FRANCESCHI: Terrorism - the blooming tree that we helped create
What you need to know:
- In the search for an answer to the Garissa madness, and in a rather simplistic approach to complex realities, a good number of readers have unleashed a heartless attack on a people and a religion.
- The fundamentalist and violent Islamist movement in East Africa is mostly home-bread though supported by outside sources.
- the mixture of intelligence, education, social injustice and lack of values is explosive, and it may even become suicidal upon reaching a critical mass due to pressure, despair and injustice.
- As a society, we know we are in trouble when we get a young intelligent person, with no values, who has grown up in a dysfunctional home, where there is no outlet for his or her frustrations, sorrows and disappointments.
Last week’s piece “Garissa university attack is not about religion” sparked a great deal of controversy; a mixture of sweet and sour comments that make it necessary to clarify a number of misconceptions.
In the search for an answer to the Garissa madness, and in a rather simplistic approach to complex realities, a good number of readers have unleashed a heartless attack on a people, and a religion, making unfair generalizations, comparisons and conclusions. It is as if our national sport has stopped being athletics and has suddenly become “jumping to conclusions”.
The generalized reaction of the public against the predominantly Islamic north could make anyone conclude that the problem is indeed religious and only religious.
This attitude is a recipe for disaster, hatred and the perpetuation of violence. A simplistic and revengeful approach will create bigger injustices; and it will definitely further terrorism.
First, it is essential to understand the roots of terrorism, an aggressive and unjust form of violence, and why it is nowadays commonly seen in association with religious extremism.
Second, we should search the common trends that trigger extremism and brutality in these young, and sometimes brilliant minds.
The fundamentalist and violent Islamist movement in East Africa is mostly home-bread though supported by outside sources. It was nourished by education in certain areas of the Arabian Peninsula and it spread further and faster by the unwilling outcome of a noble ideal, that of freedom and self-determination of the Afghan people, who had been invaded and oppressed by the USSR in the late 70s, at the height of the Cold War.
CORE OF TERRORISM
In an attempt to help the Afghan people in their quest for freedom, the US government, in agreement with other Western powers, funded the recruitment of Mujahideen, Islamic youth militants from all over the world, mostly from the Middle East, Indonesia, the Philippines, Somalia and Sudan.
They gathered a force of around 35,000 young men, armed them and trained them in Pakistan and Yemen.
The Mujahideen were headed by Abdullah Yusuf Azzam, a proponent of non-violent resistance, who had Osama bin Laden as his deputy. Azzam was assassinated in 1989 in a car bomb, presumably by Osama himself, who took over the movement that later developed into Al-Qaeda.
This Mujahideen eventually repelled the USSR from Afghanistan, but stayed as a youthful hard-core radical force, united and violent.
Mujahideen ideals had a deep influence on some Wahhabis, followers of Ibn 'Abd ul-Wahhab (1703-1792), who instituted a great reform in the religion of Islam in Arabia in the 18th century. Wahhab wanted to rid Islamic societies of cultural practices and interpretation that had been acquired over the centuries.
These happenings have also unsettled the four traditional jurisprudential schools — Shafi'i, Hanbali, Maliki and Hanafism — to pave the way to a kind of fifth neo-Islamic Jurisprudential School, more prone to radicalization.
Up to here we could say that there is a "religious" component to suicidal terrorism. This has also affected at different historical moments Tamils, Hindus, other Asians and Christians. What matters most is to assess whether this is the core of terrorism, and examine the common trends that trigger extremism and brutality in these young, and sometimes brilliant minds.
LETHAL WEAPON
I believe the mixture of intelligence, education, social injustice and lack of values is explosive, and it may even become suicidal upon reaching a critical mass due to pressure, despair and injustice.
I have had the misfortune of meeting two prominent terrorists in my lifetime. They were not poor; they were educated and clever, but they came from broken and traumatic homes and villages. How could they fall so low and become so barbaric?
I met the young man who massacred Garissa students. He approached me after a lecture at Parklands Campus. He seemed to be a clever and polished young man. He had something in his demeanour, which revealed some sort of greatness. I never knew it was the wrong type of greatness.
I also met one of the perpetrators of the 1998 US Embassy bombing in Nairobi. We had been classmates at law school. He was clever and kind. He had unexpectedly repeated the first year twice.
He vanished suddenly and we never knew what had happened until we saw his picture in the newspapers. He had been inside the pickup truck that planted the bomb killing so many innocent people, and their dreams and promising futures.
Intelligence and the accumulation of academic degrees and titles may turn into a lethal weapon when accompanied by badly digested social injustice, a dysfunctional family setting and the absence of values.
CORRUPT CULTURE
As a society, we know we are in trouble when we get a young intelligent person, with no values, who has grown up in a dysfunctional home, where there is no outlet for his or her frustrations, sorrows and disappointments. As a State, this trouble deepens when we live in the midst of a corrupt culture, where there is no access to justice or at least no access to justice for the poor.
These circumstances may lead a person to use his or her intelligence and knowledge to perfecting the art of killing. They believe the end justifies the means; they think that by killing humanity they are killing the creators of injustice and corruption — killing the perverts of the world. For them, life and human dignity have no value.
This is the strongest argument used by extremists who use the name of God and religion to dress up their madness with some sort of values. Their aims are political, economic or simply the creation of a state of anarchy, where they thrive.
Terror is like a bitter and sour poisonous fruit. The State donated the land. Extremists planted the seed. Corruption, injustice, social differences and segregation watered and nurtured the shoots.
Now we have the fully grown tree, and it is blooming … and we still ask why?
Dr Franceschi is the dean of Strathmore Law School. [email protected], Twitter: @lgfranceschi
