Olexander Shtokvish
Senior Staff Scientist at the National Academy
of the State Security Service of Ukraine,
Candidate of Philosophy

“Ethnical Terrorism” as One of the Risks of Globalization

The term “ethnical terrorism” is placed high in political lexicon. It characterizes terrorist actions to achieve certain ethnical and political goals (sovereignty, political freedoms and revenge for political oppression) which are vital for this community according to terrorists. However, we think that this definition is not correct. According to an established tradition “ethnical” denotes something which is inherent to some peculiar nationality and mentality. That is to say that terrorist acts are committed due to ethnical and cultural characteristics of some nationality, something a theory of aggression applied to some nations. This approach is at fault. Not mentality provides motivation for terrorism, but political and economic conditions. The problem of correlation between ethnical culture and terrorism is not solved by the given definition. The process known as a conflict of civilizations has gained publicity lately. From cultural point of view it is opposition between the East and the West due to cultural reasons, or economic reasons for the confrontation between the rich North and the poor South. In any case this situation is connected with globalization. Rapid development of informational technologies from the 80ss of the last century brought radical changes of the world civilization.

Scientists-futurologists predict information society or globalization – wide integration of markets, finance and technologies etc.

It may appear that these integration processes should lead to union, but not confrontation. But globalization has many drawbacks. One of them is increased competition on the global scale.

Global economy moved by technological breakthroughs is based on the wide integration of markets and national economies, but it still has competition which is very tough. This is one of the characteristics of globalization.

Globalization eliminates ethnical and national doesn’t eliminate ethnical differences, but on the contrary it emphasizes them. Global culture strengthens nationalist movements and this leads to conflicts. In less developed countries these processes are seen as cultural and economic expansion. Conflict doesn’t mean armed confrontation and in no way explains terrorism. Still as it can be seen from historical examples it is one of the factors which promoted terrorism. This is determined by two factors connected with ethnical mentality.

1. Using terror in ethnic conflicts is a sure-fire way to intimidate opponents. It is still more important when the latter outnumber and they are more powerful in terms of military power. In that case this gives a possibility to paralyze enemies through psychological pressure and, thus, discard the myth about their power and boost the morale of own people. This is called a compensation function of terrorism which also can be used to consolidate communities as people feel that they can overcome more powerful enemies.
2. Perception of terrorists as heroes, fighters for people with an obligatory attribute – the status of martyrs. The fact that terrorist acts are usually committed by a handful of daredevils neglecting their lives for superior goals elevates their status to the level of supermen which comes from mythological thinking.

Historical analysis of different ideologies of the past shows that they have general elements, common complexes or social myths which create the core of different trends sometimes very remote from each other. A number of researchers mention “migrating stereotypes”. Heroic motif is one example to recall. Folklore traditions of many nations preserved stories and legends about heroic deeds of extraordinary people competing against the evil and saving their people or humanity.

Culturologists and ethnologists call the main character of these stories “a cultural Hero”.

We share the opinion of specialists about the importance of social myths, especially heroic myths for the life of the community. There are many sources devoted to this issue. Let’s emphasize only two prominent characteristics about the image of the Hero – supernatural abilities and dramatic or tragic nature of his faith.

Initially, a hero in ancient myths has power which exceeds usual human nature. Heroes were half-gods. But from the rise of Ancient Greece the term “hero” came to be applied to denote usual mortars, those who died for the country or assassinators. By the way, terrorists like to present themselves as assassinators.

Thus, these people position themselves as contemporary heroes who exceed the limits of usual lives and lead compatriots rekindling the feeling of dignity and honor and inspiring them to fight. Similar ethnically consolidating tendencies can be found in such early radical organizations of the end of 19th – beginning of the 20th century – “Young Bosnia” (Austria and Hungary), “Black Hand” (Serbia), Armenian “Dasharcutyun” (Turkey, Russia), Irish IRA and Croatian ustashis. The most vivid examples can be traced from activities of terrorist organizations in the Middle East – Palestine.

Today this geographical reference is associated with the term “Arabic” or “Islamic terrorism» against people of Israel. But if to remember the history of this country initially the situation was radically different. Throughout the 1st part of the 20th century the process of arrival of Jewish settlers to Palestine was accompanied by violent confrontation between local Arabic people and English-speaking administration. Settlers came from different cultural backgrounds and even spoke different languages. There were united through such radical organizations as “Palmah”, “Shtern”, “irgun Zwei Leumi” which combined security mission with terrorizing Arabic and English officials.

After the rise of Israel, from the middle of 60ss Arabic side took over the initiative which learned from their rivals. We can draw a conclusion that extremism combined with religious fundamentalism catalyzed the process of consolidation of ethnical communities under the threat to their existence.

Thus, speaking about “ethnical terrorism” we should stress that it is used a means of radical political or economic fight which under certain conditions may be considered a way to boost national spirit by mobilizing ethnical communities. The only possibility to prevent this situation is to overcome of prevent the aforementioned conditions. Although this is a very disputable question.