Forward to the Sacred Violence: Religion and Terrorism, Cleveland, OH, 200

Hill, B. Jessie

Kinney, Adam F.

English

Case Western Reserve University School of Law

Case Western Reserve University School of Law Scholarly Commons Faculty Publications 2008 Foreword: Sacred Violence: Religion and Terrorism B. Jessie Hill Case Western University School of Law, jessie.hill@case.edu Adam F. Kinney Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarlycommons.law.case.edu/faculty_publications  Part of the Criminal Law Commons Repository Citation Hill, B. Jessie and Kinney, Adam F., "Foreword: Sacred Violence: Religion and Terrorism" (2008). Faculty Publications. 1040. https://scholarlycommons.law.case.edu/faculty_publications/1040 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by Case Western Reserve University School of Law Scholarly Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Faculty Publications by an authorized administrator of Case Western Reserve University School of Law Scholarly Commons. FOREWORD:SACRED VIOLENCE: RELIGION AND TERRORISMJessie Hilt & Adam F. KinneytReligiously-motivated terrorism is one of the most pressing prob-lems facing America today,' as well as one of the most ancient phenomenathe world has known. Perhaps as early as the seventh century, Hindu"Thugs" engaged in the killing of innocent persons motivated by a desire toplease the god Kali.2 And the medieval Islamic Assassins, or Ismailis-Nizari, whose purpose was to overthrow the existing impure religious andpolitical order "through the spread of fear and terror," engaged in high-profile killings of prominent individuals in public places at least as early asthe eleventh century.3Yet despite its long history, the phenomenon of religiously-motivated terrorism remains poorly understood. Is religion really the moti-vating factor in many terrorist acts, or is it merely a pretext that calculatingterrorists use to attract collaborators? Is there something inherently violentabout religion that motivates its most extreme adherents to commit terroris-tic acts? Or, on the other extreme, does it even make sense to speak of "reli-giously-based terrorism" as a separate and unique category?It has been argued, for example, that religion itself is generally aminor motivator of suicide terrorism and that secular political goals, com-bined with the strategic advantages afforded by terrorist techniques, form. Assistant Professor and Associate Director of the Center for Social Justice, Case West-ern Reserve University School of Law.t BA, Hamilton College (2005); JD, Case Western Reserve University School of Law(2008).1 See, e.g., MARK JUERGENSMEYER, TERROR IN THE MIND OF GOD: THE GLOBAL RISE OFRELIGIOUS VIOLENCE 6 & n.3 (2000) (noting that Warren Christopher, among others, hascharacterized "terrorism in the name of religion and ethnicity" as "the most important securi-ty challenge we face in the wake of the Cold War"); BRUCE HOFFMAN, INSIDE TERRORISM86-88 (2d ed. 2006) (documenting the recent rise in religiously motivated terrorism andsuggesting that religious terrorism is often more intensely violent, with higher fatalities, thansecular terrorism).2 OLIVER MCTERNAN, VIOLENCE IN GOD'S NAME: RELIGION IN AN AGE OF CONFLICT 46-47 (2003).' Id. at 73.CASE W. RES. J. INT'L L.the primary impetus for such attacks. Or indeed, purely psychologicalforces may play a major (if heretofore largely unacknowledged) role in mo-tivating terrorists to commit violence. At the same time, some have arguedthat the nature of religion itself tends to create particularly violent and in-tense-even cosmic-conflicts, as compared to those arising from purelysecular origins. 6 And on the other end of the spectrum, Ren6 Girard hasfamously argued that violence comes from the very nature of human beings,and that religion is the traditional means by which a community channeledand purified itself of violence; in other words, that "far from being the causeof our violence, archaic religions are, or rather were, first a consequence ofthat violence and, secondly, our primary protection against it."7Finally, it is possible that the very nature of religion itself, at leastwhen taken to extremes, tends toward terrorism. Religion may be unders-tood as competing with the civil authority; it is an alternate source of obliga-tion and, for some, an alternate source of legitimacy for violence. God'swill, which some religious fanatics understand as requiring the death ofcertain classes of persons or the destruction of certain impure elementswithin society, threatens and supersedes the political state's claim to a mo-nopoly on the legitimate use of violence.8Assuming that religiously-based terrorism is a unique category, re-quiring unique approaches to combat it, it should be clear that this problemcannot only, or perhaps even primarily, be addressed from a legal stand-point. Given the variety of forces potentially at work-religious, psycholog-ical, political, and philosophical-it seems that if policymakers wish tomake serious inroads toward dealing with this extraordinarily knotty issue,they will have to look beyond the limited insights legal scholars might pro-vide, whatever their expertise in suggesting approaches for deterring, pu-4 ROBERT A. PAPE, DYING TO WIN: THE STRATEGIC LOGIC OF SUICIDE TERRORISM (2005);cf JESSICA STERN, TERROR IN THE NAME OF GOD: WHY RELIGIOUS MILITANTS KILL xiii-xix(2003) (arguing that religious obsessions of terrorists "often mask a deeper kind of angst anda deeper kind of fear"--namely that of "a godless universe, of chaos, of loose rules and ofloneliness," as well as masking a "greed for political power, land, or money" that terrorist"leaders deliberately intensify... to ignite holy wars").5 Jerrold Post takes this position. See Jerrold M. Post, Terrorist Psycho-logic: TerroristBehavior as a Product of Psychological Forces, in ORIGINS OF TERRORISM: PSYCHOLOGIES,IDEOLOGIES, THEOLOGIES, STATES OF MIND (Walter Reich, ed. 1998).6 Mark Juergensmeyer, Is Religion the Problem? 6 HEDGEHOG REv. 21 (2004); see alsoHOFFMAN, supra note 1, at 86-88.7 Ren6 Girard, Violence and Religion: Cause or Effect? 6 HEDGEHOG REv. 8, 13 (2004).That article summarizes some of the views presented in RENt GIRARD, VIOLENCE AND THESACRED (Patrick Gregory trans., 1977).8 Cf William T. Cavanaugh, Sins of Omission: What "Religion and Violence " ArgumentsIgnore, 6 HEDGEHOG REv. 34, 47-48 (2004) (describing the view that secular violence maybe legitimate violence but that religious violence is always illegitimate).[Vol. 39:703FOREWORDnishing, and containing secular violence. It is therefore with a measure ofopenmindedness and humility that the Symposium on "Sacred Violence:Religion and Terrorism" was conceived.This symposium evolved from a roundtable discussion on "Religionand Violence," co-sponsored by the Case Western Reserve UniversitySchool of Law's Institute for Global Security Law and Policy and the CaseWestern Reserve University Department of Religious Studies in November2005, with financial support from the Baker-Nord Center for the Humani-ties. A handful of scholars and practitioners from a variety of fields gatheredto read and discuss an interdisciplinary set of texts touching on the relation-ship between religion and violence, as well as to plan the conference. Thegoal was to put on a symposium with an innovative format and a uniquepurpose-namely, to gain insights about religiously-based terrorism fromdisciplines such as religious studies, philosophy, political science, and psy-chology that might be relevant for those working in the fields of law andpolicy. As such, the conference was broadly set against the backdrop of amock White House Task Force meeting, convened to advise the Presidenton policy measures to counter a terrorist threat from a fictitious religiousgroup (not identifiable as any currently existing religious group, so as tokeep the discourse as general as possible). The morning of the conferencewas devoted to "testimony" by experts from non-legal disciplines. The af-ternoon followed with responses and unstructured discussion by law andpolicy scholars who attempted to integrate and apply these insights, translat-ing them into practical solutions for dealing with religiously-based terror-ism. 9It is impossible to do justice to the myriad of viewpoints presentedat the conference, but the following commentaries and articles present anevocative sampling of viewpoints on the confluence of religion and terror-ism. In Religious Extremism and International Legal Norms: Perfidy,Preemption, and Irrationality, Professor Louis Rend Beres presents a highlyliterary approach to the phenomenon of suicidal terrorism. Prof. Beres re-jects the assertion that religion is the root cause of suicidal terrorism, insteadpositing that it is, paradoxically, the suicidal terrorist's fear of death that isthe root of his actions. Moreover, the West's projection of its own concep-tions of what is "logical" or "rational" onto suicidal terrorists continues tostymie efforts to understand and control this destructive and violent pheno-menon. The suicidal terrorist, in Prof. Beres' view, is not the product of theWestphalian school of what is and is not just-hence the West's failure tounderstand the terrorist's motivations and logic. Suicidal terrorism finds itsorigins in a violent impulse, developing from deeper psychological trauma,9 A webcast of the conference may be accessed at http:/Ilaw.case.edu/centersligslplwebcast.asp?dt=-20070330.2007-2008]CASE W. RES. J. INT'L L.which the suicidal terrorist channels into his macabre, yet sacred, deed.From here, Prof. Beres draws connections between this "sacred violence"and perfidy, preemption, and irrationality as a prompt for deeper discussion.Professor J.S. Piven picks up where Prof. Beres leaves off, embark-ing on a nuanced psychological discussion of suicidal terrorism in his ar-ticle, Psychological, Theological, and Thanatological Aspects of SuicidalTerrorism. Prof. Piven seeks the unstated and disavowed motives of suicidalterrorism, looking beyond the rhetoric of the act to its origins in past trauma,group fantasy, and paranoia. After an analysis of current research in thefield, Prof. Piven finds that the theological dimension of suicidal terrorismis paid scant attention by scholars in the field, who instead focus their ana-lyses on the terrorist's secular strategic and political agendas. Moreover,Prof. Piven takes issue with those scholars' failure to consider seriously thepossibility that suicidal terrorism is psychologically pathological behavior.Piven posits that conscious strategies with logically calculated results stillretain a symbolic significance as heroic mythology. Yet, when evaluatingthe phenomenon of suicidal terrorism it is important to remember that theinfluences upon the actor are not confined solely to their strategic goal, po-litical purpose, or even their religious objective. Instead, all of these ele-ments, amongst a myriad of others, combine to achieve not only the practic-al strategic goal, but also, in the pathological mind of the suicidal terrorist,allow the actor to transform humiliating defeat into a victory over victimiza-tion and assumption of the divine. Only by examining all aspects of the sui-cidal terrorist's psychological makeup can we begin to understand the truerole of religion in any specific instance and effectively respond to this de-structive phenomenon in general.Rounding out the discussion of religion and terrorism, ProfessorParvez Ahmed, in Terror in the Name of Islam-Unholy War, Not Jihad,presents the argument that the link between terrorism and Islam is not aspervasive as it may first appear. In his article, Prof. Ahmed seeks out thetrue definition of "terrorism," examines the recent confluence of Islam andterrorism, posits causal links between United States' Cold War policies vis-A-vis the Middle East and the rise in terrorist activities, and ultimatelypresents suggestions for curbing terrorism. Prof. Ahmed deemphasizes theimportance of religion in suicidal terrorism, focusing instead on the socio-political influences of the historic conflicts in the Middle East, with particu-lar emphasis on the effects of Cold War policies in the region. This evalua-tion reminds the reader that, as with extreme interpretations of Christianity,extreme interpretations of Islam should not be imputed to the group general-ly, or even to the individual suicidal terrorist necessarily.Finally, focusing on the practical aspects of countering religiously-motivated terrorism, Professor Gregory McNeal tackles the problem of ter-rorist reliance on the internet in his article, Cyber Jihad: Countering theInternet Jihad. Prof. McNeal explores terrorist groups' reliance on the in-[Vol. 39:703FOREWORDternet, as a means of recruitment, organization, and training. After exposingthe great value of the internet in carrying out terrorism, Prof. McNeal turnsto existing law to find a basis upon which the United States may target ter-rorist activities on the internet. Finally, Prof. McNeal suggests amending the"material supporter statutes" to include telecommunications companies thatprovide services to terrorist organizations. In this article, Prof. McNealpresents a thought-provoking analysis of the current state of terrorist re-liance on the internet, and offers an intriguing proposal to frustrate suchreliance.Understanding the confluence of religion and terrorism is no simpletask. Fully comprehending the rationales, motivations, and psychoses thatinform religion and terrorism individually is difficult enough without tryingto understand the interplay of these various elements. Nevertheless, whatcan be stated definitively is that only through open interdisciplinary discus-sion may we begin to understand these complexities. The "Sacred Violence:Religion and Terrorism" Symposium sought to open the channels of discus-sion. This issue presents the ultimate results of that discussion, and willhopefully serve to spark discourse on these important issues within academeand beyond.The conference was chaired and ably moderated by Amos Guiora,former Professor of Law and Director of the Institute for Global SecurityLaw and Policy at Case Western Reserve University. Assistant ProfessorJessie Hill co-chaired. But the entire undertaking would have been impossi-ble without the assistance of numerous others, especially the other roundta-ble participants, including Prof. Timothy Beal, Prof. William Deal, PastorJohn Lentz, Prof. Robert Lawry, Dr. Bob O'Neal, Dr. Louis Rice, and TedWasky. Law students and Institute Research Fellows Matthew Ezzo andRebecca Slazinski worked tirelessly to provide extensive and invaluableresearch and logistical assistance throughout the conference planningprocess.2007-20081

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