Psychological, retaliatory, political, social, economic, ethnic, tribal, and geographical settings and in general organizational, group, and national interests at national and international levels may lead to the formation of terrorism. Likewise, the domestic or external settings, as well as alignment with internal and external currents, may lead to the formation of terrorism. According to Ayatollah Khamenei’s works and statements, the followings are some of the most important settings in which modern terrorism has emerged:
The Current of Islamic Awakening
The main cause of many acts and reactions against Muslims and Islamic countries is the spread of the Islamic Awakening. In the last two decades, deep and wide-ranging movements have emerged in the East and West of the Islamic world as well as in non-Islamic countries. The young and educated generations, in contrast to the expectations of the colonists who today become the arrogant powers, have not only turned to Islam but become more enlightened in this regard. (Khamenei, 1993/05/27)
The explicit discourse of the Islamic Republic of Iran against the arrogant front and its emphasis on the persistence and continuity of the Islamic Resistance Front has had a profound effect on the awakening of the nations in the region. (Khamenei, 1996/03/23)
Therefore, the arrogant powers have made their hostility to the Islamic world public. The current of Islamic Awakening has revealed the contradictions between the interests of the Western world and developing countries, including the Islamic countries. (Khamenei, 1993/05/27)
The formation of terrorism in the Middle East region is an Islamic anti-awakening process. The provocation of religious and ideological prejudices is a reaction to the Islamic and spiritual awakening movement in the region and the world. The Islamic Awakening has played a dual role. On the one hand, it has created an Islamic Resistance Front, and on the other, it has formed fanatic Islamism and religious radicalism against the Islamic Resistance Front. The root of terrorist currents in the Muslim world which act against moderate Islam can be found within religious fanaticism. This religious extremist movement is not specific to the Muslim world, but there are religious terrorist operations in the Christian world as well. The religious prejudices of religious extremists may stem from misunderstanding or discriminatory attitudes of other religious groups in the form of a majority or minority or inciting some governments through deception. As a religious movement, the Islamic Awakening has found various ethnic, political, and racial implications and endangered many interests in the region. Each of them exacerbates the terrorist incidents independently or intermittently.
A look at the situation of West Asian countries from Pakistan and Afghanistan to Syria, Iraq, Palestine and the Gulf states as well as North Africa from Libya, Egypt and Tunisia to Sudan and some other countries shows the emergence of civil wars, religious prejudices, spreading of atrocious terrorism, the rise of extremist groups and currents that are growing and increasing in the manner of the barbaric ethnic groups and under the banner of religion. In such a situation, the expectation of repairing the material and spiritual gaps of Muslim countries and moving towards security, prosperity, scientific advancement and international authority is useless. This miserable situation can undermine the Islamic Awakening and destroy the spiritual preparations emerging in the Islamic world. (Khamenei, 2013/10/14)
In fact, the Islamic Awakening is an opportunity and a threat. The functioning of Muslim states, intellectuals and nations, and their conscious and spiritual relationship, can turn the Islamic Awakening into an opportunity for the development of Islamic countries preventing the influence of arrogant powers or it can turn it into a threat and also an obstacle because of internal divisions within and between the Islamic states as well as the formation of extremist-Takfiri terrorist currents.
Creating a Crisis
Creating a crisis is one of the important purposes of terrorist acts. Overthrowing a government, eliminating a domestic, regional and international rival, creating anxiety and mistrust in society, creating isolation and indifference to the fate of society and state, as well as spreading pessimistic views and confronting the ruling system can be the grounds on which terrorism is formed. Exploding the sacred places and community centres can be analyzed from this angle. The Haft-e Tir bombing event and the assassination of prominent executives such as Ayatollah Beheshti, a significant number of efficient ministers, parliamentarians, political and revolutionary activists aimed at creating panic and anxiety among the people (Khamenei, 1994/07/20) and creating a crisis in society. (Khamenei, 2015/06/27) Creating a crisis in society and challenging the ruling system are among the goals of terrorism.
Inaccurate Analysis
Terrorists, by misrepresenting the realities of society, regard terrorist acts as a step towards gaining power. The evaluation of the People’s Mujahedin of Iran was that the presence of the people in the society is unconscious; hence it could remove them from the social scene by killing them thereby challenge the ruling system. Terrorists, whether individuals or organizations have a subjective and unrealistic interpretation of the real world. Their perceptions of the social and political environment are limited. Terrorists and their supporters are far from the social realities believing that they can change the reality by carrying out terrorist acts.
The Ideology of the New Order
The New World Order theory is one of the essential sources of modern terrorism in the world. The idea of a new world order came after the collapse of the Soviet Union. (Khamenei, 2010/06/13)
The question of the identity-seeking of the nations has been at odds with the West’s anti-identity stance. The asymmetry of the parties involved in terms of military, media, economic, international dominance and efforts to impose a new Western-led world order have created a large internal and international divide. The globalization discourse has helped to justify and legitimize the global neoliberal issue and consolidate British-American capitalism in the major economic regions of the world. The radicalization of societies is one of its results. Today the most important source of terrorism can be seen in the form of the theory of the clash of civilizations posed by Samuel Huntington and within addressing the cultural and religious differences between civilizations, while in the past it was more political. The clash of civilizations depends on the war of ideas. The idea of the possibility of clashing of the ideology of the West and the Islamic world has led to the formation of extremism in the West and the Islamic world. The clash of civilizations and the clash of ideas would be seen through the concept of the new order of the world. In fact, one of the main sources of modern terrorism is the theory of the New World Order and the attempt to change the local and national sovereignty. Dozens of terrorist groups and organizations in the Islamic world and elsewhere have been formed with Western backing and they all seek to put pressure on national and local governments so that they accept Western leadership to solve their problems.
On the other hand, hundreds of other organizations that receive support from different governments have been formed to counter this attitude. The world order and the internal order of the countries are both at risk and threatened. The more they become religious, the less they observe discipline. Today, the issue of international terrorism is of importance. The countries of North America, South America, Europe, the Middle East, South Asia and Africa are home to terrorists. Hating the global economic domination based on the new world order has created a trans-regional terrorist current. Countries that show more hostility to global economic domination are fostering more terrorist groups.
Anti-Islamism and Islamophobia
Calling the conflicts in the Middle East the crusade by the American President George W. Bush in the 1990s elevated these conflicts to an ideological stage. The propaganda of the arrogant media constantly and insidiously around the world against Islam illustrates this matter. Making films, computer games, advertising, writing articles, accusations of war, terror and violence all try to discredit the world’s public opinion against Islam and Muslims, (Khamenei, 2003/07/30) and denote the West’s anti-Islamist approach. Promoting the crusades is not limited to the confrontation between the Christian and Muslim worlds. According to social learning theory, aggressive behaviour, under which is categorized, is not merely originated from the aggressive behaviour of the opposite party or the despair of a group, but the aggressive environment would foster aggressive individuals and groups and hence aggression becomes epidemic. If aggression can be learned as a behaviour, then terrorism as a specific type of aggressive behaviour can also be learned. Many terrorist groups that have grown up against the Islamic Republic or the Islamic world have turned against the West today.
The Proxy War
Producing, promoting and supporting terrorism aim at restoring the lost interests. (Khamenei, 1995/02/03) Terrorism in the Middle East is a proxy war that benefits the arms companies. This colonial policy is perused in the shadow of American support for regional security, such as Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Bahrain, Palestine and other Islamic countries. (Khamenei, 2015/05/16) The neo-colonial policy is growing and expanding under moral and political claims.
Seeking Revenge
One of the settings for the formation of terrorist currents is the actual oppression or the feeling of relative deprivation of a political, religious or ethnic group in society. The historical distresses of ethnicities and religious and political groups, feelings of injustice and discrimination between the rulers and the people, and the minority and majority ethnic groups are important settings for the formation of terrorism at the national, regional and international levels. The emergence of terrorism in Islamic countries in ideological, religious, ethnic, political and geographical forms is due to the methods of the arrogant system to weaken, creating a crisis within and overthrow these systems. (Khamenei, 1996/03/23)
The functioning of governments is effective in radicalizing the groups. The violence of the government and violating the fundamental rights and civil liberties of individuals and radical groups would make them a terrorist current. The terrorist attacks carried out by Chechens against the Russians were the result of Russian aggression against Chechnya, or the fighting of Palestinians against the Israelis is the result of years of Zionist oppression. It’s actually a kind of revenge. In the view of many scholars, there is a strong link between deprivation and terrorism, especially when a government or another group is regarded as the cause of deprivation. Terrorism is a tool in the hands of the terrorists to express their identity in the face of the ruling system and create a group. For this reason, terrorism is the weapon of the oppressed against the tyrant. From this point of view, the important purpose of terrorism is to exert strong pressure on a power that dominates the domestic, regional and international scenes. According to the frustration-aggression approach, aggression is always the result of despair. When someone or a group becomes hopeless, he will do everything. But from another angle, the act of the oppressed against the tyrants is not considered as terror, since the oppressed defends his right and supporting the oppressed does not mean supporting the terrorists and terrorism because it means protecting the oppressed. “We support the oppressed as much as we can and it is our duty.” (Khamenei, 2015/07/17)
Therefore, where the oppressed tries to exercise his/her right, it cannot be classified as terrorism.
The criterion for calling an act a terrorist one and its difference with war, airstrikes, ground bombardment, naval shore bombardment and one country attacking another one, as well as the conflicts and disputes between people, can be discussed in light of the essence-oriented attitude of the leader regarding terrorism.
Conclusion
Terrorism conflicts with human rights, especially with the right to life, liberty and territorial integrity of a country. Terrorist acts destabilize sovereignty, threaten civil society, and undermine peace, security, economic and social development. All of these endanger human rights. Terrorism is a criminal act of violence against civilians with a prior intent and with ethnic, racial, historical, political and religious motives. Therefore, terrorism or terror is violence that threatens civil society and its infrastructure. Not all types of violence are terror but all acts of terror are considered as violence. Based on this article and the views of Ayatollah Khamenei, eight criteria can be put forward to distinguish a terrorist act from other acts of violence:
1) Victims of Terrorism: Victims of terrorist operations are civilians, noncombatants and ordinary people, or the military forces when they are off-duty or even when they wear military uniforms. Terrorists attack those who are not able to defend themselves. Therefore, attacking the military people, when they are off-duty and without weapons, is a terrorist act.
2) Destruction of Terrorism: Civil infrastructure is at the heart of the destruction of terrorist acts. Civic centres such as health centres, education centres, cinemas, parks, and recreational and tourist centres are the target of terrorism.
3) Geography of Terrorism: In the war between two countries, the geography of violence is the geographical boundaries and in civil wars, it is neighbourhoods and regions. Terrorism has no specific geography. Violence against defenceless citizens and civic centres is not limited to a specific time and place.
4) Terrorism is Unknown: terrorism has occurred in the context of an organized operation and with clear goals, and the terrorists, as well as their tools and time and place of their acts, are all unknown to the victims and others. For this reason, terrorist groups carry out terrorist operations by themselves. Daesh takes the responsibility of bombing the Karbala using the BM-21 Grad, the attacks that took place in Basrah and the assassination attempts to kill the Iraqi parliamentarians and killing some leaders of the al-Mahdi Army. By accepting responsibility for terrorist operations, they try to introduce and promote their ideological, political and national views. Accepting the responsibility of terrorist acts will have a huge impact on attracting people and aligning with them against the existing sovereignty.
5) Previous Intention in Terrorism: Terrorists have the intent to commit a terrorist act. Terror is the action that originated from the policy and decision of some individuals, groups and governments.
6) Motivation: The political, economic, historical, ethnic and religious motives and dozens of other motivations may be involved in a terrorist incident.
7) Terrorists: Terrorists may be unknown local or international individuals or groups. This element distinguishes terrorism from war. The forces in a war will confront the other side while wearing uniforms and having other specifications.
8) Violence: Two Dutch researchers, namely Schmidt and Jungman (1998) have studied more than 100 scientific definitions of terrorism, assessing the violence and the potential for intimidation against civilians as key elements of terrorism. In the view of Marar (1993) using violence and the creation of fear on a national scale are the components common to all definitions of terrorism. The crucial point is that according to Ayatollah Khamenei, modern terrorism and modern ignorance are closely related. Using modern weapons for killing civilians and destroying civil society infrastructure, shows the cruelty of the terrorists and their supporters in modern terrorism. Western arbitrary interpretations of terrorism and its good and bad interpretations show that a strictly cultural, geographical and ideological relativistic approach dominates the world. Righteousness is not a criterion for action. From the point of view of truth-seeking, terrorism has one essence and denotes one truth, and from the point of view of ignorance, terrorism is an ideological and relative issue that has multiple natures.
Archive of Ayatollah Khamenei
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