[Peace-discuss] Al-Qaeda The Myth - Prof. Rik Coolsaet

[Lisa Chason]

Academia Press (Belgium) has the pleasure to announce you the
publication of ‘Al-Qaeda: The Myth. The Root Causes of International
Terrorism And How To Tackle Them’ by Professor Rik Coolsaet, the leading
Belgian expert on international terrorism.

Executive Summary

Why do they hate us? People all over the US asked that question right
after the 9/11 attacks. But instead of looking for an answer, the world
engaged in a global war on terrorism against an enemy, about whom we
know next to nothing.

Terrorism is of all ages. So why do we experience this angst, this
deep-seated fear of a hydraheaded monster of mythological dimensions,
constantly changing and adapting, always catching its opponents off
guard ? Today’s obsession with terrorism and security comes and goes, in
waves. It was there when the anarchist terrorists of the late nineteenth
century made havoc. It was there when the fascist terrorists of the
1930s spread death and destruction. And it is here now. Each time, myth
and reality become blurred. Underestimating terrorism is dangerous. But
exaggerating the threat is just as dangerous – so is groupthink.

Do we have today’s monster’s name right? Is al-Qaeda our invisible
enemy? In his book ‘Al-Qaeda: The Myth’, Professor Coolsaet argues that
al-Qaeda has become a myth. Just like in the 19th century, when a
Terrorist International only existed in the public’s mind, today’s
al-Qaeda is like a broken thermometer whose mercury shattered into a
multitude of small blobs, all highly toxic, but unrelated to one
another. Al-Qaeda no longer exists as the global disciplined and
centralized terrorist organization it once was. It has turned into a
grassroots phenomenon. It is a unifying flag, a loosely connected body
of home-grown terror groups and even freelance jihadists, each going
their own way without central command, unaffiliated with any group. As
happened in the past.

But why now? And where and how do these fanatics recruit? Here, history
creeps in. Today’s international terrorism is not born out of religion,
nor out of poverty. As was so often the case in the past, terrorism is
bred by marginalization. Terrorism is a symptom of a society gone awry.
When a world changes too rapidly in too many dimensions at once, it
makes – rightly or wrongly – large groups of people, nations or
countries feel excluded. And it is precisely this which constitutes the
breeding ground for small extremist splinter groups searching for a way
to justify their acts of terror. As self-appointed vanguards they are
thus seeking to present themselves as champions of justice.

The anarchist terrorists of the 19th century found a breeding ground
among the marginalized working classes. The fascists of the 1930s
appealed to the nationalists seeking independence, but also to the
scores of people who were living in a time of great personal
uncertainty, due to the Great Depression. Today’s jihadic extremists
hope to conquer the hearts and the minds of the numerous Muslims who are
experiencing a persistent climate of humiliation and oppression in large
parts of the Muslim world.

Today’s Muslim is like the 19th-century worker – regarded with the same
fear, mixed with the same contempt. Today’s America is to the islamist
terrorist what the bourgeois state was to its 19th-century anarchist
precursor, a symbol of arrogance and power. Osama bin Laden is the 21st
century’s Ravachol – the anarchists’ hero, a lightning rod for the
police, but to his followers the symbol of ‘the breath of hatred and
resistance’ of the 19th -century working classes. The jihadists are the
successors of the 19th-century anarchists: the vanguard whose attacks
are supposed to kindle the spark among the masses. Today’s Saudi-Arabia
is the anarchists’ Italy of the 19th century. 11 September was the
wake-up call for the international community, comparable to the murder
of the French President Sadi Carnot in 1894 and the assassination of
King Alexander of Yugoslavia and Louis Barthou, the French Foreign
Minister, in Marseilles in 1934.

If al-Qaeda today is merely a cloak of patched discontent and terrorist
attacks are chiefly the work of local terror groups and individuals
feeding on this discontent, the international counterterrorism
cooperation that was pursued after 9/11, has a flaw. The international
sanctions and repression mechanism was very effective initially, but
gradually it has become less and less relevant, because it addresses a
set of circumstances that no longer apply.

To win the war on terrorism, two goals must be pursued at the same time:
a common struggle against the terrorists and a political effort that
focuses on the discontent and feelings of exclusion among a vast and
populous section of the world. Professor Coolsaet details at length the
concrete steps that are needed. A hundred years ago such a remedy was
found against a similar wave of international terrorism. The organized
labour movement did offer a better solution than the terrorist bombing
campaigns in giving workers a sense of self-esteem and identity and with
this their own full position in society. There, terrorism withered away.
But where no such perspective was offered, terrorism did keep on
simmering – until one terrorist assassination too many precipitated the
world into the First World War.

About the author & the book

This book grew out of the conference ‘Why 9/11? Root Causes of
International Terrorism’, organized by the Royal Institute for
International Relations in Brussels in November 2003. The original Dutch
edition was published in March 2004 (Van Halewyck Editions, Leuven,
Belgium) and was listed for several weeks in the Books Top 10 charts of
Belgium’s leading chain of bookstores as well as in that of the major
news magazines. A French translation was published in April 2004
(Editions Mols, Bièrges, Belgium) and was introduced by the former
Belgian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Louis Michel, and by the French
scholar Olivier Roy. 

The new English edition has been thoroughly revised and updated, so as
to take into account the major terrorist events in 2004, from the
Madrid, Riyadh, Jakarta and Beslan attacks until the assassination of
the Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh in November 2004, as well as the
ensuing national and international developments in counterterrorism
cooperation.

Rik Coolsaet is Director of the Security & Global Governance Department
at the Royal Institute for International Relations (Brussels) and
Professor of International Relations at Ghent University (Belgium). He
held several high-ranking government positions, such as deputy chief of
the Cabinet of the Belgian Minister of Defence (1988-1992) and deputy
chief of the Cabinet of the Minister of Foreign Affairs (1992-1995). He
has written and commented extensively on international relations and
foreign policy.

Additional information is available on the author’s website:
www.rikcoolsaet.be 


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