Conflict & Terrorism
Brett W. Parris

Back to main page

Introduction

It is unfortunately difficult to start to talk about conflict and terrorism without talking, not only about the oppressive policies of particular nation-states, but also about the role of radical Islam. Such discussions can reinforce unwarranted stereotypes about Muslims in general. That is certainly not my intention here. Let me be absolutely clear that I think conflict and terrorism have many sources and many causes. While many terrorists clearly have links to radical Islam, it is absurd to regard all Muslims as a threat, or as some kind of fifth column within Western societies. I also think that Muslims have legitimate grievances - particularly concerning some of the policies and actions of the US, Israel, Russia, the UK and, for our role in the illegal invasion of Iraq, Australia. Muslims also have many legitimate grievances against their own governments. Many dictatorial governments in supposedly Islamic states have used their oil wealth for the enrichment of the ruling elites, rather than providing assistance and opportunities for the poor. Some of these same governments are propped up by Western interests, fueling legitimate resentment from the general population.

It is patently absurd then to unthinkingly associate Muslims with terrorism. But I think it is equally absurd to deny that there is a virulent strain within Islam, with deep roots reaching back at least to the 14th century jurist Taqi al-Din Ahmad Ibn Taymiyyah (d. 1328), through the 18th century radical cleric Muhammad ibn Abdul Wahhab (d. 1791) and up to modern intellectuals such as Sayyid Qutb (d. 1966) and today's jihadi movements. This virulent strain has lead to the slaughter of far more Muslims over the past few hundred years than Westerners, and even today it is probably more of a threat to the average Muslim than to the average Westerner. To say this is not to be anti-Islamic, any more than criticising the policies and actions of the State of Israel is to be anti-semitic (another absurd charge). It is simply to recognise that there is a struggle going on within Islam. There are those who recognise that there are many ways to be a good Muslim (as reflected in the age-old acceptance of the four main traditional schools of Sunni Islam: Shafi'i, Maliki, Hanafi & Hanbali) and who desire salaam (permanent peace) with the West. But there is also an active, well-financed minority who believe that there is only one way to be a good Muslim, that those who claim to be Muslims but don't follow this one true path are actually murtadd (apostates), or if they are Shi'ites, mushrikun (idolators). This minority desires not peace, but only hudna (temporary truces) with the kuffar (infidels) as part of their quest to reconquer formerly 'Islamic' territories (principally Israel, but also Spain, western France, Sicily, the Caucasus, parts of Russia and Central Asia, the former Ottoman territories in Europe, northern India and parts of Western China). Ultimately many radical Islamists want to re-establish a unified khilafa (Caliphate) ruled by Shari'a law under which non-Muslims are tolerated as dhimmis (second-class citizens). One such group working for the re-establishment of the Caliphate, supposedly by peaceful means, is Hizb-ut-Tahrir (The Party of Liberation), but there are many others.

Westerners in general and Christians in particular should make an effort to understand more of the richness, depth and diversity of Islam, and should not simplistically associate Islam with terrorism. Christians especially should resist the temptation to take cheap shots at Islam, implying that somehow the latest terrorist atrocity shows what Islam is 'really' like. It doesn't - any more than the inquisition, the witch burnings, or the crusades showed what Christianity was 'really' like. Christian churches should reach out to Muslim communities and Muslim families in friendship, helping recent immigrants to adapt to life in often radically different cultures. But likewise, we need Muslim leaders to stand up to those spreading hatred in the mosques and radicalising Muslim youth. It's not good enough to close ranks and adopt a policy of never denouncing a fellow Muslim to the kuffar authorities. It is understandable for communities who may feel under siege in the West not to want to expose the dissent within their communities to outside eyes. But we on the outside know there is dissent, and it is precisely the frequent tendency to close ranks which leads many non-Muslims to believe that Muslim communities are willing to tolerate and harbour extremists. The same applies to the double-speak of some leaders, who say one thing in English for the benefit of the authorities and Western media, and say quite another in Arabic within the mosques or to Arab media. Trust cannot grow in such an environment. Peace will only come from building trust, breaking down stereotypes on both sides and addressing the legitimate grievances of the oppressed.

Books
Papers & Chapters
Quotes
Links

Books

Algar, H., (2002) Wahhabism: A Critical Essay, Islamic Publications International, Oneonta, NY, 96 pp.

Bonner, M., (2006) Jihad in Islamic History: Doctrines and Practice, Princeton University Press, Princeton & Oxford, xviii + 197 pp.

Bonney, R., (2004) Jihad: From Qur’an to bin Laden, Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, xxvi + 594 pp.

Bostom, A.G. (Ed.) (2005) The Legacy of Jihad: Islamic Holy War and the Fate of Non-Muslims, Prometheus Books, Amhert, NY, 759  pp.

Cook, D., (2005) Understanding Jihad, University of California Press, Berkeley, Los Angeles & London, x + 259 pp.

Cranna, M. (Ed.) (1994) The True Cost of Conflict: Seven Recent Wars and Their Effects on Society, The New Press, New York, xx + 208  pp.

Dallaire, R., (2003) Shake Hands with the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda, Carroll & Graf, New York, xxv + 564 pp.

de Jong, B., Platje, W. and Steele, R.D. (Eds.), (2003) Peacekeeping Intelligence: Emerging Concepts for the Future, OSS International Press, Oakton, VA, x + 532  pp.

El Fadl, K.A., (2005) The Great Theft: Wrestling Islam from the Extremists, HarperSanFrancisco, San Francisco, 308 pp. [Highly recommended]

Frame, T., (2004) Living by the Sword? The Ethics of Armed Intervention, The 2003 New College Lectures; UNSW Press, Sydney, 278 pp.

Gibbon, E., (1776-1788) The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, 6 vols; Everyman's Library, 1910 edition; Alfred A. Knopf, New York, London & Toronto. [Still well worth reading 220 years later.]

Gordon, M. and Trainor, B., (2007) Cobra II: The Inside Story of the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq, Atlantic Books, London; Originally published by Pantheon Books, NY in 2006, xxxv + 727 pp.

Holt, V.K. and Berkman, T.C. (Eds.), (2006) The Impossible Mandate? Military Preparedness, the Responsibility to Protect and Modern Peace Operations, The Henry L. Stimson Center, Washington DC, x + 241  pp.

Husain, E., (2007) The Islamist: Why I joined radical Islam in Britain, what I saw inside and why I left, Penguin Books, London, New York & Melbourne, 288 pp.

Ibrahim, R., (2007) The Al Qaeda Reader, Broadway Books, New York, xxxii + 318 pp.

ICISS, (2001) The Responsibility to Protect: Report of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty, International Development Research Center, Ottawa, xiii + 91 pp.

Karsh, E., (2006) Islamic Imperialism: A History, Yale University Press, New Haven & London, 276 pp.

Kennedy, H., (2007) The Great Arab Conquests: How the Spread of Islam Changed the World We Live In, Da Capo Press, Philadephia, PA, xxiii + 421 pp.

Kepel, G., (2004) The War for Muslim Minds: Islam and the West, trans. Ghazaleh, P.; The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA & London, 327 pp.

Klare, M.T., (2001) Resource Wars: The New Landscape of Global Conflict, Henry Holt, New York, xiii + 289 pp.

Lewis, B., (2002) What Went Wrong? The Clash Between Islam and Modernity in the Middle East, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London, 180 pp.

Lewis, B., (2003) The Crisis of Islam: Holy war and Unholy Terror, 2004 Edition; Random House Trade Paperback, New York, xxxii + 190 pp.

Lumbard, J., (2004) Islam, Fundamentalism, and the Betrayal of Tradition: Essays by Western Muslim Scholars, Perennial Philosophy Series; World Wisdom, Bloomington, IN, xxii + 324 pp.

Nasiri, O., (2006) Inside the Global Jihad: How I Infiltrated Al Qaeda and was Abandoned by Western Intelligence, Scribe, Melbourne, xxii + 337 pp.

Oldenbourg, Z., (2001) The Crusades, Phoenix Press, London, first published in 1966 by Weidenfeld & Nicolson, xviii + 650 pp.

Padfield, P., (2000) Maritime Supremacy and the Opening of the Western Mind: Naval Campaigns that Shaped the Modern World 1588-1782, Pimlico, London, xi + 340 pp.

Pappé, I., (2007) The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, Oxford, Oneworld, xviii + 313 pp.

Phares, W., (2005) Future Jihad: Terrorist Strategies Against the West, Palgrave Macmillan, New York & Basingstoke, viii + 310 pp.

Phillips, D.L., (2005) Losing Iraq: Inside the Postwar Reconstruction Fiasco, Basic Books, New York, 2006; Originally published by Westview Press, ix + 292 pp.

Ricks, T.E., (2006) Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq, Allen Lane & Penguin, Melbourne, London & New York, xiv + 482 pp.

Sageman, M., (2004) Understanding Terror Networks, University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, PA, ix + 220 pp.

Sageman, M., (2007) Leaderless Jihad: Terror Networks in the Twenty-First Century, University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, PA, 208 pp.

Scahill, J., (2007) Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army, Serpent's Tail, London, xxvii + 452 pp.

Scheuer, M., (2004) Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror, Potomac Books, Washington DC, xxi + 314 pp.

Smith, R., (2005) The Utility of Force: The Art of War in the Modern World, Allen Lane, London, xvi + 428 pp.

Stiglitz, J.E. and Bilmes, L.J., (2008) The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Cost of the Iraq Conflict, W. W. Norton, New York, 192 pp.

von Clausewitz, C., (1832) On War, trans. & edited from the German 1832 edition of Vom Krieg by M. Howard & P. Paret; Everyman's Library, 1993 edition; Alfred A. Knopf, New York, London & Toronto, xli + 870 pp.

Back to Top
Papers & Chapters

Abdlehadi, M., (2008) "Saudis to Retrain 40,000 Clerics", BBC, 20 March, 1 p.

Bensahel, N., (2006) "Mission Not Accomplished: What Went Wrong with Iraqi Reconstruction", Journal of Strategic Studies, Vol. 29, No. 3, June, pp. 453-473.

Carley, K.M., Fridsma, D.B., Casman, E., Yahja, A., Altman, N., Chen, L.-C., Kaminsky, B. and Nave, D., (2006) "BioWar: Scalable Agent-Based Model of Bioattacks", IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics-Part A: Systems and Humans, Vol. 36, No. 2, March, pp. 252-265.

Chaturvedi, A.R., Dolk, D., Chaturvedi, R., Mulpuri, M., Lengacher, D., Mellema, S., Poddar, P., Foong, C. and Armstrong, B., (2005) "Understanding Insurgency by Using Agent-Based Computational Experimentation: Case Study of Indonesia", In Proceedings of the Agent 2005 Conference on Generative Social Processes, Models, and Mechanisms ed. Macal, C.M., North, M.J. and Sallach, D.; ANL/DIS-06-5, Co-sponsored by Argonne National Laboratory and The University of Chicago, October 13-15, pp. 781-799.

Collier, P. and Hoeffler, A., (2002) "Aid, Policy and Peace: Reducing the Risks of Civil Conflict", Defence and Peace Economics, Vol. 13, No. 6, December, pp. 435-450.

Collier, P. and Hoeffler, A., (2004) "Aid, Policy and Growth in Post-Conflict Countries", European Economic Review, Vol. 48, No. 5, October, pp. 1125-1145.

Croissant, A. and Barlow, D., (2007) "Following the Money Trail: Terrorist Financing and Government Responses in Southeast Asia", Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, Vol. 30, No. 2, Febraury, pp. 131-156.

DfID, (2007) "Preventing Violent Conflict", London, Department for International Development, 32 pp.

Elliott, E. and Kiel, L.D., (2004) "A Complex Systems Approach for Developing Public Policy Toward Terrorism: An Agent-Based Approach", Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, Vol. 20, No. 1, April, pp. 63-68.

Fisk, R., (2008) "The Cult of the Suicide Bomber", The Independent, London, 14 March.

Freedom House, (2005) "Saudi Publications on Hate Ideology Invade American Mosques", Washington DC, Center for Religious Freedom, Freedom House, 90 pp.

Freedom House, (2006) "Saudi Arabia's Curriculum of Intolerance: With Excerpts from Saudi Ministry of Education Textbooks for Islamic Studies", Washington DC, Center for Religious Freedom of Freedom House & Institute for Gulf Affairs, 39 pp.

Glass, E. and Yehoshua, Y., (2008) "Saudi Arabia's Anti-Terror Campaign", MEMRI Inquiry and Analysis Series, No. 425, 28 February, pp. 7.

Gow, J., (2006) "The New Clausewitz? War, Force, Art and Utility - Rupert Smith on 21st Century Strategy, Operations and Tactics in a Comprehensive Context", Journal of Strategic Studies, Vol. 29, No. 6, December, pp. 1151-1170.

Hazim, H. and Bunker, R.J., (2006) "Perpetual Jihad: Striving for a Caliphate", Global Crime, Vol. 7, No. 3 & 4, August, pp. 428-445.

Hoffman, B., (2006) "Combating Al Qaeda and the Militant Islamic Threat", Testimony presented to the House Armed Services Committee, Subcommittee on Terrorism, Unconventional Threats and  Capabilities on February 16, 2006, CT-255, Santa Monica, CA, Arlington, VA & Pittsburgh, PA, RAND Corporation, 16 pp.

Khokhar, M., (2007) "Reforming Militant Madaris in Pakistan", Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, Vol. 30, No. 4, April, pp. 353-365.

Kilcullen, D.J., (2005) "Countering Global Insurgency", Journal of Strategic Studies, Vol. 28, No. 4, August, pp. 597-617.

Kilcullen, D.J., (2007) "Subversion and Countersubversion in the Campaign against Terrorism in Europe", Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, Vol. 30, No. 8, August, pp. 647-666.

Krueger, A.B. and Maleckova, J., (2003) "Education, Poverty and Terrorism: Is There a Causal Connection?" Journal of Economic Perspectives, Vol. 17, No. 4, Fall, pp. 119-144.

Metz, S., (2007) "Rethinking Insurgency", Carlisle, PA, Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College, June, vii + 69 pp.

Metz, S. and Millen, R., (2004) "Insurgency and Counterinsurgency in the 21st Century: Reconceptualizing Threat and Response", Carlisle, PA, Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College, November, viii + 43 pp.

Streusand, D.E., (1997) "What Does Jihad Mean?" Middle East Quarterly, September, pp. 10.

Wheeler, S., (2005) "It Pays to Be Popular: A Study of Civilian Assistance and Guerilla Warfare", Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, Vol. 8, No. 4, October, pp. 13.

Zimmerman, J.C., (2007) "Jihad, Theory and Practice: A Review Essay", Terrorism and Political Violence, Vol. 19, No. 2, Summer, pp. 279-287.

Back to Top
Quotes

On the relationship between minerals and conflict:
"When Laurent Kabilla was marching across the DRC (then called Zaire) en route for Kinshasa, he was interviewed by a journalist. He reportedly said that in Zaire rebellion was easy – all that was needed was $10,000 and a satellite phone. His explanation neatly exemplifies Africa’s proneness to civil war – $10,000 was enough to hire a small army, while with a satellite phone it was possible to start making deals on mineral extraction. Kabilla apparently reached $500m of mining deals before reaching Kinshasa. Africa is atypically prone to civil war because of its atypical opportunities for rebellion – unusually low costs, and unusually high revenues."
Economist Paul Collier in Collier, P. (2002) "Primary Commodity Dependence and Africa's Future", Paper presented at the World Bank's Annual Bank Conference on Development Economics, Washington DC, April, 24 pp; p. 9.

Back to Top
Links

Civil-Military Coordination of OCHA the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs

ICG - The International Crisis Group

MEMRI's Jihad & Terrorism Studies Project - A project of the Middle East Media Research Institute. See also MEMRI TV for video, and their
Islamist Websites Monitoring Project. Some examples from MEMRI TV:
 The UK documentary 'Undercover Mosque' is also enlightening, investigating radical Islam in Britain. It's on YouTube in 6 parts. The first part is here.

British radical Islamist Anjem Choudary interviewed on the London bombings on the BBC:  "I will stand with my Muslim brother whether he is an oppressor or oppressed." And that's why he will not condemn atrocities if they are committed by those who call themselves Muslims.

The Interpreter - The blog of the Lowy Institute for International Policy

Peace, Conflict & Development - An interdisciplinary online journal.

The Responsibility to Protect

Report of the Panel on UN Peace Operations

Back to Top

Last updated: 31 March 2008
Copyright © Brett Parris, 2008. All rights reserved.
This is a personal web page and does not necessarily reflect the views of Monash University.
See the official disclaimer. Back to Top