David Brooks The New York Times
Nothing has changed during the war on terror as much as our definition of the enemy.
In the days after 9/11, it was commonly believed that the conflict between the jihadists and the West was a conflict between medievalism and modernism. Terrorists, it was said, emerge from cultures that are isolated from the Enlightenment ideas of the West.
They feel disoriented by the pluralism of the modern age and humiliated by the relative backwardness of the Arab world. They are trapped in stagnant, dysfunctional regimes, amid mass unemployment, with little hope of leading productive lives.
Humiliated and oppressed, they lash out against America, the symbol of threatening modernity. Off they go to seek martyrdom, dreaming of virgins who await them in the afterlife.
Now we know that story line doesn’t fit the facts.
We have learned a lot about the jihadists, from Osama bin Laden down to the Europeans who attacked the London subways last month. We know, thanks to a database gathered by Marc Sageman, formerly of the CIA, that about 75 percent of anti-Western terrorists come from middle-class or upper-middle-class homes. An amazing 65 percent have gone to college, and three-quarters have professional or semiprofessional jobs, particularly in engineering and science.
Whether they have moved to Egypt, Saudi Arabia, England or France, these men are, far from being medieval, drawn from the ranks of the educated, the mobile and the multilingual. The jihadists are modern psychologically as well as demographically because they are self-made men (in traditional societies there are no self-made men). Rather than deferring to custom, many of them have rebelled against local authority figures, rejecting their parents’ bourgeois striving and moderate versions of Islam, and their comfortable lives.
They have sought instead some utopian cause to give them an identity and their lives meaning. They find that cause in a brand of Salafism that is not traditional Islam but a modern fantasy version, an invented tradition. They give up cricket and medical school and take up jihad. In other words, the conflict between the jihadists and the West is a conflict within the modern, globalized world. The extremists are the sort of utopian rebels modern societies have long produced.
In his book “Globalized Islam,” the French scholar Olivier Roy points out that today’s jihadists have a lot in common with the left-wing extremists of the 1930s and 1960s. Ideologically, Islamic neofundamentalism occupies the same militant space once occupied by Marxism. It draws the same sorts of recruits (educated second-generation immigrants, for example), uses some of the same symbols and vilifies some of the same enemies (imperialism and capitalism).
Roy emphasizes that the jihadists are the products of globalization, and its enemies. They are detached from any specific country or culture, he says, and take up jihad because it attaches them to something. They are generally not politically active before they take up jihad. They are looking to strike a vague blow against the system and so give their lives (and deaths) shape and meaning.
In short, the Arab world is maintaining its nearly perfect record of absorbing every bad idea coming from the West. Western ideas infuse the radicals who flood into Iraq to blow up Muslims and Americans alike. This new definition of the enemy has seeped into popular culture (in “Over There,” the American cable TV show about the Iraq war, the insurgent leaders are shown as educated, multilingual radicals), but its implications have only slowly dawned on the policy world.
The first implication, clearly, is that democratizing the Middle East, while worthy in itself, may not stem terrorism. Terrorists are bred in London and Paris as much as anywhere else.
Second, the jihadists’ weakness is that they do not spring organically from the Arab or Muslim world. They claim to speak for the Muslim masses, as earlier radicals claimed to speak for the proletariat. But they don’t. Surely a key goal for U.S. policy should be to isolate the nationalists from the jihadists.
Third, terrorism is an immigration problem. Terrorists are spawned when educated, successful Muslims still have trouble sinking roots into their adopted homelands. Countries that do not encourage assimilation are not only causing themselves trouble, but endangering others around the world as well.
This would equate the terrorists with the kids who shot up Columbine in a way. Oliver Roy likens them with the Beat and Hippy Generations, but I didn’t know Kerouac or a Deadhead to blow themselves up in crowded places. In terms of disillusionment I can understand the comparison.
On Washington Journal (CSPAN) earlier this week they had an editor on from the London Times and a caller stated that the UK hadn’t done enough to assimilate Muslims into their society and that’s why they got hit. Brooks ends his piece with something to that effect, as in cultures with Muslims in them need to make more of an effort to make them feel welcome.
I know the knee-jerk reaction here in America is to resist things like this – hence the drumbeat over border security. In terms of our government, as long as illegal immigrants are providing the private sector low wage employees, they’re fine with it. What happens though when this generation of illegals’ children start seeking college educations? How about when they’re educated and seeking higher paying jobs?
Will our discrimination laws prevent the multi-generation portion of our population from doing what allegedly is taking place in the UK? From what I’ve seen in my work experience here in the northeast, the answer is yes. Every cultural diference imaginable can be found in offices here in Massachusetts, with 1st or 2nd generation citizens in positions of authority. While not at as high of a rate as whites, it’s not impossible for someone (given they speak the language well) to find success in the market.
Whether or not this is the case everywhere in the country, I don’t know…seems to me that outside of the urban areas, jobs are tough to come by. An article I read sometime earlier in the year described several former high paid professionals from Virginia whose jobs had been outsourced. They were working as couriers, unable to find anything else…using their own automobiles, having to make do with sometimes half of what they were being paid.
Let’s say CAFTA works as NAFTA did, the suburbs swell even more than they already are, and these 2nd generation immigrants start graduating from HS and college. Will there be enough work to sustain our current level of opportunity here in America? Food for thought.
What happens if the answer is ‘no’ – and people blame the first group…the one that always gets blamed for such things, regardless of where you go in history (immigrants)? I’m sure it’s happened before in this country, but in terms of the history, I’m not aware of how America has done in the past in this regard. But keep in mind that if an illegal immigrant is willing to clean an office building for far less than what you or I would, what if their children will be willing to do the jobs we have now for far less as well?
Did this scenario take place in the UK? Probably not exactally from what Mr. Brooks has written here, but I wouldn’t be at all surprised to learn that something like that had happened to enough of the people these murders knew prior to them deciding to cross over into the realm of villian.
So we encourage assimilation to cut down on Biladenisn Chris? Novel idea.
This from the Guardian via TPMMEMO seems apt.
“Almost every significant aspect of the investigation to bring the London terrorists to justice is the opposite of Bush’s “war on terrorism”. From the leading role of Scotland Yard to the close cooperation with police, the British effort is at odds with the US operation directed by the Pentagon.
Just months before the London bombings, upon visiting the Guantánamo prison, British counter-terrorism officials were startled that they did not meet with legal authorities, but only military personnel; they were also disturbed to learn that the information they gathered from the CIA was unknown to the FBI counter-terrorism team and that the British were the only channel between them. The British discovered that the New York City Police Department’s counter-terrorism unit was more synchronised with its methods and aims than the US government was.”
In that show, over there, one of the charactors compares the jihadists to hippies heading to woodstock. They do it because it is the thing to do.
This shows the problem with trying to treat the war on terror as a milatary problem, as we have seen almost every country harbors terrorists, maybe it is time to go back treating it as a criminal matter.
Damn – I keep missing that show when it’s on. Is it Tuesday night? FX has got some good shows. 30 days…I think that’s it, Morgan Spurlaker…I’ve seen two of those and they’re great.
With Over There, keep in mind that a production company has their fingerprints on this, and this author who wrote about this could have inadvertantly had a profound effect on the writing for the show. Likening it to the Great Went or Woodstock, while something that we can relate to here in America, when I headed up north for one of these gatherings (Coventry) it wasn’t because my life was just so mundane and shitty that I had to get away…it was a concert I headed to on vacation.
Maybe it’s because I’ve toured in the past following Phish, but I’m sensitive to the comparisons being made here. The whole thing strikes me as more of a Branch Dividian/cult type of thing. Because these people aren’t just ‘doing what everyone else is doing’ because they’re looking for a good time. You have to be extremely unhappy (whether you realize it or not) to decide it’d be fun to travel a few hundred miles to die.
There’s this cult from around here in Massachusetts…I think it’s called the 12 tribes or something like that. They’ll go to shows and find someone who’s spun out of their skull, get in their head, and next thing they know it’s onto the bus and they’re picking beans somewhere…you’ll come out of the show and their flyers will be on all the cars, whether you’re in Ohio, Jersey or Massachusetts…they follow the tour to pick up vulnerable youngsters on drugs who they then brainwash.
These yongsters in the Eastern hemisphere are brainwashed in their own neighborhoods, without the drugs. The migration towards murder and perhaps suicide in Iraq or elsewhere isn’t as significant as what about the life they leave behind convinced them it was a good idea.
Whereas a migration to Woodstock can be about a lot of different things for a lot of people…there are rock bands playing all weekend, tons of people, and once it’s all over everyone goes home and back to work, school or jail…whatever it is they do. In the case of the Jihadists, I don’t think they have any intention of returning home.
Are they all prepared to die? Are they all in that mental state where it’s not even a question whether or not Allah will make with the virgins, but just how good looking they’re going to be?
I think it’s the only answer. The cost of rounding them all up and sending them back is not feasible…you’d have to create an entirely new federal police force. We have to get back to our roots at some point and learn from past mistakes. Whether it’s lynchings, organized crime or drug/crime plagued ghettos – the cost of not preparing the public for the future is that much more enormous as the world’s population increases. Immigration of Irish, Italians, Portegese, etc…the numbers are nothing compared with the number of hispanic immigrants. The mistakes we made in the past assimilating these nationalities can and must be learned from.
I feel that the liberatarian, right-wing focus on immigration has a lot to do with the fact that the issues they hammered Democrats on for years (beurocracy, pork barrell spending, big government, gov’t involved in people’s lives – SHIAVO), the Republicans are just as bad if not worse about now that they’re in charge of everything. The themes from years past, if played on now, would aim aggression towards the side they like best.
Classic example is Howie Carr here in Boston. I pegged him on it one night calling in, ‘how are you going to pay for it?’ – – – “Well I for one would be willing to give up some of my paycheck to ensure we’re safe” – – – ‘So we can somehow have a war, tax cuts, budget overruns, etc.’ – – – he cut me off and ended the call. Checkmate.
Chris:
I think many people want to be part of something and the Jihad is something to join. Sometimes I think it is a product of having to easy a life. Kind of a middle class guilt complex, I am just guessing but it is as good of guess as some of our illustrius leaders.
Seriously, it is funny that he’d go over there and say everyone thinks the same…this guys like one big freakin’ talking point.
Tom22 – I have beliefs and I express them here. I don’t say one thing and do another like Lee does over at Right Thinking on the Left Coast.
He wants to claim the moral high ground, but his beliefs don’t match up with it. So he posts a disclaimer saying to be fair on Cindy Sheehan, and proceeds to post the exact oppposite.
I point it out and get banned. I could give a shit. There are THOUSANDS of blogs out there…and no doubt, thousands of people like Lee. At least I’m not dishonest about my ideas and beliefs.
Just answer the question, bitch.
I’ve slapped you around on your own site, and the only thing you can do is delete everything? What a pussy…
Your completely dishonest about your beliefs, you claim that you’ll stand and have an honest discussion but then you keep coming back to the same, completely unverifiable, nonesense.
You attacked Lee for posting two Sheehan posts in a day, he pointed out that he’d gone out of his way to defend her before and only recently posted items that were even critical. Further he never attacked the woman personally. To that, you basically said he was a liar who posted the previous entries just to cover up his hatred for her.
How exactly is he supposed to defend himself against that? He is what you say he is and if he claims he isn’t then he’s a liar? That intellectually honest of you.
You were completely wrong, you know it, and you simply won’t admit it because then Lee wouldn’t fit in the cookie cutter mold you’ve carved out for him. You just want to sit in your little corner, scream things at people, and have them take it.
What a fucking pussy you are, christine. You’re whining like a vineyard
Oh, and while I’m on my high horse, the same goes for all the other claptraps. Bush lied, though there’s no proof he lied and every bit of evidence (intelligence and others opinion) indicates he didn’t lie, but Bush Lied and that’s that.
There are plenty of valid reasons to be against the war in Iraq but “Bush Lied” isn’t one of them. it’s all the same non sense, I want things to be this way so I can base my opinion on it and it doesn’t matter if they aren’t that way I’m just going to shut that out and pretend that they are that way so I don’t have to put serious thought into the matter.
That’s crap. You can dig into the archives of Right Thinking and see for yourself. For a month or so in the beginning I refrained from even dishing out my own insults (after being insulted by several users).
The balance shifted today because of the fact that Lee insisted on claiming the highground, yet promoted anti-Sheehan material at the same time. He wants it both ways.
Circumstantial evidence…check the date and times of those two from yesterday. It’s ‘all in the game’ as they say in Baltimore, as everyone is aware of the concept of a ‘news cycle’. And he was caught red handed.
Again, you don’t address the issue you just side step it so you don’t have to answer the question. Who cares that he posted two posts in one day?
That doesn’t mean he hates Cindy Sheehan or that he’s trying to smear her. It doesn’t change the fact that he defended her before.
Again, just more dishonesty, you don’t have an answer to the question so you try to move the ball.
Step 1: act offended so the other side might back off.
Step 2: try to pass the same thing you said before off as its own justification in the hopes that they’ll fall for it or just go away.
Step 3: Go on thinking exactly what you thought at the start without even considering what anyone else has said.
Step 4: Ignore any discussion where people figure out your tricks
Tom, I’m comparing the time of those posts to a chum-line, to attract sharks. Get the ball rolling in a certain direction.
The White House is brilliant when it comes to WHEN they release information to become ‘news’. I’m always suspicious of what comes out on a Monday morning.
While Lee’s opinions on Sheehan may not be the worst of what’s said – the fact that he’s titling the posts ‘braindead mothers’ or ‘nailing herself to a cross’ doesn’t exactally scream compassion.
It’s ridiculous anyway because we’re all adults here, and have disagreed with one another many times before. That it’s come to this is stupid.
Note that I left your comments up along with Lee’s. I’m not afraid of criticism of me spilling out onto the blog at all. It’s the profanity, insults and troll stuff that I won’t allow to stay.
So then, your point is that anyone who expresses an opinion is smearing if other people (some perhaps more vicious than the original person) join in? Seems pretty flimsy, especially coming from a man who seems to smear Karl Rove on a daily basis. How is that different?
As far as the White House, your problem with them is they control the news cycle? Every government and big business in the history of modern media tries to control the news cycle. On the West Wing, the liberal ideal for a White House, there was a whole episode called “Take out the trash day” devoted to this (Take out the trash day is Friday because no one reads the newspaper on Saturday so you dump you undesirable stories there)
No, I’m not saying we shouldn’t express our opinions about Sheehan or anyone else for that matter. But let’s say I post something to the effect of…”Rove had a rough childhood and we should take it easy on him”…only to turn around and feed the beast that’s trying to tear him down.
The righteous stance Lee took on Sheehan was admirable, but once he did that, he had to stick with it. You can’t take a stand one day and then work on the chum-line the next. The blogsphere works like a lot of news works…Lee and some other site admins know how it works. If they get some new information critical of Sheehan out there before she does something newsworthy on Monday, it makes a difference. However small that difference may be…you never know who’s reading your blog.
I don’t have a problem with that Tom…in fact, I gave them credit for how well they do it, referred to them as ‘brilliant’.
By that same token though, the idea for a Monday is to get discussion steered in the direction you want it to go in. Large media outlets coordinate this type of stuff all the time. They hammer a specific issue on Monday, and before half the week is gone, that story has outrun others of perhaps a higher consequence.
The blogsphere is no different. And I’ve seen Lee quoted on a couple of right-wing blogs…no doubt they coordinate at times. Did he coordinate the Monday Sheehan threads? I don’t know.
It is quite telling though, that after all the months I’ve posted there…Lee bans me for pointing this out. He scrambled to dig up a thread where I disappeared, but I steered the debate back onto the oddity that was his two Sheehan threads on a Monday morning.
It was that I pointed this out in particular, and that I brought it up again that got me banned. You don’t have to be a cop on Law and Order to realize the motive!