Understanding the Incomprehensible: Identity, Security and Terrorism

"Every question possesses a power that does not lie in its answer. At this time I pray to the God within us that He will give us the strength to resist grasping for simple 'answer.' and instead have the courage to participate in conversations focused on the right questions" - Laura Chasin

While humankind's technological capacity to destroy lives and resources developed incredibly during the last century, our social and political competence to solve conflict peacefully has not increased at the same rate. Thus, as the material and human costs associated with regular and irregular wars grow exponentially, our ability to avoid them is still sadly underdeveloped. As a result the world is beleaguered by destructive and apparently intractable conflict between groups, factions and nations.

The XX century saw two world wars and more than 150 local wars in over seventy-five countries. On September 11, 2001 the world was witness to terrorist attacks by Islamic extremists against the United States that took the lives of thousands of people at the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington D.C. In the days following the attack I was asked the same question many times "Why would anyone do something like that?" Unfortunately, there is not an easy answer to this question. We need to recognize that science has a better understanding of the functioning of the atom or the origin of the universe than the underlying forces behind violent protracted conflict. The field that studies conflict as a social phenomenon is still in its infancy. Nevertheless, during the last 50 years the work of social scientist has greatly advanced our understanding of the problem. Today, we have a better understanding of the creation and development of such conflicts and we have developed social tools and methods necessary to analyze and address them. The purpose of this paper is to review some of them and to apply this knowledge to the events of September 11.

Understanding violent, protracted conflict

The first challenge facing anyone studying violent conflict is its deep emotional content. As human beings we all feel the grief, anger and fear created by these tragic events. Nonetheless, our role as scientists is to try to understand, analyze and describe the complex realities surrounding them. Unfortunately, a rational objective approach is not always welcomed. The raw emotions produced by violent conflict make it a difficult -and risky- subject of analysis, especially in times of high trauma when the pressure towards conformity is strong and alternative explanations to the general opinion are summarily rejected. In these circumstances, accusations against social scientists for excusing or condoning violence are not infrequent. In fact social scientists studying violent conflict do not excuse violence more than medical researchers excuse diseases. Yet, the risk of trying to understand and explain the underlying forces of violent conflict is real.

The September 11 and other terrorists actions seem just incomprehensible for most of us. In our anger and fear, we search for simple explanations - and simple solutions- to the problem. 'Evil' is the word most frequently used to describe it. Certainly these actions fit such description. Nonetheless, limiting our analysis to such term is a risky proposition that might preclude a rational approach to the phenomenal challenge posed by these actions. We need to deepen and increase our understanding of the problem, not restraining ourselves to a simple but necessarily limited explanation. We cannot capitulate our best weapon against terrorism, which our ability to understand the seemingly incomprehensible.

Where can we start?

First, it is important to realize that the suffering created by terrorism is neither unique nor exclusive of Americans. Although the September 11 attacks were especially devastating in terms of human life and resources destroyed, unfortunately this phenomenon is hardly uncommon. The world is plagued by such cruelty. Entire populations in places like Palestine, Israel, Cyprus, Sri-Lanka, Ireland, Colombia and South Africa have been victimized by similar actions. Through this trauma, Americans are connecting with so many other human beings who have suffered and are suffering unanticipated and often protracted injury and fury.

Second, we need to approach the problem from a rational perspective. Many social scientists have devoted their lives to this goal. During their research they found attributes shared by most protracted violent conflicts. Such parallels are important clues that allow scientists to link seemingly dissimilar conflicts around the world and analyze them using the appropriate tools. Arguably, the most important of these attributes is the central role played by ontological human needs -in particular identity and security- in the creation and escalation of violent, protracted conflicts

Ontological Human Needs and Conflict

John Burton, an Australian diplomat and scholar, was the first to propose that the source of protracted conflict lies in the expression of ontological human needs and not on differences over objective interests (Burton, 1965). How did he reach this conclusion? During his long career as diplomat in Africa and Asia, Burton noticed that some conflicts were highly resistant to the tools of traditional diplomacy. Typically, these conflicts became protracted after successive attempts to settle them through negotiation, diplomatic pressure and even armed struggle failed to resolve them. Searching the underlying reasons for the protractedness of these conflicts, Burton came across the theories developed by Abraham Maslow(1956) and Paul Sites (1973). Both Maslow and Sites argue that, power in social life does not lie as much in the threat or use of force as in the satisfaction of needs such as identity, security, recognition, sense of justice and sense of control. According with this approach, social groups and institutions derive their power (in terms of allegiance by individuals) from the protection and satisfaction of these ontological human needs.

After an in-depth analysis of several protracted conflicts (i.e. Cyprus, Malaysia-Indonesia, Middle East) Burton recognized that they were characterized by a considerable threat to ontological needs of the societies involved, in particular their identity and security. Unlike other 'conventional' conflicts, the key issues were not related with competition over scarce resources and distribution of power (although most were framed in those terms), but with existential identity and security concerns shared by large parts of the populations.

Following Burton's lead, other scholars decided to study social conflicts under a different light. Edward Azar, a scholar working in the development of a worldwide "Conflict and Peace Data Bank", proposed that the source of protracted conflict is the denial of elements required for the development of all people and societies and whose pursuit is a compelling need in all (Azar, 1986). These elements are the same ontological needs described earlier by Burton. Azar broadens Burton's analysis, describing the process by which such conflicts are created: a dominating social group (generally a majority within a state), ignores the needs of other groups (generally minorities), breeding frustration and creating fragmentation. Because individuals strive to fulfill their needs through their identity group, grievances stemming from need deprivation are expressed collectively. In these cases, the denial and deprivation of such needs is often rooted in a refusal to accept the identity of the other (Fisher, 1997).

Herbert Kelman, professor of Social Ethics in the Department of Psychology at Harvard University, and himself a practitioner with more than 30 years of experience in the conflict in the Middle East, also concludes that most protracted violent conflicts are rooted in the parties' threatened or unfulfilled basic needs. He notes that:

"Conflict is caused and escalated to a considerable degree to unfulfilled needs - not only material needs, but also such psychological needs as security, identity, self-esteem, recognition, autonomy and a sense of justice. Parties in conflict, in pursuit of their own security and identity and related needs and interests, undermine and threaten the security and identity of the other."

According with Kelman, a typical feature of such conflicts is that no amount of diplomatic or military pressure can entirely "resolve" them. Their resolution comes from the creation of the conditions that effectively address the need for a dignify identity, as well as a minimum sense of security, justice and control over their destiny.

The Centrality of Identity and Security Concerns

Identity is the collection of beliefs about ourselves, about others and about the world that we develop as a consequence of our continued interactions with our surroundings. These beliefs are culturally transmitted and modified by the individual through his/her personal experience. Thus, our individuals and groups identities are in permanent formation and revision.

While most people are unable to clearly articulate their identity since their domain lies more within the unconscious mind rather than the conscious, all groups of people engage in the interactive process of creating and maintaining identities (national, ethnic, workplace, role, etc). We display and reaffirm our identities through symbols such as flags, hymns, uniforms, books, customs, etc. Our identities serve the essential function of providing us with a set of expectations about the world that enables us to function without being completely overwhelmed by it (Hicks, 2000). Our identitties give us a sense of inner coherence and stability.

The need to develop, maintain and protect identities is fundamental to our human nature; so important that it will be pursued by individuals and groups regardless of the costs and sacrifices involved. The energy and thrust created by the fear to lose our national, ethnic, religious, family or other group identity cannot be understated. Patriotism, honor, shame, and self-sacrifice are some of the words associated with the strong reaction we all feel when we perceive our identity under attack.

Application to the Terrorist attacks to the U.S. and the War on Terrorism Historical Context

By the end of the first millennium, the Muslim Empire was an expanding and could be considered technologically far more advanced the Christian nations of Europe. At its greatest extent, this Empire included Crimea, the Balkans, Hungary, the entire Arab world - including Syria, Palestine, Iraq, Egypt, Libya, Tunis, and Algeria- Pakistan, Afghanistan and India, Indonesia and a large portion of the Iberian Peninsula. By the begging of the millennium, the Empire was encroaching the Christian Byzantines based in Constantinople. In 1095, to the request of the Byzantine king Alexis Comnenus, Pope Urban II called for a Crusade, the first of many over the next two centuries.

The crusades (then known as "pilgrimages"), were a true partnership between religion and political warfare. A would-be crusader sought out an ecclesiastical authority and swore to carry out an armed "pilgrimage" in support of the Holy Places. He then usually received a cloth cross which he could place on his clothes to signify his new status. He also received "indulgences" for his sins (i.e., reduce time spent in purgatory). Medieval people were deeply interested in their fate in the next world, and the indulgence was a powerful incentive to participate in crusades. Although the first crusade succeeded temporarily in creating four Christian kingdoms, Muslims armies eventually recuperated the lost terrain and continued expanding. Several crusades followed, notably the third crusade leaded by King Richard the Lion-Hearted of England and the seventh lead by King Louis IX of France. The crusades only produced temporal victories for the Christians and the whole effort failed to have any long-term effect on the Muslim Empire, other than a deep sense of historical grievance. Constantinople was finally seized in 1453 and the Muslim Empire pressed deeper into central Europe. Crusades were still being called as recently as 1683, when the Polish King Jan Sobieski led one to the rescue of Vienna, saving it from a deadly siege by the Muslim Empire. After 1700, however, the threat from the Muslim world began to subside considerably, and as it subsided the last traces of organized crusading began to fade.

Despite Napoleon's campaign in Egypt (1798-1799), the Muslim Empire survived into the XX century. It was not until World War I, when it allied with Germany that the Muslim Empire was destroyed after more than 1300 years of ruling over large parts of the world. The peace settlement that followed the war carved many of the Arab nation states we know today from the former Ottoman Empire.

During WWII the North of Africa was an important war scenario between the Allies and the German forces. In the years following World War II, the United States and the Soviet Union, and to a lesser extent Britain and France, viewed events in the newly independent Islamic countries (and everywhere else) as opportunities or threats to their own geo-political interests. In 1979 the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan a non-Arab Islamic country. The Afghan warrior society sent thousands of warriors (known as Muhahedin) against their northern invader. Ten years of guerrilla warfare, supported with billions of dollars from the US and Arab countries followed. It proved a bloody experience in which the Soviet Union reportedly killed 1.3 million people and forced five and a half million Afghans (a third of the prewar population) to leave the country as refugees. Another two million Afghans were forced to migrate within the country. On a percentage basis, the Soviet Union inflicted more suffering on Afghanistan than Germany inflicted on Russia during World War II. The Soviet forces, on the other hand, suffered at least 15.000 casualties and half a million injured.

The Soviet war in Afghanistan was an empowering experience for the Arabs that joined the local guerrillas. The so-called Arab Afghans left their homes in places like Egypt and Saudi Arabia to fight in Afghanistan. Among them was Abdullah Azzan, a Palestinian who was a major figure in the Muslim Brotherhood, a group that has played a large role in the resurgence of Islamic religiosity. With him came his student, Osama bin Laden. Bin Laden became the chief financier and major recruiter of Arabs to fight in Afghanistan. At the end of the war, his mentor dead in a car-bomb attack, and his job seemingly done, bin Laden returned to Saudi Arabia. Nevertheless, the network of Arab-Afghans was kept intact and later enhanced into a worldwide enterprise.

Returning to his homeland, bin Laden became increasingly indignant over the corruption of the Saudi regime. Nevertheless, in 1990, with Iraq forces invading Kuwait and threatening the Saudi kingdom he offered to defend it with his Arab Afghans. Needless to say his offer was shunned. He witnessed the astonishing military humiliation suffered by the largest Arab army in the hands of the better trained, technologically superior and more disciplined American army. After the Gulf war, the continuing US military presence in the cradle if Islam, the home of Mecca and Medina (barred to non-Muslims), became an unbearable personal and religious affront. After King Fahd became impatient with his criticism of the regime, he fled the county for Sudan and began gathering around him many Arab Afghans.

In 1993 Bin Laden played an important role in the bombing of the World Trade Center in New York by a group of Egyptian radicals. The two 110 twin towers at the WTC were a symbol of the identity despised by the radicals. After he financed the 1995 bombing of a military base in Riyadh, the US pressured the Sudanese government to expel Bin Laden, which they did, much to his disappointment. In 1996 Bin Laden took refuge in Afghanistan, which by then was under the control of the Taliban regime, a group of Islamic fundamentalists that - supported by neighboring Pakistan- were displacing the warlords in the civil war that followed the Soviet retreat.

The Taliban welcomed Osama bin Laden and his followers. New training camps were added to the Soviet war era. These camps were used to train adherents and sent them back to Egypt, Algeria, the Palestinian territories, Kashmir, the Philippines, Eritrea, Libya and Jordan. The group also sent soldiers to places like Tajikistan, Bosnia, Chechnya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen. In 1998 this loose group (know as al-Qaeda, or the base) merged with similar groups from Egypt and declared war to America through a call to Jihad against the United States, including civilians. In September 11, 2001 the al-Qaeda network attacked the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington D.C. using hijacked commercial planes and killing over 5,000 people.

Identity crisis in the rise of extremism: learning from the past

People experiencing circumstances of relative deprivation will protect their self-esteem and identity by attributing these circumstances to powerful enemies that unfairly impose such situation on them (Heider, 1958; Kelley, 1973). They tend to develop an autistic and biased system for processing of information that allow people to see themselves as victims, and therefore to justify an attack on the attributed source of their deprivation and humiliation. This form of self-empowerment helps to protect their individual and group's identity and to exercise social pressure towards group unity. A case at hand is the rise of Germany's extremist National Socialists party to power in the 1930's. It can be argued that Hitler's rise to power was a direct result of the humiliations and deprivations suffered by Germans during the 1920's. Nazi propaganda manipulated German's sense of grievance by stressing and glorifying Germanic identity and transferring the blame of Germany's problems to supposedly powerful, treacherous enemies (i.e. Jews).

This message, regardless of how absurd or distorted it seems to us today, was too compelling and empowering for a suffering German population to resist. In other words, conditions of relative deprivation, collective humiliation and perceived injuries created an identity crisis in Germany that was fertile soil for fascism to grow and flourish. Fortunately, after Germany's defeat in WWII the political circumstances demanded a massive plan of aid, which in turn helped to reconstruct the economies of Germany and Japan. This was a stark contrast with the penalties imposed on Germany at the end of WWI, which were the ultimate source of the deprivations and humiliations artfully manipulated by Hitler. In both wars, the Allies' different approach towards Germany had a very dissimilar impact on German's collective identity.

Muslim Identity Concerns

The current circumstances of Muslims around the world have similarities with pre-Nazi Germany, including a situation of relative deprivation and deep feelings of vulnerability. This beaten and vulnerable identity is not an attractive one. It is rejected, initially by an extremist minority that resorts to powerful images of a glorified past and a supposedly intrinsic superiority over their enemies to create an attractive alternative identity. Needless to say, this alternative identity is very difficult to resist in particular for young members of society. The new identity is manipulated by extremists that find self-serving explanations for the deprivations, humiliations and sense of vulnerability in real or imaginary but always powerful enemies that unjustly have imposed these circumstances upon them. The sense of humiliation is transformed into anger and a sense of historical injustice, which creates longing for the reconstruction of a glorious past.

In the case of Muslims, a longing for a return to the past when the present situation seems hopeless is understandable. Once central protagonists in the world arena, Muslims have seen their participation reduced to a secondary, subordinate role as a result of the partition of the Ottoman Empire at the end of WWI. Rampant levels of poverty and oppression prevalent in many Muslim countries add to the sense of humiliation and grievance to create an identity crisis that is exploited by religious and political extremists to gain influence. The attacks on the WTC and the Pentagon are the act of the military segment of this growing strain of Muslim identity, a loosely connected network of terrorist groups at the center of which is al-Qaeda ("the base").

Al-Qaeda's 1998 declaration of Jihad against the United States contains clear signs of a deep identity crisis created by a perception of humiliation, vulnerability and disrespect by the West. As expected, the interpretation of the historical facts and intention of the West is deeply biased towards these predetermined conclusions. The text of the declaration includes references such as the allusion of a Western "brutal crusade" directed to the "annihilation and humiliation of Muslims". Their language is saturated with religious and theological references, which reinforces the identity component of this crisis. Although deeply unrepresentative of Islam's long history of tolerance and despite the fact that a war against civilians is a gross violation of Islamic law, the force of the reasoning contained in this declaration comes from the fact that it provides a more appealing explanation to the deprivations and humiliations of Muslims around the world. It translated the responsibility to an evil and powerful enemy that purposefully victimizes Muslims. This account, although biased and self-serving, provides a more appealing explanation that is highly appealing.

As we mentioned before, identity is a powerful ontological force that guide our perception and behavior. No one wants to belong to a beaten identity, relegated to a secundary role in the world and constanly under treath. Bin Laden's call for Jihad offers an appealing identity alternative, a call to action. This message finds fertile ground in Muslims' deprivations and deep sense of grievance. Predictably, this alternative identity is soffocating the more moderate message from traditional institutions such as the al-Azhar mosque and university in Egypt, regarded as one of Islam's highest religious institutions. These traditional institutions represents "weak" identity, a statu-quo of humiliation. Regardless of how biased or twisted, the empowering message of the extremists is difficult to resist for people living an identity crisis.Therefore, it would be naïve to think that the current crisis is limited to al-Qaeda or the other terrorist group. They just represent the extreme of a much larger problem. Bin Laden has become a symbol of defiance in the face of what Muslims see as 'American arrogance'. What he says is what many Muslims want to say and cannot, even if they disagree with terrorism. Like facism before them, al-Qaeda is manipulating peoples' most fundamental needs for a dignify identity and a sense of identity to impose a self-serving, extremist, but highly appealing identity.

US/ West Security and Identity Concerns

The September 11 attacks, followed by the Antrax scare in the following weeks were a massive blow to America's collective psychology. What has come to an explosive conclusion is the exceptionalism that allowed Americans to imagine the homeland as beyond the sorrows and calamities that have plagued less fortunate people around the world. None of the great battles of the 20th century had touched the continental United States. This complacent invulnerability has been fractured forever, which creates a profound security crisis that has also deep identity components. Symbols of identity and unity (i.e. flags) are displayed everywhere. A renewed sense of patrotism is the reafirmation of a threatened identity.

The acute level of justified rage, impotence and vulnerability experienced by Americans matches the chronic anger and helplessness experienced by Arabs. Again, the empowerment, energy and potential for violence of a perceived attack in our identity or cannot be understated. The terrorists attacks have been successful in creating the right conditions for an ontological needs conflict between the West and the Arab world. The power of identity and security concerns is such that it can carry entire societies into a deadly circle of violence, with larger and larger portions of the populations supporting the escalation of the conflict. This scenario is a frontal 'clash of civilizations', or in other words a clash of threatened needs.

Bibliography

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Opotow, S. (1995) Drawing the line: social categorization, moral exclusion and the scope of justice In Conflict, Cooperation and Justice by Bunker, B. Rubin, J. Joseey-Bass San Francisco, California

Questions for consideration:

- Is the conflict between Islam extremist and the US an ontological needs conflict?

- Are the tools developed by scholars studying ontological needs conflicts useful for a better understanding of this conflict?

- If so, what can be recommended for addressing the ontological needs involved in this conflict?

Biography

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