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ВОПРОСЫ ИСТОРИИ, ТЕОРИИ И МЕТОДОЛОГИИ
TERRORISM AS A SLAP IN THE FACE OF THE CIVILIZED WORLD*
J. Subrt, K. Cerny
Chair of Historical Sociology Charles University in Prague U Krize, 8, Praha 5, Czech Republic, 15800
The article summarizes the key scientific approaches to the study of terror in the contemporary world focusing on the concepts of (de)modernization, (de)civilization, and the revival of religious movements with rational economic aims under the slogans of "just war" or "cosmic war" with the forces of evil. The author starts from Norbert Elias' work on the civilization process and the formation of the modern state as a pacified society to underline that the problem of violence lies outside Elias' scope, and demonstrate the existing approaches to supplementing his theory with (a) the definition of decivili-zation trends and the criteria for the identification of decivilization processes; (b) the description of the role and place of brutal violence in modern society; (c) a comprehensive but also heterogeneous picture of terrorism, especially suicide terrorism, i.e. its causes, manifestations and consequences. The author agrees with S.P. Huntington, that we live in a world with an increased risk of conflicts between civilizations and cultural strains rooting in the religious tradition (the re-politicization of religion and religious nationalism are considered attempts to fuse traditional religion with modern politics). Thus, the author concludes that the contemporary terrorism and especially its suicidal form is not only a specific form of (political) struggle, but also — metaphorically speaking — a "slap in the face" of the civilized Western world, an effort to challenge, shake and undermine the stability and the patterns of life in modern society. However, terrorism wants to influence not only the power system of society, but also the collective psyche of large groups and parts of the population to create a sort of theatre of horror with the rationally designed, staged and performed means of violence.
Key words: terrorism; suicide terrorism; decivilization; religious movements; religious nationalism; causes and consequences or terrorism; identity of a terrorist; Western civilization.
Norbert Elias' work on the civilization process [6] follows the formation of the modern state as a pacified society, within which acts of violence, brutality and aggression are suppressed, uprooted, and petering out. The events and trends of bloody
* This chapter is partly a result of research project "GACR no. 13-35717P Arab Revolutions and
Political Islam: A Structural Approach".
violence in the context of modern society lay outside Elias' scope. Thus Elias-oriented scholars have for a long time focused on this lack, developing those elements and principles of Elias's thinking that are useful in this regard, and at the same time supplementing them where they were not sufficiently worked out by Elias. The most developed and ambitious attempt so far is the work of Jonathan Fletcher [7], who identifies decivilization trends and defines the criteria for the identification of decivilization processes. Fletcher's conception is undoubtedly a sophisticated attempt to explain how it is possible to reconcile Elias's conception with a problem to which — in the view of his critics — he did not pay sufficient attention; namely, the Holocaust, the mass extermination of the Jewish nation by Nazi criminals in the World War II. Even if we accept that Fletcher's conception of decivilization did not come to terms with this issue, there are many outstanding issues and phenomena of the contemporary world which can be labelled using Elias's lexicon as manifestations of "rebarbarization", including some that cannot be satisfactorily explained through Fletcher's approach.
The key question underlying an entire cluster of interrelated problems is the role and place of brutal violence in modern society. If this is something that is gradually mastered, dominated, regulated and displaced in the process of civilization, as Elias asserted, according to other writers violent conflicts, terror and mass murder, are not simply excessive and against the logic of modernization, but on the contrary are integral components of modernizing tendencies. Probably the furthest to go in this direction was Zygmunt Bauman, who sees the Holocaust as a manifestation and consequence of modernization tendencies [2], but there are other authors, especially from the field of historical comparative sociology. This line starts with [20], and is characterised by considerable Marxist inspiration. It focuses on problems of revolutions, armed violence and wars [17; 18; 25; 27]. Its darker side, however, includes the work on modernization of Shmuel N. Eisenstadt; in his concept of multiple modernities the dark sides of civilization development are brought out [4; 5].
It is in this context that we must place terrorism, especially suicide terrorism, the focus of this text. Numerous investigations that are currently underway provide a comprehensive but also heterogeneous picture of this phenomenon, its causes, manifestations and consequences. Such approaches have been formulated largely outside the circle of influence of Elias's civilizational conception, so the challenge is to what extent they cohere with Elias' theory. It is not our aim to try to incorporate these approaches and integrate them into the framework of the civilization theory, our more modest and more realistic goal is an attempt to indicate which sides and aspects of these concepts could be considered compatible with Elias's approach, to contribute to a more effective explanation of current problems. Although the causes of the contemporary terrorism are elucidated in various ways, one they usually have in common is that they refer, to one extent or another, to global religious revival and return to cultural traditions. According to Samuel P. Huntington, we live in a world with an increased risk of conflicts between civilizations and cultural strains, which derive their identity primarily from religious tradition. Huntington in his provocative and widely cited article "The Clash of Civiliza-
tions?" [10], whose thesis was later developed into a book [9], was inspired by the sociologist and political scientist Gilles Kepel, author of the book "The Revenge of God" [15], in which he vividly portrays the growing influence of religious movements in societies — and especially in the politics — of all three Abrahamic religions.
This re-politicization of religion has started since the 1970s in parts of the Christian, Jewish and Islamic world due to the crisis of modernity. Compared to the global optimism of the 1950s and 1960s, when hopes were pinned on the limitless possibilities of the human mind and economic growth, science, technology and progress, unsolved problems of all kinds are piling up; despair, confusion, uncertainty and helplessness are growing. The population explosion and poverty, the spread of the AIDS pandemic, the increasing pollution of the planet, shortages of energy resources and the threat of nuclear war help to imagine the upcoming apocalypse. The roots of all these social problems from the religious perspective are forgetting God and deviation from the faith: it is a punishment of God for apostasy and our sins. Thus, religious political movements can convincingly interpret a wide variety of conceivable social problems with the help of abstract religious categories. However, in addition to their sharp criticism of the current state of society they can also offer hope for the future and present alternative solutions based on the repeated inclination of people to God. Kepel does not find the social base of religious movements in the backward, insufficiently educated, rural conservative regions or social groups, but he perceives it as a product of modernization, which was analyzed by S. Huntington.
Although Kepel in his comparative study shows that the entry of religion into the world of politics is a worldwide phenomenon, he sees the greatest potential for further development of religious movements, including militant ones, in the world of Islam. It is here that he finds the most appalling signs of the breakdown of society: uncontrolled exodus to the cities, population explosions, poverty, unemployment, the corruption of illegitimate political elites and the collapse of social functions of the state, which produce outstanding manifestations of the crisis of modernity. As to the extent of poverty, according to Kepel, the situation among Muslims today is comparable with the European proletariat of the XIXth century. Surprisingly, however, the organization and mobilization of excluded people who want to taste the fruits of modernity and prosperity was not seized upon not by Marxists, but by Islamists. If the only prospect for young people is unemployment, jihad has a greater appeal than civil liberties, even more so when authoritarian political regimes back down for nothing except the violent assertion of political demands [15: 29, 164—165].
S. Huntington seized on exactly these motifs when he pointed out the problematic nature of Islamic civilization. According to Huntington, the role of ideology and political or economic differences in the international politics at the beginning of the XXIst century is growing weaker and new key factors are shaping international events: culture and religion. Accordingly, the world is "falling apart" into eight actors (or civilizations) of international relations — the Chinese (Confucian), Japanese, Hindu, Islamic, Orthodox, Western, Latin American and — conceptually the most problematic — African. Hunt-
ington [9: 37—41], somewhat weakens the "purity" and clarity of this description when admits that civilizations can blend and overlap and even divide into sub-civilizations. For example, the Islamic civilization is composed of several "sub-cultures" — Turkish, Arabic, Persian and Malay. Neither is the West culturally-civilizationally homogeneous for if consists of two "sub-cultures" — European and North American. Huntington defines civilizations as the broadest cultural entities [9: 35]. Every civilization constitutes both objective elements — a common language group, culture, history; common customs, institutions, and especially religion — and subjective elements — self-identification of individuals with the civilization. The centre point of the author's argument is the assertion that civilizational identity plays an increasing role in the lives of individuals and societies, and in the period of dramatic social changes at the beginning of the XXIst century this role continues to strengthen.
Huntington endorses the views of the great authors of cyclical theories (Toynbee, Spengler et al.), who understand history primarily as a history of civilizations and talk about certain cycles of the birth, rise and fall of various civilizations [9: 31]. He does so in the context of attempting to show the gradual (and relative) weakening of the West after "the arrival" of non-Western civilizations — the growth of their populations, economies and also arms arsenals, which means the typical attributes of the so-called "hard" power, hand in hand with which comes their "soft" power (prestige, and ideological influence).
What Huntington became famous for, however, was his analysis of the causes and dynamics of armed conflicts in the near future. The basic sources of conflicts would cease to be ideological or economic, and arise from cultural and religious differences [10: 22], most frequently at the borders of different civilizations. Conflicts along civili-zational faults would contribute to further strengthening of civilizational identity and would be marked by increased brutality and ferocity. Faith and cultural differences, according to Huntington, are not susceptible to compromise and are more persistent than differences of class, politics or ideology (the poor can get rich, Marxists can become democrats, etc.). Thus, if it is not possible to eliminate cultural and religious differences, we cannot expect the disappearance of wars from history.
It is important to add that Huntington does not understand the clash of civilizations as something inevitable, as is often assumed. Rather he raises "a warning finger" at the discouraging interventions and interference in the affairs of other civilizations, which may at a time of general religious revival be perceived very sensitively [10: 49]. One of the highly controversial theses of Huntington is that some civilizations are more prone to conflicts than others. A great danger for the XXIst century is the potential clash of the West with the Chinese civilization, but the conflict between the West and Islam is a greater one. Therefore, the author devotes increased attention to the Islamic civilization. Why this civilization is perceived as the most problematic? Muslims, who make up about V5 of the world population are involved significantly over-proportionally in the current inter-civilization wars. Between two thirds and three quarters of such cas-
es in the 1990s involved the clash of Islam with the actors from other civilizations. Thus, Islam according to Huntington has — and will have — „bloody borders" [9: 213].
An important factor in the atavism of the Islamic civilization is the fact that in the past it was a powerful, sophisticated, confident and proud civilization, which considered itself superior to others. During XIXth and XXth centuries, however, on the contrary, it got into an inferior position, was subdued and manifoldly humiliated. This has given rise to resistance and desire to regain the lost position [9: 120—134, 312—330]. The prestige of Islamists also follows from the fact that they often represent the only real opposition to the authoritarian, corrupt and unpopular governments of Muslim countries. These governments have failed to provide the promised prosperity for their populations, but cooperate with Western countries, especially the United States, which in return support them and keep them in power.
American political scientist Robert Pape believes that the basic impulse for terrorist activities is not a clash of religious ideologies, but occupation, or Western military presence in Muslim countries. The author declares that even though religion plays an important role, this is only in the context of foreign occupation, and he is highly critical on the United States foreign policy [21: 114]. The resistance, which its military intervention generates, overwhelms the aims it attempts to achieve [23: 105]. Pape therefore disagrees with the principles that try to justify the continuation of the complex war with terrorism; the military occupation in his opinion is not the solution of a problem, but its cause.
Pape considers suicide terrorism as an extreme strategy for national liberation used against the military forces of the democratic countries that occupy territories regarded by terrorist organizations as their country [21: 23]. The vast majority of all suicide attacks are not isolated or random; on the contrary, they are a part of a carefully planned series or cluster. So, these are campaigns with a clear beginning and end, which also include the raising and continuous remembrance of clearly formulated political demands. Such campaigns are preceded by gradually sharpening violent conflicts (unarmed rebellion, guerrilla war, conventional war or terrorism). Suicide terrorism is then an extreme strategy to make a hostile army leave, and thus to achieve national self-determination, independence and a sense of security. The weaker side of the asymmetric conflict resorts to the tactic of suicide terrorism as a last chance in a situation where the dominance of the stronger opponent is obvious and all existing methods of fighting are exhausted and have proved ineffective and insufficient [16].
Further to Pape's views: there is another ideological stream that emphasizes the importance of emerging religious movements. The somewhat surprising return of religion to the public sphere, especially to policy on the global scale, occurred in the last two to three decades. Precisely in the context of the global wave of religious revival and recovery there occurred a global rise of political religious movements inciting confrontation between secularism, represented until recently by the prevailing secular nationalism, and religion in the form of a religious nationalism.
One of the causes of the global attractiveness of these movements is the collapse of the socialist bloc followed by the breakdown of the Soviet Union, which led to the rejection of the Soviet model for modernization and development of society. In parallel, there also was a decrease in the economic power and political influence of the United States, associated with the growth of a number of internal problems. This led to the discrediting of the Western version of modernization, to the weakening of the attractiveness of occidental secular nationalism and a turn to cultural traditions. Other factors are the crisis of legitimacy of the nation state associated with a decline in public confidence in the discredited secular political systems, leaving a vacuum filled by religious political movements promising recovery. The unfulfilled expectations of the population in the area of career and consumerism cannot be forgotten too. The devotion to the religious nationalism is to a considerable extent fuelled by the loss of faith in the rapid improvement of living standards and in the upward social mobility [3; 19].
Religious nationalism is an attempt to fuse traditional religion with modern politics. Such a "synthesis" is supposed to lead to the acceptance of modern technologies, bureaucratic forms of the nation state, democracy and other elements of modern industrial societies, but to be accompanied by a strong identity with the national community, the legitimacy of state institutions, and confidence in political leaders. Religious nationalism represents a modern phenomenon, not a product of anti-modern forces. As stated by the American sociologist Mark Juergensmeyer, religious nationalists are modern without being modernists [12: 242].
Religious nationalism is primarily directed against the still dominant nationalism of the secular model. It thus problematizes the western view on nationalism, according to which a nation is derived from the "secular social contract" that unites on the basis of free will all rational actors who inhabit the given territory. Religious nationalism represented by religious movements and political parties or politicians wants to provide another basis for defining a nation and its identity. It is no longer about territory, political rights or class struggle (descriptions of secular nationalists or Marxists), but about the moral battle between good and evil, God and Satan (according to religious nationalists). Even if it may seem that a monopoly on the religionization of politics is held by Islam, which is aggressively connected with the policy in other parts of the world, the inclination of Western observers to understand many Asian religions, e.g. Buddhism or Hinduism, as the personification of nonviolence, peacefulness and apoliticality, hardly corresponds to reality.
Religion is not the only cause of political violence, but it is not an entirely innocent and passive victim of the abuse of political activists, deviant groups of religious extremists, or socio-economic or political problems. It is rather one of a whole cluster of independent variables (besides factors of social, economic and political nature), which by mutual interaction give rise to the development of the phenomenon of religious terrorism. Religious rebellions are not newsworthy in history. The real novelty of the current movements is that they represent a new phase in the development of nationalism in a period of a general crisis of secular ideologies and secular nationalism. Religious
nationalism is a reaction to the crisis of the modern secular state, which it however does not intend to destroy, but to reconstruct, and to give it a new source of legitimacy, to cure its ailments by an infusion of moral and social values derived from the common religion. For the movement of religious nationalism it is typical to emphasise national goals and national interests, and at the same time pursue policy marked out by the borders of national states, thus, nationalism clearly outweighs the "civilizing element". Instead of a clash between civilizations a la Huntington [9; 10], we have so far witnessed intense conflicts between two types of nationalism within individual states or civiliza-tional circles [14: 201].
Religion, which stands apart from the state and its monopoly on the legitimate violence, is the only alternative entity capable to convincingly justify killings, and is a permanent source of possible violent opposition to the state. In the case of terrorist groups arising from religious nationalism, we encounter attitudes based on a particular way of seeing and interpreting the world. Although this world may seem peaceful and nonviolent to mainstream society, through the "optics" of militants a conflict is sometimes subtly hidden and insidious, and at other times completely open. Ordinary people have not noticed it or do not want to admit uncomfortable facts for various reasons, and would rather bury their heads in the sand. This optics combines with an expression of cosmic war [11]. What people outside the movement commonly understand only as a partial societal problem or limited political controversy, religious militants see as part of a much broader moral and spiritual struggle not supposing any compromises. Thus, they embed current problems and conflicts into the broader transcendental context and interpret them: (a) as a part of a broader, metaphysical and pan-cosmic conflict between Good and Evil, pure forces of God and impure forces of Satan, order and chaos, light and darkness and/or (b) as a part, a continuation or an outcome of mythological or famous historical battles led by members of a given religion in times that long ago or recently passed. The movements of religious nationalism and militant religious terrorism make their political careers depending on how well and convincingly they identify a variety of "earthly" problems as advancing the dark forces of evil, put them in the context of cosmic war, and popularize this specific way of 'reading' the world.
The alleged duty of every 'true' believer is considered to be taking a stand for the defence of the good against the dark forces of evil. The idea that the world has already been at war for a long time — even if the "corrupt" and secular majority have not noticed that — and that the religious movements are the side attacked and not the aggressor, is based on the concept of the just war; violence is permissible in the case of defence provided all other options are exhausted. These conceptions are present in various forms in every religious tradition, and theological terms justify the use of violence, which would hardly be defensible in times of peace. Therefore, for people outside terrorists' movement terrorist acts are extremely confusing, shocking and unjustifiable, because they undermine the existing peace and non-violent course of the world, from the activist perspective they are regarded as legitimate, responsible and morally commendable efforts to resist the advancing forces of evil in all its forms. Thus, actions in the real
world are conceived through the optics of cosmic war; terror is understood as a „message" to the mainstream society, as an attempt to lead it out of passivity and lethargy, as an attempt to open its eyes by the „shock therapy" and to make it realize that a fierce struggle of God and Satan is under way.
As a rule, the conflicts help disoriented individuals to find their path in the world, and therefore act as a some kind of compass providing them information on about 'who I am', what side I am on (on the side of good, truth, God, etc.), why I suffer or why I am personally unsuccessful; what are the sources of my humiliation and why the whole world and my own life develop in the "wrong direction". Activists describe their awakening as an 'aha' moment: on one hand, this means the end to the confusion and frustration arising from the fact that they absolutely do not understand the world around them; on the other hand, they are somewhat disappointed by the fact that they are quite unable to bring about a similar ,aha' moment in the rest of society.
The optics of cosmic war fulfils a number of functions for religious movements and their members: they morally justify the use of violence regarded as a defence against ongoing aggression. In a period of true peace, the use of violence on the contrary would be unjustifiable, immoral and reprehensible. However, if the world is at war one can stand on the side of either good or evil. This alarmingly blurs the distinction between soldiers and civilians and justifies attacks on civilians. The prism of "cosmic war" also promises final victory in situations that otherwise look completely hopeless and lost in advance. The part of religiously inspired ideologies is a "narration" of the final victory of good, truth or God, and the offer of unimaginable positive changes both in personal and social life. These narrations may be called a "doping of hope", and such movements "rope a dope with the dope of hope".
In such a religiously predefined conflict, it is very difficult to reach a compromise for "Satan" cannot be repaired or "reformed" — only destroyed. In the monumental conflict between good and evil, only the forces of light or darkness, order or chaos can win; these two opposites can hardly coexist over a long period. This uncompromising view results in efforts to fight to the end. Terrorist movements "produce" not only martyrs, but also enemies. An enemy is easily identifiable in situations where people experience oppression and injustice; otherwise it must be "made". Regarding the selection of targets and the timing of attacks Juergensmeyer states the centrality of space and time [12: 120—139]. The sites with a strong symbolic meaning are chosen as targets; attacks occur at moments, which underline their importance. Choice of place and time fits into the religious terrorists' logic of interpreting the world, while at the same time acts are stage-managed as an engaging theatre with the aim of provoking such terror that the real power of the perpetrators is over-estimated. The media mediate acts of violence to a historically unprecedented large audience in an unprecedentedly quick time. For much of history such events were known only to a limited group of people (for instance to members of the government, authorities and the police, or to immediate witnesses). Today a global audience has been created, and it is increasingly the intended audience of terrorists.
The perpetrators of these attacks usually do not consider themselves as terrorists and reject this label. They rather declare themselves as militants, freedom fighters, etc., and they call their actions martyrdom missions or defensive actions [8]. Whether violence is understood as legitimate or not (then it is commonly called terrorism) it is derived from the general view of the world and its interpretation. If people are convinced that peace is priority, then violence is shocking and considered terrorism. On the contrary, if they share the belief that there is a war — perhaps in hidden forms — they regard acts of violence as legitimate and justifiable, and a terrorist can be considered a freedom fighter or a fighter for truth.
Pape [21], when analyzing terrorists organizational logic, implicitly uses the theory of rational choice. Terrorists and their opponents in his interpretation act as homo eco-nomicus; the principles of the economic world also function in the non-economic one. Both sides of the conflict are rational and pursue their interests. At the same time, they look for the most effective strategies to minimize their costs and maximize revenues. According to Pape, all suicide campaigns are mainly a response to the foreign military occupation, but not all such occupations result in suicide terrorism — only if democracies are a target. This is a strategic choice because they are perceived as "soft", more vulnerable than dictatorships, where, due to the censorship, campaigns do not gain the same amount of publicity. The public has a low threshold of tolerance of the suffering and economic costs associated with the continuation of the occupation. Furthermore, it is highly equipped through elections and civil liberties to influence political decisions and thus force the withdrawal of troops. Therefore terrorism aims at punishing voters, who are perceived as co-responsible for the current situation. In addition, it is assumed that democracies will not wreak revenge too cruelly on civilians.
There is an extensive literature on the psychology of terrorists. Deductive approaches to the specific personality profile or abnormality of terrorists are summarized by Michail Treblin [24; 28]. By contrast, John Horgan [8] expresses doubts about this, and on the basis of extensive empirical research among convicted terrorists proves the hypothesis of the existence of "terrorist personality" recently challenged by, for example, Jurij Antonian [1] or the analysis for the British secret service MI6 [26]. Juergensmeyer too refutes the common assumption that perpetrators are psychologically abnormal individuals, psychopaths or sadists, taking pleasure in violence, etc. In most cases, they are mentally absolutely normal individuals living an "orderly" life, and respected in the neighbourhood. Robert Pape adds that suicide terrorism is neither the result of irrational behaviour in the heat of passion nor the desire for revenge and retribution for perceived wrongs or casualties, but the result of a rational calculus of organizations that pursue political goals and select the most effective means to achieve them.
Indeed, all attempts to convincingly demonstrate any relationship between terrorism and marginalization have failed [12—14]. According to Pape [21; 22], terrorists are far from being peripheral alienated radicals. They are also mostly not religious fanatics who are eager for martyrdom as a ticket to paradise. And they are not n an extreme minority isolated from the moderate majority who condemn violence. Without the support of
the wider community, organizations would not be able to maintain their suicidal campaigns for an extended period. They need a steady supply of volunteers, the agreement and material support from the community. Terrorists are recruited from a wide range of social groups, including both university graduates and illiterates, parents with families as well as singles, unemployed and people with promising careers, both men and women, from 13-year old children to mature woman in their fifties. On top of that, suicide terrorism tends to occur rather in moderate-income countries than in those that are truly poor.
The personal motives for participation in suicide missions also have nothing in common with ordinary suicides despite the fact that we adopt the cliché "'suicide assassins", because we meet with it most frequently in peacetime and are unable otherwise to explain such an extreme and incomprehensible act. Robert Pape argues that terrorists are more likely to be altruists who sacrifice for their community, like soldiers in a war for the defence of their unit or homeland [21: 171—198]. An altruistic individual prefers the interests of the whole over his private interests. The greater value he attributes to his community, the more willingly he makes sacrifices for it. If the community approves the martyrdom cult and sacrifices in the form of suicide missions, and if the individual can earn posthumous prestige and the recognition of the wider community, altruists have a unique opportunity to sacrifice for their country to become heroes of the nation, and receive posthumous honours and awards.
There is an important mechanism in the preparation of terrorists — their progressing radicalization within the terrorist group, which will eventually result in the determination to carry out an attack. Such groups are generally very heterogeneous in terms of their demographics, psychology and socioeconomic origins. Definitely, they are not unequivocal marginals suffering from social exclusion, unemployment, poverty and a lack of perspective, even though such are sometimes found among them. Individual participants may join spontaneously soccer teams, visit fitness centres, cafes or bookstores. Long-term face-to-face contact is a key for their communication. To some individuals this community also offers a kind of surrogate family, or home, accompanied by a sense of belonging and recognition.
Despite often very strong and cordial relations within groups of militants, it is not easy to keep a long-term uncritical confidence in the activities of the movement and retain high group solidarity. For this reason, these organizations often create communities isolated from the rest of the world, and therefore there are many terrorist attacks intended for an internal audience, to restore the unity of the movement or group, to increase influence within the group, or to demonstrate to members that it makes sense to keep on fighting. In other words, many terror acts are not the result of the strength, but on the contrary of the crisis or absolute collapse of the movement (e.g. after signing of peace agreements).
Pape calls the first stage of terrorist group formation "filtering"; the second phase is the "discovery" that despite their diversity they have a common interest, which be-
comes the lowest denominator of most of their conversations — outrage over the military occupation of the "homeland". The third phase is "cutting off" from the neighbourhood — they spend more and more time together, limiting their contacts with the outside world and isolating themselves from previous social ties (reject wives, parents, colleagues, friends, etc.). They often rent a flat together; they exchange messages, talk late at night and mutually reinforce their resentment over the behaviour of the enemy and supposed sympathy for its victims. The last phase is the "determining" often provoked by a strong event and leading to the decision to abandon idle talk and come up with a clearly scheduled action [23]. On the basis of joint actions and demonstrated bravery the individual gains recognition and positive self-assertion. The high social cohesion and solidarity of the group and its sense of "brotherhood" is manifested in actions of increased bravery and heroism due to which the individual is willing to sacrifice for others.
At the same time there comes a significant authorization through symbols. The shared idea of cosmic war does not only contribute to strengthening the cohesion of the terrorist group, but also becomes a source of self-respect and positive self-evaluation, through which individuals can feel like real soldiers participating in the key historical and metaphysical conflict, fighting on the right side of the barricades to defend truth, goodness and God against the advancing forces of lie, darkness and evil. They have a chance to change the current direction of world history and their own lives. The feeling of dissatisfaction with one's life is quite common to anyone; the opportunity to participate in the fight against evil on the side of God may seem a very attractive way to do something about it.
With some simplification we can describe terrorism and especially its suicidal form not only as a specific form of struggle, but also — metaphorically speaking — as a "slap in the face" of the civilized Western world, as an effort to challenge, shake and undermine the stability and the patterns of life in modern society. According to Norbert Elias, all features of civilization can develop only in a pacified society, under the stable state monopoly on the means of violence. The phenomena we consider develop in the situation when such stabilized monopoly is missing, struggles for power are taking place, or there are efforts to demonstrate its weakness and ineffectiveness. Terrorism is a significant and currently widespread tool of these struggles. At the same time, it has consequences, which in Elias' interpretation are associated with the concept of psycho-genesis. Terrorism wants to influence not only the power system of society, but also the collective psyche of large groups and parts of the population. In this sense, the task of terror is to create a sort of theatre of horror to shake the stable patterns of the modern civilized world. With such a goal, terrorist actions are rationally designed, staged and performed. The two-sided impact of terrorist activities — power-social and individual-psychological — confirms the belief of Norbet Elias that these two levels are interdependent.
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ТЕРРОРИЗМ КАК УГРОЗА ЗАПАДНОЙ ЦИВИЛИЗАЦИИ
И. Шубрт, К. Черны
Кафедра исторической социологии Карлов университет ул. У Криже, 8, Прага 5, Чехия, 15800
В статье обозначены ключевые научные подходы к изучению феномена терроризма в современном мире, в основе которых лежат такие понятия, как «(де)модернизация», «(рас)цивилизо-вывание», «религиозное возрождение», рациональные экономические цели религиозных движений под лозунгами «справедливой войны» или «космической войны» с силами зла. Статья начинается с обращения к работам Н. Элиаса, посвященным цивилизационным процессам и формированию современного государства как умиренного общества, однако эти работы оставляют за рамками рассмотрения проблему насилия. По мнению авторов, существует несколько возможностей дополнить теорию Элиаса проблематикой насилия: (а) определение тенденций расцивилизовывания и критериев идентификации соответствующих процессов; (б) обозначение роли и значения жестокого насилия в жизни современного общества; (в) выстраивание связной многоэлементной картины террора, особенно самоубийственного терроризма, т.е. описание его причин, проявлений и последствий. Авторы согласны с С.Ф. Хантингтоном в том, что мы живем в мире, где постоянно возрастает риск межцивилизационных конфликтов и культурных противоречий, корни которых лежат в религиозных традициях (по сути, речь идет о реполитизации религии и религиозном национализме — они стремятся инкорпорировать постулаты традиционной религии в политическую деятельность). Авторы приходят к выводу, что современный терроризм, особенно его самоубийственные формы, — это не просто особый вид (политической) борьбы, но также, если использовать метафорические конструкции, «пощечина» западному цивилизованному миру, попытка испытать на прочность и разрушить стабильные основания жизни современного общества. Причем терроризм стремится повлиять не только на политическую систему, но и на коллективную психику больших социальных групп и общностей, чтобы создать своеобразный театр ужаса, используя для этого рационально отобранные, просчитанные и апробированные средства насилия.
Ключевые слова: терроризм; самоубийственный терроризм; расцивилизовывание; религиозные движения; религиозный национализм; причины и последствия терроризма; идентичность террориста; западная цивилизация.
