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3.1 Anti-Colonial Terrorism: the Algerian Struggle

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1 EMMANOUIL ARETOULAKIS National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece Terrorism and Literariness: The terrorist event in the 20th and 21st centuries 2 Terrorism and Literariness: The terrorist event in the 20th and 21st centuries Author Emmanouil Aretoulakis NATIONAL AND KAPODISTRIAN UNIVERSITY OF ATHENS, GREECE Critical Reader William Schultz Editor Anastasia Tsiadimou ISBN: 978-960-603-462-6 Copyright © ΣΔΑΒ, 2015 Το παρόν έργο αδειοδοηείηαι σπό ηοσς όροσς ηης άδειας Creative Commons. Αναθορά Γημιοσργού - Μη Δμπορική Χρήζη - Παρόμοια Γιανομή 3.0. Για να δείηε ένα ανηίγραθο ηης άδειας ασηής επιζκεθηείηε ηον ιζηόηοπο https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/gr/ HELLENIC ACADEMIC LIBRARIES Δθνικό Μεηζόβιο Πολσηετνείο Ζρώων Πολσηετνείοσ 9, 15780 Εωγράθοσ www.kallipos.gr 3 Front cover picture Baricades set up during the Algerian War of Independence. January 1960. Street of Algier. Photo by Michel Marcheux, CC-BY-SA-2.5,wikipedia http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image 4 Table of Contents Abbreviation List ........................................................................................................... 7 INTRODUCTION ......................................................................................................... 8 The end of History, the Clash of Civilizations and the question of the Real: Historico-Political Peregrinations ............................................................................ 12 Revolutionary Art, Theory, and Literature as Violence ........................................... 18 Notes......................................................................................................................... 21 Bibliography ............................................................................................................. 23 CHAPTER 1 ................................................................................................................ 25 Historical Faces of Terrorism ...................................................................................... 25 1.1 Ancient avatars of Terror ................................................................................... 26 1.2 State terrorism, the sublime, and the propaganda of the deed............................ 31 1.3 Totalitarian terror, philosophy and the Real....................................................... 38 Notes......................................................................................................................... 45 Bibliography ............................................................................................................. 48 CHAPTER 2 ................................................................................................................ 50 Twentieth-century Terrorism: ...................................................................................... 50 Politics and Aesthetic Sensibility................................................................................. 50 2.1 Symbolism and anarchism ................................................................................. 51 2.2 Total Revolution as totalitarian terror: The authentic and the sublime .............. 57 Notes......................................................................................................................... 66 Bibliography ............................................................................................................. 69 CHAPTER 3 ................................................................................................................ 71 The Postcolonial World: From the 1950s to the 1980s................................................ 71 The Urban and the International .................................................................................. 71 3.1 Anti-colonial terrorism: The Algerian struggle .................................................. 72 3.2 International attraction to terrorism: Palestinian novelty and modern technologies .............................................................................................................. 78 3.3 Attractive terrorists: the feminine and the explosive ......................................... 90 3.4 From the Weathermen to the Red Army Faction: democracy, boredom, and the call for action ............................................................................................................ 93 5 Notes....................................................................................................................... 108 Bibliography ........................................................................................................... 115 CHAPTER 4 .............................................................................................................. 118 The Twenty-First Century: ........................................................................................ 118 Religious Terrorism, Politics, Image and the Brutality of the Spectacular ............... 118 4.1 The rise of Islamist fundamentalism: Al-Qaeda, paradox, irrationality ........... 119 4.2 Modernity, religiousness, and the Enlightenment premise .............................. 124 4.3 Aesthetic attraction to apocalyptic violence..................................................... 130 4.4 9/11 or the sublime image of terror ................................................................. 133 4.5 The rise of ISIS: exporting jihadism in a non-ironic age ................................. 141 Notes....................................................................................................................... 150 Bibliography ........................................................................................................... 157 CHAPTER 5 .............................................................................................................. 159 Art, Philosophy, Literature and Terrorism ................................................................. 159 5.1 The explosiveness of art: Imagination and the terrorist mind .......................... 160 5.2 From Joseph Conrad to Mohsin Hamid: terror in the novel, the novel as terror ................................................................................................................................ 175 Notes....................................................................................................................... 191 Bibliography ........................................................................................................... 197 CONCLUSION .......................................................................................................... 199 Notes....................................................................................................................... 202 Bibliography ........................................................................................................... 203 INDEX ....................................................................................................................... 204 6 Abbreviation List AD Anno Domini BC Before Christ CIA Central Intelligence Agency EOKA National Organization of Cypriot Fighters ETA Euskadi Ta Askatasuna FIFA Federation Internationale de Football Association FLN National Liberation Front HSRA Hindustan Socialist Republican Association IRA Irish Republic Army ISF Islamic Salvation Front ISIL Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant ISIS Islamic State in Iraq and Syria NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organization NYC New York City PFLP Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine PLO Organization for the Liberation of Palestine RAF Red Army Faction SDS Students for a Democratic Society SI Situationist International US United States USA Unites States of America WTC World Trade Center 7 INTRODUCTION On 7 July 2005, four British citizens of Islamist origin bombed the London Underground as well as a double-decker bus in a suicide mission that instantly killed fifty-two civilians and injured seven hundred more, in England‘s worst terrorist incident in two decades. This is how Mohammed Sidique Khan, one of the bombers, accounted for the outrageous act in a message that was transmitted through Al-Jazeera across the globe: I‘m going to keep this short and to the point because it‘s all been said before by far more eloquent people than me. But our words have no impact upon you therefore I‘m going to talk to you in a language that you understand. Our words are dead until we give them life with our blood. I'm sure by now the media's painted a suitable picture of me, this predictable propaganda machine will naturally try to put a spin on things to suit the government and to scare the masses into conforming to their power and wealth-obsessed agendas. Our driving motivation doesn't come from tangible commodities that this world has to offer. .This is how our ethical stances are dictated. Your democratically elected governments continuously perpetuate atrocities against my people and your support of them makes you directly responsible. We are at war and I am a soldier. Now you too will taste the reality of this situation.1 Khan was already dead when this video-taped message was broadcast by all media networks of the planet. His death, of course, does not legitimize his claims. Still, regardless of whether one subscribes to some (or all) of the ideas articulated in the message or not, it has to be admitted that Khan‘s manifesto ―neatly‖ encapsulates the major questions posed by the problem of terrorism today. Khan mysteriously talks about ―ethics‖ while
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