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Spring 2010 Meeting schedule: Class discussion: Tu/Th 10-11:30 a.m.; Lab schedule: Tu 8:30-10:00 a.m. Location: Eliot 200F This course is about conflicts in which coercion is deployed and moralistic terms invoked so as to give legitimacy to violence, even against non-combatants. The code words in the title are bracketed in order to emphasize that we will examine them as terms used rhetorically in public discourse for political effect. When particular social situations are disputed, the disputants deploy moralistic terms of this sort so as to clothe their actions and viewpoints with an aura of legitimacy and to enlist popular support. But when issues are contested, similar terms can be used by opposing sides with similar but contrary intents: one person’s “terrorist” is another person’s “freedom fighter”. We refer to Huntington's term "Clash of Civilization" because such terms are used by all sides in the conflicts currently taking place in some places. Certain radical Islamist groups specifically embrace Huntington’s notion of “the clash of civilizations” (formulated for western audiences) as grounds for their anti-western posture. Rhetorical formulae such as these are promoted or scorned, embraced or renounced, for essentially strategic reasons in political contests. In this course we examine some notorious situations of conflict in order to identify the particular way that disputing sides have deployed moralistic forms in their own interest – as when popular movements arise and clash with state power (e.g., the Tianamen Square incident in China), or when coalitions with radical social agendas take form and brutalize neighbors (as in Yugoslavia in the 1990s; Rwanda in 1994), or when widely supported public movements develop seemingly without coordination (the 2006 demonstrations against the King of Nepal), or when movements animated by a shared ambition to establish a non-state political entity (such as Al Qaeda for the re-institution of the caliphate) form across state boundaries, apparently with little coordination. NB: [Except for the first day] every Tuesday 8:30-10:00 a.m. will
be the video viewing "lab."
In addition, because there is such a huge and recent literature
on these topics, members of the class will select a monograph from the
list below and will write a summary of the monograph that is to be copied
to the other students in the class.
Graduate students will be asked to write at least one short paper
that engages conceptual issues. They will also discuss their ideas
on
Most of our attention will be on the ways that “terrorism” is legitimated by the situations and movements discussed in the course. Grading
Books and Materials In the Campus Book Store: Lawrence Wright. The Looming Tower.
In Lbrary: ares for this course *Samuel P. Huntington. 1993. "The Clash of Civilizations."
Foreign affairs 72, no. 3, (Summer 1993): 22-49.
Website for Project of New American Century: http://www.newamericancentury.org/ Conceptual works from which some reading assignments
will be selected
*Anderson, B. 1991 [1983]. Imagined Communities [a selection].
Nordstrom, Carolyn. 2000. Shadows and Sovereigns. Thoery,
Culture & Society 17(4): 35-54.
Resources LINK
TO a schedule of films, discussion topics, and optional readings
Lecture Notes on: Modern History of the Middle East Link to Library website for this course Monographs to choose from Monographs can be viewed below, or more interactively using this program. On Torture *John Conroy. 2001. Unspeakable Acts, Ordinary People:
The Dynamics of Torture
*Martha K. Huggins, Mika Haritos-Fatouros, and Philip G. Zimbardo. 2002. Violence Workers: Police Torturers and Murderers Reconstruct Brazilian Atrocities. U. of California Press. [Annihilating Difference: The Anthropology of Genocide, edited by Alexander Laban Hinton.] *David Chandler. 2000. Voices from S-21: Terror and History in Pol Pot's Secret Prison. U. of Calif *Paglen, Trevor and A. C. Thompson. 2006. Torture Taxi: On the Trail of the CIA’s Rendition Flights. Hoboken, NJ: Melville House. *Stephen Grey. 2006. Ghost Plane: The True Story of the CIA Torture Program. New York: St Martins. JK 468 I6 G74 2006 On Terrorism Elsewhere *Gabriele Garcia Marquez: 1997. News of a Kidnapping. New York: Penguin. [re Pablo Escobar’s capture]. See another book about Escobar, by Downing?/Browning? *Mark Bowden. 2001. "Killing Pablo: The Hunt For The World's Greatest Outlaw." Atlantic Monthly Press, New York. Works on War and Genocide *Hinton, Alexander Laban. 2002. Annihilating Difference: The Anthropology of Genocide. Berkeley: U of Calif. ISBN 0-520-23028-0. Articles on Genocide by Bringa [Bosnia], Schafft [3rdReich], Taylor[Rwanda], $15.00 paper From Racism to Genocide: Anthropology in the Third Reich (Paperback)
Lynching and Spectacle: Witnessing Racial Violence in America, 1890-1940 (New Directions in Southern Studies). Amy Louise Wood. The University of North Carolina Press (March 26, 2009) Blood and Soil: A World History of Genocide and Extermination from Sparta to Darfur. Ben Kiernan. Yale University Press (February 17, 2009) Africa's World War: Congo, the Rwandan Genocide, and the Making of a Continental Catastrophe. Gérard Prunier. Oxford University Press, USA (December 31, 2008) The Congo Wars: Conflict, Myth and Reality. Thomas Turner. Zed Books (June 15, 2007). Africa's World War: Congo, the Rwandan Genocide, and the Making of a Continental Catastrophe. Gérard Prunier. Oxford University Press, USA (December 31, 2008) Saviors and Survivors: Darfur, Politics, and the War on Terror. Mahmood Mamdani. Pantheon; First Edition edition (March 17, 2009). When Victims Become Killers: Colonialism, Nativism, and the Genocide in Rwanda. Mahmood Mamdani. Princeton University Press (August 12, 2002) Becoming Evil: How Ordinary People Commit Genocide and Mass Killing. James E. Waller. Oxford University Press, USA; 2 edition (March 22, 2007) On Suicide Bombing. Talal Asad. Columbia University Press (June 1, 2007) King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial
Africa. Adam Hochschild. Mariner Books (October 1999)
Recent works on “terror” and deception of the public *Asad, Talal. 2007. On Suicide Bombing. New York: Columbia University. *Ayaan Hirsi Ali. 2007. Infidel. *Aydin, Cemil. 2007. The Politics of Anti-Westernism in Asia: Visions of World Order in Pan-Islamic and Pan-Asian Thought. New York: Columbia University. *Ayesha Siddiqa. 2007. Military Inc: Inside Pakistan's Military Economy (Pluto Press, 2007). [Blom, Amelie, Laetitia Bucaille, and Luis Martinez [eds]. 2007. The Enigma of Islamist Violence. New York: Columbia University.] *Blom, Mia. 2007. Dying to Kill: the Allure of Suicide Terror. New York: Columbia University. *Bonini, Carlo and Giuseppe D’Avanzo. 2007. Collusion: International Espionage and the War on Terror. Hoboken, NJ: Melville House. *J. Millard Burr, Robert O. Collins. 2006. Alms for Jihad: Charity and Terrorism in the Islamic World. Cambridge: Cambridge University. [out of print July 2007] (Los Angeles, CA) — Jeffrey A. Stern, President and Publisher of Los Angeles-based Bonus Books, Inc., is speaking out about this week’s decision by Cambridge University Press to destroy all unsold copies of their 2006 book, “Alms for Jihad,” by American authors Robert Collins and J. Millard Burr, in response to a libel action brought against them in British courts by Saudi billionaire Khalid Salim A. Bin Mahfouz. In just one of a series of heavy-handed libel suits against American and British journalists and publishers filed in British courts in recent years, Mahfouz claimed that “Alms for Jihad” wrongly implicates him as having had a significant role in aiding terrorism. // In a similar attempt to halt the distribution of such claims, libel tourist Bin Mahfouz also filed a libel action in British courts against Dr. Rachel Ehrenfeld, after Bonus Books published her 2003 book “FUNDING EVIL: How Terrorism is Financed and How to Stop It.” Ehrenfeld, director of the American Center for Democracy, also alleged Bin Mahfouz of backing organizations with alleged ties to terrorism, a charge that Mahfouz, formerly president of the National Commercial Bank of Saudi Arabia, continues to deny. But Ehrenfeld stands behind her research, and publisher Stern stands by his author “I find it utterly appalling that any publisher—let alone one with the history and perceived credibility of Cambridge University Press—would allow themselves to be bullied into making such a decision,” Stern said. “Clearly they must have supported the material before they agreed to a publishing deal with (U.S. authors) Collins and Burr. It’s only now, after being slapped with a suit in the U.K. by the likes of Bin Mahfouz, that they have suddenly decided to concede to demands to pull the book. What’s worse, they have not only agreed to pay damages but they have even gone so far as to issue a formal apology on their website, completely discrediting their authors as having made ‘defamatory allegations’ to which there was ‘no truth whatsoever.’” “Alms for Jihad” authors Robert O. Collins, a professor emeritus of history at the University of California at Santa Barbara, and J. Millard Burr, a retired employee of the U.S. State Department, who were not personally named in the libel action, have refused to endorse their publisher’s settlement. // “What happened to freedom of the press?” Stern said. “We’re talking about two very credible American writers here. The very idea that these authors could be silenced in the U.S. by a British court is not only outrageous and fraught with frightening journalistic implications, it’s simply un-American.” After several copies of the U.S.-released FUNDING EVIL happened to be purchased online by UK buyers, Bin Mahfouz filed suit against Ehrenfeld in Great Britain, where outdated libel laws still put the burden of proof on the defendant. Ehrenfeld was ordered to pay £114, 386.52 in fines and expenses, publish an apology and physically destroy her books. Because she is a U.S. citizen who writes and lives in New York City, Ehrenfeld did not acknowledge the British court. Instead, she filed suit in New York, seeking to block enforcement of the judgment, citing it as contrary to the free speech protections that Americans enjoy. In June, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in her favor, finding that Ehrenfeld’s claim CAN be brought before a U.S. court. The decision was hailed by prominent U.S. civil rights attorney Harvey Silverglate as one of “the most important First Amendment cases” of the last quarter century. As a result, every American-based writer and publisher in similar “libel tourism” situations can now seek a U.S. court decision, requesting that a foreign decision not be enforceable in this country. // In a recent Washington Times editorial about the Ehrenfeld case, scholar and Jihad Watch director Robert Spencer noted the release of a September 13, 2001 note from France’s foreign intelligence agency, the DGSE (General Directorate of External Security). He stated that French news site Geopolitique.com obtained the note in late June, revealing that in 1996, Bin Mahfouz was known to be one of the architects of a banking scheme constructed for the benefit of Osama bin Laden. The report also claims that both U.S. and British intelligence services had knowledge of this. “This is just the latest addition to the mountain of evidence from which Miss Ehrenfeld constructed her case in ‘Funding Evil,’” Spencer writes. “Even if this evidence is all mistaken, the British libel judgment against Ehrenfeld appears all the more fantastic and unjustifiable in light of the fact that French intelligence agents had documents allowing them to come to the same conclusion she did.” Ehrenfeld, who is also a Member of the Board of Directors of the Committee on the Present Danger (www.fightingterror.org), told the Chronicle of Higher Education on Monday that she finds Cambridge University Press’ decision “despicable,” and that as she understands it, they “caved immediately.” If and when the New York Court of Appeals decides that there is jurisdiction over Bin Mahfouz, Ehrenfeld’s case would proceed on its merits—allowing Ehrenfeld to conduct pre-trial “discovery” of Bin Mahfouz’s financial activities to further confirm the accuracy of her claims against him. “We commend Rachel Ehrenfeld for being strong-willed on this issue,” Stern said. “Allowing this sort of ‘libel tourism’ to continue stands to negatively impact every writer and publisher and the U.S.—not to mention the public, who is effectively being forced to fall victim to an insidious and unacceptable form of censorship.” http://hotair.com/archives/2007/08/02/hot-air-audio-how-one-wealthy-jihad-supporter-is-using-uk-courts-to-killl-american-free-speech/ *Sarah Chayes. The Punishment of Virtue. New York: Penguin. [Robert D. Crews and Amin Tarzi (eds). 2008. The Taliban and the Crisis of Afghanistan. Cambridge: Harvard University.] Danner, Mark. 2009. Stripping Bare the Body: Politics, Violence, War. 626pp. Giustozzi, Antonio. 2008. Koran, Kalashnikov, and Laptop:
The Neo-Taliban Insurgency in Afghanistan. New York: Columbia
University. >http://www.columbia.edu/cu/cup/catalog/data/978023170/9780231700092.HTM
GoldHagen, Daniel Jonah. 2009. Worse than War: Genocide, Eloimination, and the Ongoing Assault on Humanity. Public Affairs. 658 pp. *Hahn, Gordon M. 2007. Russia’s Islamic Threat. New Haven: Yale University. *Haroon, Sana. 2008. Frontier of Faith: Islam in the Indo-Afghan Borderland. New York: Columbia University. *Hirschkind, Charles. 2006. The Ethical Soundscape: Cassette Sermons and Islamic Counterpublics. New York: Columbia University. *Hoffman, Bruce. 2006. Inside Terrorism. New York: Columbia University. *Hussain, Zahid. 2007. Frontline Pakistan: The Struggle with Militant Islam. New York: Columbia University. Khosrokhhavar, Farhad. 2009 [June]. Understanding Jihadi Movements Worldwide. ????: Paradigm. *Jaber, Hala. 1997. Hezbollah: Born with a Vengance. New York: Columbia University. *Levy, Adrian and Catherine Scott-Clark. 2007. Deception: Pakistan, the United States, and the Secret Trade in Nuclear Weapons. ??: Walker & Company (October 16, 2007). *Lia, Brynjar. 2007. Architect of Global Jihad: The Life of al-Qaeda Strategist Abu Mus’ab al-Suri. New York: Columbia University. *Lynch, Marc. 2007. Voices of the New Arab Public: Iraq, Al-Jazeera, and Middle East Politics Today. New York: Columbia University. *Iftikhar H. Malik. 2005. Jihad, Hindutva and the Taliban: South Asia at the Crossroads. Karachi: Oxford. *Marten, Kimberly Zisk. 2006. Enforcing the Peace: Learning from the Imperial Past. New York: Columbia University. *Nonie Darwish. 2007. Now They Call Me Infidel: Why I Renounced Jihad for America, Israel, and the War on Terror. *Oliver, Kelly. 2007. Women as Weapons of War: Iraq, Sex, and the Media. New York: Columbia University. *Shultz, Richard H. and Andrea Dew. 2006. Insurgents, Terrorists and Militias: The Warriors of Contemporary Combat. New York: Columbia University. Monograph list from before [+ = may be discussed in class; * recommended for separate reports; unmarked are not recommended for our purposes] *Abbas, Hassan. 2005. Pakistan’s Drift into Extremism;
Allah, the Army, and America’s War on Terror. Armonk, NY: Sharpe.
[level 3; DS 384. A27 2005]
Recent additions to this list Bayat, Asef. 2007. Making Islam Democratic: Social Movements and the Post-Islamist Turn. Stanford: Stanford University. Beeman, William O. 2005. The “Great Satan” vs. the “Mad Mullahs”: How the United States and Iran Demonize Each Other. Westport: Praeger. Brachman, Jarrett . Global Jihadism. David Cook. 2005. Contemporary Muslim Apocalyptic Literature. Syracuse: Syracuse University. Mark Danner. 2009. Stripping Bare the Body: Politics Violence War. 626 pp. Nation Books. Esfiandiari. My Prison, My home. Kilcullen's recent book, The Accidental Guerrilla, presents the case for a Long War of fifty or even 100 years' duration, with chapters on Iraq (a mistake he believes was salvaged by the military surge he promoted in 2007-08), Afghanistan (where he recommends at least a five-to-ten-year campaign), Pakistan (whose tribal areas he sees as the center of the terrorist threat) and even Europe (where, he says, human rights laws create legislative "safe havens" for urban Muslim undergrounds). Maas. Peter. Crude World: The Violent Twilight of Oil. Peters, Gretchen. Seeds of Terror: How Heroin is Bankrolling the Taliban and Al Qaeda. St Martins 300 pp. Nicholas Schmidle.. To Live or to Perish Forever: Two Tumultuous Years in Pakistan. Publisher: Henry Hold [254 pp]. Simon, Steven [co-author]. “The Age of Sacred Terror” and “The Next Attack.” Trofimov, Yaroslav. 2007. The Siege of Mecca: The Forgotten Uprising in Islam’s Holiest Shrine and the Birth of Al Qaeda. New York: Doubleday.
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