Deconstructing Terrorism: Why Islam Was Made the Global Enemy I Prof. Irfan Ahmad

These are five nation states so geographically apart from each other. But in all these nation estate there is one slogan which is so powerful namely all Muslims are not terrorists but all terrorists are Muslims are Muslim. [music] >> And so then when you bring that difference between real and true what does that mean? In the case of India, you have WW Hunter who wrote that book called Indian Musalmans. Are they bound in conscience to rebel against the queen? >> By the way, let me note here that after 9/11, Ruba, which is a leading publisher in India, they published that book and deleted the subtitle >> again because we are talking about terrorism and we're going to deconstruct it. To begin with, what do you think is terrorism? >> Rather than asking the question, who is the terrorist? What motivates them? I pose a counter question that who needs the label or the category of terrorist >> and in that sense why do you think that especially in context with terrorism as understanding why was Islam made exceptional? So in the book I also talk about uh the current prime minister of uh of Israel. He edited a book and the whole conclusion of of uh that book is that Arabs are terrorist and Arabs alone are terrorist. >> Uh especially when you mentioned the word huryat within your book itself you open that gateway. Uh what is it that decoloniality brings and what is it that the limit of it? If you have educated very consciously through media uh through nonformal channels a whole generation in which the impression is that jihad is a dirty word and it is completely against the self view of Muslims. Two things I would want to talk about law as a structure of the state itself [music] and media as a form of potentially uh creating that structure through consent. >> Decolonial is a negative reference. Okay. So we need to decolonize ourself. Uh which I think is a worthy exercise. But can we also ask a question and that is what is the positive agenda that we have? >> So when you say the phonetic is a radical partisan of freedom so to state what do you mean by that? And I'm not simply interested in reality in terms of the fact that as they exist or as it happens or as it is operating. I'm also believing in a moral world which doesn't exist but which in my view should exist. Now see independent think tank media platform minority or human rights issues research or evidence-based conversations amplify So asalamikum Dr. Professor Irvan Ahmed. How are you? It's been a long trip. We recorded a podcast with you on Hindu orientalism and the idea wherein you deployed the frameworks of power, knowledge and uh he hgemony in the special context of the experience of Indian Muslims and how power and knowledge is manufactured in the Indian state context and similarly now you have come up with a very uh exciting work because I went through it and it gave me real in-depth perspectives uh of about the idea of terrorism. which we take for granted even from the response side. Uh the idea that terrorism is just you know a construct that is made up in a certain in a certain way for the state to deploy against a certain minority specifically Muslims. But to be able to understand it from anthropological perspective, social theory perspective, even potentially the metaphysics of violence itself, particularly deployed in this day and age for a global enemy, uh especially located in Islam and what you argue that it was once located in the cold war era for communism. So that transition and translation of a category of violence into a certain raified concept that is deployed engaged to marginalize to systematically uh counter uh the Muslim experiences or the manifestation of Muslim life into the public sphere. So my question would be again because we are talking about terrorism and we're going to deconstruct it to begin with what do you think is terrorism in the way that it was defined and then in the way it was later evolved to encapsulate or inhabit a certain way in which that category is understood in common nomenclature right now. >> Yeah. So thank you. uh this is a very um effective uh way of framing uh and I'm uh happy to be uh again on N's network. Now back to your uh question. So the question of um uh definition is of course important but the point is um there is no agreed uh universal definition of terrorism and uh the document uh of uh United Nations in 2015 it clearly admits that there is no universal definition of of uh terrorism. they also use the word terrorism and radicalization as substitute. So in that document uh and and that is the Oslo conference of which I do an ethnography. So I raised this question that if you do not have a definition how you will find ways to counter it. >> Okay. So there is already a contradiction in that document. But also note uh Alex Smith who who is a very well-known uh uh expert of terrorism and in 1985 he gave uh almost 200 definition of terrorism. Sorry, he didn't give he he compiled >> compiled >> he he recorded all that definition >> uh and in 2005 so this more than 200 definition was in 1985 in 2005 uh he again came back to this definition question to say that the search for a consensual definition continues. Now the third point is if you just take the example of uh one uh estate and here I'm talking about America the US estate department okay and the US department of defense and the CIA these are three organs of the same estate and they do not have one agreed definition. Each agency has a definition uh of its own and partly it is also embedded into the institutional history of the respective organization. So uh any scholar of uh uh terrorism or more more broadly of of any phenomenon uh I do not to the extent that I'm knowledgeable I do not know of any concept in social science or humanities which has a universally agreed definition. Okay. And um that is one reason in one of the chapters uh the opening short is uh couplet from an udu poet that because definition is uh an act of boundary making it is an act of uh in ar definition is also known as bundi I'm I'm mixing um uh udu and ari so it is to demarcate it is to differentiate state. So this uh process is uh definitely uh at war in the question of uh terrorism as well. Okay. So anybody who explores this uh subject then he will be driven uh he or she will be driven to ask this question uh that okay if we cannot define it then what is the other way in which we can approach this uh question and for me in this book but more broadly in my general work I thought that the question of definition uh will not lead as anywhere which is not to say that I'm I'm I'm not saying that for a particular purpose you can define but lay out the assumptions okay and therefore rather than asking the question who is the terrorist what motivates them uh what are their ideologies or what are their beliefs I pose a counter question that who needs the label or the category of terrorist And this counter question to me it allows us uh to ask a different set of questions. Okay. Including the fundamental question which is central to the thriving industry which terrorism study is >> namely who is a terrorist. So my point is to summarize it by asking the question who needs the civ category of terrorist we open up a new horizon of thinking and um also action and in that process we can also address the question uh which is the mainstream question namely who is the terrorist. >> It's like uh it just uh clicked my mind. And it's like asking the question what is a house and who needs a house. So if you ask that question what is a house you would uh give the answers a place to live where there is furniture. When you ask the question who needs a house then the whole uh anthropology of humans needing that house in the first place arises and that genealogy uh then demands to be constructed. So in that context if you pose that question and if you pose that question in the context of terrorism how did that word specifically evolved to be identified as a question which is fundamentally intertwined to a certain ideology or identity being Muslim or being following Islam. How did that happen? So uh that is why um as you will notice uh the book escope uh the scope of the book is of course the general question of terrorism but the focus is on post 911 terrorism and one of the ways in which uh the post 911 terrorism has been described or defined okay is this the there there are two uh main uh component of this definition Uh the first one is that this is primarily a religious phenomena >> and once it is defined as religious then the implication is that it is also Islamic. Now if it is a religious uh so post 911 terrorism is defined as religious then the point would be if it is religious terrorism then does it obtain only in Islam or do you also have in Hinduism do you have also in Buddhism do you also have in Christianity do you also have in Judaism do you also have in zorastrianism and so and so forth no because you do not hear a word called Jewish terrorism you do not hear a word called Christian terrorism. You do not hear a term called Hindu terrorism. Right? So the uniqueness of this post 911 terrorism is defined in terms of religious terrorism. Number one and number two and this is a huge uh departure by the way. Okay. uh from the existing uh corpus of uh scholarship uh namely that terrorism throughout most of the history has been defined as a tactic. >> Okay. Uh it is a means through which a particular group wants to achieve certain things. Okay. But in the name of the so-called new terrorism, this has been transformed from a tactic to ideology and one which is religious. So these are the two fundamental um dimension of so-called new uh uh terrorism uh which some associate exactly with the 9/11, some take it further back and and so and so forth. The third component is also by the way um worth mentioning uh which is to say that in modern history at least the terrorism uh has been also or in a in many significant ways it is also associated with the state the state terrorism. So after the French revolution, this is the Jaccoin who let loose a reign of terror. Uh that is the French example back to the subcontinent. Okay. After uh the failed rebellion of 1857, uh historians have described the scene that the British army they killed people in Delhi and their dead body was hung by the tree. And this is from an uh uh British source. These dead bodies were hung by the tree to a strike terror in the residents of Delhi. Okay. Now what is the point uh emerging from this that in post 911 terrorism people were simply talking about terrorism from the non-state actors. Okay. But the fact that historically terrorism has been also associated with the state okay that was uh almost wiped out. So what the book does [clears throat] it uh of course it talks about uh pre uh 911 uh terrorism as well and uh the clearcut distinction that some scholars make. Okay. for example uh that communism was the main enemy of uh the westled uh uh world system after world war II okay and in the last phase of uh that uh uh cold war okay this is during the time of Reagan uh that terrorism was identified as enemy and then there is some transition phase uh but then it was mostly Reagan's about the war on drug and war on terrorism. Okay. Uh but that is also the time uh because uh you know um Soviet Union had invaded uh Afghanistan, right? Um and then uh America was also supporting the resistance uh posed uh by uh by the Afghan fighters. Okay. And then from the late 80s and then you have you know uh the inauguration [clears throat] of so-called new world order uh by uh George W. Bush senior and that inauguration of the so-called new world order uh takes place after the fall of USSR and after the fall of Berlin wall. uh now um this is uh some kind of neat narrative uh which is presented but I argue in the book that uh it is not actually as neat as as it is made out to be because among others Bernard Lewis okay he had already said uh I will have to check the exact year but probably late 50s and early 60s when communism was the main enemy of uh the western led world. He had made an argument that Islam is just like communism. So in other words uh if you make an argument that okay um after World War I uh the western le world system had identified communism as the enemy and then it was replaced by Islam. Okay. Uh soon uh after 911 or just before 911 then it is not such a neat uh divided uh uh phase wise story because during the cold war itself uh Bernard Lewis had made a strong similarity between communism and Islam. So this in brief would be um a general picture of uh the place of the enemy after World War II first uh in the figure of communism and then uh more explicitly uh uh after 9/11 uh in the form of Islam or terrorism. So when we hear about uh these debates and discussions often Huntington's thesis comes to uh the forefront about the clash of civilizations that would be the future of the way civilizations rather than states would engage in warfare in whatever means possible amongst each other and in that sense why do you think that especially in context with terrorism as understanding why was Islam made exceptional after communism, why does that category uh get embodied within an ideology and an identity that uh that becomes Islam as the universal other? So is there certain uh no reading that you have in which this framework privileges Islam as the uh embodied other when it comes to this kind of violence? >> Yeah. So one uh quick response I I think um Huntington is is not an original thinker on this point. the idea of clash of civilization actually it is already given by Bernard Lewis you know and in one account um uh now many people in India don't mention him uh but Giril Jan who was uh the editor of times of India for quite some time you know uh who also wrote a book which is uh I think called the Hindu phenomenon >> so in one account Giral Jan has also mentioned uh uh about uh clash of uh civilization. Okay, but that is just a minor point. So uh the reasons can be uh many but it seems to me uh that it can be analyzed uh at one level and that is what uh I have done which is to say that the system of the nation estate okay uh which has been built after World War II Now this was an experiment uh which was quite a novel experiment in history. Okay. So before World War I the world was not known in terms of nation state. So once you create this idea of uh nation state and it is true by the way uh that the this idea of the nation estate was novel to uh most uh religious and cultural tradition. Okay. Um but I think uh the opposition to this idea uh or the fact that Muslims did not find it uh in line with their own cultural and religious traditions. So uh I would say that one of the most important uh voices of resistance against this nation estate system has been from the Muslims. Okay. And this is also true by the way uh as you know after uh World War I in the wake of uh the abolition of >> okay uh what was previously Ottoman Empire it was divided into 32 nation state. Now here uh we have to pause and ask a question that did people of Iraq really wanted a nation state. Okay. Did people of Syria really want a nation state? So unlike for example in India where you had a colonial government against which people fought and then uh an idea of uh independence and so and so forth were there. What you have in the middle is that of course the French uh and the British they incited the local population to weaken the uh Ottoman Empire and all these nation estate they were uh implanted. This was not because the people in the Middle East really wanted it. Okay, it was given to them in spite of their wish. It is not the case that they were they gained or they fought for it and then they achieved it. Now if u it looks uh uh uh not so convincing so let me give you an example when Iraq was announced as the independent nation state. Okay. So unlike in India of course there has been debate what what should be the national song or national anthem. Iraqis had no national anthem. So in the ceremony which announced the creation of Iraq as a separate estate, it is the British anthem which is played. Long live the king of of of Britain. Now having uh said this, let me also say that of course these nation estates were created. Uh but uh people in the Middle East, which itself is a colonial term by the way. Uh the the term Middle East was uh uh invented by um Alfred Mahan who was a navy a scholar of naval trade and and so and so forth. Okay. So people in the Middle East of course they they they accept uh that nation state boundaries but this is not something which has organically emerged since it has been artificially planted. So they also identified with the larger idea or the pre- nation state sense of community social community political community and cultural community. So that is one uh reason and the second one is of course I think in the case of Middle East Israel has been uh a key uh player and this discourse of uh terrorism would not be on the international plane after 9/11 uh without um Israel. So in the book I also talk about uh the current prime minister of uh of Israel. uh I think he was some kind of diplomatic officer uh in the 80s or something and then he wrote he edited a book with uh dozens of articles which was criticized by say and then this is uh the the USSR had not fallen but he in that book he says that look the world faces threat uh and by world he means the western world in which he includes his by right which itself is a very problematic thing that how come Israel is is a western state. So um by the world he means the western world he means the western countries but Israel included and the whole conclusion of of that book is that Arabs are terrorist and Arabs alone are terrorist. So much of this thing is uh centered around that middle east eastern uh context. Now in India when the first uh UAPA came much later initially it was uh POA right prevention of terrorism act or something. Okay. So if you see uh there um I think I'm forgetting the name uh there was a subcommittee uh which uh uh gave u a context to to the uh legislative piece and it says that uh terrorism has emerged from Middle East. Uh I I stand corrected but I think it is Malmouth committee or something like that. In addition to these factors then you have to also see that um Muslims minority uh also in the west um in in France in Britain the largest number of Muslim minority in European country is is in France. So it also became uh a pivot around which these nation states could consolidate themsel and organize themsel because uh what you have here is uh that the so-called the socialist um after the collapse of the USSR they got weakened and as a mobilizing tool okay uh in India uh uh of course it is connected to the international global politics but there is a regional dimension because in India if if if you have to talk about uh terrorism in France you don't need to mention Pakistan but in India you cannot talk about terrorism without mentioning Pakistan and later on also Bangladesh right so the the the debate is localized in the case of India but this localization is done in such a way that It also speaks to the larger international context. >> For example, Benjamin Netanyahu as you argued rightly that the way he constructed the idea of Arab terrorist also inherited in within his framework Israel being part of the western paradigmatic framework and as a frontier state defending the you know modern liberal values in terms of the new world order that you mentioned had been conceived by west itself. So, Israel becomes the bastion uh of the protection of the liberal human rights on behalf of the western communities and societies. So, similarly, India can also deploy that in terms of the local uh geopolitics of Southeast Asia if I'm rightly understanding what you're arguing. >> True. and and uh also take uh note of the fact that when uh Israel talks about terrorism as a threat to its own existence and terrorism from Arabs/Muslims, >> it completely erases the fact that the birth of Israel is possible through terrorist activities. [clears throat] >> There are two organization called >> and I think the other one is called Levy or something. Mhm. >> But these were two terrorist organization and by the way note the fact that these terrorist organization they simply morphed into Israeli defense force >> later with the formation of Israel >> with the creation of Israel as a state and uh before 1948 and uh the book also gives a quotation you have many leading uh Israeli politician, one of them who also became u prime minister later on uh goes on to record uh to say that no uh reading of Jewish ethics okay uh prevents us from using terrorism. So in other words they think that uh at that point of time that Judaism uh Judaism uh allows uh use of terrorism as a as a as a as a means. Even today if you see in Gaza Gazan context the way uh it was recorded in 2018 somebody a journalist went to u Israel and then they asked the questions whether how should Palestinians be treated and the it was normal for them to answer that they should be carpet bombed they should be killed they will they should be annihilated so that the idea of the activity when it happens towards them because of a privileged uh god's privileged community. Uh it it it's an asymmetrical construct, violence in their own might. But also uh because when you talked about and when we when I asked you about the exceptionalism of Islam as an inherited category of something that West after communism wanted to pedal as a violent ideology. So the idea that when you mention that the idea of nation states was imposed on West Asia or Middle East or the Arab states. So their identity had a surplus in a sense that the national identity that was being constructed as you rightly argued had a bigger vision or a socioultural ties or interactions. Maybe India had a different history or other places have had a different history or a different genealogy. But that specificity of that surplus located in Islam intertwined with the geopolitical necessities also combined with this idea of what you argued as the new world order. So in that combination you also mentioned the malaise the the problems that the new world order created and how it uh portrayed those problems on Islam. So my question would be that this identity a Muslim who becomes a terrorist but you also say that in the deployment of that terminology even the justified justiceoriented demands of that identity gets clubbed into this idea that has been constructed and deployed. So when you say the phonetic is a radical partisan of freedoms so to state, what do you mean by that? How do you see this nation state, new world order, this surplus identity and its own constructs about freedom and equality and being marginalized and portrayed into this category that has been constructed? >> Right? So this is a very thoughtful question. So uh you have to see it uh as follows. uh the depiction of uh terrorist uh/muslims okay as the ultimate evil as the ultimate uh barbarian okay so this is how the west uh portrayed it and fanaticism is one trope through which it has been done so in the book as you will notice uh I uh if you want to use that uh term I give uh a biograph graphy of the term fanaticism and it uh travels across continents. So in the case of India you have WW Hunter who wrote that book called Indian Musman >> are they bound in conscience to rebel against the queen. This is the full title. By the way, let me note here that after 911, Rupa, which is a leading publisher in India, >> they published that book and deleted the subtitle. So, it is simply published as Indian Muslmans. So, anyway, uh now in Hunter's book, uh fanaticism is is one trope. Uh of course, the book talks about uh primarily about Bengal. Um and the book is published in uh 1871. Okay. Uh but then this word fanatic fanaticism I also trace it um in in the history of uh the US and how uh the people who were fighting against slavery and those uh black population which was asserting for equality. their uh demand was also or their modes of protestation was also defined as fanatic >> fanatic >> and and there is one guy who later on also became uh I'm forgetting the name of that person but later on he became the vice president of America he said that these fanatics will not simply stop >> at one particular demand later on they will ask for complete equality so now the situation here is uh as follows. Um so on the one hand you have the depiction by media industrial security complex of terrorist uh/muslims as ultimate evil barbarian uh anti-modern and against uh that depiction any logical person and that is where anthropology becomes important in a positive way because one of the main uh claims of anthropology is uh anthropology makes that distinction between emic view and etic view. So emic view is uh how you see yourself and etic view is how you are seen by others from outside. So this description of terrorist as enemy of modernity, freedom, enlightenment, equality and whatever you have or or or democracy uh that is an atic view. But then the question is from an anthropological or even from a any human framework the question is what is the amic view? How do these people look at themselves? And that is where I do an operation of rehabilitation in terms of rehabilitating the concept of fanaticism or one who is a fanatic >> uh in the sense of uh not as uh the dominant meaning of fanatic is is somebody who is not using reason uh who is so much uh in terms of psychic derailment. Okay, he cannot think properly. But then there is another meaning uh of of fanaticism when these people black people fighting for equality and against slavery which is to say uh that the apologist of slavery described them fanatics because they were really asking for equality in its true sense. Right? So that is where I if you see in one of the chapters when I talk to uh quote unquote terrorists who have been jailed in India and I want to listen to them uh without being judgmental. I mean of course I have my own views but then uh the question is also to look at them in emic term how they see themselves right and and that is where uh I present an alternative picture uh unlike the western depiction of such notions as jihad uh because you know jihadism jihadi terrorism you know this became uh a staple for uh print media and and television media here. But there I I go to uh a journey of retrieving these meanings through the scholarship of Abu Kalamazad uh what it means uh to be um enacting jihad >> and you will see that I also published a a pamphlet which was from uh I think early 90s from Aliger Muslim University um where uh the pamphlet is in Udu and it says that uh Uh this is a a group of students okay uh who published a pamphlet um saying that we are doing a jihady or a jihad for democracy and freedom. >> Okay. So this is a counter reading. So against this mediatized depiction of of jihad as something which is uh which can only be dark uh reactionary and regressive I give uh an understanding of uh jihad uh through uh these so-called terrorists who have been put in jail uh through these pamphlets and then going back to uh Abu Kla Mazad and and and so on and so forth. So this is important because uh let's note that I think um the question of justice and fairness uh is not simply a question uh in uh terms of sharing uh political power or or in politics. The question of justice and fairness is also in terms of what might be described as narrative equality or narrative oymmetry. So if the media, if the intelligence complex, if the security complex, if the police uh judiciary, you know, and as as I do uh in another chapter, all these institutions more or less they present one picture, okay, which is the dominant one and then that picture is also reproduced predominantly in a scholarship as well. So justice, fairness and equality in the political realm cannot be even thinkable and possible unless we first achieve narrative symmetry or narrative equality. And this is the exercise uh taken in many chapters of that book. how to achieve demonstrate with evidence. Okay, this narrative uh symmetry or narrative equality. Interestingly uh from what I hear from you, the way I see it that by uh portraying uh certain demands or certain acts from a certain community in a certain light and then making it synonyomous synonymous uh with words like jihad which are the internal expressions of justice adul equality. What also ends up happening is the externalizing and erasing of the possibility of the Muslim experience as a positive force by creating that boundary and by creating that construct that whenever that vocabulary would be invoked immediately the response would be otherwise. And in that context if you talk about the theoretical rot I mean when you talk about the new world order what is it that in the new world order [clears throat] that if terrorists that it it portrays its own sickness and displaces it onto its enemies specifically uh Islam as terrorism Islamic uh you know expressions as acts of terrorism. How how can these two things be seen in the same framework? >> Uh Ali, I I I think I I I would go a little bit further and say um that actually these words uh have not been misinterpreted. They have been openly abused. >> Now just look at at this word. If if you do not mind, I'll I'll I I'll I can go briefly um biographical here. Uh in my PhD thesis, so this is my uh PhD thesis which was submitted at University of Amsterdam in the acknowledgements. Okay. Uh because uh my um I I lost one year. So my my scholarship was there uh but the Dutch uh government wanted me to produce my birth certificate without birth certificate I would not uh resume my PhD >> okay uh but I don't know you may have your birth certificate because you are a young person but I didn't have one >> okay so I had to be really reborn so I went to the village where I were I was born and then I had to write a application and the village where I was born I think there were 10 uh signatures required but we could find only one or two people who uh put who could sign it 90% of thumb uh >> okay the the people not educated enough to sign it yeah >> and then it is very funny it says that this is to certify that Ahmed son of Fazil Ahmed was born here and then with that you go to um block officer and so and so forth. Anyway, so in this uh which is my PhD thing in the acknowledgements I say uh that I undertook a legal jihad against uh the bureaucratic uh system of uh uh Holland or or Europe. So for me uh this is I mean it didn't make any sense to me because my passport already has date of birth. >> Yes it does. >> Okay. My metriculation document has date of birth but the Dutch government is insisting on birth certificate. So to to me uh the the the demand did not look very reasonable. But anyway, so in my self-perception, this was a legal jihad that I did because I lost one year and I there's no point in describing everything, but I had to go uh from a local office to uh main uh uh the headquarters of Bihar government from their uh to the Dutch embassy and and so and so forth. So what is happening? So my view of jihad is that okay I in my view this is something which is not fair and I really fought for it and I call it as a legal jihad or legal bureaucratic whatever you call it. Okay. Now in contemporary India the word has been completely abused and now you see an endless proliferation of words land jihad corona jihad mars jihad you name it. Okay, they keep doing adding. So the implication is that you have educated very consciously through media uh through nonformal channels a whole generation in which the impression is that jihad is a dirty word. It means only regression. It only means violence and so and so forth. Right? And it is completely against the self view of Muslims. M >> so you are using this word to describe Muslims as aggressor as violent as somebody who is not uh accommodative. Okay. Although the truth is quite the uh opposite. So now why this is happening? Okay. So this abuse is necessary both uh domestically as well as internationally. Okay. And that is where uh my uh analytical move is uh what might be described as displacement. Now that displacement uh is this that the world uh order after uh World War II uh the nation estate okay it is fraught with lot of conceptual inconsistencies. M >> now after the fall of the USSR what many people also describe it as neoliberalism so until uh uh until uh USSR existed uh the so-called welfare system in uh European countries including our own uh country called India they had something like planning commission and and so and so forth which was a five-year plan and so and so forth so there was this uh welfare oriented uh politics Okay. Now you have a lumpen uh capitalistic growth. Okay. which is at the cost of the rights and dignity of uh uh common people uh or what in the Marxist terms used to be described as uh proletariat in Gshian term as subterr and and this crisis was in in in the case of Britain uh you know Margaret Thatcher inaugurated it. So this uh reorientation okay uh is one factor but also the crisis of uh nationalism itself is never made as a point of discussion. Now if you see um the Israeli state terrorism, okay, uh which on you know because this is the first uh uh televised or you could say uh millions watch that genocide but nobody is making any connection that what is the connection between this genocide and nationalism and to me it is very apparent that it is a nationalist uh onslaught because the idea is to create an Israeli estate of the Jews and these Palestinians are a disturbance in that in in that uh idea of of a so-called Zionist homeland. Okay. So, so there are two elements. One is the territorial expansionist desire. Okay. And the other is that these are not the Jewish people and they need to be get rid of. But nobody is talking about the fact that this genocide has a strong I'm not saying that it is reducible to nationalism. What I'm saying is that for me this explanation will not be possible or it will not be a holistic explanation unless we also take into account how nationalism has been >> a major driving force of this genocide >> and all of the violence of last 200 years >> but but then you may have movements for nationalism but the nation estate as a unit of so-called international system has still not come into being. So this is um conceptually speaking what happens all these uh ills which is there in nationalism. Uh I mean I I don't think there is any nation anywhere in the world. >> Uh there is a nation estate. Okay. In fact it is more useful to talk about a state nation rather than nation state. >> Please uh expand on it. How is the nation the state nation and nation state different? because a state is is uh is is a reality. Uh and the state makes a claim that we are a nation. But the idea that um I mean here you we we we might have to uh qualify this uh by saying that of course on the face of it the idea of a um a community uh which is rooted in uh one particular memory, one language, one faith uh one sentiment. Okay. uh that is nowhere even I mean Switzerland is is is a very small country Holland is is a very small country but even there you cannot speak about one community in Holland uh the non-dutch people think that everybody speaks uh Dutch uh but that is not true uh the there there is a linguistic group in in Switzerland which is uh very small uh there are people who speak uh German there are people who speak uh French and I think there is a small community of of Italians as well. So so in that sense nowhere actually there is uh there is a uh nation in terms of one unified uh community. Now of course uh in India as well as uh outside people do talk about university sorry unity and diversity and they do uh take note of the fact that you know we have other religions and and we have other cultures but then in that conception also there is a sense of hierarchy >> the core culture the core religion >> okay and the rest has to subordinate itself which in history has has not been the case. >> Okay. So that is uh one reason uh I had to take um an alternative explanation and to show two things that we cannot talk about terrorism without introgating the idea of the nation state. And if you take this argument a little further then the implication is this that actually nationalism is the underbelly of terrorism and that is where I uh do a case study uh of three nation states uh Burma which is now called Myammar uh Sri Lanka and then India. So whatever after 9/11 uh the main so-called terrorist organization in India was Singh then it became Indian Mojahedin and then it kept on changing uh the name uh the the way we know through media and of course in Sri Lanka it is LTTE and then u the Buddhist uh um onslaught or Buddhist terrorism against >> Rohindians >> Rohingyas Right? But in all these three nation state, you cannot think about these what is what media or politicians describe as terrorism without understanding the fundamental ideology of nationalism. Because in the case of uh LTT, this is a Sinhala majority country and the Sinhala U speakers uh who are also Buddhist in most cases. They were imposing their version of nation and community and excluding the Tamils most of whom were Hindus but some were also Muslims and some were also Christians you know but their language is is is Tamil. So the protest against this sinhala majoritarian nationalism began in in uh in in colleges. Uh now likewise in the case of so so just to speak about LTT terrorism and so by the way in the case of LT terrorism you don't say that oh it is a Hindu terrorism. >> Okay it is a Tamil terrorism. So then the identity is linguistic even though majority of the people were Hindus. No not all of them but but if we set aside the religious level uh but then the question is we cannot simply keep talking about LT LT terrorism and so on. No, the demands of um uh before LTT was formed of course um Tamil people they were saying that look how can you exclude us linguistically and the linguistic because once you declare um Sinhala as as as the official language that would also have an impact on your jobs economy and so and so forth. Now in the case of um Myamar or Burma, of course there is also a Buddhist dimension because these Rohhingas um in the area uh where they were in a majority uh the Buddhist uh monks they said that well that place was visited by Buddha to what extent it is true or not but then it becomes a sacred land and if it is a sacred land then it means that you know Muslims have to leave. So of course this is uh rooted in into the idea of of uh of the nation state and likewise with SIM I mean SIM's radicalization it happens in the wake of the fervent and violent movement uh to destroy Babri Masid and of course Babri Masid is connected to chauvinist Hindu supermassist idea >> uh that India is of Hindus and this unsubstantiated uh undocumented uh uh idea uh that beneath the masid uh lies the rubbles of a destroyed uh temple. So of course it is connected to um to the idea of the nation state and likewise you can extend to um the case of Israel because Israel itself was born out of terrorism as a nation state and then the current genocidal violence against Palestinians is basically to realize that goal which was um initiated after the Balfor declaration. So that is uh uh how I think that a true and a genuine and analytically fruitful discussion about terrorism is possible only by bringing the question of nation state and nationalism right at the center and that is what I saw that in this UNP conference which I attended in Oslo they were talking about all other factors except nation and nationalism. And then the question was would be why is it the case? And there can be many explanation but in my understanding it is simply because the since the nation state is the foundation upon which the western world created uh an order after World War II. So that foundation itself cannot be subjected to criticism or cannot be brought to examination because if you do that right um then you have to interrogate your own fundamental assumption and since you do not do it then it has to be deflected. So it is displaced. Okay. including uh for example if you see the black community in in America the kind of sub uh the the kind of violence that they're subjected to which was most u visible uh in the form of black life matters so the boot of the police at the neck of George Floyd >> and then the guy is saying that I cannot breathe right that is terrorism that is the example of a state terrorism And as you know uh the role of Barack Obama was hugely disappointed because I think after that movement he made a statement uh in which he said very little about the protesters and he stood on the side of the police. So what I wanted to say that this nation estate system uh and it's uh in in the American case if you see the huge inequality uh uh American system is also infrastructurally very uh old uh but mind you I think uh I will not be able to give you the exact data uh but it is something like this if you take an annual um count so probably in one uh I have given the data I I'll have to look look at the book. So in one year probably uh according to the uh media or the government sources uh 800 people died because of terrorism but during the same period 34,000 people in India had died because of uh potholes and beaches on the public road but nobody talks about that that uh death but the death uh or the loss of life caused by terrorism uh is flashed um on the screen day in day out in India and and you will see I think I've also talked about Ajay Devka who who who looks very uh patriotic you know he's the guy who also does the advertisement of good okay and good >> is responsible for uh thousands of death right uh so the point is why are you not talking about these kind of death? So these are the ills because in in in in in the capitalist system this this is a brand uh you know capitalist need it uh they make profit out of it. Uh so rather than looking at the main cause you deflect it and then the fanatic the terrorist uh they are uh depicted as as as the enemy and uh as is the case uh many people also begin to buy into that narrative. And it is precisely for this reason that I speak about uh narrative equality or narrative uh >> yeah which we'll come to later in the uh podcast. So the way I see it, your argument is structural and metaphysical. The primitive foundation on which the idea of the nation is construed and constructed selectively in the uh experience of the western civilization and imposed on the world order as a way of postc colonial hgemonization. That has created a framework for which the malice, the uh the subjugation, the ine unequal uh treatment of the internal other in a way that has been externalized to a Muslim Islamic external other which also then becomes part of because the nation states are not neatly divided. There are no need exhaustive mutually exclusive territorial regions wherein nationalism can be philosophically uh non-conlictual. For example, uh a Buddhist and a Hindu has different metaphysical demands on the level of ontology, on the level of being. And those mutual demands cannot coexist completely coherently. And then whoever is a majority will end up constraining these categories in their own favor. But that also demands that all of this happens within the frameworks through which society is studied uh geopolitically, sociologically, anthropologically. So then [clears throat] when we talk about your own area of expertise as a sociologist, anthropologist, you talk about anthropology as a field within which this question is invoked, gauged, understood. So there are two questions that come to my mind. One is the question that you address how anthropologists have themselves dealt with the question even the good meaning ones. But before that as a practitioner of a certain field why did you choose to study violence specifically certain kinds of violence in your own biographical account? What is it that you experienced in your own understanding while growing seeing the way these categories were deployed and how did you think you were locating them within your own framework and then your critique about the discipline itself? >> Ali as you know uh I'm I'm not a great fan of this liberal uh choice theory. So in some ways of course we uh decide we we make decisions we choose. Okay. Uh but in certain other ways uh uh you know things also come your way you know. uh so in the book I actually I I I say that actually uh when uh after my masters um which was at JNU >> and then uh ML and then I moved to University of Amsterdam uh so I had not thought uh about the fact that I will be writing a book about terrorists uh but after 911 uh so as you know uh my PhD was about Jamaat Islami And uh that was the reason I got interested in in see. So after 9/11 these people and other Muslims they straight away began to be depicted as as as uh terrorists and then as you know after 9/11 uh at least in in Pentagon uh discourses they used to make a distinction that okay these are uh safi wahhabis are a threat but brali and sufi Muslims are fine but that kind of debate uh or that image lasted only for a few years. Uh later on uh it came to encompass uh uh almost uh every Muslim because you also had a discourse which said that unless Muslims reform their religion >> and some people were also raising fundamental question about Quran itself. So unless you have that fundamental change which would border basically on the question which will border on the point that okay you basically leave your religion or abandon it only then you will be admitted to this so-called enlightened modern world right >> uh and and and that is where I think you know u my sense is uh that you know uh Mahmud Mandani has made uh uh a useful contribution in terms of good Muslim, bad Muslim. Uh but I think a more accurate and a more uh uh encompassing description is basically not the distinction between good Muslim and bad Muslim. I think uh we have reached a point now where actually a good Muslim is basically an anti-Muslim. H. >> So this not to say that the distinction between good and bad Muslim is is is is not useful. But another way to look at it is that in contemporary times in the western in the Indian in the Zionist discourse a good Muslim is basically an anti-Muslim. the one who consciously and actively opposes it >> uh denigrates it uh makes fun of it. Uh so just think about the fact that you know India has hosted people like the slim ministry in Tarak Fat right these are basically not Indian citizens but they have been hosted in the name of so-called freedom of speech >> right and what is their job their job is to make fun of Islam and Muslims uh now this phenomenon is not limited to India you could think about Ishad Mangji in uh in in Canada and Ian Herseli uh who was a Dutch member of parliament and now she has moved to uh the US. Uh and you could also think about what was the name of that person from Lacnau who was a Shia of Wasim Risby or somebody >> so he uh initially he began to make fun of Islam. Okay. Uh and later on of course he converted to to Hinduism. [clears throat] and Ian Hishali who is Muslim of African origin now she has converted to Christian. So uh which is to say that uh in as much as the good uh uh versus bad Muslim distinction uh is uh useful. Another way to look at this question is to see the way the world is moving towards and the kind of dominant discourse which operates in contemporary times in India in Europe and elsewhere. in this discourse a good Muslim is basically anti-Muslim. >> So this is one thing but your main question was um >> how I got to college >> right and also how I got to the uh to to a study uh terrorism. So uh what I wanted to say is that I was interested in in in Jamaat is before 911. I wrote my PhD and then um people similar to them or see me they all began to be described as terrorist and the larger uh Muslim community. And then I talked about how the initial um distinction between you know Sufi Muslim or Bravi Muslim being good and then the Wahhabi and the reformist being not good. And from there we move to uh this uh distinction uh that uh Muhammad Mandani makes between good Muslim and bad Muslim. And then I made a qualification uh or introduced a new way of describing it uh namely that a good Muslim in the western uh security discourse and that discourse is also um adopted and embraced by people outside the west. in that discourse a good Muslim is basically an anti-Muslim. Now the question of uh of uh anthropology uh so this is uh because you know uh I I was trained in Jam Islamia in sociology uh and uh in India I mean in in the western world you make a huge distinction between sociology and anthropology in India much less. So from my bachelor's uh then uh to JNU uh which was in sociology uh and then in in Amsterdam uh it was uh anthropology. So I have been trained uh in the history of the discipline uh I like it uh on many accounts but then I thought that the question of terrorism that I later became interested in uh to what extent anthropology can help us. Okay. So I have already talked to you about the AMIC and ETIC distinction uh which is an anthropology. >> Can you also define what is anthropology so that the viewers can then locate this discussion within the discipline itself. >> Yeah. The popular uh definition is uh that sociology or historically sociology emerged as a discipline which studies contemporary modern European society and anthropology was a discipline which emerged to develop the other uh the primitive society societies. So there were many terms which were used as the subject matter of anthropology. Uh the primitive, the preliterate, pre-industrial, tribe, race and so and so forth. So that was in the initial moment. >> Okay. Uh so people uh uh so actually here um you might find it useful that orientalism uh as a discipline and anthropology as a discipline they share a similarity because both were designed to study the other because sociology studies the modern European society the us >> orientalism studies the other anthropology also studies the other but there is a difference between orientalism and anthropology orientalism studies that other which has a literate culture. It is inferior. It is supposed to be inferior to the western civilization but they have a literate culture. >> But anthropology studies that part of the orient which doesn't have a literate culture. It it doesn't have a written tradition. So the tribes and and and in in India uh if you uh the the distinction is that you know sociologist uh they study villages and cast and anthropologist study the tribes. Okay. So people in the hills and and and and so and so forth. So this uh uh my own training in in anthropology. So in some ways uh it was very useful especially the emic and ethic distinction but then it also alerted me um to the fact that when it comes to the question of terrorism and you remember I think it is there in the preface itself where I take on two leading anthropologist uh carve uh who is an Indian um anthropologist and she's also considered as the first uh woman anthropologist of India. uh she was a marachi uh woman and then uh Levia Stros who is considered as the father of a structuralism within anthropology a French uh anthropologist uh so when um after 911 as you know people were saying that well uh Huntington uh introduced the idea of clash of civilization and I say that No actually uh Huntington's uh clash of civilization article is probably dated 88 89 right something like that you know uh the book came much later but if you read Iraati carve she already talks about clash of civilization and Islam as a destructive force and Islam as a fanaticism as early as 1946 and 47 and likewise Claude Levier in in in that book uh which English is translated as the sad tropic. So he goes to India. He also goes to Lahar. This is after uh partition and independence of India. And he talks about Islam and Muslims and and he sees nothing positive about uh Islam and Muslims uh and so and so forth. So my point is that long before Huntington came up with this clash of civilization um uh uh idea you already had anthropologists like Iraati carve and levier straws who had been engaged in stigmatizing Islam and Muslims. >> Okay. And therefore any anthropological exercise to study terrorism cannot remain loyal to these kind of anthropological writings which exist. Not only this, >> a truly anthropological libertarian or emancipatory project has to go beyond question such anthropological writings and come up with a truly hurat oriented idea of what an anthropology is. So this is the main point and the second mythological point is that anthropology historically they have been uh concerned because uh ethnography is an important part of anthropology. So what ethnography means is that rather than making a comment about a particular community uh just based on uh oral sources or written sources, you go there and you spend one calendar year, you learn their language, you live with them and you see what uh their life is. By the way, this idea uh of ethnography is quite in line with uh uh a prophetic uh hadith. So prophet uh would say uh that you should not be making a judgment about someone unless you have done ma >> you have dealings. Uh have you also gone with that person on a journey? >> Okay. So these are the ways through which you can know the person in totality rather than just like what sociologist or political scientists do. They simply go and interview the person. So so this is uh this is definitely um a good thing and and and in in my view uh uh it is it is close to this prophetic hadith as well you know unless you have done mahad and you have uh done um you had been on on journey with that person you know. So which is to say that rather than rushing to pass a judgment or form an opinion about a person or about a particular community you should have sustained interaction with them to form a valid opinion or judgment about that community or that person. So in that sense anthropology is very ethnography is as a part of anthropology is very good. But then the problem is that a subject like terrorism okay cannot be understood simply at the local level. Uh and if you remember I think in chapter two uh I give a chart. Okay. Uh and the chart is this that in America in Canada in Norway in Australia and in India. So these are five nation states. So uh geographically apart from each other but in all these nation estate there is one slogan which is so powerful namely all Muslims are not terrorists but all terrorists are Muslims are Muslim. >> Now so my uh point is how can we understand this formulation which is visible >> and ruthlessly depicted by media in America. M >> in uh Norway, in Australia and in India, you cannot simply do it. Uh I mean of course if you are a very uh rich anthropologist and you have like a team of 50 ethnographers, you can send them uh to all these uh context and and then they can live there for uh a year and then can do ethnography, right? But uh that that uh doesn't seem like um an uh very viable option at the moment. So the point is if this slogan or this uh view is so pervasive in four different locations, four different nation state, four different continents, then uh the anthropologist's uh focus simply on the local okay or the local community is not helpful to understand a phenomenon like terrorism and therefore I make a methological shift. that we need uh a different kind of um a scale and I call it uh anthropology or ethnography on an awkward scale. >> Okay, which is to say that we have to create an anthropology which is sensitive. So the point is not to abandon the proximity that ethnography allows you by you. Okay. If if as a journalist you just go for one day uh of course you you get to see uh something but as a ethnographer if you know the language you have lived there you know their sensibility that is a great tool uh you know it really allows you a different perspective so that is fine but it cannot remain limited to that it has to go beyond that specificity and try to see the connection that exist beyond that locality at the national level, at the regional level, at the international level. And finally, because my argument is about the new world order uh which needs the category of the terrorist, you know, to sustain itself to to enchant itself because it lacks a positive identity of its own and therefore the question of terrorism uh cannot be really understood simply at the local level. We need a kind of holism uh in which the local uh the regional uh the national the international or the global they all come together to allow us to formulate a perspective uh in which uh we can see things in in their true light. Interestingly uh for for a statement like this which you mentioned all uh Muslims are not terrorists but all terrorists are Muslims that statement to be acceptable as true globally speaking what you're suggesting in a negative form has already been performed in the academia in the geopolitics in the spheres of understanding and influence that that kind of understanding could be imposed and shaped but as You're arguing that within the field of anthropology the methodology is isolationist that you isolate yourself to a small economy to a small locality and then study it from inward without really understanding it as an embedded locality within a larger global uh you know sphere in different levels of gradations like state, district, nation uh you uh continent and then the world and all of these gradations have their own vocabularies, their own embedded realities, interconnectedness wherein within which this experience and this uh you know articulation of terrorism and other such categories live. So it's a problem of that you are isolating yourself at a scale which is not exhaustive and comprehensive enough to really understand that issue and that is I think structurally speaking it it is a larger argument not just located towards terrorism but any category or any understanding to be made anthropologically speaking requires what you call that scaling up if if I'm understanding it right >> there is almost um uh correct in the sense that ethnography uh allows you uh depth. >> So um there is a distinction which some people make between um worm view and board view. You you see worm like insect, right? So if you just look at the insect which is whatever if you are plowing or or things like that you know worm and and insect. So we need to know warm and insect but birds because they look at things from uh above >> right. >> So the question is not uh going uh or celebrating just one of them. uh uh one has to synthesize and combine. So my point is that ethnography is is good in terms of depth. Okay. But this depth can also be extended rather than uh limiting it to one locality. Can we extend it? So in other words um I think you use the word called escape. Uh so should our plane of explanation or in other words what should be the explanatory escape uh will the explanatory estate would be a village a tribe a neighborhood of uh uh New Delhi or a neighborhood of Istanbul or or or Koala Lumpur or should we so the point is not to abandon that uh uh neighborhood or village or or or or locality but to see it in a way that it can also account for the regional the national and in international and the global and and see them dialectically. So my point is so so the point is not to say that okay a neighborhood in Delhi is affected by the transnational or the global or in international forces. The other way around is also true. >> Exactly. So it is a it is a dialectical wholeness that we must strive to achieve. >> Also uh for example the way I'm seeing it even we've talked about the nation state we've talked about the new world order. So because a lot of knowledge that we see as standard today uh comes from these western nation states as given although that is now being contested historically speaking and even you know in the ways that knowledge is being formed in different localities in terms of states themselves. But that that assumption that knowledge for the last few centuries in terms of its global dominance has been produced in the western context also uh brings forth that orientalist view that that all of this what is being read is operationally being read from a certain perspective. And so then when you bring that difference between real and true, what does that mean in the context of world views and in the context of those world views being deployed on experiences, knowledge and evidence itself? How do why do you choose to differentiate between those these two ideas, the real and the true? For example, they they feel like they're the same. the re you know anal hak mayhei uh I am I am true I am real and in many ways realness and trness is feels like that two expressions from different vantage points about something which is say to say both real and truth I mean I would let you explain on that >> yeah so what happens since we are operating um in the English language um the book as well as this conversation uh so uh in the English language uh uh before the reformation uh you do not have a difference between reality and truth >> but in the wake of reformation a distinction is made and that is after the rise of so-called balconian science and positivism and so and so forth so which is to say uh that science becomes the arena uh which is uh open uh to sense experiences. Hawasa comes out the five senses. >> Uh now truth is something which is metaphysical and so and so forth. So uh with the passage of time uh it was believed that truth is something which is in the realm of mystics. >> Uh it it is uh it is the job of uh religion whereas the scientific thing would be concerned with reality. Now reality which can be understood in scientific terms through these senses and so on and so forth. So you do have um people who still talk about truth uh in philosophy but uh not in the sense in which I'm using the truth. So even people like Habmas or many other philosophers they talk about truth but for them truth is mostly used in terms of propositional truth. But my point is not simply propositional truth but the idea that if uh because before secularization uh god is truth and once this distinction was uh made between reality and truth and truth was suspended either in the realm of uh uh uh simply mystical philosophy. Okay. uh now this will raise a linguistic question because this distinction between reality and truth uh as it operates in English uh then we will have to go into the different languages. So in Arabic uh parse and udu uh >> uh so reality and is of course derived from h uh and then somewhere I have also made this argument that uh uh the root word of that is uh also h so in the Islamic tradition you do not see the utter separation which uh postreformation uh scientific tradition generated by separating reality from truth and this is one of the good things uh about Shahab Ahmed's book which I have uh thoroughly criticized elsewhere uh in my rapo lecture uh but throughout the book he translates uh God okay both as real slash truth So he doesn't uh make the distinction between uh the real and the true. >> Now on the face of it uh reality is something uh which is happy which is obvious to um uh our eyes, our uh our ears and so and so forth. But then uh the the there there are so many other things which are real but I simply uh don't believe in it uh uh in the sense that I I have no sympathy for those reality. Uh now let me explain this uh injustice is a reality. >> Okay. Poverty is a reality. Uh prostitution is a is a reality. uh the brutality by the police recently as you have seen in uh the protest in Delhi that is a reality right because you can see it your five senses you can listen to it but then the question is not the reality of the phenomenon itself do I also accept it as something desirable something which is ethical so therefore um the task of a genuine or in my view a True scholar is not simply to explain the reality but to also arrive at the true or the truth as a moral uh force as a moral idea. Uh but this is something which uh uh social sciences have completely abandoned. If you see um uh political science book, sociologist talk about social reality. Uh political science will talk about either political developments, political facts, political reality. The question of of of uh truth doesn't feature here. Now for my own uh whatever little I have done uh I do it because I have a sense of ethics. uh I believe in um the true and the truth. So I write book or if I intervene uh in terms of writing an article or just talking to you uh my inspiration or my driving force is not just to as the new liberal academia would say that if I write a book I will probably get whatever 12 points or 13 points or 14 points. These are the numerical points which the current academia uh understands right so there is something and and I'm not simply interested in reality in terms of the fact that as they exist or as it happens or as it is operating I'm also believing in a moral world which doesn't exist but which in my view should exist and therefore throughout the book uh there is a question of the possib possible world, the true world which empirically speaking doesn't exist and and that is where you know much of the social science is also empirical. >> So my point is uh that our intellectual scholarly pursuit should definitely engage with empirical world empirical reality but that is not the destination or the end point. By engaging with the empirical world, we have to also be attentive constantly and perennially to the moral vision, the idea of the good, the idea of the public good. Uh not simply for this community or that community, but for the larger humanity. And without that moral vision we cannot be thinking about uh the possible world because the realist and by the way in international relations theory there is a theory which is called realism and that theory was supposed to have developed against another current which was called idealism >> and idealist were considered people who who were sentimental or who had certain moral position. Right. So >> and what is the difference between what is and what ought to be >> right? But but as a realist I mean what is I mean of course there are so many obnoxious things which exist in the world but that doesn't mean that I also endorse them or or I also >> um fight for their perpetuation or for their existence. On the contrary, these obnoxious things I will fight for their abolition and therefore the moral and the possible world because without this anchoring without this um striving for a possible world our scholarship actually cannot be ethical. Just describing the reality as it exist is not sufficient. The point is not to dismiss the reality. So therefore my formulation is that okay it is one thing to begin with reality and it is quite another to end also with reality. No we begin with the reality we engage with the reality and then by doing so we also constantly bring the question of truth the truthful ethical the beautiful. Okay. Because without that idea uh I think uh to uh use uh uh uh this concept in a very perverse way uh without this ethical uh and the aesthetic uh idea of a possible world and alternative world we would be just bare life or naked life. So one of the things that this distinction then leads to between the real and the true is the necessity of framework or a methodology that can engage with the possibility of the truth. So in many ways uh within the western academia uh in the past few decades uh there has been a tradition of responding to the malice of modernity itself through frameworks like deconstruction decoloniality and more often than more more often uh a lot of nonwestern thinkers including this work for example the decolonizing of the anthropology of terrorism after especially Talal Assassad there has been the utilization of the decolonial framework as a framework in which you undo what has been done in a way that creates that reality is which is oppressive but in doing so one of my personal observations in the past half decade or more so when I was a student in Ju and I was observing and I was listening to thinkers like J Sai Deepak within the uh tradition of the Hindu understanding of their own civilizational ethics. They have deployed the same grammar to suggest a kind of decolonization which is at odds with what we are proposing. And in that they locate thinkers like Shahulah Alle as somebody towards whom all of these traditions within India including the Jamaat Islami Jama the Tabliki Jamaat the the you know Hadis when you construct an idea of coloniality in a way arguing that you're decolonizing from the Arabic and the Western influence uence then all of these conceptual frameworks in my understanding sometimes feel like the concept of nation state or democracy itself when you me mentioned state nation so in that context while deploying these frameworks how do we see that they're value neutral and a a certain kind of understanding can be deployed to them so when we are utilizing decoloniality as a framework especially you in this context of studying terrorism within a certain field. How do you see that it is not different from uh the way the nation the way you know other uh such concepts have been politicized? How do you see that utilization of your own uh you know in your own work decoloniality? uh I don't uh particularly see it as something that can necessarily lead to truth. It is a necessary condition in a sense but is it sufficient and for that sufficiency to happen uh especially when you mentioned the word huryat within your book itself you open that gateway uh what is it that decoloniality brings and what is it that the limit of it remains within your own analysis. So the first point is I think um uh did you mention the name of Sai Deepak? >> Saiep J Sai Deepak. >> Yeah I think um in my view that will not qualify as um a strictly a scholarship. It is basically a pseudo scholarship because uh I think he doesn't know what actually colonialism is. So to describe Islam and Muslims as colonial uh force. Okay. And then uh think about decolonization. Okay. This is what is also by the way the current regime's idea of decolonization. Um the education minister has also referred to um not not now but a few years ago. So that that that kind of decolonization in in another paper which I wrote which is called recognizing Hindu orientalism I clearly show that such call for decolonization such calls for decolonization are basically neocolonization or recolonization. Okay. uh because uh in the first place they do not uh know uh sufficiently or adequately enough what colonialism is. So um the the point you are raising uh is is probably it will require a longer uh treatment. But let me limit myself to the following uh that once uh in contemporary times you know uh there are many people who are using decolonization decoloniality and so and so forth. So it has become a catch call and many people are using it. Uh and I'm not sure uh if the goal and the purpose of each uh person who is utilizing this concept is is is is the same in the case of G Sepak and also I think I mention another scholar of Hinduism Arvin Sharma. Right? So it is very clear that in their case uh the decolonization functions as a tool to aid the project of Hindu supremacy in in in in the subcontinent. Now uh to your next part of the question uh my sense is uh that uh decolonization and as I said once it has become a catch call term uh people are using in a wide variety of ways and not not all of them are necessarily consistent. uh but the only point I want to make uh here uh is this that decolonial is a negative reference. Okay. So we need to decolonize ourself uh which I think is a worthy exercise. But can we also ask a question and that is what is the positive agenda that we have we decolonize okay in order to become what and that is where I think sufficient thinking has not been done now this raises a larger question about which I don't think I alone have answers uh because that will require uh knowing uh the linguist uistic cultural and religious tradition of the whole world and unfortunately I know very little. Okay. So then the question would be uh how people in Buddhist tradition and Hindu uh tradition in Islamic tradition in Chinese tradition or the indigenous tradition of Latin America and so and so forth in Africa where in many parts of Africa as you as you know um it is the oral culture uh which is uh very pervasive and and dominant not the written one. So how all these cultures okay uh okay uh decolonize is one but also let's ask what do we want to become and I think uh we do not have uh or at least to my knowledge uh there is not much uh sufficient u thoroughly uh engaged uh research on on that idea. M >> uh that to me also appears because uh that to me it also appears because uh it it is a much more challenging thing because uh uh it is it it is just like saying that okay we are fighting British imperialism or British colonialism. We are against British colonialism but what are we standing for? >> What is it that we're going to create after nation state after uh decolonizing from the west? What is it that as you rightly argued the positive side of the agenda of what uh the decolonial self is demanding and an associated question that I always ask who is decoloniality? For example, when the bremans are talking about decolonizing from the influence of the Muslim outsider and the Dalith is asking for decolonizing from the breman and then we are talking about decolonizing. So it's it it becomes a triangulated uh subjective claim uh which is readily deployable. So without that positiveness what you're arguing how do we uh keep on engaging with it positively that is one of the most you know difficult questions that we see. Yeah. And and and I would say that it is not simply um decolonization in terms of nation estate which is very important because after all nation estate is a political being of modernity but also what kind of self we want, what kind of education we would like to give. >> Uh what what what do we want our children to be in the next generation and and and and the uh generation uh after. Okay. uh but also uh sometimes it it may happen uh that in the name of decolonization actually uh coloniality might be reproduced uh but but the point of this positive thing uh is something which has not been sufficiently discussed in the book. I just uh uh gave some signpost of it. Uh which is to say uh that and by the way this positive agenda will um I can speak only for a limited knowledge of of a certain tradition. So I do not know uh what what is uh there in the Buddhist tradition or in the Chinese tradition or in the Japanese tradition for example. So therefore based on my limited knowledge I say that the task of a scholar in Islamic tradition uh we write and that act is called uh muar is somebody who who is a writer okay and uh is a piece of writing but is also freedom >> okay and therefore in in Egypt as you know it was known as >> Equire uh in colonial India we had organizations established by Muslims which was called Majar. >> So that Aar is also from the same uh world. Uh so if we think of um knowledge and intellectual tradition in terms of and elsewhere I think this was a paper that I wrote after uh the so-called Arab uh spring uh in which I also actually give a concrete example u by focusing on two uh works uh one by Bernard Lewis and the other by Faris Zakaria. Okay. And these are the two scholars who have written about the Middle East. And I say that the way I think of writing or the way I think of a scholar or alim and I'm using alim or not in the sense of just so-called theologian or clerics which is a perverted uh uh translation but alim as a scholar then the writing of fared zakaria and bernard louisis it is not oriented towards hura it is oriented towards uh continuing and legitimizing domination. Yeah. So uh this idea of hura or writing or a scholarship and and and that is where a positive thing you know so not simply decolonizing but uh but when you bring this idea of hura or then uh you can have probably more consensus about decolonization okay uh but probably less about >> hurry >> okay and this this itself can be an interesting question Why why this is the case? >> So you know Ian Elich wrote a book which is called deschooling society in in in Latin America. So okay DA schooling society because it is a critique of of the contemporary schooling system or or the philosophy it is based on. But then the question would be what kind of uh I mean are we completely abandoning um a schooling uh not simply as a institutional form but what would be the positive way of a school right >> and that is where um given the world that we uh we uh inhabit uh with multiple faith with multiple tradition with multiple ideologies finding a ground which is common to all uh is not impossible. Uh it is quite challenging. Okay. Uh but in my view it is doable but that requires lot of um harmonical intellectual and scholarly uh work. >> We've talked about the context. We've talked about terrorism as a construct. We've talked about the anthropology and why in its current form it has uh structurally failed to take up that issue because of the way uh the knowledge system within it and its methodology is construed. Uh it is possibly fatalist and deterministically incapable in the way that it is uh you know engaged. But the question is because you've raised that question uh there's a machine which is necessary to deploy certain ideas certain certain traditions. One of course is the nation state itself but within the nation state which is now a democracy in a certain way without uh as you in the earlier form also talked about the narrative symmetries and the narrative asymmetries. two things I would want to talk about law as a structure of the state itself [music] and media as a form of potentially uh creating that structure through consent. How do you see that in in the context of the debate of terrorism? uh and possibly after that we can conclude in >> I mean both globally um as well as in the context of uh South Asia one may um have many points of differences with uh Lama Khal Mars but his formulation of uh what he uh talked about super structure uh so law is uh basically um a tool uh used by the powerful. Okay. Uh the there there is a Russian proverb which says something like this that law is like a a spider's net. Uh the weak get trapped in it and the powerful simply peck. Um now um what we see in the case of uh terrorism for this discourse to be uh to be operative. Okay. Uh it is not simply the case that one branch of uh of the state machinery uh keeps it alive. Okay. There is a synergy between the different institutions uh media, the law, the judiciary and then of course um there would be so many other institutions as well including social media and so forth. uh but in social media you can say uh that the social media is based on this idea of what is called UGC. Do you know that term UGC? >> User generated content. >> So the user itself is the content creator. >> Yeah. So in in newspaper and in television the traditional one there is nothing called UGC user generated content. Uh you are simply a consumer right. uh uh but the social media allows this uh you know but then the point is to what extent that social media will be um uh effective how many people uh uh see it but more importantly how many people are allowed to see because certain uh kind of uh social media profile which is based on UGC might be deleted might be made invisible and and and so and so forth. So what happens uh the law okay um and in the case of uh we we see this is so visible in the case of India that uh about the Babra Masi the discourse of Indian nationalism in which Indian Muslims and Islam is outsider and this is by the way shared not simply by BJP or RSS but it is also shared by Congress. >> Okay. So this idea has been there and that led to uh the launching of the movement by Vishuvindu parisha in terms of destruction of Babu Masa. So you see Indian nationalism as an ideology propels this movement beyond the uh Congress uh uh BJP divide. Okay. uh media plays a role in consolidating it. Think about Amarujala, think about uh uh Danik Jagran and think about uh you know Times of India and so on and so forth. And then ultimately the judiciary and even the Supreme Court uh puts the seal of approval. So what you see here is that these all these institutions judiciary, law, uh media and political uh party would be uh in a democracy they are described as an organization or institution of the civil society. Okay. So the civil society you see a conjunction of all them coming together to uh to produce perpetuate and ultimately make this particular ideology uh a success and therefore the task of those who believe in alternative kind of scholarship or alternative thinking uh becomes much more challenging. Uh and this is the question uh how to intervene, where to intervene, uh what are the ways in which you can intervene and more importantly can you intervene >> because now we are in the realm of censorship. We are in the realm of uh imprisonment. As you know the book also talks about uh people like uh Shilam or uh uh what is the other guy >> Omar Khaled? Umar Khaled and Safura Zurg and and so all these kind of activists who have been thinking uh against the gray you know >> and not um worshiping power uh uh they have been um uh crushed. Many of these people have already spent uh years of uh life in imprisonment. Right? So, so given this kind of uh uh condition uh the task of thinking alternatively and and and in a way that it can uh fashion a fair um harmonious and just society becomes all the more challenging. On an ending note uh you've done that uh by naming violence in 2020 when you wrote about the two Delhi 2020 program and people were talking about it as criminal violence riot uh and the terminologies play a role [music] in how the victim or who is the victim and who's the perpetrator all of that is a game of u narrative asymmetry and power. Uh so on an ending note uh what is the uh politics of naming of categorization say for example terrorism terrorism itself but also more specifically also acts that are much subtler in terms of the daily way the daily violence that happens and as Indian Muslims as an ending note what are we supposed to do not just as academics but as activists as journalists as entrepreneurs uh how do we uh you know uh uh give a counter perspective? >> Yeah. So back to that um 2020 uh program which was uh organized in Delhi. So one of the things which I said uh that that kind of depiction of violence uh that is from both sides and I think I use the term called ditto theory. uh but before it is understood um simply as something which is specific to the case of India uh no uh I think uh as a as a scholar uh I work through concepts and I do believe that ideas advance okay um not by repeating and circulating and reproducing the exist existing concepts but by formulating new ones So the idea of the ditto theory um it is not simply about uh bhagalpur violence or delhi violence or other poems uh you see anuji the so-called icon of uh uh democracy in Burma uh and the book describes uh her case as well uh in which she uh I think it was with Michelle Hussein uh who was at that time BBC uh journalist interviewing her uh you will find the um description there and she also says that well the violence was from both sides >> meaning Buddhist as well as as uh as well as uh the Rohhinga. Uh but in the case of Israel they always talk about you know you you you cannot simply talk about uh from those who are Zionist within um in Israel but also outside of Israel. uh they always bring this argument that no we have to look at both sides you know so this kind of did 22 theory as a conceptual um intervention uh uh is not simply limited to understand the case of uh Bhagalpur or or uh Delhi uh but equally you know as as I gave you two examples in the case of so-called Israel uh Palestinian conflict you know which which itself is a problematic formulation or in the case of Rohingya you know the violence was from both sides and this is said uh by no less a person than Ankangsuchi who has been given Nobel prize for for peace or or something now on on the point of what what is to be done or as in far it is said so uh that is a big question and I'm not sure uh if I have the answer but I would say that uh people from different uh walks of life. uh you work in media uh there would be people who are activists there are people who might be working uh in IT sector you know there are people who might be working in the film uh there are people who might be working in the realm of education and so and so forth right uh so I think people based on their own uh concrete experiences okay if they read the book uh and if uh they find something which is important and it is quite possible that they might find something in the book which I as an author may not have even thought about it. So let's not uh uh uh assume uh that the author is all all sovereign you know uh in in in in many ways the author is not >> covered the black holes it was the uh you know understanding of a later theorist who understood his theory to lead to certain other concepts >> and therefore so people with different um uh exper experiences. Um, and I would also in in uh definitely I think gender experience and and so a woman reader would not necessarily find uh the same thing as as as as a male. So I think uh for different sets of leaders with different uh trajectories and and um and their interest and the field in which they operate, I think uh they might find uh something which uh which is interesting and probably um rather than being um or assuming a priestly uh role, I would leave it to the people um and their own experiences uh in terms of what they find beneficial and of course something which they find they will definitely I'm not aware of it as of now because you know the book was published only a month ago but it is quite possible that you know they will find some uh criticism and and and so and so forth. So in in both ways um to the extent that it is useful and to the extent that they find it uh it is not helpful um I would be more curious to learn from them. Okay. Having said this, uh uh this much is uh very clear to me and this is also based on my own role um as somebody who thinks and and writes uh that uh activism or action whatever field uh one might be thinking of uh will be more uh fruitful and more effective only when we gain a conceptual clarity. Without a conceptual clarity, uh we might be doing tireless work, but it is not necessary that tireless work in the absence of a conceptual clarity and a conceptual consistency will really bear the same fruit. So the bottom line would be that if uh my intervention helps in some uh ways uh to clear the ground uh for uh analytical uh clarity >> uh then I think that would be probably uh an important step towards thinking about uh collective action uh whether it is in terms of activism, whether it is in terms of media intervention, whether it is in terms of pedagogical practices whether it is in terms of uh launching certain kind of uh collective uh business uh or other kinds of enterprise. >> Thank you uh Dr. Ahmed for doing this wonderful work. Uh as I always u try to think about scholars uh and put them in certain frameworks that I like to think uh how they think. I see you as a first principal systems thinker who is a synthesis thinker in who's able to massively deploy competing ideas into coherent worldviews to be able to understand certain you know aspects and concepts and in that context to be able to understand terrorism comprehensively not just at a at a scale of local but at a scale of different nationalities as as at a scale of global realities specifically with reference to its uh raification uh to a specific identity and ideology. I think for viewers uh it's a very important work. One should read it. One should understand it and one should be able to learn from it how deconstruction and reconstruction happens. It's not just deploying certain categories. It's about being able to internalize them and to conquer them in a way that it becomes meaningful to study our own self experiences. So thank you Dr. Fane. I hopefully you're working on some other great work that would uh you know meaningfully expand our understanding and I would also request the viewers to go through your work on Hindu orientalism. It's also this massive uh framework of understanding this experience within India as a state and please continue doing this work. >> Thank you so much.