Terrorism: Theirs and Ours

by Eqbal Ahmad, David Barsamian (Foreword)

In 1985, President Ronald Reagan received a group of bearded turban-wearing men who looked like they came from another century. After receiving them in the White House, Reagan spoke to the press, referring to his foreign guests as "freedom fighters." These were the Afghan mujahideen. In August 1998, another American president ordered missile strikes from the American navy based in the Indian Ocean to kill Osama bin Laden and his men in the camps in Afghanistan. The terrorist of yesterday is the hero of today, and the hero of yesterday becomes the terrorist of today. In Terrorism: Theirs and Ours, Eqbal Ahmad holds up the concepts of "terrorist" and "freedom fighter" to U.S. foreign policy. What do these terms mean? Where do they apply? How can the roots of political violence be stemmed? An invaluable primer.

Genres: Politics, History, Nonfiction, Middle East, War, Pakistan, Terrorism

80 pages, Paperback

First published December 4, 2001

About the author

Eqbal Ahmad was a Pakistani political scientist, writer, journalist, and anti-war activist. He was strongly critical of the Middle East strategy of the United States as well as what he saw as the "twin curse" of nationalism and religious fanaticism in such countries as Pakistan.
Eqbal Ahmad was born in the village of Irki in Bihar, India in 1933 or 1934. A few years later, his father was murdered over a land dispute, while the young Eqbal lay beside him. During the partition of India in 1947, he and his elder brothers migrated to Pakistan.
Ahmad graduated from Foreman Christian College in Lahore, Pakistan, in 1951 with a degree in economics. After serving briefly as an army officer, he enrolled at Occidental College in California as a Rotary Fellow in American History in 1957. From 1958 to 1960, he studied political science and middle eastern history at Princeton, later earning his Ph.D.
From 1960 to 1963, Ahmad lived in North Africa, working primarily in Algeria, where he joined the National Liberation Front and worked with Frantz Fanon. He was a member of the Algerian delegation to peace talks at Evian.
When he returned to the United States, Ahmad taught at the University of Illinois at Chicago (1964 - 1965) and Cornell University in the school of Labour Relations (1965 - 1968). During these years, he became known as "one of the earliest and most vocal opponents of American policies in Vietnam and Cambodia". In 1969, he married the teacher and writer Julie Diamond. From 1968 to 1972, he was a fellow at the Adlai Stevenson Institute in Chicago.
In 1971, Ahmad was indicted with the anti-war Catholic priests, Daniel and Phillip Berrigan, along with four other Catholic pacifists, on charges of conspiracy to kidnap Henry Kissinger. After fifty-nine hours of deliberations, the jury declared a mistrial.
From 1972 to 1982, Ahmad was Senior Fellow at the Institution for Policy Studies. From 1973 to 1975, he served as the first director of its overseas affiliate, the Transnational Institute in Amsterdam.
In 1982, Ahmad joined the faculty at Hampshire College, in Amherst Massachusetts, where he taught world politics and political science.
In the early 1990's he was granted a parcel of land in Pakistan by Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto's government to build an independent, alternative university, named Khaldunia. The land was later seized by Bhutto's husband, Asif Zardari, reportedly to build a golf course and club.
A prolific writer and journalist, Eqbal was widely consulted by revolutionaries, journalists, activist leaders and policymakers around the world. He was an editor of the journal Race and Class, contributing editor of Middle East Report and L'Economiste du Tiers Monde, co-founder of Pakistan Forum, and an editorial board member of Arab Studies Quarterly. Ahmad was "that rare thing, an intellectual unintimidated by power or authority, a companion in arms to such diverse figures as Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, Ibrahim Abu-Lughod, Richard Falk, Fred Jameson, Alexander Cockburn and Daniel Berrigan."
Upon his retirement from Hampshire in 1997, he settled permanently in Pakistan, where he continued to write a weekly column, for Dawn, Pakistan's oldest English language newspaper. Eqbal died in Islamabad on May 11, 1999, of heart failure following surgery for colon cancer, diagnosed just one week before.

http://web.archive.org/web/2009102617...

Reviews

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

From the perspective of someone from South Asia (Ahamd was from Pakistan), this book looks deeper at this thing called terrorism.

There are several aspects to the official approach to terrorism. First, terrorists change. Yesterday's terrorist is today's freedom fighter, and vice versa. Second, there seems to be no such thing as an "official" definition of terrorism. Explanations are designed to arouse our emotions, instead of stimulating our intelligence. Third, government officials may not be able to define terrorism, but they know that it must be stamped out worldwide.

Fourth, it's supposedly possible to tell the difference between a terrorist and a freedom fighter. Fifth, the official approach ignores the causes of terrorism. Cause? What cause? Sixth, the moral revulsion against terrorism needs to be selective. Terror from disapproved groups needs to be strongly condemned, but terror from allies or approved groups can be ignored.

Why do groups commit terrorist acts? Getting their grievances heard through regular channels hasn't worked, so, to them, terrorism is the only way to be heard. Terrorism is an expression of anger and helplessness, and also a sense of betrayal. Through the spread of modern technology and communications, terror has become globalized. Everyone is a target.

The author recommends several approaches for America. Stop with the double standards. Don't condone some terrorism, and condemn others. In the present situation, such an approach will not work. Also, America should actually consider the causes of terrorism. It's a political problem; seek a political solution. The author also recommends reinforcing the framework of international law. Try going through the International Court of Justice.

This is an excellent book. It's short, and written from a non-American perspective. It does a fine job looking at the background behind terrorism, and it's well worth reading.

[Laila · Rating 5 out of 5]

A necessary read

[Brahim · Rating 4 out of 5]

Le seul problème qu'a ce livre, c'est qu'il est très court. Le livre de Eqbal Ahmad est l'un des meilleurs livres qui traite "le terrorisme" dans toutes les dimensions, historiques, économiques, sociologiques, psychologiques, politiques... Il est un livre qui va positionner solidement et correctement votre perspective à l'égard de cette épidémie moderne. En se basant sur des faits hitoriques et réels, l'auteur fait en sorte de construire une approche objective du "terrorisme", en ce qui est lié aux racines et les sources qui l'ont engendré, aux raisons pour lesquelles il existe, les formes qu'a pris pendant notre histoire moderne, et d'autres aspects y afférents.

Je le considère comme l'un des meilleurs livres, jusqu'à mainetenant, qui traite ce type de sujet, tant sur la forme que sur le fond. Du premier, en ce qu'il est bref, minimaliste et expose les idées de manière simplifiée en faisant le résumé de tant de livres. Du deuxième, en ce qu'il est riche d'informations et faits réels et historiques qui lui confèrent toute son objectivité et authenticité.

L'avantage formel que le lecteur peut tirer de ce livre, c'est d'abord la brièveté et son caractère minimaliste, ce qui le laisse désiré en écartant l'ennui que peut engendrer la lecture. Ensuite, Eqbal Ahmed a exposé ses idées de façon organisée et bien formée, car l'aspect méthodique est toujours important pour assurer la clarté et la précision et accorde au lecteur la facilité dans la compréhension. Enfin, le fait que l'auteur ne traite pas toujours les détails et expose juste les données réelles et historiques de manière introductive, fait que le lecteur ait le désir et la curiosité d'approfondir ses connaissances à propos des sujets initiés pour mieux comprendre, ce qui m'a arrivé exactement en maintes reprises.

Pour le fond, je recommande vivement la lecture de ce livre.

[Karolina]

Do przeczytania do kawy - jeden wykład + fragmenty x „Confronting Empire”. Raczej nic nie wniosło to nowego, bo byłam dopiero po lekturze książki, ale jeśli ktoś chce mieć próbkę jego poglądów, to może być spoko.

[Sahib Khan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Anti-imperial, post-colonial text. Questions the authority on terrorism and its defination.

[Nicholas · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am fairly sure it makes a huge difference if one reads this essay-cum-book 20 years ago instead of now. Ahmad's critique of unilateral American power in a unipolar world (and the consequences it created) certainly was a much needed rejoinder to the collective frenzy that led to the War on Terror. His diagnosis that Bin Laden signified more is to come has been prescient.

Yet, from an analytical standpoint, some of the arguments made are somehow dated, if not sweeping and imprecise.

For example, the point that the 'absence of revolutionary ideology has been central to the spread of terror in our time' (p. 18) seems to be based on a very limiting idea as to what 'revolutionary' meant; and the claim that 'jihad as an international violent phenomenon had for all practical purposes disappeared in the last four hundred years' (p. 19) is a contentious one as the call of jihad was certainly a recurring theme in multiple instances of anti-colonial/anti-state violence since the 19th century. One may argue those were not 'international violent phenomenon' , but then one may question what is this 'international' jihad that has disappeared then?

Nonetheless, these nitpicks are probably unfair given that the lecture's purpose is to alert the audience of how terrorism must be read within a history of US militaristic adventurism, not to mention the cronies it funded, favoured, and even forgotten- many of them were, in Ahmad's view, as 'fundamentalist' as Al-Qaeda ever was. Even as I don't agree that this is the full story of modern jihadist violence (because the protagonist just cannot be America if that story has to be told), one can certainly agree with his point that America's problem with terrorism is not due to a lack of knowledge, but rather a lack of self-awareness. And a track record of confusing enemies for friends.

[Ritaj · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

A very short but weighty book, questioning (among others) the authority of the word 'terrorism' and its usage. Even though I don’t agree with all of the political points made in the book, I still believe the message of the mistreatment and manipulation of the language surrounding 'terrorism' is still very relevant today.

[Efad · Rating 4 out of 5]

In short interviews with Eqbal Ahmad, Barsamian accomplishes what mainstream journalists fail to achieve with hours and hours of air time and popular exposure.

[Sajal · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an excellent short read. If you've read Confronting Empire then you will already be familiar with a large portion of this book.

Eqbal, very eloquently, criticizes the 'official' (aka American) approach to terrorism - one full of inconsistencies, double standards and one without an official definition. This official approach does not investigate causation of terrorism, and it excludes the classification of state terrorism from it entirely.

America condones terror by Israel, but it will complain about terrorists in Afghanistan; as if they were not the ones that funded the Mujahideen in the first place. As Eqbal mentions, America needs to start solving terrorism with political means, not with a military solution. Terrorism is a political problem which requires a political solution.

[Noor · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'd say this is one of the weaker works of Eqbal Ahmad, but this isn't a book written by Eqbal Ahmad, it's a compilation of interviews he did with David Barsamian. An explanation of Islamic Extremism and Political Islam and their relation through modern history is lacking in this, obviously we can blame the interview format for this but Ahmad also made the error of tying violent extremism to Tribal codes which is a very un-nuanced view of the situation.

It's unclear why these interviews were compiled into a book since they offer nothing new. An intellectual of Eqbal Ahmad's stature is done a disservice by this. Eqbal Ahmad not having written a book and his writings not being made more accessible have made it very difficult to assess his legacy which no doubt was impactful.

[noor · Rating 4 out of 5]

he was definitely very ahead of his time

makes me think of what Pakistan's, or any other country really, potential could've been if not for the west, mainly the us

humanizing acts of violence and the distinction in revolutionary acts and non revolutionary is pretty important tbh....maybe unserious parallel but that one Bollywood movie tried to do that but im pretty sure it flopped plus it had weird direction/storytelling

but anyway i think because of digital activism a lot of clocking has been done about terror groups and the role the us in that which it had successfully ignored in the past

[Adam · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant from start to finish.

The only claim I didn’t fully agree with was his belief that post-cold war global politics is more dangerous than cold-war global politics. But his reasoning for that claim was nonetheless an enlightening perspective.

One of the most important books I’ve ever read. So concise and such a clear summary, in accessible language, of American foreign policy in the last 50 years.

Superb and surprisingly extremely nuanced. No ridiculous claims are made and he gives examples and makes his point well.

[Saadullah · Rating 2 out of 5]

A very convoluted and dated conception of how terrorism develops, with familiar and uninsightful comments on how the United States government itself commits acts of terror. Also, there is a very bizarre insistence on how tribal culture has everything to do with Muslim fundamentalism, which just goes on to show how little knowledge Ahmad had of the demographics in the ranks of Muslim fundamentalists.

[Merricat Blackwood · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well-argued but thin (inevitably, as it's only about 50 pages long). The most interesting parts of this book to me are Ahmad's comments on his reporting from Afghanistan in the 1980s--for example, his observation of CIA training camps in Zhwahar. But again because of the length and the interview format, these bits are short on detail and corroboration. I'm hoping that I'll be able to figure out where to read Ahmad's reporting from that era in more depth.

[Hasnain Tejani · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very eye opening read, as Eqbal Ahmad points out the reasons why what we call "terrorism" actually takes place, and why most terrorism we witness comes in the shape of 'political terrorism'. He also points out all the inconsistencies of the West towards terrorism as well as our perception of 'terrorism'.

[Riaz Ujjan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Book contain a speech by famous intellectual of his times late Eqbal Ahmed on terrorism and an interview in which he has answered questions on various issues. A fine brief document on the causes of the terrorism.

[Aseel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Probably the only book I'll recommend on the politics of power in Afghanistan by the late Eqbal Ahmed.

[Salahuddin Hourani]

ملاحظة لي: لم اقرا الكتاب بعد - صديق لادوارد سعيد - مفكر وناقد لما بعد الكولونيالية

[Faraaz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Essential reading.

[A.A. Ali · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book was divided into 2 parts. The first was a brief, concise and illuminating dissection of terrorism: US policy approach towards it; Why terrorists do what they do; And lastly, some suggestions regarding America's approach towards it.

The second was a collation of 2 interviews Eqbal did with David Barsamian, focusing on issues ranging from India-Pakistan conflict, to terrorism, to religion and the MidEast. This section to me was the more fruitful of the two, with prescient, almost sage-like forecasting, as well as searing analysis of a whole host of political and international issues.

The book also contained several interesting ideas that I had not hitherto been exposed to, or had given much previous thought to: The rise of terrorism is the absence of able political movements to redress peoples grievances, how Al-Qaeda and Bin-Laden turned on the US, a dissection and interesting proposal regarding the Kashmir conflict between India & Pakistan, the proliferation of the drug trade vis-a-vis aggressive US funding in the region during the Soviet-Afghan War era, how the PLO was fundamentally a non-revolutionary organization & the suspension of inquiry into the causation of terrorism (though I had given this fact some consideration after listening to an interview of Robert Fisk shortly before I read this book).

All in all, a short, interesting, and illuminating read.


[Weak-Solid 4 Stars]

[Mia Edwards · Rating 5 out of 5]

Super interesting and eerily accurate about what was to come

[Charlie HS · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are quite a lot of over-extended claims and generalisations which restrict the author's persuasiveness. But their insight is very valuable.

[Formed · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Officials don’t define terrorism because definitions involve a commitment to analysis, comprehension, and adherence to some norms of consistency. "

[Billie Pritchett · Rating 4 out of 5]

Eqbal Ahmad's Terrorism: Theirs & Ours is barely a book, more like an essay with an interview addendum. Still a good, enlightening work, where Ahmad suggests that the United States government ought not be hypocritical about what it identifies as terrorism. For instance, in the 1980s, when the Ronald Reagan administration was waging war against the U.S.S.R., the U.S. government was supporting Osama Bin Laden and the mujahideen. There is even an interview and photo op that Reagan conducted where Reagan identified these men as 'freedom fighters.' When the U.S. withdrew from Afghanistan and were angered at the U.S. government for not fulfilling its promises, these men became 'terrorists.'

Another issue for Ahmad is that we needed to be clearer about what we mean by terrorism. He writes that we can just appeal to a basic dictionary definition for that and just be consistent in its application. Terrorism is, according to the Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, "the use of terrorizing methods of governing or resisting government." Ahmad writes that the benefits of this definition is that it does not appeal to intentions. The trouble with appeal to intentions, of course, is that no one knows what lurks in the hearts of men and women.

A few comments on the definition issue. As far as I know, there have been attempts to define terrorism, and they break the cardinal rule that Ahmad puts down in that they appeal to intentions. If memory serves, the U.S. State Department's definition of terrorism is the intentional targeting of civilians or a civilian population for the purpose of promoting a social or political cause. You can see why the State Department would favor this definition rather than a broader definition. If, for example, you're the American military and you're trying to target a perceived enemy in a town, and by destroying the enemy you have to destroy large parts of the town, you have, according to definition, not committed terrorism because you never had any intention to attack the civilians. Seems to me if the State Department wants to use this definition, fine, but definitions aside, that military action could still be worse than an instance of terrorism because in this military action even though the U.S. knew that civilians would be hurt, even if they weren't trying to target them, they did it anyway.

I think the tactic of trying to attack terrorism definitionally might be a lost cause, but I do think that Ahmad's insistence that terrorism ought to be defined when it is used by the American government, military, and media outlets is something to be applauded. That way, we know what we're talking about and can evaluate it. Is terrorism the worst form of violent attack? Depends on what you mean by that word.

[Tammam Aloudat · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's is the first time I read Eqbal Ahmad and I find he is in the same school of Chomsky and Said in terms of having a close understanding of the American hegemony and being open and direct in criticizing and exposing it.

In this booklet, there is a transcript of a speech he gave and a long interview he was questioned in. Both are revealing and interesting and make me want to read more of his work.

What is interesting to know is how much of a problem Osama Bin Laden was for the US who made him in the first place a decade before 9/11 which we tend to forget.

[Ashley · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book changed my life. Honestly I think everyone should read it. It is helpful to understand the world that we live in today because no one will give it to us straight. This man is a genius. I have read this book over and over. Sadly I lent it to a friend and never got it back so I haven't read it in a year. But it's message has stayed with me. It is also good to know that the book is concise, probably around 60 pages, if I remember correctly.

[Audrey]

Book consists of an interview and a speech given in 1998. Very good and very insightful. Concise.

[Sakaguchi]

Front picture show exactry what the terorist,and how to make a enemy.and also who made tariban and all those Propaganda.

[... · Rating 2 out of 5]

short but great