SWC Poll: What Motivates Islamist Terrorism against the West?

[marct]

Hi John,

My buddy Max Manwaring liked to use that term; personally I prefer explanation.

LOL - most of the time, I do too, since they are usually used synonymously . It might be interesting to see if his theory was actually post-dictive - we could run it through an historical data set and see how accurate it was at "predicting" historical events. My gut guess, since I still can't find a way to operationalize it , is that it wouldn't be that good.

Clearly, Huntington does NOT have a testable theory. And his model is flawed. But, I maintain that there is the core of something there that could be salvaged with promising results.

Honestly, what is at the core of his theory? The fault lines are readily observable, I agree. Do you think it would be possible to salvage a core concept or, rather, observation that could then be recast into a testable form? I would think that that is quite possible to do.

Marc

[John T. Fishel]

Marc--

Sounds like we might have an interesting research project here. I'll PM you later and see if we can come up with something.

John

[kaur]

What do you think about Fareed Zakaria's explanation?

THE BROADER REASON FOR THE RISE OF ISLAMIC politics has been the failure of secular politics. Secularism exists in the Middle East. It is embodied by Saddam Hussein and Muammar Kaddafi and Hosni Mubarak and Yasir Arafat. Arabs believe that they have tried Western-style politics and it has brought them tyranny and stagnation. They feel that they got a bastardized version of the West and that perhaps the West was not the right model for them anyway. Islamic fundamentalism plays deeply to these feelings. It evokes authenticity, pride, cultural assertiveness and defiance. These ideas have been powerful sources of national identity throughout history and remain so, especially in an age of globalized economics and American power. In face of the powerlessness, alienation and confusion that the modern world breeds, these groups say simply, "Islam is the solution."

The political Islamist movement has changed over the last 15 years. Through much of the 1980s and 1990s, Islamic fundamentalists had revolutionary aims. They sought the violent overthrow of Western-allied regimes to have them replaced with Islamic states. This desire for Islamic states and not Western-style democracies was at the core of their message. Often transnational in their objectives, they spoke in global terms. But it turned out that the appeal of this ideology was limited. People in Algeria, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and countless other places rejected it; in fact, they grudgingly accepted the dictatorships they lived under rather than support violent extremism. In this sense, political Islam did fail.
But over time, many of the Islamists recognized this reality and began changing their program. They came to realize that shorn of violent overthrow, revolution and social chaos, their ideas could actually gain considerable popular support. So they reinvented themselves, emphasizing not revolutionary overthrow but peaceful change, not transnational ideology but national reform. They were still protesting the dictators, but now they organized demonstrations in favor of democracy and honest politics.

http://www.fareedzakaria.com/ARTICLE...ek/021306.html

Zakaria's book "The Future of Freedom" gives longer explanation. And there is that dempgraphic explanation also. There is just too many young men in Arab countries

[SoiCowboy]

I think thats what Huntingdon said in Clash of Civilizations; that its probably all down to demographics rather than anything else. I'll try and remember the page number.