From the Islamic revolution to the Jihad and back

Organized violence, led on behalf of a political goal and of an ideology, is no longer something new. The XXIth century added just a supplementary nuance: the most aggressive ideology is strongly religious and inspired by the sacred texts of the Islam. For Europe, which dissociated the State and the Church some 150 years ago, such a phenomena is rather curious. Hence the belief of some that it is something new, or at least some milestone. In fact, Europe has to face its own weaknesses and errors, with the long-term results of its policies. Problems the modern Europe omitted to solve (speaking of international politics) generated the current crisis of the Islamic world and favored the violent solution.

Who are they fighting, the Islamic fundamentalists?

One famous answer to this question was given by Huntington: it is a battle against "The Christian civilization", against the modern European spirit, with everything it brought new from the Century of Light up to now. From this standpoint, the September 11 attack on the United States is the beginning of the direct offensive: the Barbarian assault on the new Rome; on the new capital of the "European empire", currently a "global empire" with the capital at Washington. This answer is both famous and superficial. The "Islamic revolution" claimed itself to be a way to modernize the Arab world. The transplant of a European solution within the Arabic area. A solution fitted to the realities of a society developed exclusively as a marginalia of Europe. And Europe didn't hesitate to claim and exert, for three centuries (18, 19 and 20) its "superiority", its "right" to expansion, its "right" to decide on behalf of people who cannot face its military and economic power.

The Cold War Era generated, in the Arab world also, an Iron Curtain splitting it into an East and a West. Here also, like in Europe, were fought many battles for power and influence. But there is also certain specificity in the area: there are two conflictual breaks, not one. There is one break between the East and the West, and there is another one between Israeli and Arabs. By the end of the 19th century the Arab world was dominated by a positive ideology: to let flourish local values and elite. But the cold war brought another one: the retaliation. Taken directly from the communist ideological arsenal, the idea that the other empire, the capitalist one, is guilty for all evil, had the same solid roots here like in the Eastern Europe or in the bolshevized Russia. This ideology of retaliation is still at the base of training and psychological conditioning of those enrolled in the "death brigades", in the "holy war army", of everyone who, living below the poverty threshold, sees the wealth and arrogance of the West as the supreme proof of its absolute guilt.

Hence two other answers to our question. The extreme fundamentalism, using and propagating the organized violence, is another approach, another stage of the Arab world fight against those responsible for its poverty and its current subordinate status in the world. On the other hand, it is a new approach on the Israeli war. A classical, inter-statal conflict, became something new, filled with "non-conventional" approaches - such as the Intifada or the Jihad. Finally, a new approach comes from the very heart of the Arabic world. Sadik al-Azm, professor emeritus of modern European philosophy at the Damascus University, stated that the target of militant Islam (and especially of the bin-Laden organization) is not outside, but within the Arab world. The real aim is to overthrow the non-Islamic regimes. The main battle is for Saudi Arabia: to overthrow the Faysal dynasty and to establish an Islamic regime, with bin-Laden as patriarch. Exactly the same way as it happened in Iraq, where Al-Sadr and his men fight for the same goal, as the "Muslim Brotherhood" attempts to do in Egypt for 50 years, as Khommeini managed to do in Iran or the Taliban (for a while) in Afghanistan. From this standpoint, the "Islamic Revolution" attempts to bring to power the religious hyper-conservatory elites, replacing the modernizers - no matter what their political color. The attack of bin-Laden on the United States is nothing more than a tactical maneuver, aiming to weaken the support given to his main enemy, the Faysal dynasty of Saudi Arabia; moreover, this enemy would be de-legitimized, being identified with the "invader of the holy ground of Islam". From the perspective of al-Azm, fundamentalist Islam is not an offensive strategy, it is defensive. The society pattern proposed by fundamentalists was proven not viable and is more and more rejected in the Arab area, from Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan, to Algeria or Egypt.

The ones who started the new wave of terrorism at a global scale are not inspired by a "clash of civilizations" and nor by a "war for the Palestinian cause". All they want is the power "in their homeland".

Amongst all those hypothesis and explanations, the daily politics (both in Europe and the US) skates with errors and inconsequence. And the costs are getting higher and higher.