Sunday, December 23, 2007
This is just a quick link to follow -- an "aside." These are links to interesting things that, for one reason or another, I didn't place into a full posting. Click the link to visit the full article. Go to the blog index for a regular listing of posts.
Walter Laqueur: Anarchism and Al Qaeda - '...incidents of sadism have been frequently reported in our time—for instance, in the Algerian civil war, or in the case of Zarqawi, who was upbraided by some of his followers for cutting throats too quickly. The enemy not only has to be destroyed, he (or she) also has to suffer torment. The barbarisation of terrorism has not been limited to the jihadists, but they have been its most frequent practitioners by far. How do we account for these changes in the theory and practice of terrorism compared with the age of the anarchist militants? This seems to me a central issue which has yet to be addressed.'
The Camorra, the multi-billion dollar, international crime syndicate out of Naples, Italy and as exposed in Roberto Saviano's "Gomorrah," is more reminiscent of Al Qaeda psychologies and praxis than is anarchism. In fact the Camorra trades in illicit arms supplies to some al-Qaeda styled factions, along with similar trades to hard-Left insurgencies such as MRTA in Peru, if I recall Saviano's detailed description accurately.
Still, I prefer to think of al-Qaeda and Islamicists in general as sui generis, though I see little wrong in using fascist and bolshevik themes, at times, as representing helpful analogies. For example, in all three cases a unifying ideology capable of motivating millions of people is at play and that is only the most obvious of beginnings in allowing that the analogy can be suitable and instructive, as long as it's not conceived too narrowly.