Terrorist Circles
As I considered Mumbai, living in Jerusalem, a few hundred yards from many such attacks, I came upon this paragraph during my bedtime reading, in Adam Gopnik's lovely book, Through The Children's Gate. Adam is recalling a conversation in New York, just after 9/11. Think of it as we judge what President-elect Obama means by wedding military power to other power:
Later that day, I bump into F.A., the Arabist, and we have a talk about What Is To Be Done. I ask him if there is anything we can do about madmen who worship psychopathic gods. And he says something obvious but interesting: that there's nothing to be done about the core, the real nuts, but they exist, as human beings must within concentric circles of culture: an immediate circle of murder-minded sympathizers and financiers; a circle just outside that of sympathizers who would not do such things themselves but will not stop them from happening; a circle beyond that of people who choose not to know what is being done but sympathize with the radical purpose; a circle beyond that one of the fearful and even sentimentally sympathetic--and on and on, each circle of culture outside the actual nucleus of evil a little larger and a little less regular in its orbit than the one before, and therefore able to be dried up, reduced, set loose. Attack and persuade the outer circles of culture to abandon the inner circles, and eventually, the core will be all alone, isolated and futile.
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It means what many anti-war folks knew but Bush could not do.
December 2, 2008 6:45 AM | Reply | Permalink
I think Cheney and company knew this full well. You either isolate extremists or expand their ranks. Cheney and company tried to expand the extremists' ranks, and thus, Cheney and Co.'s power.
Not that the official story of 9/11 withstands any scrutiny...
December 2, 2008 9:42 AM | Reply | Permalink
That passage describes the modern Republican Party in its entirety.
It's become the National Front of America, the Christianist Phalangist Party with a nascent Palin-gist brown-shirt national militia-in-waiting.
Already, Jim Crow has fused with Jim Jones.
And now it's David Duke fusing with Blackwater, Bible Camp, and the Air Force Academy.
December 2, 2008 11:18 AM | Reply | Permalink
This is an excellent way to describe most extreme groups - and it advocates what I believe the best way to combat extremist: refute and marginalize. Thanks for the excerpt - I'll be sharing with others.
-- Cris
My site: Obama Wallpaper Archive
December 2, 2008 12:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks, Bernard. I'll use your 'circles' in a different way, but one that also works.
Remembering the Viet Nam War era, it was when enough of the drafted sons and husbands and brothers from the 'outer' circles started getting killed or coming back crazy-out-of-their minds, or physically maimed that the 'outer' circles were moved to tell the hard-core hawks and their enablers in the 'inner' circle to go to hell.
That said, Obama - who seems to be waffling on a time to end the Iraq War - should study the LBJ presidency to see what an unpopular war can do to a presidency.
December 2, 2008 12:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
Excellent point. "Attack and persuade the outer circles..." It is very true that the radicals who will kill and terrorise us cannot opperate in a vaccumn. They have an extended support group, without which they are ineffective.
The ancients understood this well. The Romans, Babylonians, Greeks maintained far flung empires by always making the mothers pay for the sins of their sons. When the soldiers of Alexander the Great were ambushed, Alexander did not send out detectives to find who were the perpetrators. Whole towns were reduced to salt and and all inhabitants executed.
We, of course, are more civilized, and not willing to take those measures. And, my vote is completely in the camp of this post - we must try to persuade and marginalize. We must never resort to the tactics of the ancients, or for that matter, Saddam Hussein, Idi Amin, Poll Pot, etc. However, I am not at all optimistic. I think we can talk till we are blue in the face. It aint gonna work.
December 2, 2008 1:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
i have little doubt that obama understands this. i just read dreams from my father and he speaks to these concentric circles - not in the context of terrorism, but personal identity and community. i can't say enough how lucky we are to have such an introspective complex leader taking charge as we enter these very turbulent waters.
December 2, 2008 2:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
Great metaphor. Brought to mind the how the Germans dealt with the outer circle in Lidice after the assasination of Heydrick. I think attacking the outer circle is futile (you will simply create another circle of sympathizers). If we are really interested in persuading them, then perhaps we should give up our war against the Moslems of Iraq, Iran, Palestine, Lebanon and Afghanistan. Bin Laden is after all appealing to people who in fact do believe that the US is making war against Islam and who see there own governments as helpless in the face of this war.
December 2, 2008 4:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
I disagree:
"I think attacking the outer circle is futile (you will simply create another circle of sympathizers)."
It depends entirely on how you "attack". All circles are subject to "attack" in principle, and all can be moved.
December 2, 2008 8:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
Just to be clear, I don't think Adam's implication is that "attack" means invade (though I suspect the F.A.in question was Fuad Ajami, who was, of course, a proponent of the Iraq war). In any case, there are ways to attack--i.e., discredit, challenge, starve, etc.--without creating new martyrs. Keep an eye out for Reza Aslan's new book, "How to Win a Cosmic War."
December 3, 2008 9:15 AM | Reply | Permalink
An interesting analysis, and the comparison I found was with thr Klan, which had/has similar layers of support in some communities. However, there is an important difference that people should be aware of.
When 'Christian ministers' gave the Klan their blessing, there were many more willing to speak out and condemn it as totally opposed to Christian ideals. And while an Eric Rudolph might have gotten help from the community, overall he was condemned by most Christians, even ones who supported those things he set bombs to support.
But the situation is different in Islam (note: this is based on many on-line conversations I had with Pakistantis -- on a board where I was the only 'non-desi' or Pakistan resident as well as my own reading both of the Qur'an and of discussions on Islasmic sites). There is a 'thou shalt not speak critically of another Muslim' commandment in Islam. Islam, even more the Christianity, builds a self-critical attitude (any devout Muslim will criticize himself about not being a 'better' Muslim).
And the Qur'an itself -- obviously, at least to non-Muslims -- was not a 'book from God' but a collection of 'wartime sermons' given by Mohammed, frequently incoherent (partially because of the 'gathering process), and with the anger and insane optimism of this type of preaching: "God/Allah will insure your victory. One Muslim fighting with God on his side can defeat a hundred non-believers."
But for believing Muslims, doubting that the Qur'an is the direct 'word of God' is the ultimate sin. (And for Muslims, hell is for 'unbelievers' not 'sinners.') Christians and Jews are 'free' to interpret their scriptures, to treat them allegorically, or ignore some of the barbarisms that date back to a 'younger' culture. Muslims are not.
Finally -- and this may be more controversial than my statements above, so I'll say that it comes from a comparison, sura by sura, of five different 'translations' of the Qur'an (the quotes are because, to a Muslim, the Qur'an only exists in Arabic, and renderings into other languages should be called 'The Meaning of the Qur'an' rather than a translation). The simple fact is that, unlike the Testaments, which do have a somewhat consistent 'idealistic' theme (social justice in the Old, the 'Prince of Peace' idea in the new, despite the many contradictions) the Qur'an doesn't have a buried idealism in it that can be used for a Reformation.
Let me expand slightly on this. For a Jew, the Jews are the 'model of the World' guided by God to teach the rest of Mankind how to behave justly to others. A Jewish 'better world' is one where the world has 'taken their example' and Jewish 'exceptionalism' is unnecessary. A Christian -- at least a 'this world oriented' one -- sees a time where Jesus' ideas of brotherhood and love are accepted by all.
But Islamic ideas are purely 'triumphal.' The ideal situation is where Islam has conquered and rules the world, and all people welcome becoming 'slaves' of an unknowable and capricious (as stated in the Qur'an) God. The only 'ideals' that show up in the Qur'an -- except for sexual ethics even more screwed up than Christian ones -- and an unavoidable ideal of male supremacy (no verse in the Qu'ran -- except for one to Fatima -- is addressed to a woman or women in general; and women are always 'objects' in the Qur'an, never subjects) is 'equality' but it is the equality of 'slavery.' We are all equal before God, because God is so much greater that our differences don't matter compared to our Universal Submission to him.
There are many Muslims attempting to 'modernize' or 'reform' their religion, and they may succeed, to the point where there can be the 'community pressure' on terrorists that Gopnik and 'F.A.' wish for, at least. It is just to point out the difficulties they face and the necessity to actually understand Islam and not just to make the mistake (shared by Christians and atheists) that it is 'essentially pretty much the same as' Christianity.
December 3, 2008 1:14 PM | Reply | Permalink