideology of the National Socialist terrorist state
• 5 National Socialist propaganda
• 6 Interpretations of jihad
• 7 Rules of jihad
• 8 Precursors to the Islamic State
• 9 Islamic State media production and Islam
• 10 Islamic State legitimacy and perception of the enemy
• 11 The eleven fears of Islamic terrorist organizations
• 12 A comparative evolution of terrorism
• Conclusion
• Glossary
• Index