Terrorism: territorial nationalism or ideology?

Afsan Chowdhury
Published : 12 August 2016, 05:15 AM
Updated : 12 August 2016, 05:15 AM

Let's look at the six top terrorist movements going on now. Are they dominated by ideology or territorial nationalism?

Al-Qaeda – Primary location Saudi Arabia/ Middle East. Hopes to dispel the Saudi dynasty which is helped by the US to stay in power. A nationalist Arab movement birthed by Saudis in Afghanistan, again a nationalist war against invading Soviets and later US.

Taliban – Dominantly a Pakhtoon movement sourced in the Pakhtoon region. Supported by Pakistan initially and fighting both Afghan and Pak nationalist insurgency. Drawing its support from a tribal society and rooted in the 100 years old Pakhtoon movement. There are branches of this in Pakistan too, but each is located in certain regions and has its nationalist causes.

Al – Shabab – The Yemeni version of Al-Qaeda, devoted to Yemeni objectives rooted in the anti-Western movements of the region and earlier colonialism.

Boko Haram – Located in Nigeria and devoted to fighting Nigerian rulers. Tribal conflict has a long history in the region including civil wars (Biafra). Tribes are often faith-identified. For example, the Ibos are dominantly Christian and Hausas are Muslims.

IS – Run largely by Baathist generals of deposed Saddam Hossain, interested in a pan-Arab fight against Iraqi, Libyan and Syrian rulers who are all backed by the US war machine. It's a leftover from the "nationalist" war fought by Saddam and his elite army who were all Sunni not as an ideology but as a clan and tribe. So Shias and Kurdi Iraqis supported and gained from the US invasion while the Sunnis didn't. Hence the conflict.

All of them are brutal territory-based wars run by various sides that fight each other along clan or tribal identities and want state power. To the Arabs, this is how they have fought throughout history. The Medina Charter can also be read to understand the tribal nature of Arab Islam and its conflicts.

Let us look at five major terrorist outfits of the past. They are LTTE, ETA, PFLP, Irgun and the Naxalites.
LTTE – The nationalist party of Tamils in Sri Lanka and probably the largest terrorist organization ever in south Asia. It was located in Jaffna and worked to establish a Tamil ethnic state in Sri Lanka.

ETA – The Basque Liberation Army of Spain who fought for the independence of the Basque region of Spain. Self-evident territorial nationalism sourced.

PFLP – Popular front for the Liberation of Palestine was a member of the PLO and a Marxist terrorist party led by George Habash, a Christian. Later, the terrorist group Hamas was established by Mossad to counter the cross-faith nationalism of the PLO. But it's all about the territory of Palestine.

Irgun- It was the terrorist party of the Zionist movement which after WW2 carried out many attacks and subsequently helped found the Israeli state.

Naxalite movements of India – The movement began in Naxalbari under a breakaway faction of the Communist party of India (Marxist) CPI-M under the leadership of Charu Mazumder in Naxalbari, a remote part of West Bengal. It became well known when middle and upper class youth of Kolkata joined it, gave it great glamour and later left, as most of that class do. The Kolkata kids saw themselves as Maoists and part of a global Communist movement, though they were officially repudiated by Mao later. But the root support came from the tribal areas of India with leaders like Jangal Santal and others. These inaccessible areas in various states are almost one-fifth of India and are outside the official control of the Indian Government. This too is a terrain-based movement and the ethno-territorial part is self evident.

Even the Chechen and Uighur movement of Russia and China, as the names suggest, are entirely territorial nationalist movements and while some members join movements elsewhere, the main fight is in their home ground. The age of ideological warfare never existed, except maybe in Marxist fantasies, but they quickly died after the internationalist Trotsky was chopped off. Stalin talked of "Mother Russia", not the hammer and sickle, during WW2. "Islamic terrorism" is largely a description used by anxious Westerners and their local followers, because they can't understand this new and violent expression of politics. They are all in shapes and forms nationalist movements or resistances. But what is happening in Europe?

In Europe the terrorists are mostly children of ex-colonies who now experience "Internal colonialism" in Europe, living in situations akin to socio-economic apartheid. Mainstreaming of ex-colonized is rare in Europe, so it's more like a nationalist movement against internal colonialism by Arabs and North Africans.

European attitude towards its colonized Muslims is complicated since it spoke of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity but conducted a brutal form of colonialism. It wants to be called the best but it did the worst. Sadly for the French, they fought wars with the colonized and were badly defeated, Vietnam and Algeria being two significant examples.

France and Belgium share a common history of brutality but are in denial about it. To accept defeat against the past colonized subjects is very difficult for Europe's collective psyche. So it also objectifies them as Islamic terrorists, to make it a different enemy and deny what they do now in Europe to past colonial subjects. The identity of the terrorists shows how territorial nationalism is central to this conflict.

If as we argue that without territorial nationalism as an objective or identity establishment can't happen, how do we explain the terrorists of Bangladesh? It's true we have a history of nationalist violence against the British colonizers and the Pakistanis, but is there anything similar going on now? No. We had wanted the British to go and religion was a natural social glue. Our first anti-British revolt was led by the Fakirs and Sannyasins – religious mendicants – supported by the peasants. Subsequently other major movements came about, including the Wahabi and the Faraizi movements, but they were all fundamentally against the repressive zamindars and the Brits, not a religious / ideological movement. The Aligarh movement was more about the upper class Muslim identity and was collaborationist in character, but not ideological. The peasant wants to eat first, not pray. Every population segment has revolted against the Brits no matter what their cultural and faith structure. It would seem that the poor have rebelled over time in different shapes and forms, but at no time have they behaved as ideologues.

The interesting twist of upper class children becoming Jongis is much more common than we think. It has happened many times before, like the student Naxalites of Kolkata. They fancy rebellion in a stage of their life but later leave or become nutjobs. The rich and the expats in Bangladesh who are scared are also being scared by the newly emerging security analysis and protection providing industry. Why should a Pan-Arab movement be interested in an Islamic Bangladesh which serves no purpose to them there? It's this fact that is missed by many of our experts, who would like to look at Bangladesh through their foreign trained US/ European eyes using borrowed fear. There is violence here but the roots of longstanding terrorism are plainly absent.

One should fear only if the poor decide to go after the rich if they ever feel they live in a state of internal colonialism. Till that happens, there is no evidence that we are in serious trouble at all in Bangladesh.