Terrorism as Postcolonialism

TERRORISM AS POSTCOLONIALISM
"Why can't a dog simulate pain? Is he too honest?" (Ludwig Wittgenstein)

A new, critical field of academic study has come about in recent years which mixes scholarly activism (Young 1999) with a strong dose of historical revisionism (e.g., Columbus never really "discovered" America). No, it's not Marxism, nor is it the anti-globalization movement. It's POST-colonialism, and it's the hottest thing right now for any aspiring scholar in global or international studies. Once relegated to a backseat role in the field of international relations along with the likes of feminist theory, POST-colonialism has now emerged into its own (yet its practitioners make a big deal out of whether the prefix "post" ought to be hyphenated or not, and they are also self-critical about whether the prefix "post" ought to be used at all). The field hasn't really taken off in the United States yet (practitioners wonder why there's no American postcolonialism school), but it is quite popular in Europe, Asia, Australia, Africa, the Caribbean, and the Middle East. It's popular among the reparations crowd, and it's popular among terrorist apologists and sympathizers (and some terrorists too) as an intellectual ideology for the causes of terrorism. However, in all fairness, it's a complex field of study which few people are able to master, so terrorists probably adopt "crude" versions. No less than the foremost public intellectual Noam Chomsky (www.chomsky.info) himself said he finds it hard to understand postcolonialism -- ironic, in that postcolonialism owes a deep debt of gratitude to structural linguistics, Chomsky's original field of study. The structural linguist postcolonialists seem to favor is Ferdinand de Saussure, who even though a structuralist, admitted that binary oppositions in words (e.g., sun/moon; man/woman; birth/death; black/white) did NOT represent extreme differences but only arbitrary signifiers in people's minds.

In this lecture, we'll do our level best toward explaining what postcolonialism is all about. What's here is NOT intended as some all-encompassing overview of the field. For that, Young's (2003) Very Short Introduction is recommended. This lecture draws heavily upon Internet hyperlinks to other resources which should be visited for improved explanation. Also, it is hereby admitted that the opinions herein (of this author) are oriented toward the connections or interrelationships between terrorism and postcolonialism. These novel connections are not easily made, and in no way is it suggested that postcolonialists are terrorists, terrorist supporters, or anything like that. It may be that postcolonialism ends up making the world a happier, more peaceful place; but it is also possible that postcolonialism might become the dominant 21st century terrorist ideology.

For those who may think this lecture is over their heads, consider for a moment the underlying assumption of postcolonialism -- how the great European colonial powers screwed up the world between the 16th and 19th centuries -- Spain and Portugal in Latin America; Britain in the Middle East; the Dutch and French in Asia; Belgium and everyone else in Africa. They left a mess behind. There's no denying that colonialism played a large role in making the world as it is today. Borders were drawn up arbitrarily, people were forced to become bilingual, natural resources and raw materials were severely drained, and the European powers often pitted brother against brother in their quest to bring civilization to the savages. Small wonder, then, why it's so easy to jump on the notion that terrorism is the latest aftermath of colonialism. Perhaps it's all too easy to embrace this idea. There must be something which explains all the academic window-dressing.

Edward Said, internationally renowned Columbia University professor, practically invented the field of post-colonial studies as a subfield of critical international relations theory. From previous lecture notes, we've learned that Said's (1978) Orientalism book was quite influential in this regard, arguing there's no way to fully get rid of that curious stereotype which holds that Asians are somehow exotic, devious, and untrustworthy. And, even though Said's book was about Asians, there's no escaping the fact that Edward Said's ideas are quite popular in the world of Islam and especially among Islamic terrorists. The full framework of the ideas involved can be traced to other writings and comments by Edward Said (1978; 1993), and one might even want to go further back and include certain anti-colonialist tracts by Frantz Fanon (1952). Fanon (the father of African terrorism) is the one who advocated violence for the sake of psychological well-being (see Lecture on Africa Area Studies).

In fact, one might want to go even further back to the late 19th and early 20th centuries when philosophers like Søren Kierkegaard, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Jean-Paul Sartre laid the groundwork for modern existentialism (the idea that there is no such thing as objective truth). Then, there are the deconstructionist philosophers, like Martin Heidegger, Ludwig Wittgenstein, and Jacques Derrida who are frequently cited by postcolonialists. Deconstruction (or deconstructivism) is the belief that there are no superior lifestyles or methods for achieving fundamental truths or principles; i.e., that all modern methods of learning (epistemology) are antiquated. Deconstruction is closely related to postmodernism, and the main postmodernist philosophers of relevance are Michael Foucault, Richard Rorty, and Jean Baudrillard. Postmodernism, for all practical purposes, is synonymous with something called post-structuralism, which is a type of historical revisionism which looks at some past event NOT in terms of how it was experienced by people at the time, but in terms of how it can be interpreted now, in the present, by the reader, with the most important variable being the identity of the reader. An example would be the book, Holy Terror, by Terry Eagleton which argues that there is something sacred (and inherently dangerous) about terrorism and it is always here to stay in society because throughout history, people have always needed to give into sprees of reckless self-abandonment and orgies of unreason. Postcolonialism draws heavily upon post-structuralism claims to be a theory of identity politics which studies ethnic nationalisms and religious conflicts while at the same time being committed to doing away with social injustices of all kinds by organizing regional resistance movements that happen to have self-liberation or self-abandonment effects. Don't worry if you find all this a little complicated. Many scholars have spent their lifetimes studying these philosophers without achieving full understanding. The whole point seems to be to create new avenues for theoretical exploration. However, if you followed all the hyperlinks so far, consider yourself an expert in esoteric, non-traditional philosophy.

Some comment on identity politics as a current manifestation might be in order. From the Encyclopedia of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Culture, identity politics refers to activism, politics, theorizing, and other activities based on the shared experiences of members of a specific social group (often relying on shared experiences of oppression) organized around identities based on gender, race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, and disability. The most important and revolutionary element of identity politics is the demand that oppressed groups be recognized not in spite of their differences but specifically because of their differences. Identity politics is the ideological underpinning of the current emphasis on multiculturalism and diversity. Along those lines, as Stanley Fish (1999) puts it, there is "boutique multiculturalism" and "strong multiculturalism." It's easy to be a boutique multiculturalist who respects cultures other than his/her own, but it's hard to be a strong multiculturalist in the face of an intolerant other culture which calls for some basic deprivation of human rights. For example, no matter how liberal one tries to be, it's hard to support Islamic holy men who issue fatwah assassination orders on those who exercise their free speech. Most multiculturalists today simply resort to identity politics, "speaking truth to power" or practicing "the personal is the political." When Senator Barbara Boxer in January 2007 suggested that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice couldn't understand how mothers feel about the war in Iraq because Condi was childless, that was identity politics. Playing the victim card is identity politics. Annoying people in public by speaking a foreign language is identity politics. Pretending to be outraged over a cartoon of the prophet is identity politics. Excluding straight white males is identity politics. Thinking that the war on terror is some kind of hyper-masculinity strategy launched by privileged white males to bolster white male identity and discursively emasculate opponents is identity politics.

The Terrorism Connection with Postcolonialism

The terrorism connection is this -- "the radical Islamist ideology that has motivated terror over the past decade must be seen in large measure as a manifestation of modern identity politics rather than of traditional Muslim culture." Those are the words of Francis Fukuyama (2007), an esteemed international relations professor at Johns Hopkins, who also wrote in 1992 that multiculturalism was "the game at the end of history" which tried to ornament the late stages of liberal pluralism with ethnic food, colorful dress and traces of distinctive historical traditions from other cultures. Regardless of what one thinks of Fukuyama's End of History thesis, his basic idea is sound that Islamic terrorism may be feeding upon a growing, self-perpetuated movement toward Muslim resentment and outrage over all things which do not give them special privileges. For example, Muslim immigrant groups have demanded special exemptions from family laws which apply to everyone else in society but them. Muslim groups have also demanded the right to exclude non-Muslims from certain types of events, to challenge free speech in the name of religion, to be sworn into court or political office with the Koran instead of the Bible, and in some cases have advocated the replacement of American criminal law with Sharia law. Fukuyama is not the only one to point out things like this. Oliver Roy said pretty much the same thing in his 2006 book Globalised Islam, and the process called Islamification of a host country by Muslim migrants is well known. Homegrown Islamic extremism, riots, protests, and terrorism can be traced to an underswelling of Muslim impatience with Islamification, and postcolonialism plays right into that.

Postcolonialists don't like definitions. Anything you could think of to put in a definition would be biased anyway. Then, the simple act of defining (or describing) something (or someone) is simply the act of engaging in a (neo)colonialistic labeling process. One can either engage in a neo-colonialist process (reinforcing the continuing influence of colonialism) or a postcolonialist process (try to create a newly articulated identity). Postcolonialism, you see, is the study of the ideological and cultural aftermath of western colonialism, and in order to escape the inevitable bias which is the profound experience of colonialism, one has to escape their own actual history and biography, much like how a former colonial nation must come to resent its given past and both paradoxically and ironically come up with a new national identity. It's unclear exactly how paradox and irony came to be components of postcolonialism, perhaps from Jean Baudrillard whom, like a typical practitioner in this field, says things like the 9/11 terrorist attacks on America were an example of destruction forced upon a society by a society that created its own forces of destruction. Not all postcolonialists are terrorist sympathizers, but many are. They believe that image is everything, and that if you just put something in the media in front of people long enough, it will become believable.

Postcolonialism avoids a material focus on the economics of a capitalist world order in favor of a focus upon the psychological and sociological effects of colonization on cultures and societies. The shortest possible definition of the field called post-colonial studies is the study of the various cultural effects of colonization (Ashcroft, Griffiths & Tiffin 2000). Culture can be defined as "the guidelines people inherit as members of a particular society which tells them how to view the world, how to experience it emotionally, and how to behave in it" (Helman 1994). Postcolonial thinkers look at culture from two standpoints: a postmodernist approach (rejecting all that modern science has to offer); and (2) a poststructuralist approach (heavily criticizing all known historical facts). This basically means that postcolonial thinkers always look "behind" or "beyond" anything written or spoken to critically examine the construction of reality in "signifiers" and hidden meanings. They are quick to spot racism and sexism. They don't trust many theories, don't believe in any moral absolutes, and don't like fixed categories or labels, even when applied to themselves. Like anti-globalists, they are best understood by what they reject than what they are for. They are particularly rejecting of anything Eurocentric, especially anything involving the legacy of European colonizers such as the English, French, Dutch, and other Western European powers.

Ashcroft et. al. (2000) are to be credited with putting together a good dictionary of postcolonialism, and several of what they cover as key concepts are also covered here. One interesting point they make, however, is that African American studies and Chicano studies don't usually qualify as being part of post-colonial studies because, among other reasons, such groups were particular victims of slavery and exile (exile is sometimes produced by colonialism, but not knowing the "home" for an exile group seems to create theoretical problems). Study of diaspora groups also apparently isn't relevant. Native American studies might quality for study because the defining characteristic of that group was invasive settlement. The most appropriate groups for study appear to be anti-colonial "freedom fighters" who articulate some radical, Marxist liberation discourse in the name of racial justice and/or ethnic nationalism and fight on their own territory. Postcolonialists are somewhat ambivalent about race because racial thinking has been such a powerful tool for imperialism, but the same could be said for nationalism. It is sometimes said that postcolonialists are critical Fanonists in this regard. They much prefer the concept of ethnicity, or better, the Kantian notion of "unchanging inner essence" as with the phrase "race of mankind." This shows how fluid the field of postcolonialism is, so it will be difficult to be precise with the conceptual vocabulary, and although there are many practitioners which could surely be cited, a decision has been made to focus on three main scholars in the field -- Bhabha (1994), Said (1978), and Spivak (1987). These three individuals will be utilized below to outline the key concepts of postcolonialism.

Prof. Bhabha of Harvard is a popular speaker and influential postcolonialism scholar (see PhilWeb Tribute Page). He is known for his extensive critique of binary opposites in language (e.g., rational vs. emotional, civilized vs. savage, etc.) However, it is pretty much taken for granted by all postcolonialists that post-structural and feminist theories have once-and-for-all demonstrated the futility of binarism. In fact, the critique of binary opposition (polar opposites, or dichotomies) make up an important part of many perspectives, such as post-feminism, post-anarchism, and critical race theory. Such scholars firmly believe that such dichotomies have perpetuated and legitimized Western power structures favoring "civilized" white men. Bhabha (1994) is best known for extending a subfield called colonial discourse theory, adding the concept of "ambivalence" (a psychological term meaning that among colonized subjects, there is the simultaneous existence of a complicit and resistant state of mind). Bhabha (1994) believes that ambivalence causes all colonialism and imperialism to carry the seed of its own destruction. Bhabha's theory holds that ambivalence causes colonized subjects to fluctuate between mimicry and mockery. Sometimes, the colonized identify with their occupiers, and other times they make fun of them. An additional related term is perhaps the most often used concept in postcolonialism -- hybridity -- which refers to the creation of new, "transcultural" forms of speech and behavior. Most postcolonialist prefer nativism, or a return to indigenous practices and language. Hybridity occurs, for example, when occupied people create new words or phrases, mixing their native language with the occupier's language. Hybridity is considered bad by postcolonialists because it reinforces the exoticism of diversity and is nothing more than an example of assimilation depriving subjects of authenticity. Bhabha (1994) also utilized the psychological concept of liminality (from "limen," or threshold, as between the sensate and subliminal) to refer to the constant identity conflicts that colonized subjects have, suggesting that the upper/lower dichotomy was particularly troublesome. Finally, Bhabha (1990) is known for clarifying the postcolonialist distinction between "nation" and "nation-state." Postcolonialists think of nation in terms of local communities, domiciles, families, or places of belonging, and they argue far too long, imperialist rulers of nation-states have drummed up nationalism fever in order to confuse people and mythologize history.

Prof. Said (who died in 2003) was a Columbia University professor, outspoken Palestinian activist, and of course, founding figure in postcolonialism. The website known as the Edward Said Archive is in both English and Arabic. A colorful and popular figure, he is best known for his Orientalism thesis (Said 1978) which described a subtle and persistent Eurocentric prejudice against Arab-Islamic peoples and their cultures. According to Said (1978), all existing written history of European colonial rule and political domination over the East is distorted and false, and he concludes that Western writers always depict the Orient as an irrational, weak, feminized "Other," as compared to the rational, strong, masculine West. He was a critic of the war on terror, saying it was stirred up by "experts" advocating a "devil theory of Islam." Said (1993) is also known for his distinction between imperialism and colonialism. It goes like this -- imperialism refers to the practice, theory, and attitudes of a dominating metropolitan center ruling a distant territory, and -- colonialism, which is almost always a consequence of imperialism, refers to the implanting of settlements on distant territory. The concept of "other" is key to colonial power, as colonizers always hold out the promise of uplifting or improving the inferior colonials so that at some future time might be raised to the status of the colonizer, but in practice, this never happens and is always endlessly deferred. If Said (1978; 1993) specialized in anything, it was decolonization, which refers to the process of revealing and dismantling colonial power in all its forms, including the hidden aspects that remain after political independence is achieved. Some of his key concepts in this regard are the pair of terms known as filiation/affiliation (Said 1983). Filiation is how English writers do things, making it seem like all the world's great literature is a seamless lineage of heritage or descent (almost as if blood lines), while third world literature is forced to be affiliative, or identifying with the world through cultural, social, or political institutions. Globalization is seen by postcolonialists as an example of this, as well as a transcultural phenomenon that cannot be separated from the confluence of European imperialism, capitalism, and modernity.

Prof. Spivak (1987) is a Columbia professor, third world feminist, and center director who is best known for her work with concepts such as "subaltern" social groups, which refer to marginalized groups and lower classes who have been rendered without agency because of their social status. The word "subaltern" was originally a term for someone of inferior rank in a military hierarchy, but it came to be associated with oppressed minority groups in an elite-dominated landscape through the work of neo-Marxist Antonio Gramsci in his writings on hegemony. There are some complicated terms here, so let's explain them. Hegemony is an ancient Greek word for rule by threat of force (more by power to control thought), and Gramsci's ideas about it are the favorite explanation by Marxists as to why capitalism never collapsed and the worldwide communist revolution never took place. Agency is a word used by sociologists and philosophers to refer to freedom of choice, not just in choosing simple actions, but actions which are designed to change the world or make your mark, as in the famous juxtaposition of agency/structure which permeates most social sciences as a meta-theoretic issue involving culture/structure debates. In any event, the subfield called subaltern studies is very popular among postcolonialists as the study of how non-elites (subalterns) become agents for political and social change. The basic Spivak messages (if it can be said there are basic messages) are that Marxism and feminism can be brought together in ways to make postcolonialism more interdisciplinary, that going back to Kant and Hegel is good philosophy, that it must always be remembered colonialism is heterogeneous (it's not just one country imposing it's culture on another, but a whole global system of class composition and social positionality -- "worlding" she calls it), and one must always be suspicious of "white boys doing postcolonialism" because that smacks of appropriation -- the usurpation or exploitation of the cultural domains of the powerless. For a good read on subaltern studies as a "history from below" project, see Chaturvedi (2000), and the best overview of Spivak's ideas is found in Spivak, Landry & MacLean (1995).

First, a brief overview of imperialism is presented here, and then, a primer in colonialism. This is essential background information in order to better understand where postcolonialists are coming from, particularly in their reactions to the standing literature on these topics. Imperialism is the formation of empire. It occurs when a powerful entity consciously and openly acquires colonies for economic, strategic, and political advantage. So-called "classic" imperialism is for expansionist purposes (Baumgart 1982), with the so-called "Scramble for Africa" between 1884 and 1914 a classic example. Lenin's (1917) theory of imperialism (which became the Communist Party line) holds that it is necessary for capitalism to expand by economically exploiting one region by another. Following Marx's labor theory of value, Lenin saw monopoly capital as synonymous with imperialism and plagued by the law of the tendency for profit to fall, as the ratio of constant capital to variable capital increases. Since only variable capital creates profit in the form of surplus value, as the ratio of surplus value to the sum of constant and variable capital falls, so does the rate of profit on invested capital. It is a customary practice among graduate professors to have students attempt to critique the Marxist labor theory of value when, in fact, it is largely uncritique-able and irrefutable unless one radically redefines some terms. Another significant figure in the conceptualization of imperialism is J.A. Hobson (1902), a prolific writer best known for his theory of underconsumption (when workers produce more than they can afford to buy). Hobson's ideas provided the intellectual foundation for all the so-called "crisis" (of capitalism) studies in political economy during the 20th Century. Also worthy of note is Immanuel Wallerstein (1989) who developed modern World-Systems theory, which holds that all the nations in the world can be classified as core, periphery, or semi-periphery. Postcolonialists are somewhat ambivalent toward world-systems theory because Wallerstein said he isn't interested in the politics of colonialism. Postcolonialists argue that even humanitarian and philanthropic missions are examples of imperialism, although some call it hegemony.

Colonialism is the extension of sovereignty over the territory of another for the purpose of imposing "civilized" structures over a perceived "inferior" race or group of people. A phrase that accurately captures the essence of colonialism is "white man's burden," from a 1899 poem by Rudyard Kipling, although similar phrases include "manifest destiny" and "social Darwinism." Numerous debates exist about the perceived positive and negative impacts of colonialism as practiced by the great powers over the years, and needless to say, postcolonialists argue that the impacts were mostly negative. Historically, there were many different kinds of colonies. A basic type was the "settler" colony where descendants of European settlers made up the majority of the population and the native inhabitants were almost all killed off by disease and civil war. The typical colonial technique for this was for the settlers to exploit long-standing ethnic divisions among the people, pitting one "tribe" against another. Also, the colonial powers tended to favor one ethnic group over another, recruiting such favored minorities into civil service jobs like police officers or government clerks. In some colonies, Western-style education was put in place, but in other colonies, there were no opportunities provided because the colonists feared the dangers posed by college-educated natives. Mixed marriages (or miscegenation) were strictly disapproved of, this being an issue that postcolonialists often find extremely interesting to study for some reason. Social life in the colonies revolved around segregated "country clubs" where the natives were only allowed entry as servants. The colonists tried a variety of things to improve economic production in the colonies, but generally found that native work habits were hard to change, and hence supervision became quite harsh, and the socioeconomic lot of the majority never improved. Railways and transportation lines were only built for the benefit of commerce, and in the end, colonialism fell apart due to its own shortcomings as much as due to the celebrated "liberation movements" that postcolonialist triumph. Postcolonialists today argue that practically all U.S. foreign intervention is a form of colonialism, although some call it imperialism.

There's nothing inherently wrong with the hundreds of English, History, and Philosophy students pursuing doctoral study in postcolonialism these days. They hardly ever make any connection between their studies and terrorism, and they would likely never "see" a connection even if a terrorist told them they were inspired by postcolonialist ideas. The whole rage seems to be about making the study of literature "fun" again, so it's perfectly understandable why humanities folks are attracted to these things. After all, who wants to see literature as ossified in the past as part of the dusty tomes or writings of dead white men? One wonders exactly where or when this negative attitude toward the "classic" contributions to Western civilization came about. Perhaps it's some psychological disposition to hate the establishment, or maybe some point is reached in one's academic study where they see too many "classic" thinkers corresponding and/or in contact with one another. Regardless of these speculations upon the motivation to become a postcolonialist, it is apparent they intend to swamp academe with their brand of scholarly activism (Young 1999), and they intend to rewrite history from that new "theoretical space" carved out for modern multiculturalism. Whether or not postcolonialism becomes a dominant paradigm or model is a matter for time to tell.

PRINTED RESOURCES
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