Terrorism and liberalism
Why presenting this report?
• In the course on Security, Civil liberties and Terrorism, Dr. Donohue
considers the counterterrorist spiral as the reaction of liberal-democratic
state to the terrorism threat.
Terrorism may influence on the transformation of liberalism.
• The headlines on the internet “Liberalism is terrorism”, “Liberalism
breeds terrorism” etc.
• Outline and explore other conceptions of the interplay between
terrorism and liberalism.
• Liberalism is political philosophy; terrorism is political action.
They both can be referred as ideology.
What is terrorism?
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There are different definitions, which contain key elements:
violence, fear, broder audience, purposive, political power,
noncombants as targets, instrumental.
Confusing definition of Islamic Association for Palestine:
“Terrorism is any act of resistance by the Palestinians.”
In the report western definition (etymologicaly from terror) is
accepted.
What is liberalism?
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Liberalism is a philosophy or movement that has as its aim the
development of individual freedom.
“Freedom is the main need of human mind” –Ayn Rand.
Key-elements of liberalism are: the ultimate importance of
the individual and his rights (for life, liberty, health, property),
free-market system as guarantor of rights.
Freedom and rights must belong to all people, regardless of
location, ethnicity – liberalism is universalistic.
How terrorism and liberalism correlates:
position of leftist thinkers.
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Interpretation by Noam Chomsky and his supporters
(Susan Sontag, Alex George, Gerry O’ Sullivan).
Chomsky says that in modern western liberalism exist huge
governments.
"Propaganda is to a government in democracy what the bludgeon is
to a totalitarian state”.Propaganda becomes a mean of mass
manipulation through fear. Using it makes liberalism close to
terrorism.
How terrorism and liberalism correlates:
position of leftist thinkers (cont.)
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To keep citizens scared and thus under control, the Government is
to find or construct a monster.
After the USSR was dismantled, the USA had to find the “new evil” –
international terrorism.
“Liberals work overtime to give terrorists a cushion for the next
attack and laugh at dumb Americans who love their country and
hate the enemy.”
How terrorism and liberalism correlates:
position of leftist thinkers (cont.)
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After the aggression in Nicaragua the World Court called the USA
itself “the terrorist state”.
The fact of “real” terrorism Noam Chomsky and his associates
tried to explain as a rational response to oppression and
ideological expansion of the American liberalism.
People in some Eastern countries regard their religious identity as
more important than the supposed benefits of freedom.
Western liberalism doesn’t always work for the East.
The “blind” liberalism in a way breeds terrorism as a reaction to
the expansion of alien values
How terrorism and liberalism correlates:
position of the “right wing”.
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Interpretation by Paul Berman and his supporters
(Bernard Lewis, Walter Laquer, Paul Wilkinson).
Emergence of terrorism is not a result of the clash of civilisations.
“It is the clash of liberalism and its enemies—the battle between
freedom and totalitarianism that arose in Europe many years ago
and spread to the Muslim world.”
How terrorism and liberalism correlates:
position of the “right wing” (cont).
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Berman in his book “Terror and liberalism” categorizes terrorism in
Islamism as a totalitarian reaction against Western liberalism in a
class with Nazism and communism.
Terrorism in Islamism, Nazism, Communism, according to Berman,
have common features - the irrational cult of death and the idea of
Messianizm.
The people of good, messians were described as the Aryans, the
proletarians, or the Arabs. The diabolical infestation was described
as the Jews, the bourgeoisie, the kulaks, etc.
How terrorism and liberalism correlates:
position of the “right wing” (cont).
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It the case of Islamic terrorist the Arabs identified themselves as
“people of good”. Their aim is to establish blocklike unchanging
purified society.
The Isalmism (as a form of totalitarism) declared war to the
Western democracies by means of terrorism. The West make them
furious as the illustration that liberal society can thrive and that
antiliberal cannot.
The liberal order is attacked by terrorists – any defensive measures
can be advocated in this hard-edged war. The war with terrorism
will come to an end when the last Muslim and Arab is freed.
The freedom in the East will mean the security in the West.
Terrorism and liberalism.
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The report is to present the vision of interplay between concepts of
terrorism and liberalism in two intellectual wings – “left” and “right”.
The more detailed survey can reveal new directions of reseach
within the outlined concepts.
The author of the report doesn’t advocate any of the positions, but
just tries to reproduce their inner logic.