After the London subway bombings on 7/7/2005, the subsequent investigation found that the bombings had been perpetrated by British citizens, young Muslims who had been influenced by radical Islamist terrorists in Pakistan.
David Cameron in Munich (AP)
As shocking as that event was, in one sense no one was more shocked than the parents and neighbors of the young men, who generally had no idea what the young men were planning.
Britain has never been able to come to terms with the inherent public policy contradictions illuminated by those events, but now Prime Minister David Cameron is attempting to do so by a major speech on Saturday attacking “multiculturalism.”
In Cameron’s speech on Saturday, delivered in Munich, he began by sharply distinguishing between the religion of Islam and the ideology of Islamist extremism:
“But the biggest threat that we face comes from terrorist attacks, some of which are, sadly, carried out by our own citizens. It is important to stress that terrorism is not linked exclusively to any one religion or ethnic group. My country, the United Kingdom , still faces threats from dissident republicans in Northern Ireland . Anarchist attacks have occurred recently in Greece and in Italy , and of course, yourselves in Germany were long scarred by terrorism from the Red Army Faction. Nevertheless, we should acknowledge that this threat comes in Europe overwhelmingly from young men who follow a completely perverse, warped interpretation of Islam, and who are prepared to blow themselves up and kill their fellow citizens.We … need to be absolutely clear on where the origins of where these terrorist attacks lie. That is the existence of an ideology, Islamist extremism. We should be equally clear what we mean by this term, and we must distinguish it from Islam. Islam is a religion observed peacefully and devoutly by over a billion people. Islamist extremism is a political ideology supported by a minority. At the furthest end are those who back terrorism to promote their ultimate goal: an entire Islamist realm, governed by an interpretation of Sharia. Move along the spectrum, and you find people who may reject violence, but who accept various parts of the extremist worldview, including real hostility towards Western democracy and liberal values. It is vital that we make this distinction between religion on the one hand, and political ideology on the other.”
Cameron points to “muddled thinking” on both the “hard right” and the “soft left,” when talking about Islam:
“On the one hand, those on the hard right ignore this distinction between Islam and Islamist extremism, and just say that Islam and the West are irreconcilable – that there is a clash of civilizations. So, it follows: we should cut ourselves off from this religion, whether that is through forced repatriation, favoured by some fascists, or the banning of new mosques, as is suggested in some parts of Europe . These people fuel Islamophobia, and I completely reject their argument. … The point is this: the ideology of extremism is the problem; Islam emphatically is not. Picking a fight with the latter will do nothing to help us to confront the former.On the other hand, there are those on the soft left who also ignore this distinction. They lump all Muslims together, compiling a list of grievances, and argue that if only governments addressed these grievances, the terrorism would stop. So, they point to the poverty that so many Muslims live in and say, ‘Get rid of this injustice and the terrorism will end.’ But this ignores the fact that many of those found guilty of terrorist offences in the UK and elsewhere have been graduates and often middle class. They point to grievances about Western foreign policy and say, ‘Stop riding roughshod over Muslim countries and the terrorism will end.’ But there are many people, Muslim and non-Muslim alike, who are angry about Western foreign policy, but who don’t resort to acts of terrorism.”
Cameron’s speech is probably the most well thought out description of the Islamist terrorism issue that I’ve seen. I can’t recall the last time I was so impressed by a speech by any politician. Everyone should read the entire speech. For a detailed summary, see “6-Feb-11 News — UK Prime Minister David Cameron attacks ‘Multiculturalism’ in Britain”
Cameron proposes a number of policies. Muslim organizations getting public money should be carefully evaluated to make sure that they’re fighting violence. Britain should encourage a clear sense of shared national identity and make sure that immigrants speak English.
Cameron’s proposed policies, could not be implemented at this late date, and even if they could would have no effect.
However, the following statement by Cameron is particularly insightful: “[S]ome young men find it hard to identify with the traditional Islam practiced at home by their parents, whose customs can seem staid when transplanted to modern Western countries. But these young men also find it hard to identify with Britain too, because we have allowed the weakening of our collective identity.”
This statement is consistent with research on suicide bombers performed by University of Chicago professor Robert A. Pape, published in his 2004 book, Dying to Win : The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism.
As I described in 2005 in “Robert Pape’s ‘Dying to Win’ sheds light on suicide bombers,” the form of suicide practiced by suicide bombers is “altruistic suicide,” suicide performed by someone who willingly accepts a voluntary death because society supports and honors the act. A person commits suicide terrorism in order to become a hero within a social organization at odds with the target society.
Putting Cameron’s remarks together with Pape’s conclusions, we see that the London subway bombers were totally disoriented kids, under the influence of al-Qaeda “instructors” in Pakistan and London, who did what they did because they wanted to be a hero to their neighbors and parents.
But of course, as it later turned out, they weren’t heroes to their parents and neighbors. Their parents were first and second generation immigrants from Pakistan who were as shocked as everyone was, and their neighbors had to ask their kids whether they were planning anything similar.
Pape asks the question, “Why do suicide attacks receive mass support in some societies and not others?” This is the wrong question, because it overlooks the fact that societies will support suicide attacks in some generational eras and not others.
In fact, Pape acknowledges that there’s an important time component from his own data — after all, he says that there were no suicide terrorists between 1945 and 1980, and his data shows that their incidences have been growing steadily (perhaps exponentially) since then.
He says that he can’t explain why “the overwhelming majority of societies — even those experiencing political violence — exhibit no suicide terrorism but a handful of societies have experienced dozens of attacks each.”
On the time scale, he writes, “[W]hile the supply of suicidal individuals may vary somewhat over time, psychological expanations cannot account for why over 95 percent of all suicide terrorist attacks occur in organized campaigns that are concentrated in time.”
An analysis from generational theory answers all of these questions. (I wrote to Pape in 2005 to tell him, but he never responded.)
Pape’s database of suicide bomber attacks reveals an startling fact about their nationalities: They come from 11 different countries, but that they overwhelmingly come from just two countries: Saudi Arabia and Morocco.
What makes this fact startling is that these are precisely the two countries that have gone the longest time since their last generational crisis wars. Saudi Arabia’s last crisis war was the Ibn Saud conquest, ending in 1925, and Morocco’s was the Rif War, ending in 1927.
Musical intermission: Gordon MacRae sings The Riff Song from the play Desert Song. Enjoy! End of intermission.
I’ve developed a “violence profile” that should apply to any society or nation at any time. This has not been rigorously proven — that will be someone’s Ph.D. thesis some day — but it’s consistent with Pape’s research, and it’s consistent with dozens of examples that I’ve posted on my web site over the years. (See, for example, my recent discussions of the lack of suicide bombers with Iraqi or Afghan nationalities in “6-Jan-11 News — Pakistan melts down as US/Nato forces struggle in Afghanistan.”)
- After a generational crisis war ends (like WW II for America), the survivors devote the rest of their lives to trying to prevent anything like that from happening again.
- For the first 40 years after the end of the war (generational Recovery and Awakening eras), there is relatively little violence, and such as there is is resolved by police action or mediation by the elders.
- For the next 20 years (Unraveling era), the rate of violence increases, and suicide bombings, though rare, begin to appear more frequently.
- From 60 years after the end of the last crisis war (new Crisis era), the previous survivors are almost all gone. The deeper the society goes into a new Crisis era, the more suicide bombings take place.
This answers Pape’s questions about why some nationalities have more suicide bombers than others.
For Pape’s other question, “Why do suicide attacks receive mass support in some societies and not others?” the reasoning is similar. In generational Recovery and Awakening eras, suicide bombings receive little or no support. In Unraveling and Crisis eras, the level of support increases.
David Cameron’s speech brings these concepts full circle. As Cameron tries to formulate new policies for the Muslim community in Britain, and the Europeans try to do the same, they should take into account the nationalities involved, and their generational eras.
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