Jason Burke - The 9/11 Wars

The LSE, London

Global actors, Jason Burke argues, never understand the diversity of the local – and this, in the end, means that all their muscle and organisation can’t ensure them control on the ground.

Having just published a new book, ‘The 9/11 Wars’, the veteran South Asia Observer correspondent Burke recently gave a talk at the LSE. For the audience of students, the point above – with which he began his lecture – didn’t initially seem to break much new ground. After all, we all know now that the West’s belief that democracy would find a universal welcome in Iraq was disastrously flawed; that building schools is not sufficient to win over the proud Afghan people. But Burke was actually talking about the West’s most implacable enemy: the integral weakness of every global actor – an inability to respond flexibly to local conditions – has also handicapped al Queda, he argues.

Like most faiths, Islam has many streams; and Muslim countries are as complex and varied as any. But al Queda tried to impose a single, radical dogma on them all, and soon lost the locals’ sympathy. Its murders of Shi’a Muslims turned many Iraqi insurgents against their former allies; after the terrorists sent suicide bombers into a wedding party in Aman, their support in Jordan fell by 80 per cent. By 2005, globalised armed jihad was on the wane.

So international terrorist plots, says Burke, are now much weakened. The legacy, though, of al Queda’s work – and of the West’s blundering, aggressive response – is a widespread local radicalism. Across Afghanistan, the horn of Africa and Pakistan, indigenous Islamists have picked up the flag and hit targets just down the road. Terrorism, Burke warns, hasn’t gone away; it’s just gone local.

culture, review, lecture, 9/11

Last updated 238 days ago by Civil Service World