Critical Terrorism Studies since 11 September 2001

What Has Been Learned?

David Miller, Jessie Blackbourn, Helen Dexter, Rani Dhanda

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9780415838528
• eBook ISBN: 9781134928293
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Military & Maritime History
• Index: History

Academic studies of 'terrorism' grew exponentially in number after the September 11 attacks. The problem was that much of this work of 'orthodox' terrorism studies was biased, often shoddily researched and was too closely identified with the power centres of Western states. Its denizens were often former and sometimes current officials or officers in the military, intelligence services or the security industry or were funded by them.

In response the project of Critical Terrorism Studies was intended to give a more rounded account of political violence in the world. It focuses on neglected issues like state terrorism, Western counterinsurgency, propaganda and misinformation.

More than a decade since the founding of the critical project, this book asks what has been learned. It showcases leading examples of critical terrorism studies and presents an agenda for the expansion of an evidence-based approach to political violence and terrorism.

With chapters by leading authorities such as Joseba Zulaika, Michael Stohl, Mary Hickman and Richard Jackson, the book evaluates how far the critical project has come and where it is going next.

This book was published as a special issue of Critical Studies on Terrorism.

INTRODUCTION

Editor’s Introduction: A decade on from 11 September 2001: what has critical terrorism studies learned?

Jessie Blackbourn^a, Helen Dexter^b, Rani Dhanda^c and David Miller^c

^aLaw School, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia; ^bDepartment of Politics and International Relations, University of Leicester, Leicester, UK; ^cDepartment of Socialand Policy Sciences, University of Bath,Bath,UK

The articles in this special issue are drawn from papers presented at a conference held to mark the 10th anniversary of the September 11 attacks. The conference, entitled A Decade of Terrorism and Counter-Terrorism since 9/11: Taking Stock and New Directions in Research and Policy, was organised by the Critical Studies on Terrorism Working Group of the British International Studies Association and was held at the University of Strathclyde with support from the British Academy from 8 to 11 September 2011. The conference aimed to play a significant role in the reorientation of terrorism studies towards a more empirically informed and theoretically sophisticated practice of studies of political violence through the engagement of scholars in a multidisciplinary dialogue. The articles in this issue reflect those aims.

On the conference

September 11, 2011 marked 10 years since the terrorist attacks on the United States and the start of the global ‘war on terrorism’. The extensive changes engendered by these processes in the last decade gave rise to a real need for rigorous and sustained retrospective analysis. In a year that saw a wide range of special commemorative and academic events, this conference sought to assess the widespread impact of terrorism and counterterrorism since 2001 from a distinctly ‘critical’ perspective. More specifically, the conference foregrounded interdisciplinary approaches and sought to review what we have learnt in a period of unprecedented interest in the study of terrorism and counterterrorism.

After four days of events including a public meeting, plenaries, research workshops and panels including almost 60 speakers from four continents, delegates were asked to remember the almost 3000 dead as a result of the attacks as well as the subsequent deaths of the hundreds of thousands of civilians and combatants on all sides.

At the public meeting on Thursday evening (8 September 2011), panellists reflected on the events of 9/11; the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan; and more recent events including the Arab Spring, the murders allegedly committed by Anders Breivik in Norway and the riots in England some weeks previously. Panellists included Helen Dexter of Leicester University who challenged those who would dismiss political violence or public disorder, such as the recent riots, as irrational and key note speaker Bob Lambert from Exeter, formerly of the Metropolitan Police Special Branch Muslim Contact Unit. He pursued an argument on the need to work with communities to protect public safety as opposed to treating the Muslim community as a ‘suspect community’.

Scotland’s leading human rights lawyer, Aamer Anwar, reminded the audience of the false information that was used to justify war in Iraq and the abuse of civil liberties at home as a result. Talking of the case of his client Mohammed Atif Siddique, a young man from Alva, just north of Glasgow, Anwar recalled and read out the words he had spoken on the steps of the High Court on his client’s conviction on terrorism charges:

Today Mohammed Atif Siddique was found guilty of doing what millions of young people do every day, looking for answers on the internet. This verdict is a tragedy for justice and for freedom of speech and undermines the values that separate us from the terrorist, the very values we should be fighting to protect … Atif Siddique states that ‘he is not a terrorist and is innocent of the charges, that it is not a crime to be a young Muslim angry at global injustice.’ The prosecution was driven by the State, with no limit to the money and resources used to secure a conviction in this case, carried out in an atmosphere of hostility after the Glasgow Airport attack and ending on the anniversary of 9/11. In the end Atif Siddique did not receive a fair trial and we will be considering an appeal. (Anwar 2007)

Anwar was himself arraigned for making that statement, although as he noted at the meeting Atif Siddique was later freed on appeal – an acknowledged victim of a miscarriage of justice (Anon 2010).

In papers stretching over four days, the issue of evidence and data in the study of terrorism was returned to again and again with delegates questioning the certainty in much public and policy debate. Papers ranged from heavily empirical to sweepingly theoretical, with much discussion about the merits of contending approaches to the study of terrorism. The UK policy of preventing violent extremism was subject to searching critique in a large number of papers (HM Government 2011).

Plenary speaker Richard Jackson, Professor in International Politics at Aberystwyth University, spoke on ‘Unknown knowns: the subjugated knowledge of terrorism studies’. Commenting on the event, Jackson said:

It is important that we encourage a more critical approach to the issue of terrorism but first, we need to take stock of what has already been achieved over the last 10 years. What we need to do to improve such studies is to bring subjugated knowledge to the field and take into consideration other forms of knowledge, for example peace studies. This will ultimately help us advise governments and key policy makers. (Cited in Miller 2011a)

Other keynote addresses were given by Michael Stohl (California), Joseba Zulaika (Nevada) and Caron Gentry (Texas/St Andrews). Each of their plenary sessions was video recorded and is available online.¹ Jackson, Stohl and Zulaika have their contributions published in this special issue. A separate editorial team is currently pursuing a book contract for a further collection from the conference. Because of their varied disciplinary backgrounds (career in the police, international relations, media studies, anthropology and women’s studies), the plenaries were not only inspiring and catalytic (as might be expected) but also provided a quite novel gathering of social scientists focusing on terrorism from a range of complementary disciplinary perspectives.

On 10 years and critical terrorism studies

In the 10 years since 11 September 2001, the enterprise of ‘critical terrorism studies’ has come a long way. It seems pertinent to reflect on the long 10 years that saw the 2001 attacks, the launch of the ‘war on terror’ beginning with the attack on Afghanistan and then Iraq, with all the consequences that has had in terms of suffering and death. It was following the invasion of Iraq that critical terrorism studies as a project got off the ground. The first conference in the United Kingdom organised by the Critical Studies on Terrorism Working Group was held in Manchester in 2006. It asked ‘Is it Time for a Critical Terrorism Studies?’² It is noteworthy that at that stage orthodox terrorism studies, if it registered its critical twin, did little more than curl its lip (Miller 2006). In the five years since we are at least having something of a debate, bad-tempered though it is at times. Without wishing to engage in the debate at this point, it is worth noting the inability of some orthodox commentators to register that ‘critical’ terrorism studies is not a cohesive project in which we are all signed up to the Frankfurt School, to post-structuralism and to the latest interpretation of Foucault (Jones and Smith 2006, 2009). The lively debate at the conference in September 2011 between the various approaches to the ‘critical’ study of terrorism is a clear indication of the need for some orthodox scholars to read a little bit further so they can distinguish their Marxists from their Postmodernists or ‘critical realists’ from devotees of ‘deconstruction’, ‘discursive practice’ or the ‘argumentative turn’. Perhaps, though we should be grateful that they are at least – finally – engaging with the critique. It remains frightening, though that figures associated with the orthodoxy like M.L.R. Smith are called up as experts by the UK government, an indication, if we needed another, that the phrase ‘terrorism expertise’ can be an oxymoron (Miller and Mills 2009).

It is certainly clear that there are various currents within critical terrorism studies that overlap with concerns in the orthodox approach. Perhaps most of these currents agree that progress in attaining deeper knowledge is more likely in an atmosphere where debate is valued and fostered. Jones and Smith (2009, p. 302) appear to oppose this, criticising critical terrorism studies for apparently maintaining that ‘un-coercive communication must be practiced’. Events at the conference and just after certainly reminded us of the importance of non-coercive communication and of the need for students of terrorism and political violence to be open about their activities as well as to be allowed to conduct research and writing without let or hindrance. To take the latter issue first. Delegates at the conference on the Sunday morning (11 September 2011) heard early news that one of the delegates at the conference – PhD student Rizwaan Sabir – had won £20,000 compensation from Nottinghamshire police and an apology for being stopped and searched. The news was featured in the press a couple of days later (Jones 2011). The case reminds us of the threats to independent research and ‘un-coercive communication’ posed by the forces of the state. Stop and search is not necessarily conducive to efficient conduct of one’s doctoral research.

Another participant at the conference was also in the news shortly afterwards. This was Bob Lambert, the former Inspector in the Metropolitan Police Special Branch Muslim contact Unit, who had spent years combatting Islamophobia in the force and after he retired and took up an academic career. In fact, Lambert had spoken at the very first critical terrorism studies conference in Manchester in October 2006. One of the present authors (Miller 2006) wrote an account of his contribution:

One of the more interesting speakers at the conference was … happy to waive the Chatham House rule. Bob Lambert is at the liberal end of the Special Branch, in its eight person Muslim Contact Unit. He promotes the idea of partnership working with Muslim community organisations. He explicitly counterposes this to repressive policing and attacking the Muslim community in politics, the press such as the assault unleashed by Jack Straw’s remarks about the veil or the ‘terror experts’ who suggest that universities are a hotbed of Muslim ‘radicalisation’.

This means he is seen by some in government and the press – including some ‘left’ journalists such as those supporting the Euston Manifesto – as an appeaser of radical Islam …

Lambert’s view is that the best way to turn young Muslims away from jihadist tendencies is to work in partnership with the community and in particular with influential community figures. ‘The only really effective response to this political propaganda – this is political – are leading community figures’, he noted. ‘They are the only ones who can do anything about it’. Lambert highlighted the case of al Qaradawi who he sees as a very effective propagandist against al Qaeda. Yet, al Qaradawi and others are subject to ‘character assassination’ in the press and from government sources as well as being the targets of ‘counter terrorism activity’ – from Lambert’s own colleagues.

In discussion Lambert was also clear that recruiting young Muslims to the anti-war movement and organisations like Respect also resulted in isolating the Jihadis. This, of course, highlights the underlying problem with the whole anti-terror strategy. As Lambert noted – if the political grievances of the Muslim community and the anti-war movement were dealt with there would be ‘precious little’ basis for the grievances. The grievances of the 7/7 bombers were plain enough – Iraq, Palestine and the war on terror. In Lambert’s view there is ‘an incredible lack of understanding of Muslim communities’ in official circles. Lambert’s refreshing approach (when compared with his colleagues) directs our attention to UK foreign policy as perhaps the most important single way to tackle ‘terrorism’.

Since then, Lambert has contributed regularly to public debate on the issue earning much opprobrium from neoconservative think-tanks, commentators and blogs (Mills et al. 2011). Just after a month after the 2011 conference, however, Lambert was unmasked as an undercover spy who infiltrated a number of environmental and other protest groups on a long-term basis in the 1980s. Whilst it was obviously known that Lambert had been in the Special Branch, the issue raised by this was that his critique of the ‘counter subversion’ approach to terrorism adopted by the present government appeared to be undermined by his own role in such activities in the 1980s. Lambert was invited both to apologise for his past activities and betrayals and to explain what he now thought of his previous counter-subversion activities (Miller 2011b). Lambert did apologise but did not distance himself from his previous activities (Lambert 2011, Miller and Lubbers 2011). The case, like that of Sabir, does suggest that openness and free communication are not always in abundant supply when it comes to researching and writing about terrorism.

The articles in this special issue

Richard Jackson’s article, ‘Unknown knowns: the subjugated knowledge of terrorism studies’, asks important questions about the types of knowledge that are ‘known’ or ‘unknown’ to orthodox terrorism analysts. He considers this a puzzle: ‘why and how – that is, by what mechanisms – certain kinds of knowledge remain unacknowledged and excluded from terrorism studies’. The knowledge he refers to here is the vast quantity of research carried out on terrorism by other (non-terrorism studies) disciplines, in particular peace and conflict studies. Using Foucault’s concept of subjugated knowledge as a tool to uncover why certain knowledges remain ‘simultaneously “known” and “unknown” in the terrorism studies field’, Jackson identifies two sets of factors at play: endogenous knowledges and exogenous knowledges. Endogenous knowledges are knowledges that remain unknown in the terrorism studies field, despite their broader acknowledgement in policy and other academic circles. Jackson offers various examples of these knowledges, including that state terrorism is more deadly than sub-state terrorism, that terrorists are unlikely ever to deploy weapons of mass destruction, that terrorism is driven by grievances and that al-Qaeda is not driven by a religious ideology. For Jackson then, these knowledges, derived from non-terrorism studies disciplines and from government and military sources, remain subjugated in terrorism studies as they challenge the dominant assumptions of the field.

Further to these endogenous knowledges, exogenous knowledges are those knowledges that are excluded by the terrorism studies field for being ‘naïve, inferior or below the required level of scientificity’ because they originate outside the field of terrorism studies. Disciplines such as peace and conflict studies or anthropology are thus excluded from the field of terrorism studies in favour of statistical ‘scientific’ analyses and broad generalisations based on secondary research. By excluding these knowledges, terrorism studies as a field reifies its own knowledge and subjugates other disciplines of analysis that leads to a bias. This is important, as terrorism research is not constrained to theoretical practices but has real-world applications. The research carried out by the traditional terrorism studies field has found a hegemonic home within government and security circles, to the exclusion of other disciplines that research terrorism. Not only does this have an impact on coun-terterrorism policy, but within academia it serves to prioritise one set of voices over many others, creating a closed shop of terrorism studies academics at conferences to the exclusion of other scholars. According to Jackson, the critical terrorism studies project must challenge this hegemonic control over the terrorism studies discourse by actively engaging with the traditional terrorism studies field and seeking to ‘move beyond solely intellectual forms of struggle and engage in more diverse and creative cultural forms of activism which go beyond academic production’.

Jackson’s article, based on his keynote address at the conference, is a clarion call to the critical terrorism studies community to engage in research that seeks to challenge the dominant discourse of the terrorism studies field by de-subjugating its endogenous and exogenous knowledges. This call was taken up by the academic, practitioner and activist presenters at the conference, who came from many different disciplinary backgrounds, including politics, international relations, sociology, anthropology, geography, feminist theory and gender studies, communications studies, peace and conflict studies and area studies including Middle Eastern studies, Irish studies and American and Canadian studies. The call has also been taken up by the contributors to this special issue of the journal, who have challenged some of the prevailing assumptions in the field through rigorous empirical and theoretically informed analyses of terrorism and counterterrorism. Michael Stohl and Joseba Zulaika’s articles follow on from Jackson and both address issues of terrorism and counterterrorism knowledge over the past 10 years, whilst Charlotte Heath-Kelly and Mary Hickman et al. examine the practices of counterterrorism in the same period. Andrew W. Neal and Helen Dexter complet...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Citation Information
• 1. Introduction: Editor’s Introduction: A decade on from 11 September 2001: what has critical terrorism studies learned?
• 2. Unknown knowns: the subjugated knowledge of terrorism studies
• 3. Don’t confuse me with the facts: knowledge claims and terrorism
• 4. Drones, witches and other flying objects: the force of fantasy in US counterterrorism
• 5. Reinventing prevention or exposing the gap? False positives in UK terrorism governance and the quest for pre-emption
• 6. Social cohesion and the notion of ‘suspect communities’: a study of the experiences and impacts of being ‘suspect’ for Irish communities and Muslim communities in Britain
• 7. ‘Events dear boy, events’: terrorism and security from the perspective of politics
• 8. Terrorism and violence: another violence is possible?
• Index