Al-Qaeda’s Defining Moment:

The Prominence of the Scapegoat Strategy

Madaleine Sorkin

According to Osama bin Laden, there is a clash of civilizations between the Muslim world and the West.  Muslims are under siege, their lands are dominated, and their governments and peoples corrupted by a militant Judeo-Christian conspiracy. [i]   As a defense of the ummah [1] worldwide, all true Muslims have a religious obligation “to heed the call to a global jihad.” [ii]   Today, the United States characterizes the worst of the world’s many infidels.

America has spear-headed the crusade against the Islamic nation, sending tens of thousands of its troops to the land of the two Holy Mosques, over and above its meddling in its affairs and its politics, and its support of the oppressive, corrupt and tyrannical regime [of Saudi Arabia] that is in control. [iii]

Incidents caused by the United States have “divided the world into two regions – one of faith where there is no hypocrisy and another of infidelity, from which we hope God will protect us.” [iv]

In 1996, Osama bin Laden issued a Declaration of Jihad; he threatened to wage holy war against America and its allies if U.S. troops were not removed from the Gulf. [v]   In 2000, “bin Laden announced the formation of the World Islamic Front for the Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders, an umbrella group of radical movements across the world, and issued a fatwa stating that it is the duty of all Muslims to kill U.S. citizens and their allies.” [vi]   But it wasn’t until September 11, 2001, after his involvement in the murder of an estimated 2749 people and the destruction of the United States’ most esteemed buildings, that bin Laden and al-Qaeda were finally given the attention they’d been demanding.

According to Rene Girard, in his book The Scapegoat, every culture is founded upon a collective act of violence, and religion functions to conceal violence in a society.  Girard deconstructs persecution texts central to common mythology to reveal the scapegoat mechanism, positing that this mechanism has been present and working in all persecution texts as a cover for the original act of violence from the beginning of history.  His focus is to understand persecution myths, and in this way he evaluates the myths’ efficacy at establishing social solidarity.  Girard regards the myths as stories not to be trusted in as much as they function to help their believers achieve a false reality. 

            Following the attacks of September 11 on the Twin Towers and Pentagon, a recording of Osama bin Laden aired on al-Jazeera television.

God has sent one of the attacks by God and has attacked one of its best buildings. And this is America filled with fear from the north, south, east and west, thank God . . . And when God has guided a bunch of Muslims to be at the forefront and destroyed America, a big destruction, I wish God would lift their position. [vii]

Put plainly, Osama wants power and is “hijacking Islam” as a soldier.  He and his al-Qaeda ensemble are fed up with their respective local governments and have taken matters of cultural order into their own hands.  Bin Laden’s persecution myth utilizes Islamic law and doctrine and past events to legitimize the September 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centers and the Pentagon and to understand the 3000 deaths as an event of justified mass murder rather than victims of the sacrificial system. 

Most Americans recognize that the majority of Muslims are neither terrorists nor driven by a blind hatred for the U.S.  However, also important to note is that Anti- Americanism is not only fueled by hatred from terrorists, “but also by a broader-based anger and frustration with American foreign policy among many in Arab and Muslim societies.” [viii]   Muslims have numerous grievances against the West, particularly against America and its contagious, globalized culture of alleged uniformity.  An Iranian philosopher, Darysh Shayegan, identifies Islam’s “cultural schizophrenia” as “the struggle between tradition and western secular modernity, and between fundamentalism and globalization,” and regards the struggle as one that “haunts the soul of many Muslims.” [ix]   This is precisely the kind of “cultural schizophrenia” Girard refers to as the reason why a culture tends to overlook the structural usage of the scapegoat analysis.

            As the strategy cleverly plays into the frustration and anger many Muslims share towards the West, bin Laden and his al-Qaeda cohorts have utilized the scapegoat mechanism to justify the attacks and reinforce a pan-Islamic ideology throughout the Islamic world.   Bernard Lewis, a scholar on Middle Eastern affairs, notes, “Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda followers may not represent Islam, and their statements and their actions directly contradict basic Islamic principles and teachings, but they do arise from within Muslim civilization.” [x] While an outpouring of sympathy was expressed by many of the Muslim world for the victims of September 11^th, one did not have to scratch very deep to hear dissenting voices that violent attacks against US imperialism were inevitable or the US was finally getting a taste of its own medicine.  Unfortunately, any concessions to violence provide enough of an ear to radical voices.   Even soft-Anti-Americanism helps uphold the sacrificial system and provides bin Laden with all the audience he needs to benefit from the September 11 attacks.  The collective violence of September 11 became the defining moment for al-Qaeda, as it gained international distinction as a global network of terror.  Moreover, it suggests a bleak future for the scapegoat mechanism and our world.

A Mimetic Explanation of the Event

 What motivated the murders of 9/11?  For Girard, mimetic desire plays an extraordinary role in persecution myths.  Mimesis is the greatest trigger for the scapegoat mechanism as it is the force of mimesis (imitation) that dominates men. [xi]   Since the beginning of human history, this desire has naturally pitted us against one another.  To specify, the nature of the desire is never for the object itself, as it is rarely an object one would be capable of holding, but rather for what the other desires.  Girard uses mythology to examine the role of mimesis and identifies the common attitude.  He observes,

The future moon-god is obviously driven to volunteer by the wish to outstrip all the other gods, the spirit of mimetic rivalry.  He wants to be without rival, the first among them, one who acts as a model for others without having a model himself. [xii]

This spirit of ‘mimetic rivalry’ still exists today and serves as the impetus for building tensions between human beings each desiring the same thing. As a result of this heightened desire and looming, if not present, crisis, human beings develop strategies for displacing our aggression for each other on to a victim.  It seems we are faced with two options for relieving the crisis: either destroy each other or destroy the object and be satisfied with unanimity minus one.  And so, a scapegoat is produced.  By choosing a victim, society restores itself sacrificially through the mob’s collective murder in the name of justice.  We satisfy our desires by destroying the object of mimesis and, in turn, we become unified by our desire.

The Golden Age of Islam

 The role of mimetic desire reveals itself best when we understand that Osama bin Laden is motivated by the same thing as the United States.  In lieu of Girard’s works, the attacks of 9/11 are simply another predictable outcome of the spirit of mimetic rivalry.

Bin Laden’s rhetoric asks us to revisit a couple of major points in Islamic history to examine what Osama desires—which was never very well concealed to begin with.  Like many Muslims, bin Laden’s mindset is plagued by the past.  He often speaks superficially of ‘the Golden Age of Islam’ when the Caliphate was in power.  In October following the attacks, Bin Laden spoke unabashedly, as he reveled in a victory for the Islamic world. 

What America is tasting now is something insignificant compared to what we have tasted for scores of years.  Our nation [the Islamic world] has been tasting humiliation and this degradation for more than 80 years. [xiii]

He brings us to a notable starting point, the fall of the already decadent Ottoman Empire in 1921, and consequent end of the Caliphate—“Muslim civil and religious rule by the successors of Muhammad, which had lasted, at least symbolically, for nearly 1300 years.” [xiv]   Grounded firmly in other strategically widespread empires, the Ottomans conquered Istanbul in 1453 and rose to become the most successful and enduring of the Islamic empires. [xv]    Around the 14^th and 15^th centuries, Karen Armstrong, a leading scholar on religious affairs, agrees, “the whole world seemed to be becoming Islamic . . . Even when the European navigators made their astonishing discoveries in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, they could not dislodge the Muslims from the seaways.  Islam seemed invincible.” [xvi]   The three major Islamic empires marked this period of 1500-1700, and while Armstrong notes this period in history as one of triumph for the Muslim world, she also observes the empires’ imperial, and therefore “un-Quranic,” nature as they set up absolute monarchies. [xvii]    Armstrong reminds her readers that “such autocracy was fundamentally opposed to the spirit of the Quran,” [xviii] which had tended to embrace an egalitarian tradition. 

Colonial Invasion

The rise of Western power did not result in a state of shared powers between Western and Muslim cultures.  Instead, the new forces of modernization convulsed the Islamic world, as very little time was given to adjust to the different ethos.  ‘Islamdom’ quickly went from a position of leadership in world civilization to a state of dependency on European powers. [xix]   As the Islamic world was widespread and strategically placed, the colonization process was a challenge, but proved to be “thorough and effective.” [xx]   The 18^th and 19^th century Islamic world from Egypt to Turkey became subject to colonial power.  Regions were divided up with less concern for Muslim religiopolitical traditions than the colony’s raw materials.

The ascendancy of the West is certainly unparalleled in human history. [xxi] And if global power is the goal, the United States is surely its proudest product. Today, America enjoys an unprecedented amount of unilateral power and shows little evidence of stopping the globalization process as long as American interests continue to benefit.

Many have reacted negatively to globalization and America’s role in its proliferate and oppressive nature.  But perhaps the most intense resentment of the United States comes from the views expressed by militant Islam. [xxii] I think Girard would agree that such hatred is remarkably revealing.    

Bin Laden’s Desire

Osama bin Laden and the US are mirror images of the other in respect to their desire for world supremacy.  Bin Laden’s reference to the ‘Golden Age of Islam’ has predominantly symbolic overtones.  There was a time when Islam was the global authority—a time of economic, political, and religious domination.  Longing for global power is no new phenomenon, and while most realize that complete world domination is a pipe dream at best, the effects of mimetic desire remain unresolved and problematic.  The crisis of the Islamic world is so deep and difficult that bin Laden easily employs the age-old sacrificial system to relieve the loss of differentiation and restore a social solidarity.  The United States is the easy scapegoat in as much as it can represent the obstacle to bin Laden’s pipe dream.  In “Girardian” logic, when Osama bin Laden, his al-Qaeda cohort, and the United States all want the same thing, two options tend to develop:  either destroy one another or destroy the object(s) of mimesis.  For Osama, the United States embodies a power he can’t have, so he decides to destroy the object most expressive of U.S. dominion.  Unfortunately for more than 3000 people and their friends and families, the Twin Towers and the Pentagon were obvious targets.  Following the events of 9/11, bin Laden revealed, “The September 11 attacks were not targeted at women and children.  The real targets were America’s icons of military and economic power.” [xxiii]   In the video aired on al-Jazeera television in November of 2001, bin Laden admitted a role in the attacks and said again, "The Twin Towers were legitimate targets, they were supporting U.S. economic power. These events were great by all measurement. What was destroyed were not only the towers, but the towers of morale in that country." [xxiv]   As long as it is in the hands of the U.S., bin Laden apparently hates what he desires most.  Bin Laden’s mimetic desire gave rise to scapegoat mech., which in turn, fuel the stereotypes that tend to serve as justification for the violence.  As justification for holy war he said,

Why should fear, killing, destruction, displacement, orphaning and widowing continue to be our lot, while security, stability and happiness be your lot?  This is unfair.  It is time we get even.  You will be killed just as you kill, and will be bombed just as you bomb. [xxv]

When the twin towers collapsed in a completed fashion my eyes were fixated with awe upon the television screen. With over three thousand people dead and these icons literally reduced to rubble and Bin Laden practically justified dancing on the ashes. A further examination of Bin Laden’s justifications will come later.

Establishing Al-Qaeda as a Global Network of Terror

Girard posits that every culture originates in a collective act of violence.  In applying this theory to al-Qaeda is it important to make a distinction.  Through the acts of September 11, al-Qaeda achieved a degree of social solidarity it never had before.  The world turned their heads, with the assistance of globalization and the media, and al-Qaeda emerged onto the world scene, transformed into a global network of terror.  The foundation for al-Qaeda had already been laid over the course of ten years and beyond, as the organization and its influential ideologists had been trying to establish an Islamic culture under their radical jihad doctrine for quite some time. 

What is Al- Qaeda (The Base)?

The construction of al-Qaeda up until the events of 9/11 was not a quick process.  Esposito condenses bin Laden’s personal life leading up to the formation of al-Qaeda into several major events.  First, he participated in the anti-Soviet jihad in Afghanistan in the 1980s, supported by the CIA and funded by both the Saudi and United States governments, where he met other Muslims committed to the cause of Islam, [xxvi] and “enjoyed the freedom to think and act and to engage in a religious mission to overcome injustice and create an Islamic State and society.” [xxvii]   Second, bin Laden did not experience similar freedoms when he returned from the war to the confining Saudi Arabian regime.  His attempt to work within the system to reform the country only brought greater frustration and hatred for this corrupt and un-Islamic regime. [xxviii]   Third was his experience of the Persian Gulf War.  In retrospect, bin Laden has said that the admission and stationing of non-Muslim troops, specifically U.S., in Islam’s holy land and then their permanent deployment was a turning point, which altered his ideology and placed him at odds with both the Saudi government and the West. [xxix]   Bin Laden along with many veterans of the Afghanistan war decided that if they wanted to fight America they would have to go at it alone. [xxx]   And finally, bin Laden’s condemnation of Saudi leadership and exile from the country marked a new beginning as his partnership with Ayman al-Zawahiri, the leader of Egypt’s Islamic Jihad, began building a foundation for al-Qaeda. 

Unable to achieve the reforms he had hoped to while working inside the system of Saudi Arabia, [xxxi] the formation of al-Qaeda has finally been a way for Osama bin Laden to turn his socio-economic assets into those of political clout.  The word al-Qaeda translates as “base.”  Undoubtedly, this word carries symbolic and practical weight.  A foundation implies a point from which one can build.  More specifically, the collapse of the twin towers and the murder of 3000 people were never the intended climax of al-Qaeda.  Returning to Girard’s text, the position al-Qaeda assumes today has undoubtedly situated itself as an ideologue of violence.  However, al-Qaeda’s act of violence has instead served as its defining moment.  On top of the ashes of September 11^th, al-Qaeda has planted its base and emerged as a global network of terror.

Globalization of the Radical Jihad Message

Perhaps the radical call for consciousness of the ummah has never been as easy as it is today. Scholar Karen Armstrong is sensitive to observe,

Fundamentalists look back to a “golden age” before the irruption of modernity for inspiration, but they are not atavistically returning to the Middle Ages.  All are intrinsically modern movements and could have appeared at no other time than our own. [xxxii]

Globalization benefits terrorism.  Today, Osama bin Laden serves as the ‘Emir’ (chief) of al-Qaeda which is the core of a loose umbrella organization that includes many Sunni Islamic extremist groups, including factions of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, the Gama'at al-Islamiyya, and the Harakat ul-Mujahidin.  “The dispersed nature of Al Qaeda cadres around the globe has provided Osama bin Laden command over a global terror network with capabilities to carry out lethal terrorist attacks.”  The network is highly secretive.  It branches out into cells and contact organizations thought to operate and shift between 35-70 countries worldwide (depending on the source).  Compartmentalized in various countries, al-Qaeda is truly a movement of the modern age. 

Also, media coverage can act to reinforce a consciousness of the ummah.  Esposito argues,

The creation of international Arab and Muslim newspapers and media, such as the television station al-Jazeera, with daily coverage from embattled Muslim frontiers, as well as CNN, the BBC, and the Internet have brought the many struggles, or jihads, of Muslim communities in Palestine and Afghanistan, Bosnia, Iraq, Chechnya, and Kashmir into the living rooms and everyday consciousness of Muslims around the world. [xxxiii]

The media, specifically television, has been an essential avenue for bin Laden to spread knowledge of his radical jihad ideology. In October 2001, when bin Laden admitted his involvement in the attacks of September 11 via video camera, the footage was aired on the al-Jazeera television network that November. One reporter notes that, in the past, similar footage of bin Laden for propaganda purposes had not been made for public release via the al-Jazeera television. Rather this footage was intended to be “a rallying call to al-Qa'eda members.” [2] [xxxiv]   Such actions suggest that bin Laden and his supporters are also aware of the capabilities of media in the world today.  Bernard Lewis, an expert on Middle Eastern affairs, acknowledges the asset media can be to terrorists.

Thanks to the rapid development of the media, and especially of television, the more recent forms of terrorism are targeted not at specific and limited enemy objectives but at world opinion. Their primary purpose is not to defeat or even to weaken the enemy militarily but to gain publicity—a psychological victory. [xxxv]

Regardless of whether or not Osama bin Laden is able to recruit more Muslims to fight on behalf of his particular ideology, the loudspeaker for his ideas to reach the oppressed world is being provided.  He said,

There is no doubt that every state and every civilization and culture has to resort to terrorism under certain circumstances for the purpose of abolishing tyranny and corruption . . . The terrorism we practice is of the commendable kind for it is directed at the tyrants, the traitors who commit acts of treason against their own countries and their own faith and their own prophet and their own nation.  Terrorizing those and punishing them are necessary measures to straighten things and make them right. [xxxvi]

Osama’s Justification through the Scapegoat Mechanism

Like many secular leaders before, bin Laden has been resourcefully sensitive to the list of grievances of their people as it helps to justify the leader’s acts.  In bin Laden, Americans may see little but an obscuring and unintelligible hatred for the United States.  In 1998, Osama bin Laden told an American reporter,

America has no shame. ... We believe that the worst thieves in the world today and the worst terrorists are the Americans. Nothing could stop you except perhaps retaliation in kind. We do not have to differentiate between military or civilian. As far as we are concerned, they are all targets, and this is what the fatwah says ... . The fatwah is general (comprehensive) and it includes all those who participate in, or help the Jewish occupiers in killing Muslims. [xxxvii]

In line with Esposito’s analysis, I find that al-Qaeda’s militant jihadist worldview retraces history, in as much as, it supports the network’s claims, and reinvents the Islamic tradition to support the unholy war of violence and terrorism. [xxxviii]   But then, how has this voice of persecution, of extremism, found an audience in today’s Islamic world?  Osama’s ideology and religious rhetoric plays into Muslims’ feelings of frustration and disillusionment with the hypocrisy of Western countries, in particular the United States.  Just like the many others scapegoats, the U.S. is a useful stand-in for Muslim grievances about the economic hardship and political repression under which most Muslim people live, and as a way of deflecting consequential anger.

Esposito writes,  “The Crusades and European colonialism have had a universal and lasting impact on the Muslim imagination.” [xxxix]   In the West, the Crusades often represent a victory for Christianity.  For the majority, the historical truths behind this series of battles are obviously of little concern since the Crusaders ultimately were the losers.  President George W. Bush’s reference to the Crusades on the eve of the War in Iraq is evidence of such a disregard for the historical truths. Esposito posits,  “The significance of the Crusades is less a case of what happened than what the stories taught us to believe.  Each community looks back with memories of its commitment to defend its faith and to heroic tales of bravery and chivalry in struggling against ‘infidel.’” [xl]   In modern Muslim thinking, there has been an increase in awareness of the Crusades as Western power has grown and become more threatening and the loss of Palestine occurred.  The significance of the Christian occupation of Jerusalem from 1099 to 1187 when it was liberated from European rule by Salah al-Din ('Saladin') [xli] was far less resonant because the Islamic world was the commanding civilization. The series of Western expeditions were short-lived and conducted by barbarians.  Armstrong explains that it wasn’t until the twentieth century that Muslim historians became “preoccupied by the medieval Crusades, looking back with nostalgia to the victorious Saladin, and longing for a leader who would be able to contain the neo-Crusade of Western imperialism.” [xlii]   Today, the Crusades are amongst a litany of reasons that Osama urges for jihad.  Furthermore, the Crusade is a catchy way to recall the on-going saga between forces of good and evil.

For many Muslims, European forces of modernization resulted in “paradigmatic shock.”  The Western system involved a complete transformation from the conventional agrarian system, and consequently required entirely new social, economic, educational, religious, spiritual, political and intellectual structures. [xliii]   During Islamic domination, the European culture was assumed to be “backward.”  Unfortunately, the European forces of modernization, which entered the Islamic world, brought similar stereotypes.  Armstrong writes, “Muslims were exposed to the contempt of the colonialists, who were so thoroughly imbued by modern ethos that they were often appalled by what they could only see as the backwardness, inefficiency, fatalism and corruption of Muslim society.” [xliv]   The ulama [3] of the Ottoman society were unable to guide their people through the sudden arrival of Western modernity, as their old ethos was initially stumped by the new demands. [xlv]   Colonialism divided the Islamic world into colonies, making the cohesion of the ummah a greater concern, and brought a new ethos and system requirement for modernization. Under European ethos, modernization often meant a separation of Church from State.  For Islamic societies, this colonial attitude was coercive and began to divide the Muslim world in uncomfortable ways.  Islam’s traditionally intimate relations between religion, politics, and societies were largely ignored.  This collision with Europe and the colonial experience dislocated Islamic society. [xlvi]

The humiliation of the ummah [4] was not merely a political catastrophe, but touched Muslims very soul.  This new weakness was as a sign that something had gone gravely awry in Islamic history.  The Quran had promised that a society which surrendered to God’s revealed will could not fail.  Muslim history had proved this . . . [But now, how] could Islamdom be falling more and more under the dominion of the secular, Godless West? [xlvii]

The intrusion of the West helped raise major questions, particularly religious nature.  Muslim thinkers emerged to address the conditions of modern Muslims, and some gave rise to a new brand of political Islam and, consequently, roots to bin Laden’s campaign.  For bin Laden, European colonialism devastated the unity and legacy of the Islamic world.  This view does not stand in vacuum but incorporates many elements from Muslim history.  When Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda declared war against America, eighteenth-century revivalists, militant jihad, Wahhabi Islam, and condemnation of Western alliances with autocratic Muslim leaders all converged. [xlviii]   Today, these elements of history continue as an answer for Muslim frustration, and contemporary events, such as the Iraqi war, act as extra fuel in the raging inferno of blame.

Bin Laden’s Radical Jihad Ideology

“I urge you to seek the joy of life and the afterlife and to rid yourself of your dry, miserable and spiritless materialistic life.  I urge you to become Muslims” (Osama bin Laden). [xlix]

Jihad has acted as “a powerful defining concept for ideologues seeking, in times of crisis, to use their tradition to return power, peace, and social justice to their communities.” [l]   The origins of bin Laden’s radical jihad ideology and the vision of modern Islamic reform can be traced back to three intellectuals: the revivalist movements of Hassan al-Banna’s Muslim Brotherhood and Syed Abul Ala Maududi’s Jamaat Islami, and later, Sayyid Qutb’s radicalization of these two men’s ideas. [li] Both revivalist movements were a response to colonialism and its aftermath, and sought to restore the Islamic ideal of the union of religion and state. [lii]   The men “blamed the western idea of separation of religion and politics for the decline of Muslim societies.  This, they believed, could only be corrected through a return to Islam in its traditional form, in which society was governed by a strict code of Islamic law.” [liii]   To end the foreign occupation of Muslim lands, Al-Banna and Maududi advocated jihad as holy war.  Armstrong explains, “The stress and fear of cultural and religious annihilation had led to the development of a more extreme and potentially violent distortion of faith.” [liv]

The ideology of Sayyid al Qutb (1906-66) has had a profound influence on Militant Islam in the Sunni World.  Sayyid Qutb distorted both the message of the Quran and the Hadith. [lv]   “Qutb told Muslims to model themselves on Muhammad: to separate themselves from mainstream society . . . and then engage in a violent jihad.” [lvi]   Such an interpretation of Muhammad’s hjrah from Mecca to Medina overlooked the prophet’s final victory through his acts of non-violence and the Quran’s strong opposition to the use of force in religious matters. [lvii]  

Esposito attributes a large part of bin Laden’s worldview to the context of his Saudi Arabian religious heritage. [lviii]   For the Saudi government, Wahhabism has been an important source of their religious and political legitimation since the country’s modern-day establishment. [lix]   Wahhabism, an ultraconservative interpretation of Islam, began as an eighteenth century religiopolitical movement across central Arabia uniting tribes and proclaiming to be a re-creation of Islam under the Prophet Muhammad. [lx]   In this interpretation, any un-Islamic behavior must be answered with jihad.  Because Wahhabis stressed the absolute oneness of God and a literal interpretation of the Quran and Sunna (example) of the Prophet, they found many tribes and Muslim communities to be un-Islamic.  “Jihad or holy war was not simply permissible: to fight the unbelievers and reestablish a true Islamic state was required.” [lxi]   This fundamentalist interpretation of Islam is key to understanding the worldview of today’s radicals and reformers. [lxii] This brand of Islam provides black and white answers to the humiliation of the ummah and serves as a prominent example of the eighteenth-century Islamic revivalist movements bent on returning to the roots of their faith and reclaiming their destiny. 

Perhaps fundamentalism “exists in a symbiotic relationship with coercive secularism.” [lxiii]  

Modernization has all too often widened the gap, destroyed those social bonds, and, through the universality of the modern media, made the resulting inequalities painfully visible. All this has created new and receptive audiences for Wahhabi teachings and those of other like-minded groups, among them the Muslim Brothers in Egypt and Syria and the Taliban in Afghanistan. [lxiv]

The struggle for a modern Islamic State has been a source of upheaval and stress, as reconciling aspects of Western modernity and Islam is problematic.  Bin Laden has come to see this as a clash of civilizations in which jihad is the best way to put Muslim history back on the straight path rid of a contaminating Western influence.

Girard’s Stereotypes of a Persecution Text

Even though the United States has had no direct involvement in either the Crusade or European colonialism it is being scapegoated for crimes it hasn’t committed.  Based on Girard’s analysis, the US bears all the stereotypical marks of a victim of persecution.  Beyond identification of the scapegoat strategy and its conditions, Girard’s analysis imparts important insight as to why Osama’s illegitimate claims against the United States can make use of the sacrificial system with such ease.  Perhaps, it is through Girard that we’ll understand why such a flawed strategy promises to continue throughout the world.

            How does collective persecution, usually encouraged by the extremes of public opinion, gain resonance with a greater populace? [lxv] Girard explains that these are times of crisis and the circumstances that favor mob formation and weaken normal institutions may be internal (e.g. political or religious conflicts) or external (e.g. a drought or hurricane). [lxvi]   Rene Girard is concerned with the conditions which tend to trigger collective persecution. [lxvii]   Throughout the Muslim world, conditions are as ripe as any modern day arena for a successful scapegoat mechanism.  Girard’s analysis proves helpful as it clearly identifies the United States as a stereotypical victim and affirms that many of the conditions in the Islamic world described in earlier pages have prompted bin Laden’s persecution myth. 

Girard defines three stereotypes common to most persecution texts.  The first stereotype of persecution is social crisis or, rather, loss of differentiation “evidenced by the disappearance of the rules and ‘differences’ that define cultural divisions.” [lxviii]   In response there emerges the need to reestablish boundaries and draw distinctions.  But sufficient answers for the causes of social disorder are both hard to come by and may take longer to conceptualize than is desired.  And so Girard says this crisis is usually understood through moral or social explanations regardless of the cause of the disaster. [lxix]   During this time of restoring a sense of identity and social solidarity, everything and everyone is accused of being a source of the crisis. [lxx] Social norms hazed by the crisis may be rebuilt in their strictest sense and when these norms are transgressed they may be understood by the persecutors as the most heinous of crimes as they attack the foundation of cultural order: [lxxi] a social order already under siege.  As a result of the loss of differentiation, the mob mentality is produced, or when applied to the contemporary issue at hand, extremism is produced.

In the second stereotype, considerations for the true cause, or moreover, the nature of the troubled conditions of the populace is not of interest to the growing mob of persecutors.  Unfortunately, crises within a group of people tend to result in spiked uniformity rather than a profound search into the natural causes of disaster. [lxxii]   The causes of a great social crisis may be from a diversity of sources, [lxxiii] but this is generally overlooked.  A close relationship exists between the first two stereotypes.  “In order to blame victims for the loss of distinctions resulting from the crisis, they are accused of crimes that eliminate distinctions.” [lxxiv]  

Conveniently, Girard’s most cited conditions which trigger collective violence, religious and political conflicts, likewise, characterize the crisis throughout the Muslim world.  Regardless of the “cause,” (such as the forces of European colonialism or the ulama’s inability to answer questions of the modern ethos) traditional reliopolitical bodies of the Islamic world were in part uprooted.  The weakening of the authority of the ulama and the division of the ummah has been a source of great upheaval and stress.  The revivalist movements of Maududi and al-Banna responded to the disappearance of their culture with a call for re-unification and a return to the order of past empires, when Islamic power and solidarity were greater.  Today, Muslims’ sense of their religion as ‘embattled faith’ allows the process towards persecution to evolve. 

Girard says, “Culture is somehow eclipsed as it becomes less differentiated,” [lxxv] and this is terribly frightening to humans.  “But, rather than blame themselves, people inevitably blame either society as a whole, which costs them nothing, or other people who seem particularly harmful for identifiable reasons.” [lxxvi]   When many of the nuances and differences within a culture are obscured from view, so comes a clearer audience for radical voices and the move to, an ultimately false, uniformity. 

In truth, the victims are identified for persecution mainly because they have the stereotypical marks of victims. [lxxvii]    When a culture begins to lose the boundaries which provide distinction, it is the people who transgress a boundary that are most susceptible to persecution.  Girard’s final stereotype involves the actual signs of the victim.  Whether guilty of a crime or not, often “the persecutors choose their victims because they belong to a class that is particularly susceptible to persecution rather than because of the crimes they have committed.” [lxxviii]   Girard’s goal here is to “enumerate the qualities that tend to polarize violent crowds against those who possess them.” [lxxix]   He identifies many qualities of the stereotypical victim, and it is his identification of marginality or foreignness that promises profound resonance in our modern act of violence.

Girard argues that differences exist in two types: the difference from within the system and the difference from outside the system. [lxxx]   This division is essential to our argument, that the US bears the signs of a victim, as the signs that select a victim for persecution always come from outside the system. [lxxxi]

According to Girard, “persecutors are never obsessed by difference but rather by its unutterable contrary, the lack of difference.” [lxxxii]   The more closed the culture the greater the threat foreigners will pose. Girard explains, “Foreigners are incapable of respecting “real difference; they are lacking in culture or in taste, as the case may be.  They have difficulty in perceiving exactly what is different.” [lxxxiii]    The relationship between the crisis of the loss of differentiation and foreignness is therefore revealed. 

Girard says, “Even in the most closed cultures men believe they are free and open to the universal; their differential character makes the narrowest cultural fields seem inexhaustible from within.”  Differences exist inside every system as the individual exists.  The difference that comes from outside the system threatens this illusion of the universal from within a closed system.  And it is that which exists outside the culture that terrifies and reawakens the tendency towards persecution “because it reveals the truth of the system, its relativity, its fragility, and its morality.” [lxxxiv] In the absence of difference, the sacrificial mechanism swoops down once more to catch us before we fall into the abyss of nothingness.

Along with Girard, I acknowledge that the mechanisms of prejudice have been diluted through the generations.  Being aware of this is helpful when considering anti-Americanism because the signs of a victim can be less overt.  Girard says, “today anti-Americanism claims to ‘differ’ from previous prejudices because it espouses all differences and rejects the uniquely American virus of uniformity.” [lxxxv]

The identity of the Muslim—individually, nationally, culturally, religiously—is in crisis.  Radicals accuse everybody but themselves, believing it’s the secularists, the corrupt government, and, most of all, the United States.  How has this transfer of blame been bridged?  America’s transference to a victim of the scapegoat mechanism was easy to achieve.  The increasingly globalized world naturally exports culture.  Culture serves as the “transmission belt by which so much of the impact of globalization and modern values is conveyed to foreign audiences and through which identities are so profoundly challenged.” [lxxxvi] Big macs, Who Wants to be a Millionare, Playboy magazines all come in on the American current contributing to blurred social distinctions which many in the Islamic world value. 

Sixty leading American scholars issued a statement about the hatred of bin Laden and the attackers,

. . . the killing was done for its own sake.  The leader of Al Qaeda described the blessed strikes” of September 11 as blows against America, “the head of world infidelity.”  Clearly, then, our attackers despise not just our government, but our overall society, our entire way of living.  Fundamentally, their grievance concerns not only what our leaders do, but also who they are. [lxxxvii]

At the heart of militant Islam’s resentment and hostility for the United States lie issues of identity.  American culture is to be understood as the greatest perceivable threat to Osama bin Laden’s idea of true Islamic order.  While Americans often identify themselves as a naturally pluralistic people, I doubt bin Laden could acknowledge American culture in the diverse and dynamic way implied without shattering the good versus evil movement.  Rather, bin Laden holds fast to a binary logic, which perceives American culture as the foreign threat, as a “virus of uniformity” or an undifferentiated mass from the outside.

Perhaps America is the perfect sacrificial victim for the Muslim world.  It is easily identifiable, hypocritical, meddling, and most of all, foreign.  The foreigner stereotype, allows bin Laden to create a mirage of uniformity as he places blame at its fringes and overlooks the aspects of the natural dynamism and diversity within the Muslim people.  A remarkable example of the foreign stereotype also serves as a major rallying point for the al-Qaeda network: the ‘liberation’ of Mecca and Medina, the two major holy sites, from its corrupt, un-Islamic government, Saudi Arabia, and the U.S. troops.  Bin Laden makes constant reference to the presence of U.S. troops on holy soil as a justification for jihad.  He has interpreted the Quran to denounce the presence of any two religions in either of the holy sites.  The deployment of U.S. (Christian) troops, upon the request of the Saudi government, have been stationed at a considerable distance from either of the two holy sites, but bin Laden has managed to take the sacrality of the two holy sites and somehow extend it to include the nation of Saudi Arabia.  As much as bin Laden is able to persuade others of the invasion of Christianity, the religion is perceived as under attack, and the scapegoat mechanism is justified.

Today, a centralized authority in the Islamic world has collapsed.  According to Khled Abou el Fadl, an Islamic law expert at UCLA, this collapse has led to a “moral and political vacuum,” allowing virtually any Muslim to act as an authority and declare jihad. [lxxxviii]    Therefore, contesting the legitimacy of bin Laden’s issuance of fatwas and calls to jihad is complicated.  According to bin Laden, social confusion only exists amongst the non-believers.  His strict monotheism paves the way for extreme moral dualism in which things are either good or evil.  He said, “The struggle between us and them, the confrontation, and clashing began centuries ago, and will continue because the ground rules regarding the fight between right and falsehood will remain valid until Judgment Day.” [lxxxix]   True Muslims can be understood as one nation of Islam as all others are evil and deserve no further differentiation.  Incidents caused by the United States have “divided the world into two regions – one of faith where there is no hypocrisy and another of infidelity, from which we hope God will protect us.” [xc]

            However, Bin Laden’s refusal to differentiate between his enemies secures the failure of the scapegoat mechanism.  A most appropriate example is in regard to the Israeli- Palestinian conflict.  Bin Laden said, “Those who distinguish between American and Israel are the real enemies of the nation.” [xci]   As his lack of differentiation between cultures and bodies of people fails to produce a clear enemy, it also fails to produce realistic solutions for crises in the Muslim world.

Conclusion: The Prominence of the Scapegoat Mechanism

In short, the scapegoat mechanism fails again, even if Bin Laden claims, “Polls show that the vast majority of the sons of the Islamic world were happy about these strikes because they believe that the strikes were in reaction to the huge criminality practiced by Israel and the United States in Palestine and other Muslim countries.” [xcii]   Unfortunately, its failings to produce Muslim solidarity don’t mean the sacrificial system won’t be used again.  I believe the attacks have helped to reinforce the consciousness of the ummah worldwide; however, gauging the reactions of the Muslim world post- September 11^th  is riddled with problems.  If anything becomes evident when reading literature on the contemporary forms of Islamic society, it is that no monolithic Islam exists.  Acknowledging Islam as both a religion and a culture can provide valuable insight in a discussion of Islamic fundamentalism.  Scholar Leonard Stone makes this distinction in order to prove that in each case of fundamentalism “the people involved have chosen to go back to or invoke the fundamental values of their culture according to which their daily lives are fashioned and lived.” [xciii]   Bin Laden’s ideology is no exception to this rule as I hope the circumstances of his history have revealed, and it is not hard to see why bin Laden’s ideology will always fail to achieve its desired brand of pan-Islamic solidarity.  In as much as bin Laden’s ideology is only opened to a one-eyed right and laden with “theocratic, antirational, and misogynist values,” [xciv] it exemplifies the reasons why unity can never be created through exclusion.  Many Muslims seem aware of bin Laden’s unholy war and more of their voices need to be given airtime throughout the Muslim world. 

On a grimmer note, we must remember Bernard Lewis’s assertion: “Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda followers may not represent Islam, and their statements and their actions directly contradict basic Islamic principles and teachings, but they do arise from within Muslim civilization.” [xcv]   Today, Anti-Americanism spreads like a disease throughout the Muslim world and is extremely vulnerable to the scapegoat mechanism.  Salman Rushdie “captures this phenomena when he writes that even if the Middle East peace settlement were achieved, anti-Americanism would be likely to continue unabated:” [xcvi]

It has become too useful a smokescreen for Muslim nations’ many defects—their corruption, their incompetence, their oppression of their citizens, their economic, scientific and cultural stagnation.  America-hating has become a badge of identity, making possible a chest beating, flag-burning rhetoric of word and deed that makes most men feel good.  It contains a strong streak of hypocrisy, hating most what it desires most, and elements of self-loathing. (‘We hate America because it has made of itself what we cannot make of ourselves.’)  What America is accused of—close-mindedness, stereotyping, ignorance—is also what its accusers would see if they looked into a mirror. [xcvii]

In reality, if America, or even Western imperialism, were to vanish from earth the miseries of Muslim people would not.  Yet, the scapegoat strategy is as prominent as ever! 

            Instead of hanging my head and admitting defeat I choose to go the route of fellow free thinkers and hope that this very analysis, as it exposes the scapegoat mechanism in all its glory, shows the value of self-examination for finding solutions to problems.  Many of the conditions, which lend themselves to the scapegoat mechanism, could be alleviated through various means (e.g. fairer diplomacy).  Furthermore, as Americans, if we can be wise enough to recognize that the victims of our own scapegoating don’t deserve such persecution, we can be wise enough to recognize that we don’t deserve it either. And finally, to end on an ever more promising note, former Libyan Prime Minister, Abd Al-Hamid Al –Bakkoush, published an article in 2002 criticizing anti-U.S. sentiment among Arabs.  While he allowed Arabs their hatred for America, he also said, “Perhaps it is time we realize that wisdom dictates that we treat the leader of the West realistically . . . America has many interests in our region that it needs to protect . . . It is a country with a right to protect its interests just as we have.  Although the U.S. is an elusive power, it is not a despotic power that cannot be influenced.  Perhaps most of the things we complain of. . . stem from our own flaws.” [xcviii]