Talking to the Enemy: Faith, Brotherhood, and the (Un)Making of Terrorists (85 page)

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Authors: Scott Atran

41
R. Stark (1997),
The Rise of Christianity: How the Obscure, Marginal Jesus Movement Became the Dominant Force in the Western World in a Few Centuries.
New York: HarperCollins.

42
R. Stark (2008),
What Americans Really Believe.
Waco, TX: Baylor University Press.

ABE’S ANSWER-THE QUESTION OF POLITICS

1
A. Lincoln, cited in W. Ury (1991),
Getting Past No: Negotiating with Difficult People.
New York: Bantam Books, p. 146.

2
A. Elliot (2007), “Where Boys Grow Up to Be Jihadis.”
New York Times Magazine,
November 25.

3
The backdrop of the series is that when the Mongols sacked the imperial city of Baghdad in A.D. 1258, they “planned not only to conquer the greatest empire the world had ever known, but to eradicate its hope—its potential—thereby destroying its future. That would require more than sword and club, sinew and blood. That would require destroying the empire’s true base of power … destroying its knowledge.” But just before the last great Arab caliphate expired, and its vast library burned down, the Abbasid scholars and scientists used alchemy to invest 99 magical gems with all of the library’s knowledge. These “Noor Stones”
(al-nur,
“the Light,” an attribute of Allah) were scattered around the world, but when they are found by the right person, they give him or her an extraordinary power derived from one of the 99 names of God: Jabbar, a combination of Samson and the Hulk; Noora, who lords over light; Darr, the giver of terrible pain; Raqib, the far-seeing watcher; and so on. When all the gems are found, and their powers combined in the perfect community of 99 superheroes, invincible good will govern the earth.

4
C. Dickey (2008), “‘Jihadi Cool.’”
Newsweek,
April 15. www.newsweek.com/id/132147.

5
S. Atran (2009), “Barack’s Nobel: A Symbolic Gesture of Hope to the World’s Youth.” Huffington Post, October 10. www.huffingtonpost.com/ scott-atran/baracks-nobel-a-symbolic_b_316442.html.

6
In December 2009, we asked a randomized sample of 1,200 Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank to rank people according to how much they admire them. Topping the heap was Marwan Barghouti, leader of Fateh’s “Young Guard,” who is currently serving multiple life sentences in an Israeli jail for involvement in suicide bombings. Next was Hizbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. Osama bin Laden and Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad ranked in the middle. Barack Obama came dead last, a telling indication of fading hopes in his promise for a new commitment to peace and justice in the Middle East, as expressed in his June 2009 Cairo speech. Words are necessary but not sufficient, and if spoken need to be followed up lest they be considered insincere and better not to have been uttered at all.

7
In June 2010, the United States Supreme Court upheld a law banning the provision of “material support” to groups listed by the State Department as terrorist organizations, including any talking to terrorists that involves communication of expert or scientific knowledge and information. The decision didn’t consider as relevant the fact that not all such groups are equally bad or dangerous. Some groups that were widely considered terrorist organizations have become our partners in pursuing peace and furthering democracy.

The African National Congress is now the democratically elected ruling party in South Africa, and of course Nelson Mandela is widely considered a great man of peace. The Provisional Irish Republican Army now preaches nonviolence, and its longtime leader, Martin McGuinness, is Northern Ireland’s first deputy minister. Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian Liberation Organization have become central players in Middle East peace negotiations. In each case, private citizens—clergymen, academics, scientists, and others—worked behind the scenes to end the violence by excfootnote reliable knowledge.

War and group violence are ever present, and their prevention requires constant effort and innovation. Sometimes this means listening and talking with enemies and probing gray areas for ways forward to figure out who is truly a mortal foe and who just might become a friend. See S. Atran and R. Axelrod (2010), “Why We Talk to Terrorists.”
New York Times,
June 30.

Copyright

TALKING TO THE ENEMY.
Copyright © 2010 by Scott Atran.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

Grateful acknowledgment for permission to reproduce illustrations is made to the following: CIA,
The World Factbook,
page 6; the Jamestown Foundation/The
Jamestown Monitor,
page 20; public domain, located at the Capilla Real, Granada, Spain, page 44; Dirk Laabs, page 110; the U.S. State Department, page 175; the Spanish Ministry of the Interior, pages 177, 183, 188, 192; Manuel Marlasca/Luis Rendeles, page 192 (top left);
El Mundo,
page 192 (bottom left); Ben Aboud, al-Amrani, Akhlifa, and Achebak families, page 211; Naif Al-Mutawa, page 481. Illustrations on pages viii, 16, 26, 82, 118 147, 175, 194, 219, 243, 353, 374, 404, 408, and 490 are courtesy of the author.