A treatise on terrorism - No End to War: Terrorism in the Twenty-First Century - Book Review

Contemporary Review, Feb, 2004 by Joaquina Pires-O'Brien

No End to War: Terrorism in the Twenty-First Century. Walter Laqueur. The Continuum International Publishing Group. US$24.95. 288 pages. ISBN 0-8264-1435-4.

The aftermath of 11th September 2001 was a missed opportunity by the media to enhance people's perception of terrorism and its causes. What became commonplace on television, radio and in the press were results of public opinion polls and interviews with celebrities and debates marked by passion, emotion and preconceived ideas. One expert's advice on terrorism that may be relied on is No End to War: Terrorism in the Twenty-First Century by Walter Laqueur, the 82-year-old historian who is the world's leading expert on terrorism and many other forms of nastiness from the holocaust to the genocides of the twentieth century and the weapons of mass destruction. The pertinent questions raised after September 11th are here elaborated in ten chapters, covering the roots of terrorism in general and Islamic terrorism in particular, the alleged failure of the American intelligence in predicting the attacks, the common grounds between Islamic terrorism and the terrorism of the extreme right and the ultra left, and the future of terrorism.

In this book Walter Laqueur humbly points out that there is no ultimate definition of 'terrorism' and that apart from the terrorism of Islamic fundamentalism there are many other types, such as those found in groups of the extreme right and the far left in the West, including the United States. To Mr. Laqueur, the media was greatly responsible for the public's failure to perceive this, by their promotion of viewpoints that justified the attacks and blamed the victims, and by their reluctance to call such groups terrorists. The author also appears to believe that the European press is formed principally by anti-Americans and 'champagne' socialists and he cites several examples to support his view, pointing out the only exception he could find, Bryan Appleyard, who normally writes for the Sunday Times. What makes Mr. Laqueur's book different from others is that it dismisses the simplistic notion that terrorism is caused by a deprivation of some kind, namely of education and poverty.

After an act of terrorism, research on the subject becomes more valued by governments, regardless of whether it is carried out by the intelligence services, by scholars or even by journalists, but such valuable information is soon set aside once the matter leaves the public eye. Particular topics also come to prominence following a terrorist attack. The best example of this is the concern over 'weapons of mass destruction', WMDs, which was rediscovered after September 11th from a 2002 government report stating that an efficient biological attack using the 'ebola' or the smallpox virus could kill ten times more people than an atomic bomb.

Walter Laqueur dismisses the saying that one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter, arguing that a political banner does not legitimise kidnappings and murder. He also points out how terrorists coming from different backgrounds can be united by their feelings of range, hate, frustration and a bit of madness. One of two examples closer to home is that of the militants of the far left, frustrated by their contradictory wishes of a revolutionary strategy on the one hand and an uncompromising nationalism on the other. The other is that of the militants of the extreme right, like the neo-fascists, who possibly feel politically isolated among a majority which they despise for being too indifferent and stupid to understand their message. By naming as terrorists what journalists for one reason or another call militants, activists, commandos, raiders, resistants, insurgents, urban guerillas and gunmen, people would realise that the global reservoir of aggression is far larger than that which is normally perceived. This is turn explains the pessimistic title of this book.