Terrorism and Dehumanisation: An Assessment
By Aditya Sakorkar
January 27, 2012
It is essential that we ask ourselves how appropriate dehumanising someone is, even at the heels of a traumatic act of violence we may have witnessed
Sun Tzu, in his classic text The Art of War, observed that there are five constant factors that govern this art: Moral law, heaven, earth, the commander, method and discipline (Sun Tzu, 2008, p.7). Similarly, Carl von Clausewitz defined war as an act of force to compel our enemy to do our will (Clausewitz, 1968, p.85). What these observations have in common is the degree of simplicity that underpins them. For instance, Sun Tzu’s five factors are applicable to modern warfare but each of those factors may have become more complex than, supposedly, when he noted them.
In the same vein, one might find it difficult to make sense of Clausewitz’s definition, if applied to contemporary warfare (specifically, after the Second World War). For example, identifying an ‘enemy’ itself is a tough ask, let alone making them do our will. Contemporary warfare has moved out of large open spaces to urban areas (as is the case in Afghanistan and Iraq), mountainous regions (Afghanistan), and forests (Vietnam). Often the so called enemy combatants may not be referred to as soldiers but rather as insurgents, guerrillas, and even terrorists.
It is the last category that interests me here. Who exactly is a terrorist? But even more importantly what is terrorism? Is it a method of asymmetrical warfare? Is it an ideology? Is it a ‘weapon of the weak’? As we shall see later, there is a considerable amount of debate surrounding the definition of terrorism. One could argue – it is virtually impossible to have a standard ‘one size fits all’ kind of a definition for this term.
The other aspect which I am keen on addressing in this work is, a by-product of, and necessary to commit acts of terrorism – dehumanisation. Essentially, it is very difficult to separate terrorism and dehumanisation. However, in this work, I will assess dehumanisation as a by product of terrorism and something that drives anti-terror campaigns. Interestingly, and somewhat paradoxically, in this context, dehumanisation occurs at two levels – those who are directly affected by the act (the victims) and those who perpetrate acts of terrorism (the terrorists). I will not address dehumanisation that occurs in the case of the victims. Instead, my focus here will be the dehumanisation of terrorists.
At the outset though, I would like to clarify that this work is not about the causes and broader consequences of terrorism. I only wish to address the specific aspect of dehumanisation. Also, what follows is not based on a specific empirical case study, but an overarching assessment. I have incorporated examples where necessary. I will first start off by first arguing how dehumanisation is located within terrorism by discussing some definitions of the latter. I will then discuss the dehumanisation process in the section after that, followed by some concluding observations.
Locating Dehumanisation within Terrorism
As mentioned previously, defining terrorism has been a tough task. As Richard Jackson points out, there are over two hundred definitions of terrorism available in the literature. Definitions provided by security practitioners are bound to add to the existing debates. For instance, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) defines terrorism as “unlawful use of force and violence against persons, or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objective.”
This definition, on the face of it at least, looks very straightforward and totally clear. The key word in the definition is unlawful. But it is also somewhat problematic. As Jock Young and Jayne Mooney have argued if we are to remove unlawful, the definition can be applied to Hiroshima in World War II. In fact one could possibly apply this definition to the Crusades as well. The other issue is how one decides if violence used in a certain scenario is lawful or not. Could one say, purely based on this definition, that the Tiananmen Square killings in China of the late 1980s were legitimate, or for that matter the violent crackdown of protesters in Syria by the Assad regime? The point is, even with clear and well organised agencies like the Chinese and Syrian governments, the notion (un)lawful is unclear, and subjective.
James Der Derian provides a very useful definition of terrorism – an act of symbolically intimidating and, if deemed necessary, violently eradicating a personal, political, social, ethnic, religious, ideological or otherwise radically differentiated foe (Der Derian, 2005, p.24). Examples of terrorist attacks suggest that it usually involve premeditated violence carried for specific gains which may be political, ideological or religious in nature or a combination of all of these. Der Derian’s definition highlights one very important issue – radical differentiation of a foe.
This differentiation is usually a product of what has been called essentialist thinking. In other words, one assumes that certain characteristics of a person/group exist irrespective of any context. For instance, ‘a terrorist is an enemy of freedom’ is an essentialist statement; it does not take into consideration the often used cliché someone’s terrorist could be somebody else’s freedom fighter. Such essentialist thinking forms an important basis for dehumanisation.
Similarly, the ‘politics of naming’ also plays a crucial role here. As Bhatia has argued, by naming the subject becomes known in a manner which may permit certain forms of enquiry and engagement while forbidding or excluding others (Bhatia, 2005, p.8). This is a broad observation. More specifically in the context of terrorism, especially with regard to combating it, governments are likely to dehumanise large groups such as specific racial and/or ethnic minorities, political opponents, those who may have opinions on the subject that are not in conformity with the governments’ own . This approach also furthers the process of dehumanisation and consequently violence.
Cast in this light, the standard notion of terrorism gets slightly problematic, which focuses almost exclusively on violence. It is not my intention to downplay the significance of the violence but just to clarify that it might be better to expand this notion to incorporate the dehumanisation that happens before and after the violence. The idea behind suggesting such an expansion is that it may possibly clarify the picture a lot more. It goes to show that the terrorism is not just a law and order issue but there are other factors involved which need to be dealt with using different approaches. In the section that follows I will discuss the actual dehumanisation process.
Making Sense of the Dehumanisation Process
Before we examine the dehumanisation process, let us briefly look at what it is to be human. According to Haslam et al, being human is having some ‘uniquely human traits’ which include civility, refinement, rationality, language, openness, warmth, emotionality etc (Haslam et al, 2007, p.412-13).
Similarly, Herbert Kelman takes it a step beyond this and states to perceive someone as human they need to be accorded with identity and community. To accord someone with identity is to perceive them as an individual, independent and distinguishable from others, capable of making choices for themselves and setting their own objectives; to accord someone with community is to see them as a part of an interconnected network of people who care for each other and recognise each other’s individuality and rights (Kelman, 1973, p.48-49).
It is Kelman’s logic – according someone identity and community to see them as humans – that interests me here. According to Kelman, deprivation of identity and community make it possible to carry out what he calls sanctioned massacres (ibid, p.49). In essence, it is dehumanisation that makes such massacres possible. However, I would argue that though there is dehumanisation involved in such cases, it does not necessarily imply deprivation of identity and community. On the contrary, these aspects continue as they are, but are viewed in a negative light.
Alexander Wendt gives an interesting perspective on the subject of according identity. For Wendt, according identity or identification to someone is a continuum from negative to positive – from conceiving the other as an anathema, to self to seeing them as an extension of the self. Wendt also explains that this parameter is highly subjective in nature. In other words depending on the scenario, the nature of identification decides how the boundaries of the self are drawn (Wendt, 1994, p.386).
Based on this logic, terrorism will fall on the negative end of Wendt’s spectrum. In other words dehumanisation is a process of assigning negative identification. This, however, forms the basis; at a more external level, the ‘uniquely human’ traits that Haslam has highlighted are stated as absent.
Concluding Observations
The images of terrorism/terrorist play a critical role in how they may be countered. In most cases, the vantage point is security. As mentioned previously, I do not wish to downplay this aspect but to impress upon the reader that this might not be sufficient. Kruglanski et al, have suggested some standard interpretations of terrorism which result in specific approaches to countering it. For instance, if terrorism is viewed as a disease, it results in the search of a cure for those who set store by the same; viewing terrorism as an act of war results in viewing terrorists as enemy soldiers; treating terrorism as an act of criminality results in the prosecution of perpetrators for having carried out such socially unacceptable and unlawful acts (Kruglanski et al, 2007, cited in Kossowska et al, 2010, p.180). All of these interpretations may be present in a given terrorism-counterterrorism scenario. But the basic trouble with these approaches is that they may not permit a sincere attempt to understand and analyse why this might occur in the first place.
As Maghan points out, terrorism is not an isolated phenomenon. It is likely to reflect diffuse sympathies, desires and aspirations of larger segment of society (Maghan, 1995, p.3). For instance, as Martha Crenshaw points out three causes that may facilitate terrorism – first, concrete grievances among an identifiable subgroup of a larger population may result in the former resorting to terrorism (Crenshaw, 1981, p.383); second, lack of opportunity for political participation may also create conditions for terrorism (ibid, p.383); third, government actions may act as catalysts for terrorism (ibid, p.384).
Whatever the reasons may be, terrorism employed against a clear agency such as a state or government, is not likely to bode well for the latter; especially if the state is likely to perceive such violence as a challenge to its monopoly over the legitimate use of force. In any case, the response is likely to be violent as well, with a hint of what Bauman has referred to as ‘adiaphorisation’ – the stripping of moral evaluation from human actions (Bauman, 1995). Similarly, this may also result in the dehumanisation of those perpetrating terrorism by the state. This dehumanisation, as Young and Mooney have argued, permits the actor (in this case, the state) to render the other as outside or on the periphery of humanity, it permits violence.
It is essential that we ask ourselves how appropriate dehumanising someone is, even at the heels of a traumatic act of violence we may have witnessed, experienced, heard of, or just read about. It necessary to try and find a solution for terrorism; but it has to be a solution that addresses terrorism in its entirety. In the aftermath of the 9.11 attacks, there prevalent environment in the US was one of fear, almost bordering on paranoia. Americans wanted to know “why do they hate us so much?” Now, what comprises ‘they’ in this question is rather vague and even if someone attempts to discern the same, it might result in a never-ending exercise; primarily because of a possible lack of consensus among those who may get involved in the debate. Policies enacted by the Bush administration in the aftermath of the attacks largely stressed on the ‘they’ in the question mentioned above. However, it is equally important, if not more, to find out “why do they hate us so much?” In other words, reflection and self-accountability become paramount.
The simplest approach to this, in my opinion, is to ask ourselves one question – what kinds of metamorphoses the 9.11 hijackers may have endured, at psychological level, to carry out such attacks. This will give some clues with regard to the source of their hatred and why it existed. In part, this was possible because they had dehumanised themselves enough to not care about their victims. It might be a good idea to use this as a point of departure and work backwards, rather than seeing it as an endpoint, to actually understand the psychological state the perpetrators worked themselves into.
Bibliography
Bauman, Z. 1995. Life in Fragments Oxford, Blackwell.
Bhatia, V, M. 2005. Fighting Words: Naming Terrorists, Bandits, Rebels and Other Violent Actors Third World Quarterly 26 (1): 5-22
Clausewitz, V, C. 1968. On War. Princeton University Press
Crenshaw, M. 1981 The Causes of Terrorism. Comparative Politics 13 (4): 379-399.
Der Derian, J. 2005. Imagining Terror: Logos, Pathos and Ethos Third World Quarterly 26 (1): 23-37.
Haslam, N. Loughnan, S. Reynolds, C. Wilson, S. 2007. Dehumanization: A new Perspective. Social and Personality Psychology Compass 1 (1): 409-422.
Kelman, C, H. 1973. Violence without Moral Restraint: Reflections on Dehumanisation of Victims and Victimisers. Journal of Social Issues. 29 (4): 25-61.
Kossowska, M. De Zavala, G, A. Kubik, T. 2010. Stereotyped Images of Terrorists as Predictors of Fear of Future Terrorist Attacks Behavioural Sciences of Terrorism and Political Aggression 2 (3): 179-197
Kruglanski, A.W. Crenshaw, M. Post, J. & Victoroff, J. 2007 What should this fight be called? Metaphors of counterterrorism and their implications Psychological Science in the Public Interest 8: 97–133.
Maghan, J. 1995. Terrorist Mentality. Keynote Address: Fifth International Conference of the European Association of Law and Psychology; Hungarian Prison Administration and the European Association of Psychology and Law. Budapest, Hungary.
Sun Tzu (Translated By: Lionel Giles). 2008. The Art of War. [eBook available on Project Gutenberg - http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/132]
Wendt, A. 1994 Collective Identity Formation and the International State The American Political Science Review. 88 (2): 384-396
Aditya Sakorkar is a researcher in International Relations. His main interests are identity politics, psychological aspects of terrorism, security issues, and International Relations' theory. He also holds a Master's in History and Diploma in Journalism.
Source: Viewpoint
URL: https://newageislam.com/war-terror/terrorism-dehumanisation-assessment/d/6551