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America has a problem. This problem has manifested itself in the recent merger of Al-Qaeda, America’s number one enemy, with the Somali insurgent group, Al-Shabab. The latter group currently controls all of southern Somalia, with the goal of taking over the entire country.
In Foreign Policy, J. M. Berger pinpoints this problem: “Al-Shabab has had more success recruiting Americans than any of Al-Qaeda’s other franchises. The newest official addition to the terrorist network’s family includes around 40 Americans, in addition to dozens more involved in support of activities on US soil, as well as those with more casual connections to the United States.” Consequently, “Al-Qaeda is now better positioned to carry out strikes on the US homeland than at any point in the last 10 years.”
Berger also raises a question over what the US government and many analysts have described as a weakening Al-Qaeda. Though Al-Qaeda has suffered some major blows in the past several years, particularly the execution of its spiritual leader, Osama bin Laden, its decision to join forces with Al-Shabab may be the key to unlocking its potential in the US.
One could dwell on the endless scenarios that this merger could generate, but what is especially troubling is the 10 plus years that have passed with little sign of success in America’s war against Al-Qaeda.
The complexities surrounding the failure of democratic governments—with all their military knowhow, resources and technological advancements—to provide security in their own countries, has prompted me to revisit the psychology behind collective ideological violence, particularly as it relates to civilian targets.
The idea that so-called terrorists are altogether different from us is wrong. In The Psychology of Terrorism, Professor of Psychology Clark R. McCauley reminds us that “thirty years of research has found psychopathology and personality disorder no more likely among terrorists than among non-terrorists from the same background.”
This means that we are capable of violence against civilians just as much as anyone else. The key here, however, is acting as a collective unit, because it is the concept of a group, which you depend on and which depends on you to survive, that impels one to act.
The fact that anyone can be a terrorist “is already implied in recognizing that military and police forces are eminently capable of killing non-combatants,” McCauley writes.
He goes on: “Terrorists kill for the same reasons that groups have killed other groups for centuries. They kill for cause and comrades, that is, with a combination of ideology and intense small-group dynamics.”
Said in a different way, individuals who participate in otherwise unacceptable behavior are found to be loyal to the group first and foremost, and so it becomes a battle of wills for any state struggling to maintain peace and security.
The University of Maryland’s National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START) conducted a study in which a survey was distributed in 12 Arab countries plus Indonesia and Pakistan that found that respondents with a more collectivistic disposition were more likely to support violent attacks against western civilian targets than those with a more individualistic one. “Being part of a collectivist cause has always been a hallmark of people willing to undergo personal sacrifices,” says Dr. Arie Kruglanski, co-founder of START (as quoted in Tori DeAngelis, Understanding Terrorism).
If the findings are accurate, then the fact that Arab and Muslim societies are collectivist in their organization should indicate that they are already more vulnerable to those aiming to exploit group loyalty for ideological allegiance, and thus, can be more readily persuaded to employ violence against civilians.
Of course Arabs and Muslims are no more prone to this sort of violence than any other group that prizes the collective unit over the individual unit. According to this study, however, the conditions created by collective environments appear to be more conducive to violence perpetrated on behalf of a group than the more individualistic societies predominant in Western countries.
We can look at the treacherous conditions in the Middle East and the nature of Western intervention in this region through the prism of McCauley’s point that “the closer and more immediate death is, the more we need the group values that give meaning to life and death.” If this is true, then we can begin to understand why a person might join a violent group: from the inside, group membership provides an individual with a sense of belonging, camaraderie, and purpose that is missing from larger society.
The Terror Management Theory relates to my earlier point that it comes down to a battle of wills. The theory, proposed in 1986 by social psychologists Jeff Greenberg, Tom Pyszczynski, and Sheldon Solomon, holds that “humans are motivated to quell the potential for terror inherent in the human awareness of vulnerability and mortality by investing in cultural belief systems (or worldviews) that imbue life with meaning, and the individuals who subscribe to them with significance (or self-esteem).”
Who determines which values in a society are to be foremost? This is a complex question to be sure. The short answer I would advance is that in a democracy, the state is best positioned to both advance and protect societal values, so long as it strivea to reflect the values of its citizens and allow for open debate and (in some cases) individual interpretation.
The vast majority of governments ruling Arab and Muslim states have imposed systems that feed on corruption, sectarianism, and clientelism. This inevitably isolates all those who refuse to or are unable to participate in the system; these people therefore become not simply disloyal to the state but openly hostile to it. Exacerbating this long-established trend are two key social structures. The first is the predominance of the tribe in Arab society, a social grouping which discourages allegiance to anything other than the tribe. The second is Western policy in the region, which favors stability over democracy.
While in the Arab world the onus is on the state to advance and protect national values, it is not only promoting values that prevent the majority of its citizens from unifying, it is competing with longer-held values embedded in culture and religion, that require significant effort to push aside.
As we contemplate the psychology underlying terrorism, the UN Security Council has voted in favor of adding 6,000 troops to the African Union mission in Somalia. On 23 February, representatives of more than 40 governments and international organizations met in London to discuss the prospect of establishing a stable government in the country. So much activity on this issue indicates that concern over the capabilities and ultimate aims of Al-Shabab is shared by the international community at large.
But what exactly are Western governments doing to remove themselves from the problem?
Among the many valid and insightful points made by McCauley are the ones that link America’s misinformed policies to the growing popularity of terrorism as a strategy to fight it. In the case of Islamist militant groups, some of these mistakes include the undermining of moderates by treating all Muslims as dangerous and violent; responding to attacks with disproportionate military force, which often deeply affects—if not kills—civilians; profiling Arabs or Muslims, which encourages a sense of collective victimization; and punishing the group rather than the individual, which only strengthens the group’s claim to represent the grievances of all Muslims rather than the small few that have pledged allegiance to them.
Researchers from both RAND and the International Crisis Group have suggested that the removal of some concrete motivations for mobilization—such as the Ethiopian occupation of Somalia or the presence of US troops in Muslim countries—would help to fracture otherwise ideological groups that have formed around a political goal. As a result, only the ideologically zealous among them would remain, and therefore would open themselves to a more targeted attack (military or otherwise) from those states and international organizations concerned about the ideological threat to global democracy. This should be a first step.
