Chapter 2 Conceptualising Misrepresentation
2. Background and Definition
One of the central arguments of Huntington’s thesis is that terrorism is a result of a clash between two civilisations, Islam and the West. Despite the prejudicial nature of Huntington’s argument against Islam and Muslims,42 it is considered one of the
thought provoking articles, 'According to the editors of Foreign Affairs, the article that Huntington (1993a) wrote in 1993 generated more discussion in three years than any other article they had published since the 1940s'.43 Huntington argues
that, 'civilization is the ultimate human tribes, and the clash of civilizations is tribal conflict on a global scale'.44 Furthermore, Huntington says that, 'some Westerners,
including President Bill Clinton, have argued that the West does not have problem with Islam but only with violent Islamist extremists. Fourteen hundred years of history demonstrate otherwise'.45 Huntington seems convinced that Islam is the
main and the ultimate cause of terrorism and that Islamic history is replete with incidents that show the inherently violent nature of Islamic civilisation. Huntington seems to reject the role of radical discourse in justifying violence, which is based on distorted interpretations of some Islamic rules as this chapter and chapter 3 will explain. As a result, Huntington does not seem to consider terrorism or violence to be a representation of the agency of some Muslims who commit acts of terror;
42 Edward W. Said, ‘The Clash of Ignorance’ in Jason Dittmer and Joanne Sharp (eds) Geopolitics:
An Introductory Reader (Routledge 2014). 43
Giacomo Chiozza, ‘Is There a Clash of Civilizations? Evidence from Patterns of International Conflict Involvement, 1946–97’ (2002) 39 Journal of Peace Research 711,711.
44
Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of the World Order (2nd edn, The Free Press 2002) 207.
instead, Huntington seems to believe that Muslims are following their religion, which commands them to kill people from other civilisations.
Huntington’s thesis of a clash of civilisations and his argument that the Islamic faith is naturally violent against other civilisations is rather weak, prejudicial and contradictory for many reasons. Firstly, history is a story that neither reflects nor represents the Islamic faith accurately; the 1,400 years of 'violence' against other nations or civilisations do not reflect Islam as a faith or a legal system. Rather, history is a representation of human behaviour that may or may not reflect the Islamic faith, and this is for the obvious reason that humans make mistakes and sometimes deviate from their religious teachings. This is, of course, if we look at history as Huntington did. Secondly, and most importantly, examining history without understanding the context in which these conflicts occurred is not different from the radical interpretation of Islam, as both readings of Islamic history are based on appropriating historical incidents to support claims that Islam encourages violence against others.
In order to investigate the relations between Islamic civilisation and other nations, it is worth looking at the Qur’an, Allah's (God in Arabic) words, according to the Islamic belief, which was revealed more than 1,400 years ago. Thus, in regards to its religious value within the Islamic belief and its historical value, the Qur’an accurately corresponds to Huntington's view of the tribal conflict at a global level. The Qur’an says, 'O mankind! Lo! We have created you from male and female, and have made you nations and tribes that ye may know one another. Lo! The noblest of you, in the sight of Allah, is the best in conduct. Lo! Allah is Knower, Aware'.46 It
seems evident that Huntington's claims of a clash of civilisations and Muslims’ inferiority to other nations and civilisations are invalid, as the Qur’an - the main source of the Islamic faith - clearly does not give any indication of inferiority or any invitation for Muslims to carry out violence against other civilisations without a legitimate reason. As Huntington says,
The underlying problem for the West is not Islamic fundamentalism. It is Islam, a different civilization whose people are convinced of the
46 Qur’an Surah Al-Hujuraat 49:13.
superiority of their culture and are obsessed with the inferiority of their power. The problem for Islam is not the CIA or the U.S. Department of Defense. It is the West, a different civilization whose people are convinced of the universality of their culture and believe that their superior, if declining, power imposes on them the obligation to extend that culture throughout the world. These are the basic ingredients that fuel conflict between Islam and the West.47
This thesis, however, strongly rejects the notion that terrorism is a result of a clash between civilisations. Terrorism is a result of the clash that occurs between legal and radical discourse over the legitimacy of the use of force.48
In order to establish an understanding of the clash between discourses that cause terrorism, it is worth liberating acts that constitute terrorist offences from all labels, political, religious or legal, so as not to label the actors committing the act of terrorism. In doing so, terrorism appears to be an act of the use of force in any form or type (I intentionally have not stated the acts so as to avoid legal terms, such as killing or bombing, which indicate that the acts are criminal offences).
There are four types of discourse that occur on the scene of terrorism, these being legal, radical, public and academic discourse. Different discourses are not isolated from each other; rather, they interact,49 correspond,50 and sometimes clash with
each other,51 for example, the clash between radical and legal discourse over the
legitimacy of the use of force. The representation of the use of force against other people in legal discourse is that the use of force is an illegitimate act that establishes criminal liability. Meanwhile, radical discourse represents the use of force against others as a legitimate act in order to justify violence. Radical discourse members use legal language and argumentation as a covert language, in order to
47 Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of the World Order (2nd edn, The Free Press 2002) 217-218.
48 Since this thesis rejects the notion of a clash of civilisations, there is no consideration of so- called religious terrorism.
49
Counter terrorism policies interact with radical and legal discourse, as I will explain later in this chapter.
50
For example, counter terrorism discourse corresponds to radical discourse. 51
Bernard McKenna, ‘Critical Discourse Studies: Where to from Here?’ (2004) 1 Critical Discourse Studies 9.
legitimise the use of force and advance logistical goals (such as recruitment) and ideological (to motivate others) goals. Legal discourse, however, disregards covert language and establishes criminal liability based on the act. Thus, legal discourse has the last word in this clash. Even if radical discourse succeeds in using force against others, legal discourse establishes criminal liability based on the act itself. The clash between the two discourses over the legitimacy of the use of force is more accurate after identifying terrorism as the use of force. If labels were to be given to these discourses based on the discourse position towards the use of force, classifying the discourses has to involve legal and radical discourse. Thus, it may be argued that there is a clash between legal and radical discourse over the legitimacy of the use of force. Legal discourse considers the use of force against others as illegitimate, so it is a criminal act. Meanwhile, radical discourse considers the use of force against others a legitimate act. This clash is evident as, until now, there has been a dilemma with regards to finding a universal definition for terrorism,52 and
whether to identify actors as terrorists or freedom fighters.
For the above stated, terrorism is not particularly a Muslim issue or a crime that is deeply rooted within Islamic civilisation alone. In fact, it can be argued that any civilisation, with no exception, has this clash between legal and radical discourse over the legitimacy of the use of force. The discourses are influenced by the civilisation that produced them because they aim to influence particular receivers. The reason why the clash between legal and radical discourse is not clear in Islamic civilisation is due to the categorisation that is given to the use of force. Language is powerful and as soon as the use of force that constitutes the terrorism act is defined as jihad, the clash between legal and radical discourse dissolved. This also makes the views that Islam encourages violence more inevitable, especially when
jihad is indeed permissible within the rules of Islamic international law. Furthermore, radical discourse uses jihad to legitimise the use of force against
52
General Assembly, ‘Legal Committee Urges Conclusion of Draft Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism GA/L/3433' (United Nations, 8 October
2012)<http://www.un.org/press/en/2012/gal3433.doc.htm> accessed 01 June 2015; Alex P. Schmid, ‘The Response Problem as a Definition Problem’ (1992) 4 Terrorism and Political Violence 7.
others. However, as explained earlier, radical discourse addresses specific receivers and, thus, this has lead to the need to produce a discourse that influences, and speaks their language. For this reason, "jihad" occurs in radical discourse to legitimise the use of force against others, while "jihad" in Islamic international law is used for different purposes, as I will explain later in chapter 3.
Discourse uses language to create a particular world view, reality that justifies the discourse members’ actions.53 Thus, the main components of discourse are
language, members of a discourse, and actions. Discourse in this context represents its members and justifies their actions. As a consequence of that, discourse becomes another dimension of language54 in which language is not only considered
to be a system of grammatical rules. Instead, language becomes live through the lens of discourse, which creates, constructs, forms and reforms objects, and develops meanings and identities.55 Thus language is performative because it does
things and it affects the behaviour of the discourse members.
The performativity of language comes from the pragmatic understanding of discourse which is known as speech act theory, and its prominent philosophers are J. L. Austin,56 and his student, John Searle.57 Speech act theory does not treat the
text as an abstract or system of rules.58 Instead, discourse as a theory or as a
concept designates language as use; in other words, what do we do when we say things?59 Here, saying is doing,60 so language exceeds saying to include doing
53 Sergiu Mi coiu, Oana-Raluca Crăciun and Nicoleta Colopelnic, Radicalism, Populism,
Interventionism : Three Approaches Based on Discourse Theory (Cluj-Napoca: The Publishing House of the Foundation for European Studies 2008).
54 Paul Simpson and Andrea Mayr, Language and Power: A Resource Book For Students (1st edn, Routledge 2009).
55 Sergiu Mi coiu, Oana-Raluca Crăciun and Nicoleta Colopelnic, Radicalism, Populism,
Interventionism : Three Approaches Based on Discourse Theory (Cluj-Napoca: The Publishing House of the Foundation for European Studies 2008).
56
John L. Austin, How to do things with words (J. O. Urmson, Marina Sbisà eds, 2nd edn, Harvard University Press 1975).
57
John Searle, Speech Acts: An Essay in the Philosophy of Language (first published 1969, Cambridge University Press 1999).
58 Johannes Angermuller, Dominique Maingueneau and Ruth Wodak (eds), The Discourse Studies
Reader Main currents in theory and analysis (John Benjamins Publishing Company 2014). 59
Paul Simpson and Andrea Mayr, Language and Power: A Resource Book For Students (1st edn, Routledge 2009).
things. Foucault, for example, distinguishes between language and discourse. He alludes to language as “signs” that only signifies and refers to things or objects. On the other hand, Foucault considers discourse as more functional than language, and he sees discourse as using “signs” to form objects. As he states,
Discourses are composed of signs; but what they do is more than use these signs to designate things. It is this more that renders them irreducible to the language (langue) and to speech. It is this 'more' that we must reveal and describe.61
Every discourse uses language differently in order to advance or create a certain reality or world view. Thus, legal, radical, public and academic discourses use language for different purposes. The linguistic behaviour (language use) of each discourse is supposed to be different from the others. As a result of the different language use, the performative of the same language in different discourses are different because every discourse creates its own conditions that give language its unique performativity. In fact, even the same word may have different performatives which consequently may have different impact on different receivers.
Misrepresentation is the inappropriate or mistaken domination of a definition of a concept from one field of discourse in another field of a discourse. For example, the concept "murder"62 in legal discourse and "surgery"63 in medical discourse. Murder
means an illegal/unlawful killing, and that a person is the direct or the indirect cause of the victim’s death, unlike "surgery". Although surgery is an act of scarring/making cuts in the patient’s body, it indicates that the act is legal. An act that is considered surgery cannot be murder in the eyes of the law, because legal discourse states the performatives of these two concepts. In addition to this, legal
60
John L. Austin, How to do things with words (J. O. Urmson, Marina Sbisà eds, 2nd edn, Harvard University Press 1975).
61
Michel Foucault, The Archaeology of Knowledge and the Discourse on Language (A. M. Sheridan Smith tr, Pantheon Books 1972) 49.
62 Oxford Dictionaries, ‘Murder'
<http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/murder> accessed 17 August 2015. 63
Oxford Dictionaries, ‘Surgery'
discourse states the conditions in which makes murder a legitimate act, while surgery as an illegal act. For example, murder if committed for self-defence it is considered a legitimate act. On the other hand, if abortion were performed in a country where abortion is considered illegal, this type of surgery is a criminal act. However when misrepresentation occurs in a discourse, it defines an act of murder as "surgery" despite the fact that the legal discourse has already determined that the same act is murder. Another example is the misrepresentation of jihad, it occurs when public and academic discourse identify "terrorism" as "jihad" and claim that it is the definition of "jihad" in Islamic legal discourse.