An African Perspective on Contemporary Terrorism
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Thematic Section
An African Perspective on Contemporary Terrorism Reprinted from Development 45 no 2: 25–27
MAHMOOD MAMDANI
ABSTRACT Mahmood Mamdani suggests that we turn the cultural theory of politics on its head. He places cultural debates in their historical and political contexts and in so doing claims that terrorism is not a cultural residue in modern politics but a modern construction. KEYWORDS cold war; cultural history; Islam; modernity; official America; Reagan
The modern history of terrorism Over the past few months, the media has been saturated with one or another version of a cultural theory of politics. From a simple Huntingtonian version of a ‘clash of civilizations’, we now read more refined notions of a clash inside civilizations: specifically, we are told that ‘bad Muslims’ have hijacked Islam which‘good Muslims’ must now prepare to defend. The implication is that the only way forward is a civil war inside a quarantined Islam. Iqbal Ahmed writes of a television image from 1985, of Ronald Reagan meeting a group of turbaned men, all Afghani, all leaders of the Mujaheddin. After the meeting, Reagan brought them out onto the White House lawn, and introduced them to the media in these words: ‘These gentlemen are the moral equivalents of America’s founding fathers.’ This was the moment when official America tried to harness one version of Islam in a struggle against the Soviet Union. Before exploring the politics of it, let me clarify the historical moment. The year of American defeat in Indochina was 1975. And it was also the year the Portuguese empire collapsed in Africa. It was the year the centre of gravity of the Cold War shifted from Southeast Asia to southern Africa. The question was: who would pick up the pieces of the Portuguese empire, the USA or the Soviet Union? As the centre of gravity of the Cold War shifted, there was also a shift in US strategy. The Nixon Doctrine that had been forged towards the closing years of the Vietnam War Development (2007) 50(S1), 117–119. doi:10.1057/palgrave.development.1100353
Development 50(S1): Thematic Section but could not be implemented at that late stage ^ the doctrine that ‘Asian boys must fight Asian wars’ ^ was really put into practice in southern Africa. In practice, it translated into a US decision to harness, or even to cultivate, terrorism in the struggle against regimes it considered pro-Soviet. In southern Africa, the immediate result was a partnership between the USA and apartheid South Africa, accused by the UN of perpetrating ‘a crime against humanity’. Reagan termed this new partnership ‘constructive engagement’. South Africa became both conduit and partner of the USA in the hot war against those governments in the region considered pro-Soviet. This partnership bolstered a number of terrorist movements: Renamo in Mozambique, and Unita in Angola. Their terrorism was of a type Africa had never seen before. It was not simply that they were willing to tolerate a higher level of civilian casualties in military confrontations ^ what official A
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