What is al-Qaeda?

Observer
July 13, 2003

In this extract from his new book, Al-Qaeda: Casting a shadow of terror, The Observer's chief reporter, Jason Burke, looks at the true nature of bin Laden's organisation and why the west's misunderstanding of the broad and diverse phenomenon of modern Islamic militancy undermines its response to terrorism

<snip>Thirty years ago a new Islamic political ideology began to resonate amongst millions of young men and women across the Muslim world. This ideology was a sophisticated and genuine intellectual effort to find an Islamic answer to the challenges posed by the West's cultural, economic and political superiority. In the middle of the 20th century nationalist anti-imperialism was the dominant ideology. Then, at least in the Middle East, it was pan-Arabism. Both failed to solve the problems of the Islamic world. Now Islam is seen the solution. But over the decades Islamic activism has changed. Once Islamic activists thought primarily in terms of achieving power or reforming their own nation. There was room in their programme for gradualism and compromise, for a huge multiplicity of different strands of political thought, for the parochial, radical and conservative movements of rural areas and for the clever, educated and aware ideologues of the cities. There was also room, on the movement's periphery, for those extremists who were committed to violence and who saw the world as a battlefield between the forces of good and evil, of belief and unbelief.

But increasingly, and this is a trend that is accelerating, the extremists are no longer perceived as the "lunatic fringe". Instead they are seen as the standard bearers. And their language is now the dominant discourse in modern Islamic activism. Their debased, violent, nihilisitic, anti-rational millenarianism has become the standard ideology aspired to by angry young Muslim men. This is the genuine victory of bin Laden and our greatest defeat in the "war on terror".

In the weeks immediately following the tragedy of September 11th there was a genuine interest in understanding: why?. Why "they" hate us, why "they" were prepared to kill themselves, why such a thing could happen. That curiosity has dwindled and is being replaced by other questions: how did it happen, how many of "them" are there, how many are there left to capture and kill. Anyone who tries to "explain" the roots of the threat now facing all of us, to answer the "why", to elaborate who "they are", risks being dismissed as ineffectual or cowardly. To ask "why" is to lay oneself open to accusations of lacking the moral courage to face up to the "genuine" threat and the need to meet it with force and aggression. Many characterise this threat, dangerously and wrongly, as rooted in a "clash of civilizations."

This attitude not only plays into the hands of the extremists but, by downplaying the importance of genuine causes, risks encouraging tactics that are counterproductive. I hope to redress the balance. As I watched the bombs falling at Tora Bora I had asked the question why. My book is my attempt to find some answers.

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