Terrorism and The Clash of Civilizations

3 units

This course is about conflicts in which violent means are deployed and moralistic terms are invoked so as to give legitimacy to such means. The code words in the title are bracketed in order to emphasize they are used in public discourses rhetorically, for political effect. When particular social situations are disputed, each side deploys moralistic claims so as to clothe their actions and viewpoint with an aura of legitimacy and to enlist popular support. But when issues are contested, similar terms can be used by opposing sides with simlar but contrary intents: one person's terrorist is another person's freedom fighter; and note that certain radical Islamist groups specifically embrace Huntington's notion of the clash of civilizations (formulated for western audiences) as grounds for their anti-western posture. Rhetorical formulae such as these are promoted or scorned, embraced or renounced, for essentially strategic reasons. In this course, we examine some notorious situations of conflict in order to identify the particular ways that disputing sides have deployed violence and moralistic forms in their own interest -- as when popular movements arise and clash with state power (e.g., the Tianamen Square incident in China) or when coalitions with radical social agendas take form and brutalize neighbors (as in Yugoslavia in the 19902; Rwanda in 1994) or when widely supported public movements develop seemingly without coordination (the 2006 demonstrations against the King of Nepal), or when movements animated by a shared ambition to establish a non-statal political entity (such as Al Qaeda for the re-institution of the caliphate) form across state boundaries with little coordinated leadership. Our emphasis will fall on the ways that human collectivities deploy cultural forms -- linguistic and rhetorical, artistic and representational -- to give particular readings to social issues and to clothe activities (often brutal) with an appearance of legitimacy.