Session 2: Us as the Enemy: Jihadism and the Strategic Narrativeof Anti-Westernism

Katja Kristina Theodorakis

PhD Research Scholar at the Australian National University / Programme Manager for Foreign/Security Policy and Counterterrorism, Konrad-Adenauer Foundation’s Regional Programme Australia and Pacific

In today’s hyper-connected Information Age, the ultimate battle space is over our beliefs, narratives, and ways of viewing the world… ¹

‘At the beginning of the 21st century, we are looking back on nearly a century of wars in various shapes and sizes—hot and cold, from two world wars and large inter-state wars to civil wars, small wars and insurgencies. As the nature of warfare has changed, so has the type of enemy, as well as the visions that give rise to, and sustain, conflicts. This is fittingly captured in a photo exhibition titled Targets, for which the German artist Herlinde Koelbl travelled around the world taking photographs of military practicing targets. Across Europe, the US as well as the Middle East, Africa, China, Russia, Turkey and Israel, the enemy is represented quite differently, reflecting not only variations in socio-economic status but also highlighting how the enemy is imagined differently by each country and over time.

‘In the US for example, Koelbl found that earlier Cold War figures of “Ivan with a red star on his helmet” had been replaced by a replica Middle Eastern town, complete with golden-domed mosques, market stalls, vendors and shoppers. In this way, those targets tell the story of the ever-evolving dynamics of warfare—in particular the changing face of the enemy, how that is imagined and represented.²

‘In order to fully grasp the current threat landscape and anticipate future violence and instability, it is imperative to understand the key forces shaping contemporary conflicts, including what motivates our opponents. As former FBI Special Agent Ali Soufan admonishes in his book Anatomy of Terror:

… after 15 years of the war on terrorism, we still do not know our enemy in a deeper sense… being able to see the world through their eyes….not to create sympathy for them... but to [obtain] a deeper understanding of their worldview, their motivations and how to best combat the destructive reality they represent.³

‘This paper will therefore focus on two elements that—based on my research on the appeal of anti-Westernism and jihadi ideology—constitute an important driver of today’s political violence: extremist identity dynamics; and the targeted use of narratives to gain legitimacy. In particular, it will highlight how jihadists adhere to a worldview and version of history where the West is constructed as a morally corrupt enemy—against whom jihadis position themselves as ethical actors bringing about a more just world. This means stepping outside of the conventional frames through which we view violent extremist ideology and jihadi terrorism in order to facilitate a deeper grasp of their rationale. In particular, we should try to avoid reductionist assessments based on stereotypes of the East, the so-called Orient, as the West’s inferior, underdeveloped “other”. As Patrick Porter noted in his book Military Orientalism: Eastern War Through Western Eyes:

Westerners have made accurate insights into others’ warfare, and they have also made distorted judgments about enemies, judgments which reflect the Western self-image refracted through Orientalism.⁴

Exploring why their message continues to resonate even when you kill their leaders and destroy their caliphate is crucial to being able to do something about it, beyond reactive and ill-informed band-aid approaches.

‘Military theorists and security scholars have grappled with the question of whether we live in a post-Clausewitz era of “new wars”, where traditional geopolitical and ideological considerations are made obsolete by identity politics as the main drivers of war.⁵ Similarly, the concept of “hybrid wars” is supposed to capture the new form of warfare that, alongside conventional operations, includes terrorism, insurgency, criminality and extensive psychological/information operations.⁶ Regardless of whether one fully subscribes to new paradigms and simplified labels like “new wars” and “information wars” as adequate classifications, it can be ascertained that in today’s wars, control of populations, legitimacy and the political decision- making process are more important than seizing and holding territory in the conventional sense.⁷

‘And this is where understanding violent extremist ideology comes in as a crucial part of being prepared for the future. The early 21st century has been marked by a rise in violent extremist radicalization—both Islamist as well as far-right extremism.⁸ As such, these two ideologies are based on the same sociological dynamics and in fact feed off each other, with a fear of Islamist- inspired terror attacks spiking the appeal of far-right extremism.

‘Especially during times of global political insecurity, extremist groups appeal through their promises of certainty via a clearly defined identity vis-à-vis existential adversary. In fact, all the big “-isms”—ideological programs for a universal political order like Soviet communism, fascism, jihadism and even liberalism—are premised on the existence of an enemy; an “us-versus-them” identity-dynamic that sustains them.

‘There are various definitions of extremist politics, but a key element should be this in-group/out-group mentality, which is at the core of what constitutes violent extremism.⁹ Depending on the type of extremism, this enemy is either a racial traitor or a moral/religious one.

‘Since 9/11, significantly more media attention has been given to Islamist extremism than right-wing extremism, to the point that, in mainstream discourse, terrorism is almost exclusively equated with jihadism. With the attraction of a fully functional caliphate in the Middle East faded, the numbers of jihadi sympathizers and violent Islamist extremists in Australia and other Western nations are now decreasing. At the same time, far- right extremist ideologies are gaining traction, yet right-wing violence is often not classified as terrorism in the media.¹⁰ It is therefore crucial to acknowledge that focusing on Islamist violent extremism alone would distort an assessment of the contemporary terrorism threat landscape.

‘This bias notwithstanding, in this paper I will just address jihadism. This is because, as a transnational revolutionary movement it still constitutes an ongoing serious security threat, and will in all likelihood remain a significant driver of political violence—in the Asia-Pacific region as well as globally. A recent report by the UN Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team estimated that there could be between 20 000 to 30 000 Islamic State (IS) fighters left in the Middle East. Playing a long game, the Islamic State has shown it can exist in different forms in different places, moving to more clandestine modes of operation if necessary.¹² Their current pattern has been to establish themselves in ungoverned spaces through exploiting local tensions and grievances with a mix of revolutionary warfare, insurgent and gangster tactics.¹³ Likewise, being driven by the same long-term goals—just operating in a slightly less brutal way—al Qaeda currently has over twenty local franchises internationally. It brands itself as a resurging moderate extremist movement, a salafi-jihadi-vanguard representing a measured alternative to IS’ brutalized version of jihad.¹⁴

‘In this era of increased connectivity, finding ways to counter such networked global insurgencies is therefore a shared vulnerability and common challenge for all partners across the region and one important step is to make sense of jihadi’s cultural narratives—their self-understanding and construction of ‘us as an enemy’—as well as how they are strategically employing these narratives as part of the dynamics of modern war.

‘Common conceptualizations of jihadism usually focus on its seemingly totalitarian, hyper-violent tenets and its fundamentalist religious character, which stand in direct opposition to the values and ethics we hold dear in our societies: pluralism, peace, tolerance, justice and the rule of law. So obviously when we are confronted by images of planes being flown into the World Trade Center’s twin towers, terror attacks in the streets of Europe or the Islamic State’s horrific beheadings, executions and slavery, all we see is inhumane violence threatening our security and very order. But this is a rather one-dimensional assessment.

‘For example, renowned terrorism scholar Thomas Hegghammer speaks out against such reductionist understandings by drawing attention to the wider culture surrounding military identities, highlighting the need to pay attention to the way insurgents express meaning through their non-militant practices, such as poetry or dream interpretation.¹⁵

‘Widening our perspective in this way is paramount to getting the full picture. An often overlooked but crucial element of jihadi ideology is its warrior ethos: Islamist extremism—alongside its violence—also contains the vision of a better world through spiritual and political transformation. As a whole, jihadism can be seen as a global insurgent movement with an enduring politico-religious resistance identity and utopian ambitions to set history right.¹⁶ As such, its reason for existence is to fight until it has overthrown the perceived “Godless”, morally corrupt, Western order. It is, despite its fundamentalist character, a deeply modern movement, a revolutionary “political religion” with a transcendental, spiritual and “ethical” core.¹⁷ Individual motivations vary, of course, and there are different typologies of jihadi actors and foreign fighters. But as a general characteristic, violent Islamist extremists think they are the heroes on the world stage, that they are the noble warriors and we are the villains; the enemy to be killed.

‘Accordingly, the caliphate is seen by adherents as a reverse account of the present: justice instead of injustice, equality instead of inequality, Muslims as strong and powerful instead of oppressed and victimized. And precisely because justice and equality are generally desirable ideals, they have an empowering, almost altruistic appeal. So, in a reversal of Orientalist constructions of the Middle East—what is called Occidentalism—the West is seen as the anti-human; the morally corrupt enemy of civilization.¹⁸

‘The following poem by a foreign fighter in Syria is testament to this deeply- held vision of a better world. This example, as many others, depicts a world in which the West is the oppressor and those Muslims answering the call to violent jihad are revolutionary freedom fighters; the defenders of the weak. This means that the violence is revolutionary and symbolic. In other words, it represents the cornerstone of a new, better order; jihad mobilizes through an emotional mix of history, religion and politics.

In the Name of Allah, The Most Beneficiant [sic], The Most Merciful.

Why are we the terrorists, extremists, bad guys when we came to answer the call of the oppressed?

Our brothers were being slaughtered, and our sisters forcefully undressed.

Red lines were made, but written only in the sand.

But how can one try and clean, while using a dirty hand. It has been made clear, that Muslim blood is cheap,

But if the blood was black, you would see the leaders weep.

So when the world ignored the Muslims being killed,

The soldiers of Allah came, and the blessed lands of Sham they filled.

We do not want power, but wish to put power where it belongs, No laws made by man, as our Creator has stated the rights & wrongs.

The world has seen how democracy has not given justice the way it claimed it does, the way it is supposed to be, the voice of the people, but actually the leaders still do what they want…¹⁹

‘The Arab journalist Abdel Bari Atwan, who interviewed Osama Bin Laden and authored several books on al Qaeda and the Islamic State, described this perspective as follows:

“IS, like al-Qaeda, is perceived by many Muslims as fighting the ‘crusaders’ who seek to invade and exploit the resources of Muslim lands. And while the West decries IS violence, its rough justice and its subjugation of women, many in the Muslim world are profoundly conscious of the hypocrisy involved here: the death of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi, Afghan, Yemeni and Pakistani citizens in US bombardments and drone strikes; the torture and abuse of Muslim prisoners in US detention facilities like Abu Ghraib… the gang rape and murder of fourteen-year-old Abeer Qassim by five US soldiers, of whom one…when charged, explained his conduct by saying ‘I didn’t think of Iraqis as human’”.²⁰

‘One may not agree with Atwan’s full-frontal critique; it can be argued that he presents an almost polemic view of the root causes of Islamist extremism, which he reduces to inevitable blowback from self-interested Western foreign policy and indifference to the concerns of the Muslim world. However, his perspective is worth highlighting since it reflects a widespread perception in the Muslim world, shared by many who are by no means extremists and would abhor violence in the name of sacred resistance to the West. In this way, the bandwagon of Islamist extremism becomes an easily accessible vehicle for opposing the so-called “illiberal” aspects of liberalism and the perceived hypocrisy of the West in rhetorically upholding democracy and freedom while bringing suffering to the Muslim world. It holds the foreign policies of the West responsible for much human suffering, especially in the war theaters of the Middle East, places like Gaza, Iraq and Syria, and also for the Islamophobia and discrimination of Muslims in Western societies.

‘The fact that in the Islamic State’s and al Qaeda’s oversimplified, polarized version of history, [where] we are the real bad guys, shows that there is a sort of a moral logic behind it: their equivalent of “just war theory”. This also includes a culture of “ethical” violence; they have their own code of honor, militant principles and accessories to go with it. It doesn’t mean war crimes and the most abject atrocities don’t happen, but that it is sanctioned and justified in the name of a “better world”.

‘This narrative of the West as enemy is then further perpetuated through setting an ‘ethical trap’. The strategic objective of jihadist groups like al Qaeda or IS is, despite their terrorist tactics and indiscriminate brutality, to gain recognition from potential followers as a credible, ethical actor in global politics. And for this reason, they try and leverage these sentiments, the perceived “say-do gaps” in our narrative:

‘Their activities, such as suicide bombings, public executions, and other “terrorist” deeds reinforce their status as unethical actors. Subsequently, though, such groups start making use of a different and more reliable source of power. They find this in the reactions of other global actors to their unethical deeds. This happens when great powers are provoked by Al Qaeda and ISIS (Islamic State in Iraq and Syria – i.e. ISIL or IS) to respond in particularly brutal ways, which themselves flout the ethical basis of the global practices… human rights, state sovereignty, the laws of armed conflict, and international law more generally. By doing these things the international actors fall into an ethical trap… These maverick groups are then able to use strategic communications to present themselves as substantially less bad than the major international actors. Indeed, this opens the way for them to recruit people widely to their cause on the grounds that they are legitimate actors, far less ethically suspect than the superpower and its allies. This ethical trapping soon becomes the major source of power for such groups, far outstripping the power directly exercised through terror…²¹

‘For example, by widely publicizing hauntingly graphic images of ‘collateral damage’ from Western drone strikes, jihadi groups seek to expose the hypocrisy of the West, the alleged inhumanity inherent in the liberal order. In turn they position themselves as the legitimate moral agents of a more just world order.

‘Legitimacy, which is crucial to power in world politics, is formed on the basis of how a certain actor and its deeds in the international system are perceived.²² Issues of credibility, perceptions and public opinion are hence central to modern conflict—a shift reflected in the move towards people- centred approaches aimed at winning the support of the local population.

‘Dominating the narrative space is therefore the cognitive version of kinetic superiority in the conventional battlespace, and the two are interlinked and mutually enforcing:

The ‘Battle of the Narrative’ is marked by the efforts of competing nations, coalitions, entities or ideologies to frame the conflict in a manner that influences key audiences to foster support for their actions and political objectives at all levels.

…

Shaping the virtual battlefield and subsequently affecting the physical battlefield and thereby diverse audiences’ and actors’ decision- making processes is therefore of the outmost [sic] importance in modern conflicts...²³

‘Taking place across multiple levels and operating environments, including the cognitive and information domain, today’s conflicts have therefore an important component: as much as war is about political will, it is also about imposing meaning on people through the technological ability to do so. As highlighted by David Kilcullen in Out of the Mountains, non-state actors like rebel and insurgent groups are becoming increasingly empowered by technology, enabling them to disseminate their political narratives strategically to a wider audience in so-called virtual theatres.²⁴ ‘This of course includes moral, legal and psychological/emotional dimensions, with a narrative defined as a system of stories that invokes archetypes, myths and symbols. This way it reflects a society’s values— religious and cultural—and thereby creates shared meanings, identities and a framework through which to understand events and the world around us.²⁵

‘This can, for example, also be seen in the Taliban’s use of narratives, increasingly through social media as well, to win the support of local populations and mobilize new recruits—all of which contributes, alongside their use of violence and coercion, to their staying power in the face of Western military superiority.²⁶

‘Finding evidence of our alleged ‘heartlessness’ and indifference to their suffering is what drives such violent extremist groups and their polarized identity constructions. Until we fully grasp these mechanisms and try to translate these insights into better policy and strategy, we are inherently on the back foot in countering their extremist ideology.

‘As a consequence, the narrative of jihadism—of “us as the enemy”—will, in my estimation, sadly endure for some time simply because the story of a better world resonates on a deeper emotional and—ironically—moral level.

‘Extremism will remain as long as we exclusively focus on eliminating extremists or telling a better story; counter-narrative is not a holy grail. As a result of the dynamics and character of contemporary conflict, land power also serves as part of a wider strategic narrative that can either work for, or against us. The ethical traps laid by extremists who seek to exploit our “say- do gaps” must be avoided at all costs.

‘To effectively counter violent extremism, there needs to be a focus on stripping extremist narratives of their perceived moral power and appeal so that these groups ultimately lose their legitimacy on the world stage. And making their violence pointless can only be achieved through coherent action and concerted efforts amongst partners and across domains.’

Figure 19. Chief of Army, Lieutenant General Rick Burr AO, DSC, MVO, (right) with Chief of New Zealand Army, Major General John Boswell, DSD, test the New Zealand Army’s new MARS-L (Modular Assault Rifle System - Light) weapon. New Zealand maintains close military ties with Australia and the two nations have been allies for over a hundred years fighting side-by-side in almost every conflct since the beginning of the 20th century. (Image: DoD)

Endnotes

1. Jeff Gisea (2017), “Hacking Hearts and Minds: How Mimetic Warfare is Transforming Cyber War”, Open Publications, Volume 1, Number 6, Spring 2017.
2. Sean O’Heagan (2014), “Caught in the Crosshairs: The Woman Who Photographs Shooting Ranges”, The Guardian, June 18, 2014: https://www.theguardian.com/ artanddesign/2014/jun/18/herlinde-koelbl-targets-photography-war
3. Ali Soufan (2017), Anatomy of Terror: From the Death of Bin Laden to the Rise of the Islamic State. New York: W.W.Norton & Company, Inc.
4. Patrick Porter (2009), Military Orientalism: Eastern War Through Western Eyes. London: Hurst and Company, p. 23.
5. Mary Kaldor (2013), “In Defence of New Wars”, Stability: International Journal of Security and Development, Vol. 2, No. 1, https://www.stabilityjournal.org/ articles/10.5334/sta.at/
6. Lawrence Freedman (2017), The Future of War: A History, New York: Public Affairs
7. Emile Simpson (2013), War from the Ground Up – Twenty-First Century Combat as Politics. New York: Oxford University Press; Thomas Elkjer Nissen (2015), #TheWeapenizationOfSocialMedia - @Characteristics_of_Contemporary_Conflicts. Copenhagen: Royal Danish Defence College, pp. 222-229.
8. Violent extremism is of course not confined to these two ideologies but can be rooted in many different worldviews, as was highlighted by the recent execution of members of the Aum Shinrikyo Sect who were responsible for the 1995 sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway.
9. JM Berger (2017), “Extremist Constructions of Identity: How Escalating Demands for Legitmacy Shape In-and Out-group”, ICCT Research Paper, April 2017
10. Kavita Bedford (2017), “ The Evolving Threat of Violent Extremism”, The Point Magazine, November 2017, http://www.thepointmagazine.com.au/post.php?s=2017- 11-29-the-evolving-threat-of-violent-extremism; David Wroe (2018), “ASIO Seeing Fewer Young Australian Jihadists”, The Sydney Morning Herald, August 2 2018, https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/asio-seeing-fewer-young-austral…- 20180802-p4zv4h.html
11. http://www.soufangroup.com/intelbrief-the-challenging-math-of-islamic-s…
12. Craig Whiteside (2016), “The Islamic State and the Return of Revolutionary Warfare”, Small Wars and Insurgencies, Vol. 27, No. 5, pp. 743-776. Haroro Ingram & Craig Whiteside (2017), “In Search of the Virtual Caliphate: Convenient Fallacy, Dangerous Distraction”, War on the Rocks, https://warontherocks.com/2017/09/in-search-of-the- virtual-caliphate-convenient-fallacy-dangerous-distraction/
13. At the same time, it has to be noted that such assessments of their future trajectory do not mean that the Islamic State is a menace reaching into all corners of the globe. This would be overestimating their capacity as many so-called affiliates are inherently nationalist insurgencies and separatist movements with their own local causes. To conflate a wide variety of Muslim rebellions of diverse ethnicities into one coherent global foe can unwillingly inflate the threat perception and thereby play into IS’ propaganda aims. But despite this note of caution, global jihadism in its various forms is still a contemporary reality. So-called ‘glocal dynamics’ – indicating an enmeshment of a global jihadi ideology with local causes- characterizes many violent Islamist movements in the Asia-Pacific. See for example Isaac Kfir (2018), “Terrorism in the Indo-Pacific: Glocalism Comes of Age”, ASPI Special Report, May 2018, https://s3-ap- southeast-2.amazonaws.com/ad-aspi/2018-05/SR%20119%20Terrorism%20in%20 the%20Indo-Pacific.pdf?pjvDAkq9HFIV13KNpGJND3V1gsG2xpCi
14. Bruce Hoffman (2018), “The Resurgence of Al Qaeda”, Lowy Interpreter, 13 March 2018, https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/resurgence-al-qaeda
15. Thomas Hegghammer (ed.) (2017), Jihadi Culture: The Art and Social Practices of Militant Islamists, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
16. Farhad Khroskhokavar (2016), Inside Jihadism: Understanding Jihadi Movements Worldwide. London and New York: Routledge
17. John Gray (2017), Al Qaeda and What it Means to Be Modern, Updated Edition. London: Faber and Faber.
18. Gabriele Marranci (2015), Wars of Terror. London, New York: Bloomsbury Academic
19. Originally sourced from the fighter’s previously blog, material now removed from the internet.
20. Abdel Bari Atwan (2015), “When it Comes to ‘Islamic State’, the West just Doesn’t Get It”, Open Democracy, 9 July 2015, https://www.opendemocracy.net/north-africa-west- asia/abdel-bari-atwan/when-it-comes-to-%E2%80%98islamic-state%E2%80%99- west-just-doesn%E2%80%99t-get-it
21. Mervyn Frost & Nicholas Michelsen (2017), “Strategic Communications in International Relations: Practical Traps and Ethical Puzzles”, Journal of Defence Strategic Communications, Volume 2, Spring 2017. NATO Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence.
22. Bary Buzan (2009), Peoples, States and Fear – An Agenda for International Security Studies in the Post-Cold-War Era, 2nd Edition. Colchester, UK: ECPR Press.
23. Thomas Elkjer Nissen (2013), “ The Ever Changing Narrative of Conflict – How the Role of War Narratives Changes from Mobilizing for the Battle of Perceptions to Influencing History”, pp. 73-83 in Democracy Managers (Ed. by Carsten Jensen). Royal Danish Defence College.
24. David Kilcullen (2013), Out of the Mountains – The Coming Age of the Urban Guerilla. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
25. Alex P Schmid (2014), “Al-Qaeda’s ‘Single Narrative’ and Attempts at Counter- Narratives: The State of Knowledge”, ICCT Research Paper, January 2014.
26. Thomas Johnson (2017), Taliban Narratives: The Use and Power of Stories in the Afghanistan Conflict. Oxford: Oxford University Press.