By: Agio Pereira
Topic
 |
| Agio Pereira “Why does non-state political violence occur and under what circumstances might it be justified." Abstract |
Wars and terror have occurred time and again; and much of the violence is justified as 'for the sake of common good'. The interest of the majority is at stake, so the perpetrators may argue. Within the confinement of modern states, political violence may be justified in the spectrum of 'for the sake of common good'. The Constitution and laws both justify and limit the use of political violence. However, as states become dysfunctional because of its inability to deliver services and protection to its citizens and, instead, the state becomes a constant barrier for the fulfilment of the hierarchy of needs of its citizens, the ultimate power of the state to legally use violence is challenged, both, by its citizens as well as by the international community, including the United Nations. The responsibility to protect or R2P may be called upon, as we have now seen, for the first time, in the case of Libya; so the citizens can, under certain circumstances, acquire decisive support to destroy their government and the prevailing political regime. In this situation the social contract becomes null and void. A new social contract is needed in order to sustain governance and make it possible for the state to sustain and exercise its rightful sovereignty. The road to peace, however, is never easy. Regimes and long established states, often disregard the power of public opinion - national and international. With a planet of more than seven billion people, with many so well connected through rapid and universal communications, including the widespread availability of means of violence, it becomes extremely difficult for regimes to survive against the will of their peoples. Those acting on behalf of states and come face-to-face with those they identified and fight against in the spirit of 'war on terror' may realise, as many Americans did in Iraq, that these 'are people like us', with the same goal of living in peace, freedom and free from fear. They fear their 'faraway enemy' as well as their 'nearby enemy'. In the end, crossing the same path in life can produce only two outcomes: either you become friends or enemies. The choice is simple. Coexistence and making government viable are critical ingredients for any solution because government, as Kenneth Waltz posits in his seminal work "Man, the State and War", is ultimately 'a precondition of society'.
Keywords: non-state actors, terrorism, the state, government, social contract, war on terror, violence, R2P, revolution, protests, social justice.
Introduction
If it is true that humans are ‘born to be good’[1] then the ‘hierarchy of needs’[2] is what can derail the need to produce ‘high jen’[3] which is, in turn, is replaced by violence. Hence, the occurrence of non-state political violence is common feature; and since state emerged as an entity, groups have resorted to violence to achieve political goals. Some forms of violence are seen as terrorism[4] or simply acts espoused by criminals. Liberation movements striving for political independence are seen as using justified violence, at least, under international law.[5] In the sixties, during the era of empires and colonialism, groups of people, from Africa, Asia and South America, organised into liberation movements to end European Empires.[6] One by one, empires crumbled and new nation-states emerged.[7] But these movements were legally accepted under the United Nations’ principle of inalienable right of peoples to self-determination. During WWII, countries like China fought to expel Japan and end its occupation; Indonesia also fought to expel its colonial power, the Netherlands, and gained ‘sovereign power’.[8] More recently, East Timor[9] also fought to end almost a quarter of a century of Indonesian occupation to become a sovereign state. Since 2001, after the United States’ declaration of the ‘War on Terror’[10] and the ‘Executive Order 13224’[11] to ‘block the assets of any foreign individuals or entities engaging in or otherwise supporting terrorism’,[12] terrorism and counterinsurgency occupy much of the concerns pertaining to global security. The notion of ‘asymmetric warfare’,[13] although far from new, becomes one of expert dilemmas; and strong states, including the only current superpower, the United States of America, struggle to come to terms with the resilience of non-state actors of violence. Counterinsurgency becomes the war to overcome, effectively challenging conventional security philosophies based on military strategies,[14] with the prospect of insurgencies winning, by forcing the enemy to reach its ‘breaking point’.[15] To respond to non-state political violence, such as the Taliban in Afghanistan, for example, there is a need to contemplate avenues beyond military force, respond to cultural, religious and tribal perspectives of politics and ensure that development overcomes the drawbacks of military actions.[16] Political violence becomes enmeshed with religion, social injustice, corruption and unemployment. Solutions are put forward, books are written, but the problem remains one of the most intricate challenges of the post Cold War era. This short essay will not present an exhaustive spectrum of the problem, but will attempt to look into why non-state political violence occurs and under what circumstances might it be justified.
State’s monopoly of force and genesis of non-state political violence
Concepts, justification and limitation
Justification, on the other hand, requires ‘social contract’, legal frameworks and ‘organized mechanism to ensure compliance with the law’. Social contract is based on ‘fair exchange’[19] whereby ‘sensible people would be prepared to give up their natural freedom and right to enforce their own rights, and submit to the rule of the state’.[20] Justification evolved into a Constitution - the legal foundation of public authority and the State’s monopoly on the use of force for the sake of common weal. However, limitations require a codified entitlement and this derives from collective constitutional decisions.[21]
Beyond boundaries, State sovereignty becomes another limitation. The State may impose its legally established rules within its own territory, but not beyond. This is regulated by ‘the general rules of public international law’.[22] States may go to war to protect its sovereignty, but UN Charter provides for member states to refrain from violating the sovereignty of another.[23] Nevertheless, globalisation increasingly underestimates national laws and institutions, including the ‘supranational law’ of the EU. The World Trade Organisation, ‘voluntary commitment’ and evolving ‘norms of transnationals commercial law’[24] keep this power of globalisation in check.
Non-state violence: when is it political?
The state is a juridical entity which exists to provide protection and security to all those living within its national territory and legal jurisdiction. In some circumstances, this duty to protect may be exercised beyond its territorial boundaries, acting alone or with other states. Within its national boundaries, the state enacts laws to ensure prevalence of the accepted norms. The expectations are enshrined in the Constitution, the social contract, which the state’s existence is based upon. The state thus acquire its legal foundation to retain exclusive ‘monopoly of the legitimate use of force,’[25] when justified under the principle of common weal, to suppress violence perpetrated by its own citizens, using ‘the severest means at its disposal – that of criminal law’,[26] if necessary. To ensure systematic result, the state establishes the criminal justice system which encompasses the police, the courts and the prisons. These institutions act in syntony to ensure that those who are caught acting against the rule of law shall be punished. Punishment is expected to also act as deterrence for others to behave according to the accepted norms; and to condemn and control those acting in a deviant manner, outside the boundaries of what society has determined as legal.
However, as democratisation evolves the phenomenon of violence within the states and beyond boundaries is closely being monitored and studied. As violence becomes widespread and non-state actors effectively challenge the exclusive monopoly of the state in the use of violence, also ‘in the interest of the public weal’,[27] the attempt to discriminate what is political violence and what is merely non-political violence becomes blurred. Determining ‘what constitutes violence is a high-risk undertaking’ because the liberal democratic world is now ‘in an age when moral, sexual, educational, and legal standards of values are being abandoned, or at least widely relaxed’,[28] thus making it easier for definitions to commit ‘the overstepping of boundaries’[29] mistake.
Nevertheless, structural problems enshrined in the nature of the state may directly impact on the course of violence – at individual and group levels. John Burton sees historical root of violence in ‘the we-they, interest-oriented power relationships’,[30] even ‘in the most democratic and economically developed of countries’.[31] Peter Imbusch adds that violence ‘is omnipresent, a largely contingent phenomenon, and its ubiquity is independent of a particular cultural area. We encounter violence everywhere, in matters large and small, at national and international level’.[32] Therefore, political violence is not only part of living, but has always been there, present in human interactions, in various forms and circumstances. Eve more so perhaps, when humans evolved to constitutes communities and societies where close interaction creates opportunities for both, peace and conflict.
Politics and political, changing societies and thinking
The gap between the rich and the poor is increasing. This phenomenon occurs everywhere, even in healthy and powerful economies; and liberal democracies. Social equity is not the common feature of democracy, albeit it constitutes a constant ideal and morally bound political goal to be pursued.[33] In addition, equitable distribution of wealth of a state can mitigate violence which undermines the legitimacy of democratic institutions and those in power. To ascertain why violence occurs within the confinement of a state, whereby citizens defy the legal structures of suppression of violence, one may have to adopt the perspective that the nation and the state are not necessarily in tune with each other. In his analysis of the illusory community, pertaining to the Nation, Ross Poole contends that ‘the social space created by the market’,[34] the family, the country and the state,[35] are part of or an extension of individual self-fulfilment.[36] It is possible that when the person is not capable of ‘accommodating the requirements of societies’,[37] alienation increases and the person may resort to violence against the barriers perceived as making life unnecessarily very difficult. This reflects what Burton also contends, that ‘people as individuals and as members of communities do not necessarily behave as is expected of good citizens in divided[38] societies, not because of a lack of social consciousness, but through an inherent inability to accept alienation,[39] which results from a genetic need for social integration’.
However, ‘adequate restraints on the human passion’[40] are needed ‘to insure that peace is likewise maintained’. Maintaining peace is forever a huge challenge for all states, big and small. Peace, not in the sense of heavenly order, but in terms of harmonious environment where all can strive for what they can to satisfy the hierarchy of needs. As resources are most often than not insufficient to provide for all to effectively work toward satisfying all the needs, sacrifice is needed. As sacrifice becomes more and more of a system of normality rather than exceptional situation, tension heightened and conflicts arise. Mitigating this process is a duty of the state, but the monopoly of the legal use of force can never be the solution.
Justification of political violence
It is reasonable to assert that ‘emerging conditions, especially population increases, rapid and universal communications and the widespread availability of means of violence, are making it increasingly difficult for authorities to impose traditional institutional norms that frustrate human aspirations’.[41] Nevertheless, justification of non-state political violence lies on the imprisonment of human aspirations beyond the range of tolerance within which such aspirations can be contained. In the current global security environment and, particularly since the end of the Cold War, non-state actors of political violence constitute high risk and threats the states face. Therefore, formulating appropriate response is a constant need the state cannot ignore. The security environment is now affected by multipolarity of forces and interests and, consequently, the sates are now more flexible in deciding who should be their strategic ally. This makes asymmetric warfare a more complex phenomenon to counter, as the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq testify. The current wave of ‘revolutions’ against governments in the Middle East, for example, bring about the scenario of citizens of the state challenging the legitimacy of their tyrants’ decades-old regimes which nurtured injustice in terms of poverty,[42] corruption and unemployment. These regimes also succeeded in maintaining control on power because the apparatus established by the dictatorship to curb dissidents became effective in curbing the democratic demands and aspirations of their own citizens.
Violence, thus, tend to be associated with injustice in terms of systematic breach of fairness. Such an injustice, seen and encapsulated into the realms of political struggle, strike the cord of political violence, as a legitimate mean to provoke change for the better, to replace injustice for the sake of common weal. And violence in the form of revolution, not conventional war, means politics is ‘the principal instrument’,[43] not the traditional military way. Even in Libya, where Muammar al-Qaddafi believed he has created ‘the most democratic country in the world, a land where, he thinks, Rousseau’s “General Will” has been given genuine expression’,[44] its people refuse to continue to provide legitimacy and adopts non-state political violence to end his regime and provoke his death. Libyan elite refused to concede power easily and made use of the state’s monopoly of force to dictate their way,[45] but, ultimately, the will of the people, as history has shown time and again, prevailed. Libya and the death of al-Qaddafi also mark the first time the United Nations proclaimed ‘responsibility to help’ or R2P was put into practice. For some, this foreign military intervention was the right thing to do. For others, the legal grounds to justify foreign intervention are shaky. It is, therefore, certain, that the justification for military intervention under the guise of R2P will continue to be a heated debate in the international realms. The developments in Syria can be a good litmus test. If the election in Egypt proves to be unsatisfied and unfair to the needs of the protesters, the ‘unfinished revolution’ in Egypt may evolve towards an environment where non-state actors decide to organise differently to eliminate the foundation of the old regime. Adopting more sustained violent tactics may be an option. The question will be whether the international community should intervene, as in Libya, through military means to protect the people.
Revolutions, protests by trade unions and intense public campaigns, national liberation movements and their guerrilla armies, can all be part of acceptable violence, for being violent forces striving for common weal, having justice as the overall goal. Protests against the structural (dis) functionality of the state can easily ‘move in the direction of threat and violence when no progress is made’.[46] When this lack of progress becomes serious political causes, such as the cases of liberation movements and impromptu public outrage against their government, the consciousness of fighting for the nationalism and identity is enhanced. Under such circumstances, ‘widespread violence and terrorism’[47] can replace peaceful protests. And under such a situation, the entire scenario of security reaches a new level of threat, one that brings about deaths and destruction and may become a long-term challenge for the power of the state. As for terrorism, in the context of non-state political violence, the genetic need for social integration is, indeed, an important underlying cause. As Burton posits:
The perception we have of ‘terrorists’ is that of persons who are abnormal and disturbed and who need to be removed from society. Yet in fact they have, typically, more than average intelligence, but frequently have been deprived of educational and career opportunities. The role their activities provide gives them an identity, and the more active they are, the more risks they take, the greater respect they acquire.[48]
Quoting Richard Rubenstein, Burton further observes that ‘One need have very little sympathy for terrorists to insist that they are neither brutes nor devils, but people in many ways like us’.[49] It is, therefore, possible to argue that al Qaeda’s Jihadism as being a case of reconnecting ‘isolated individuals’[50] who ‘rediscovered their ‘religious past’,[51] strengthening their sense of identity and group bonding, as strong as ‘a love affair’ which arises ‘from a network of religious revival, but if the group is exposed to and accepts a militant philosophy, it can become militarised.’[52] The militant jihad promotes violence against, both, its ‘’faraway enemy’[53], which is the United States of America, and its ‘nearby enemy’[54] - the group of ‘corrupt rulers’[55] in the Arabic world, particularly in the Middle East. In addition, converted members of al Qaeda, after having ‘swore bayah - an individual oath of loyalty’,[56] become trusted and entrusted with specific missions against their enemies, thus becoming lethal non-state actors of political violence.
Conclusion
Why non-state violence occurs and under what circumstances can it be justified? First, the state and its rules may not always be ‘user-friendly’. When citizens are alienated because the rules are not helping them meet their hierarchy of needs and the much-needed social integration as dictated by human nature, political violence can become a mean to overcome alienation generated by the weakness of state system. Common weal must, therefore, be always scrutinised, because political violence can mirror two major types of weaknesses: a) failure of the social contract which forms the basis for legitimacy of the state and b) failure to provide appropriate response and real progress to demands pertaining for social justice. Second, history teaches us the lesson that crusaders can be activated as ‘a military response to…terrorist aggression’[57] for the very important needs of identity, religion and territory. Contemporary terrorism can also be the consequence of identity crisis, whereby people feels disenfranchised by the power of the state and adopts political violence to reaffirm identity and worthiness. Hence, under circumstances where non-state actors adopt political violence or direct action, the justification is based on the feelings of those oppressed. Third, since limitation shall be in making the government viable and sensitive to people’s cry for freedom because government is ‘a pre-condition of society’,[58] a real solution must conform to the norms of political compromise, not the use of excessive force by the state to curb violence for violence sake. The same applies to liberation movements striving for national identity and independence, including using political violence which international law constitutes the basis for its justification. The case of the Taliban in Afghanistan, however, comes with enormous complexities;[59] a military occupation in response to terrorism, but concurrent with attempts to meet real development needs and the creation of a viable secular statehood. The violence from both sides of the fence is political, although the violent actions of non-state actor Taliban is said to be terrorism that of the U.S. and allies are said to be counterinsurgency.[60] In the case of Libya dictator against his own people, the attempt to hang on to power was not justified because the regime has lost its legitimacy. Fourth, on global security, one needs not to forget that non-state actors of political violence may not necessarily be responsible for global insecurity.[61] On the contrary, no matter how hard it is to visualise through the lens of legal power, history tells us that they may be ‘perfect soldiers’ to fix it, by getting rid of the causes of insecurity as, again, Libyans have done successfully. Fifth and last, once all said and done, it is really up to those who feel victimised by the perceived ‘best laws’[62] of their country to demonstrate willingness to strike back to overcome victimisation, including resorting to violent political action if necessary. Justification thus correlates with the magnitude of victimisation the non-state actors of political violence believe they have been unbearably and, perhaps, criminally, subjected to.
Reference
Adams, J, The Financing of Terror, Simon & Schuster, New York, USA, 1986
Burton, J, Violence Explained: The Sources of Conflict, Violence, Crime and their Prevention, Manchester University Press, Manchester, USA, 1997
Cashman, G, What Causes War?, Lexington Books, Maryland, USA, 1993
Chesterman, S, Ignatieff, M & Thakur, R, ‘Conclusion: The Future of state-building’, pp.359 -387, in Making States Work – state failure and the crisis of governance, in Chesterman, S, Ignatieff, M & Thakur, R (eds.),United Nations university Press, New York, USA, 2005
Collier, P, The Plundered Planet, Oxford University Press, New York, USA, 2010
Collier, P, The Bottom Billion, Oxford University Press, New York, USA, 2008
Cooper, R, The Breaking of Nations – Order and Chaos in the Twentieth-First Century, Atlantic Books, London, UK, 2004
Galula, D, Counterinsurgency Warfare – Theory and Practice, Praeger Security International, USA, 2006
Green, P & Ward, T, State Crime – Governments, Violence and Corruption, Pluto Press, London, UK, 2004
Grimm, D, ‘The State Monopoly of Force’, in Wilhelm Heitmeyer & John Hagan (eds.), International Handbook of Violence Research, Dordrecht, Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2003
Heitmeyer, W & Hagan, J, ‘Violence: The Difficulties of a Systematic International Review’, in Wilhelm Heitmeyer & John Hagan (eds.), International Handbook of Violence Research, Dordrecht, Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2003
Hobbs, T, On the Citizen, Edited and Translated by Richard Tuck & Michael Silverthorne, Cambridge University Press, 1998
Imbusch, P, ‘The Concept of Violence’, in Wilhelm Heitmeyer & John Hagan (eds.), International Handbook of Violence Research, Dordrecht, Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2003
Judd, D, Questioning Authority – Political Resistance and the Ethic of Natural Science, Transaction Publishers, New Brunswick, USA, 2009
Keltner, D, Born to be Good – The Science of a Meaningful Life, W. W. Norton & Company, New York, USA, 2009
Kepel, G, The War for Muslim Minds- Islam and the West, The Belknap Press of Harvard university Press, Massachusetts, USA,2004
Kilcullen, D, Counterinsurgency, Oxford University Press, New York, USA, 2010
McChrystal, S, ‘Special Address’, International Institute of Strategic Studies, London, UK, 1 October 2009
Moghaddam, F, Global Insecurity, Praeger Security International, Santa Barbara, California, USA, 2010
Poole, R, ‘Morality and Modernity’, Routledge, 1900, London, pp.90-109, in George Mosse, Fallen Soldiers: Re-Shaping the Memory of the World Wars, Oxford University Press, New York, 1990, p.100 -103 (PIC810 Unit Reader, SP1/2011, p.32-3)
Rashid, A, Taliban- Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia, 2nd Ed., Yale University Press, USA, 2010
Record, J, Beating Goliath - Why Insurgencies Win, Potomac Books, Inc., Washington, D.C., USA, 2009
Roshandel, J & Chadha, S, Jihad and International Security, Palgrave Macmillan, New York, USA
Sageman, M, Leaderless Jihad Terror Networks in the Twentieth-First Century, University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, USA, 2008
Stark, R, God’s Battalions – The Case for the Crusaders, Harper One, New York, USA, 2009
Suskind, R, The One Percent Doctrine, Simon & Schuster, NY, USA, 2006
Ucko, D, The New Counterinsurgency Era – Transforming the U.S. Military for Modern Wars, Georgetown University Press, Washington, D.C., USA, 2009
Vattel, E, The Law of Nations, edited by B Kapossy & R Whatmore, Liberty Fund, Indianapolis, USA, 2008
Waltz, K, Man, the State and War- a theoretical analysis, Columbia University Press, New York, USA, 2001
Watson, P & Barber, B, The Struggle for Democracy, W. H. Allen & Co Plc, Canada, 1988
White, J, Terrorism and Homeland Security, 6th Ed., Wadsworth Cengage Learning, California, USA, 2009
[1] D Keltner, Born to be Good – The Science of a Meaningful Life, W. W. Norton & Company, New York, USA, 2009
[5] As in the case of East Timor (Timor-Leste), which after 24 years of war of liberation, gained independence under the protection of the United Nations and International Law
[6] R Cooper, The Breaking of Nations – Order and Chaos in the Twentieth-First Century, Atlantic Books, London, UK, 2004
[8] T Hobbs, On the Citizen, Edited and Translated by Richard Tuck & Michael Silverthorne, Cambridge University Press, 1998, p.89
[11] J Roshandel & S Chadha, Jihad and International Security, Palgrave Macmillan, New York, USA, p.159
[15] J Record, Beating Goliath - Why Insurgencies Win, Potomac Books, Inc., Washington, D.C., USA, 2009, p.67
[16] S McChrystal, ‘Special Address’, International Institute of Strategic Studies, London, UK, 1 October 2009,
[17] D Grimm, ‘The State Monopoly of Force’, in Wilhelm Heitmeyer & John Hagan (eds), International Handbook of Violence Research, Dordrecht, Kluer Academic Publishers, 2003, p.53
[25] S Chesterman, M Ignatieff & R Thakur, ‘Conclusion: The Future of state-building’, pp.359 -387, in Making States Work – state failure and the crisis of governance, in S Chesterman, M Ignatieff & R Thakur (eds.),United Nations university Press, New York, USA, 2005, p.383
[26]D Grimm, ‘The State Monopoly of Force’, in Wilhelm Heitmeyer & John Hagan (eds.), International Handbook of Violence Research, Dordrecht, Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2003, p.1044 (PIC810 Unit Reader, SP1/2011, p.54)
[27] Ibid
[28] Ibid
[29] W Heitmeyer & J Hagan, ‘Violence: The Difficulties of a Systematic International Review’, in Wilhelm Heitmeyer & John Hagan (eds.), International Handbook of Violence Research, Dordrecht, Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2003, p.4 (PIC810 Unit Reader, SP1/2011, )
[30] J Burton, Violence Explained: The Sources of Conflict, Violence, Crime and their Prevention, Manchester University Press, Manchester, USA, 1997, p.22
[32] P Imbusch, ‘The Concept of Violence’, in Wilhelm Heitmeyer & John Hagan (eds.), International Handbook of Violence Research, Dordrecht, Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2003, p.4 (PIC810 Unit Reader, SP1/2011)
[40] D Judd, Questioning Authority – Political Resistance and the Ethic of Natural Science, Transaction Publishers, New Brunswick, USA, 2009, p.52
[43] D Galula, Counterinsurgency Warfare – Theory and Practice, Praeger Security International, USA, 2006, p.5
[45] P Green & T Ward, State Crime – Governments, Violence and Corruption, Pluto Press, London, UK, 2004
[50] J White, Terrorism and Homeland Security, 6th Ed., Wadsworth Cengage Learning, California, USA, 2009, p.50
[51] Ibid
[52] Ibid
[53] G Kepel, The War for Muslim Minds- Islam and the West, The Belknap Press of Harvard university Press, Massachusetts, USA,2004, p.1
[56] M Sageman, Leaderless Jihad Terror Networks in the Twentieth-First Century, University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, USA, 2008, p.29
[58] K Waltz, Man, the State and War- a theoretical analysis, Columbia University Press, New York, USA, 2001, p.227
[59] A Rashid, Taliban- Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia, 2nd Ed., Yale University Press, USA, 2010
[60] D Ucko, The New Counterinsurgency Era – Transforming the U.S. Military for Modern Wars, Georgetown University Press, Washington, D.C., USA, 2009
[61] F Moghaddam, Global Insecurity, Praeger Security International, Santa Barbara, California, USA, 2010
[62] E Vattel, The Law of Nations, edited by B Kapossy & R Whatmore, Liberty Fund, Indianapolis, USA, 2008, pp. 193-5
No comments:
Post a Comment