THE WAR ON TERROR: MARGINALISED CONFLICT AS A CHALLENGE TO THE INTERNATIONAL SYSTEM

Abstract

September 11, 2001 was a day that changed everything. In the wake of the attacks on New York and Washington optimistic vestiges of a decade-old hope for a New World Order vanished, rapidly replaced by a generalised sense of foreboding. Rather than order, the future suddenly seemed to promise a protracted, and extremely dangerous, time of disorder –an indefinite period during which an enemy who had already proved to be effective, elusive and possibly endemic in large parts of the world would threaten all that was familiar, comfortable and hopeful. A swirl of ominous events, ranging from the savage slaying of journalist Daniel Pearl and murderous attacks against French citizens in Pakistan to a spate of arrests of potential terrorists in Western Europe, Asia and the United States soon enhanced the unease. ‘Insecurity’ became the global watchword of the hour.

References

1. 1 See Chapter 9 of the US Department of Defense’s 1997 Annual Defense Report, available at www.dtic.mil/execsec/adr_intro.html. According to testimony given to a US court in February 2001 by Jamal al-Fadl, a Saudi Arabian national and aide to bin Laden, the latter was actively seeking to purchase uranium at least as early as 1993. See, Julian Borger and Ewen MacAskill, ‘Bin Laden is Looking for a Nuclear Weapon: How Close Has He Come?’, Guardian, November 7, 2001.
2. 2 Borger and MacAskill, op. cit. (fn. 2).
3. 3 David E. Apter, Rethinking Development: Modernization, Dependency, and Postmodern Politics, Newbury Park: Sage Publications, 1987, p. 308.
4. 4 Manuel Castells, The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture, Vol. III, ‘The Power of Identity’, Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1997, pp. 68-69.
5. 5 Dan Tschirgi, ‘Marginalized Violent Internal Conflict in the Age of Globalization: Egypt and Mexico’, Arab Studies Quarterly, 21:3, summer 1999, pp. 13-34; Dan Tschirgi, ‘In Egypt and Mexico, a New Type of Conflict: Zapatistas and Islamists Fight the Odds’, Le Monde Diplomatique (English edition), January 2001.
6. 6 Tschirgi, ibid., p. 26.
7. 7 Castells, op. cit. (fn. 4).
8. 8 Olivier Roy, ‘Tragique impasse du fondamentalisme sunnite’, Manier de voir 60, (Le Monde Diplomatique, November-December 2001, p. 51. The original reads as: “Ils presentent en effet une caracteristique nouvelle: ils sont internationaux et ‘deterritorialises’, c’est-a-dire que leurs militants nomadisent de djihad en djihad, en general aux marges du Proche-Orient (Afghanistan, Cachemire, Bosnie) et sont indifferents a leur proper nationalite…Ils se defissent comme des internationalists musulmans et ne lient leur militantisme a aucune cause national particuliere. Leurs ‘centers’ sont dan le no man’s land des zones tribales afghanopakistanaises.”

9. 9 James Poniewozik, ‘The Banality of bin Laden’, www.time.com, December 15, 2001.
10. 10 Castells, op. cit. (fn. 4), p. 109.
11. 11 Interview with Manuel Burguete, former Mayor of San Cristobal de las Casas, San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas, Mexico, August 21, 2001.
12. 12 Joshua Stacher, ‘A Democracy with Fangs and Claws and its Effect on Egyptian Political Culture’, Arab Studies Quarterly, Vol. 23, No. 3, summer 2001, pp. 83-99.