Terrorism VS War

[IshpritKaur]

I was just curious as to what people thought about terrorism and war. Is there really solid line between the two of them? Both are done for a cause, but what is the difference. Just something i was thinking about, it was brought up in school today

Some said that the difference between the two is that, War as rules and regulations where as terrorism doesnt, and its kind of 'behind the scenes'. :T:

But i was thinking, war can easily turn into to terrorism, if, for example, Soldiers fighting in war purposely started killing those who werent supposed die, like civilians.

And vice versa, terrorism can turn into war...September 11th attacks turned into war in Afghanistan...

i was just curious as to what people thought about this

[ms514]

Sat Sri Akal:

The difference between terrorism and war. First line is war. Second line is terrorism.

jae sakathaa sakathae ko maarae thaa man ros n hoee ||1|| rehaao ||

If some powerful man strikes out against another man, then no one feels any grief in their mind. ||1||Pause||

sakathaa seehu maarae pai vagai khasamai saa purasaaee ||

But if a powerful tiger attacks a flock of sheep and kills them, then its master must answer for it.

(Guru Nanak Dev Ji, Raag Aasaa, 360).

Forgive any mistakes.

[AK-47]

War is the tool of the west and the 'civilised', terrorism is that of the poor.

Terrorism is generally seen as any kind of action taken against the govt.

The great american civil war, was a terrorist campaign. They fought against the govt ie the british.

The french revolution was a terrorist campaign. They killed all of the leaders and overthrew the govt/royalty.

If a singh kills a murdering rapist policeofficer, then he is a terrorist, yet the judge can send a rapist to the gallows, both deliver justice, except one has the approval of 'law' which is created by man, while the other has 'law' as given to him by his men, his god or his beliefs.

The americans can try to assinated saddam hussein and are 'fighting against the axis of evil' but if the sikhs kill indira gandu then they are terrorists!

Do you see the hypocrisy! Im not supporting terrorism whatever it may be, but the language of today is such that anything we dont agree with we can label as terrorist and get away with!

I have recently written an essay on this, i will post it up shortly if you care to read it, its on 'religious nationalism' which is often called terrorism and the degree of violenc it produces.

[V]

War is the tool of the west and the 'civilised', terrorism is that of the poor.

Terrorism is generally seen as any kind of action taken against the govt.

The great american civil war, was a terrorist campaign. They fought against the govt ie the british.

The french revolution was a terrorist campaign. They killed all of the leaders and overthrew the govt/royalty.

If a singh kills a murdering rapist policeofficer, then he is a terrorist, yet the judge can send a rapist to the gallows, both deliver justice, except one has the approval of 'law' which is created by man, while the other has 'law' as given to him by his men, his god or his beliefs.

The americans can try to assinated saddam hussein and are 'fighting against the axis of evil' but if the sikhs kill indira gandu then they are terrorists!

Do you see the hypocrisy! Im not supporting terrorism whatever it may be, but the language of today is such that anything we dont agree with we can label as terrorist and get away with!

I have recently written an essay on this, i will post it up shortly if you care to read it, its on 'religious nationalism' which is often called terrorism and the degree of violenc it produces.

Please share it asap..

I am anxious to read it..I Love readingh your posts

bhull chukk maaf :D

Waheguroo Jee Ka Khalsa!

Waheguroo Jee Kee Fateh!!

[IshpritKaur]

Thanks very much.. i was just curious, and was wondering what others thought about this.. and sure I'd liek to read your essay.

[AK-47]

Sorry for taking so long to post this, its rubbish anyway, but i know this is a stupid question, but how do i post the article without copy and pasting the whole thing in this box? can i attach it somehow?

[AK-47]

‘Religious Nationalism generally produces high degrees of violence.’ Discuss this with reference to the cases studied during the course.

Although there is ‘a clash of definitions’ over religious nationalism the most convincing schools of thoughts are the used as a basis for the discussion. Modernists such as Gellner and Breuilly believe the term can only be justifiably used in context of the last 20 years. There are a number of explanations accounting for its rise in this period including the growth of modernisation, consumerism, failure of political ethics and globalisation amongst others.

However is religion definable? S. Bruce deems it to means1:

“Beliefs, actions and institutions that assume the existence of supernatural entities with power of judgement and action.”

However this does not highlight the differences between doctrine and praxis which O’Brien2 considers vital to distinguish in such a discussion.

Similar difficulties can be unearthed when seeking to define nationalism. Gellner believes it should be a political principle combining politics and the nation ideals together.

Hence this leads us to define religious nationalism as a political movement of a religious people influenced and aspiring to their respective goals in accordance to their religious beliefs.3 If one is to continue with the above definition then it is reasonable to conclude that the violence discussed in the title originates easily from the sheer passion of religion itself.

Religious nationalism has been the subject of much research and study in recent years. Since the events of September 11th the whole world has been clamouring to find out why religious people commit such violence a

cts. The term religious nationalism has proved to be a difficult term to define and has lead to a wide number of theories on its origins and its actual definition.

Recent history provides us with a number of incidents that stand out as particularly violent from those committed in the name of religious nationalism. It is the intensity of the violence rather than the numbers of people killed that caused shockwaves around the world. Two such incidents are those of the destruction of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya by militant Hindus in 1992 and two years later, the shooting dead of Palestinians whilst they prayed in Hebron by Dr Goldstein.

The destruction of the 464 year old Ayodhya mosque at the hands of Hindu Nationalists caused ‘riots’ that spread nationally causing over 1,200 deaths4 in a matter of months and created an unbridgeable gap between the two communities ever since. This incident can be linked to a movement working to create a new identity within India; Hindu groups such as the RSS are attempting to promote Indian identity as Hindu Identity. The central theme of the RSS is to promote the Hindu God Ram, as the central deity to whom all Hindus should worship. Thus trying to unite and make uniform an incredibly diverse mix of cultures and religions. The Babri Masjid is central to this because the militant Hindus claim that the Ayodhya Mosque was built on the Birthplace of the God Ram. Destroying the Mosque was a wholly necessary step in order to establish this new Hindu Nationalism. The movement is essentially anti-secularist and also anti-non-Hindu. The mindset of these activists and ‘God-Men’ is illustrated in Jaffrelot who quotes Golwalkar, one of the founders of Hindu Nationalism as saying, “To keep up the purity of Race and its culture, Germany shocked the world by her purging the country of the Semitic Races – the Jews … a good lesson for us in Hindustan to learn and profit by.”5

The other example worth discussing is that of Dr Baruch Goldstein. In 1994, Goldstein entered the Musl

im entrance to the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron and shot dead over 30 Muslims while they prayed. He had regarded the Palestinians as trespassers on Israeli and Jewish land for a long time but the final provocation came from a group of Palestinian boys shouting insults to the Jews at the shrine. Juergensmeyer6 explains what Goldstein felt, that ‘both Judaism and the Jewish people had been deeply humiliated.’ He resolved to take justice into his own hands.

These examples show how violent religious nationalism can become; both cases are of intense violence, the first an example of collective violence and the other an act of an individual. This is important; for it shows that such violence can be conducted by individuals and not just by large groups of people. Riots or large-scale violence is often ascribed to the overflow of emotion, that riots just happen spontaneously. Brass argues7, “riots are dramatic productions, creations of specific persons, groups and parties operating through institutionalised riot networks within a discursive framework of Hindu-Muslim communal opposition and antagonism that in turn produces specific forms of political practice that make riots integral to the political process.” This suggests that riots such as the Hindus against Muslims in India, are actually manufactured and not spontaneous in the least. For the riots to take place on this scale would involve a group planning the attacks and ordering their militants into action, this is just as bad as Dr Goldstein sitting at home the night before the killings contemplating his future actions.

These cases shocked the world, it is likely that on the same day, many people around the world would have died from malnutrition, Aids, disease etc, but it was these events that made international news. The reason they take such prominence is that they appear to be further examples of the so-called ‘rise’ in religious nationalism and religiously motivated violence. The fact that both incidents involved killings of innocents, around

a place of worship, by religiously minded people, is a difficult concept for many people to understand.

The practice of religion is usually focussed around the worship of God in some form or another. Basic qualities of truth, justice, compassion, love and forgiveness are attributes that are found in many of the world’s great religions. Thus, people often wonder how religion becomes entwined with nationalism to create such explosively violent events. Academics such as Juergensmeyer8 explains this type of violence using a theory known as ‘Just War Theory’. According to this, followers of a particular faith use their religious texts as a supreme authority that sanctions violence in certain cases, it is deemed acceptable because as he puts it ‘the war is being fought on the cosmic planes’, where the soldiers are fighting not for personal or materialistic gains but for supreme truth and against evil and the armies of the un-godly.

The usual example given is that of Muslim Jihad. Juergensmeyer discusses a number of Religious texts and their justifications for violence. But he and other scholars fail to comprehend the Sikh understanding of religious war. Whereas religious traditions such as Islam and Judaism often speak of defending themselves against oppression, Sikhism doesn’t view violence as a tool with which to defend only themselves against oppression, but to defend all people across the world, no matter what their religious standing. For example, the 9th Sikh Guru sacrificed his head for the defence of the Hindu religion. A defence of ‘Just War’ theory using Sikh theology would suggest that Sikhs are protectors of humanity; Guru Gobind Singh Ji says ‘I came on this earth to spread righteousness and dharma, and to destroy tyranny.’ The Dasam Granth9 contains many stories and verses that explain the taking up of arms in Sikhism, its justifications, and its motivations. Unfortunately, this text is largely unexplored by students of religious violence. Their actions would not be seen by them as violent as

the world understands the word, but as the duty of human beings, not acts of violence, but acts of humanity.

Religious nationalism does indeed produce high degrees of violence but it does not follow that it is the worst producer of it. If we compare the violence of the World Wars, that lead to the deaths of millions of people to nationalistic or freedom movements around the world today the scale of the violence is not comparable at all. The holocaust was not committed in the name of religion nationalism but that of German superiority. Again no movement in the current understanding of the term religious nationalism has been guilty of such widespread genocide. Wars conducted in the name of religion are widely perceived to be aggressive and unwarranted, but these judgements are often made without knowing the reasons behind why the people have resorted to arms. Instead, we see each soldier as responsible for the acts of ‘murder’ that he or she commits. However, when secular countries go to war the public sees it as something wholly different. When the US attacked the Taliban regime in Afghanistan and invaded Iraq, the violence was justified as we were told that the US was looking after the world’s interests by acting as a peacekeeper. Even the people that didn’t support the war supported the US and British soldiers, as these ‘boys’ were just doing their duty. Can this be any different to the two Sikhs Sukha and Jinda who killed General Vaidiya in India, where they believed that they were fulfilling their duty and that, for the sake of peace this man had to be killed? The US is thus accused “Since 1952, the United States of America has promoted, financed and participated in over 20 separate wars, killing over 8,000,000 people.”10 The US is constitutionally secular and yet produces violence that ranks amongst the worlds worst records. This suggests that violence is violence and that be it religiously motivated or otherwise the victims are the same.

Crime occurs on a daily basis around the world but much

of it has little if anything to do with religion. This is not so shocking for us because we are so accustomed to reading and hearing about crime in the media that there is little that still has the ability to shock us. One would generally not consider somebody breaking into an empty house a violent act. However the owner of the house may feel so vulnerable that the long-term effects are comparable to a physical violent act. One can consider America, where gun crime is spiralling out of control; leading to the shooting dead of thousands of people each year due to some dispute or another. A Michael Moore film called ‘Bowling for Columbine’11 is based around the two teenagers that entered their school and indiscriminately killed 12 students and injuring 23 others in 1999. Their motives other than the ‘satisfaction’ derived from killing others are relatively unknown. Dr Goldstein felt he had a legitimate reason for killing the Palestinian worshippers, he considered it a religious duty to uphold the dignity of Judaism, but these boys did it for pleasure. In this regard, non-religious violence is just as violent as religious violence. In other interviews with people who have been involved in gun violence it was revealed that in some cases the provocation could be as little as looking at somebody in an unrespectable manner. This violence is perhaps more threatening than that of Dr Goldstein because it is harder to predict and control and is something that we could face daily on our streets.

Violence as a concept is viewed as a negative thing but in many instances violence is needed to counter the violence of another. This can be called self defence or even ‘good violence’ but essentially it is violence committed for the sake of the betterment of society. The war on terrorism is being conducted, we are told because people will benefit in the long term. The same could also be said about the violence stemming from religious nationalism. If the militants are opposing an oppressive regime and using their religion

as a point of strength and unity to rid the land of the oppressor, then surely it must be a positive thing? These types of movements often originate due to changes in their local society. It is due to either the society modernising too rapidly leading to the native culture being replaced by western influences, or to their culture being threatened or repressed by the rulers. Either way the activists believe that their actions are for the welfare of society, if they remain silent and take no action then no one else will. An example is the ruthlessness of the Punjab Police, where corruption and torture were regular occurrences in prisons throughout the state, the Sikh Militants who fought against them did so to improve the living standards of themselves and of those around them. While this could involve very violent acts in the short term, the aim is to produce long lasting peace in the long run.

There are different types of groups that tend to be grouped under the heading of religious nationalists. Some of these are more focused on issues surrounding religion and reinforcing their ideology, while others have greater concerns with sovereignty and political rights, there are also of course those who find both issues go hand in hand with each other. The degree of the violence used by these groups are varies with their standing in the world economy, those countries facing greater economic problems are more likely to experience movements such as these, and because of the weaker security measures in many third world countries such violent acts are easier to conduct.

The perception of the threat of violence is related to the standard of living of the person perceiving it. People who have a high standard of living will have less to worry about than those trying to scratch a living. If the perceived view is that the state is making living their lives that much harder, the people will feel it necessary to rise up. Since in the leaders have lost their respect and authority in their eyes, the people will turn

to their other leader, God. This becomes a religiously inspired war against the state, whose origin is hunger and unemployment. Since the public no longer consider the state and its law’s as just, they look to religious laws to govern them. It is thus difficult to assess these groups using our own ethics and morality of what is right and wrong according to the law, as they most probably have rejected our laws as oppressive and demeaning.

Groups such as those that follow reconstruction Theology and the Christian identity movements in the US cannot compare with those for example from the Sikh Community. The likes of Rev. Michael Bray12 felt great joy at the shooting of a doctor and the burnings of a few clinics, while the Sikhs managed to assassinate the head of state of the world’s largest democracy. In terms of importance the doctor can be relatively easily and the clinics rebuilt, but the assassination of Indira Gandhi was a landmark event. In this respect the methods of violence, the capacity to commit violence and the number of people committed to commit violence all vary from one to another. It is therefore not justified to make the broad sweeping statements we have a tendency to do.

Some interesting contributors towards the world of religious nationalism are the trans-national communities. These communities feel the same pain and hurt felt by the native communities in the affected region and will therefore often assist with resources including money, political legitimisation and even recruits. However, in general they are very rarely violent in the same respect as to their comrades elsewhere in the world. Although they will campaign for the same cause they will not generally use violent means to achieve their aims. Often they will try and lobby foreign powers to intercede in any violence, they will bring awareness to their host communities via materials discussing human rights abuses as well as other peaceful activities. This shows that violence is not a necessary ingredient for somebody who

follows this course.

There is no scale with which we can measure how violent one act is in comparison to another other than a crude body count. Our perception of world violence is often flawed and is heavily influenced by factors of location, religion, social standing and our political view of the world. The main factor more important than any other in forming our perception of this is the media. In the west, society is shown religious fanatics committing atrocities across the world through pictures and experts who analyse its causes and consequences for the world. It seems that religious nationalism has made the careers of many academics and politicians.

The media thrives on groundbreaking news, stories are often sensationalised, given excessive airtime and column inches relative to their seriousness. Religious violence is a keyword that instantly brings to the mind pictures of religious terrorists like Osama Bin Laden and cohorts. By making the terrorist threat larger than they are, the media ensures that its papers are sold and its news reports watched, as Margot Patterson13 says, “Today a tiny minority of violent religious actors might command the attention of an entire nation and its security apparatus.” We appear to have become fixated with these people. In certain areas of the US homicide rates have actually fallen but the coverage of them on TV has risen, this trend would appear to be uniform across the industry.

It is interesting to note that those on the receiving end of violence are usually the larger and more dominant community. This dictates how the media and the world, view the violence. This allows the state to justify its own actions.

If the state is opposing a religious minority, then the response of the minority is seen as religious nationalism, and the minority are labelled the guilty party because their actions are more ‘explosive’ i.e. seen as more violent than those of the state, making the state into the victim. Issues such as states using their political power t

o create policies that discriminate against minorities are somehow not classified as violent, even though they can result in the loss of more lives via lack of food, lack of education, lack of health services, lack of facilities or avenues with which to earn a living such as jobs, electricity etc especially if this done deliberately to cause grief.

The causes of struggle are generally not recognised by the world community and violence seen as the final resort of the people, to which the world then says that violence is wrong. Perhaps the people involved in these actions would suggest that it is not religious nationalism but the politics of self interest of the western world which produce high degrees of violence.

It is important to understand that some groups or institutions will benefit from the support of religious groups and often turn their own issues such as recruiting troops, obtaining finances, justifying their actions into religious ones. An example of such an individual is Saddam Hussein, who in the 80’s didn’t seem to interested with Islam, but then suddenly when under pressure and in need of help from his Muslim neighbours pictures were shown of him in devotional prayer five times a day. Such individuals will pull on the heartstrings of the nationalists in order to use them for their own needs. In this regard the religious violence which might ensue is nothing to do with the religious atmosphere, but is due to the careful planning and manipulation by governments and other agencies. By involving God in the struggle the individual is faced with the option of either accepting the violence as God’s will, or by rejecting it and facing the fury of God in the afterlife. In this scenario some religious believers will undertake whatever ‘God’ or their mission briefer requires of them. A good example is of the situation in Northern Ireland, where priests on both sides are urging their troops forward to victory in the name of God.

When people hear the phrase religious nationalism they inst

antly assume it means violence. It can actually be political and not violent at all. Although the struggle may initially be of religion and the violence as a result of religion, often the actual religious differences are forgotten in the midst of the politics, which takes over. The opposite is also true; a political issue can swiftly turn into a religious one, where again the actual points of controversy are forgotten. So when we think of religious nationalism and violence, it is worth considering whether the violence is actually being dictated by a number of people whose interests lie in land, money, oil etc… Rather than get their own hands dirty, they let religious activists take the blame for it or attempt to justify their actions on religious grounds. India as a prime example uses its religious groups to do its dirty work, thus taking the attention away from the state. A particularly vicious incident was the Delhi Massacres of 1984 where 20,000 Sikhs were murdered, Jaijee cites a senior IPS officer who testified before the Misra Commission that: 14 “The riots were engineered to teach the Sikhs a lesson”. This is an example of where religion was used as a tool of violence against a community that was asserting itself both politically and religiously, not against the Hindu’s but against the state itself. By fanning the flames of nationalism the politicians were able to strike their opponents a very hard blow, and were able to get away with it by shifting the blame towards the love of Hindu’s for their country.

Religious nationalism does cause violence, but the degree of which is not significantly greater or even necessarily less than the violence caused and conducted by other parts of society and groups. An important thing to be aware of is the fact that we should not be so quick to dismiss religion when we hear of the violence that is associated with it. Religion has more to offer the world than just violence. How often on the media do we hear of Muslim Fundamentalists feeding the poor or of Sikh Milit

ants who collect money from donors an assist in the marriage of the daughter of a peasant?

Thus religious nationalism does produce violent acts but whether this applies to all religiously motivated causes and to the degree of other violent acts spurred by various other motivations is indeed questionable.

After all, if we start to see religion as a breeding ground for future criminals and violent people then humanity will be loosing something which has kept society and humanity in check the world over.

ENDNOTES

1. BRUCE, S. Politics and Religion. Polity Press, Cambridge. 2003. Pg 9-10

2. O’BRIAN, C. C. God Land-Reflections on Religion and Nationalism. New York, 1999. Pg 1

3. Rieffer, Lecture handout week 11

4. JEFFRELOT, C. The Hindu nationalist movement and Indian politics: 1925-1990’s. Hurst & Company, London. 1996. Pg 461

5. Ibid. Pg 55

6. JUERGENSMEYER, M. Terror in the Mind of God: The global rise of religious violence. University of California Press, London. 3rd ed. 2003. Pg 51

7. BRASS, P. “The Production of Hindu-Muslim violence in Contemporary India.” University of Washing Press, Seattle, USA.

8. JUERGENSMEYER, M. Terror in the Mind of God: The global rise of religious violence. University of California Press, London. 3rd ed. 2003. Pg 25

9. http://www.dasamgranth.org

10. www.unitedstatesgovernment.net/8million.htm

11. MOORE, M. “Bowling for Columbine” Alliance atlantics and United Artists films. 2002

12. JUERGENSMEYER, M. Terror in the Mind of God: The global rise of religious violence. University of California Press, London. 3rd ed. 2003. Pg 51. The Movement mentioned is that of the far Christian right in the US who campaign for the closure of anti abortion clinics nationwide.

13. http://www.nd.edu/~prinfo/news/2003/12-26xx.html

14. JAIJEE, I, S. Politics o

f Genocide: Punjab 1984-1998. Ajanta Books Int, Delhi. 1999. Pg 75.

Bibliography

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• BRASS, P. “The Production of Hindu-Muslim violence in Contemporary India.” University of Washing Press, Seattle, USA.

• HUNTINGTON, S.P. The Clash of Civilizations and the remaking of the world order. Touchstone, London. 1998

• JAIJEE, I, S. Politics of Genocide: Punjab 1984-1998. Ajanta Books Int, Delhi. 1999

• JEFFRELOT, C. The Hindu nationalist movement and Indian politics: 1925-1990’s. Hurst & Company, London. 1996

• JUERGENSMEYER, M. Terror in the Mind of God: The global rise of religious violence. University of California Press, London. 3rd ed. 2003

• KAKAR, S. The Colors of violence. The University of Chicago Press Ltd, London, 1996

• KEPEL, G. The Revenge of God. Polity Press, USA, 1994

• O’BRIAN, C. C. God Land-Reflections on Religion and Nationalism. New York, 1999.

• SINGH, G. Ethnic conflict in India. Macmillan Press, Ltd. 2002

• SACKS, J. “The Dignity of Difference: Avoiding the clash of civilizations.” Foreign Policy Research Institute 10(3).

• TALBOT, I. India and Pakistan. Oxford University Press Inc, Oxford. 2002

• TAMBIAH, S. J. Leveling Crowds: Ethno nationalist conflicts and collective violence in South Asia. University of California Press, London. 1996.

• MOORE, M. “Bowling for Columbine” Alliance atlantics and United Artists films. 2002

• www.carnage84.com

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• www.khalistan.com

• www.natcath.com

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[Deep Singh]

Nice to read those article...i have not read the whole

there are 19 parts i think

http://www.gurbani.org/webart114.htm

(114-120,...) go to the article menu and about the half of the page: 'Religious fanaticsm' Part 1-19