“Global Terrorism Is the ‘Dark Side’ of Globalization”. Discuss.

PR 2450: Essay

Topic: “Global terrorism is the ‘dark side’ of globalisation”. Discuss.

' 'The “dark side of globalisation” is best thought of as the “unrelenting growth of cross-border illegal activities […] that threaten the institutions of the state and civil society in many countries” (Calvani, 2000). In other words, terrorists, traffickers in drugs, women and children, and organised crime utilise global networks and flows for their own ends ' ' (Rumford, 2001: p.2). Indeed, since 9/11, terrorism has taken a different turn and became one of the main global issue of the 21st century. By the end of the cold war, as one the of the two superpower collapsed the world of politics entered a new world order shaped by the american unipolarity. Since it was the end of an ideological war and as Fukuyama (1992) stated ' 'the end of the history ' ' in order to describe this period; liberalism and western values had triumphed which meant no more war possible as only one great power existed. Unfortunately, the end of this era brought tensions that were hiding and promoting during the cold war and global terrorism can be considered as one of them, especially when we consider that it was the U.S. that has armed Bin Laden during the cold war. Moreover, the new world order coincided when the globalisation grew in importance; ' 'For the first time in modern history, globalisation was superimposed onto a world with a single superpower ' ' (Weber and Barma and Kroenig and Ratner, 2007: p.49). On the fist hand, Global terrorism is quite a complex term to define; ' 'The common point of all definitions was their description of terror as “illegal”, “evil” and “an unwanted phenomenon”. Its lawlessness and its merciless attacks without differentiating between innocent-criminal, civil-armed are listed as other characteristics of terrorism. Violence and blood-shedding… Lurid acts… The list of terror’s characteristics may further be extended. ' ' (JTW, 2007). Global terrorism (and also the idea of the 'war on terrorism ') is a very good example of how we come to see the world as interconnected as a single place, it can be considered as a contemporary form of war as conventional war do not exist anymore. On the other hand, globalisation can be best thought of as the growing interconnectedness in the world. It is the result of a series of historical processes (economic, political, cultural) through which the world has become compressed, and which have led to an awareness that the world is becoming a single place. Since terrorism started to become a major issue in the international politics when the world began to be more and more interconnected we can ask ourselves is the global terrorism the 'dark side ' of globalisation ? In order to answer this question I will first demonstrate how and why global terrorism can be considered as the 'dark side ' of globalisation and then I will nuance this statement by claiming that globalisation is the not the cause of global terrorism. The main argument of this essay is that we can consider global terrorism as the 'dark side ' of globalisation in the sense that globalisation has, unfortunately, promoted and aroused the development and global terrorism but more precisely, globalisation is a form of americanisation and therefore global terrorism is a consequence of the rejection of the western values.

' 'From terrorism to global warming, the evils of globalisation are more dangerous than ever before ' ' (Weber and Barma and Kroenig and Ratner, 2007: p.48). In fact, global terrorism can be considered as the dark side of globalisation when we observe its evolution within the last decades, in fact we can talk about a new kind of war and a reject of the western values. Moreover, I would argue that terrorism is the dark side of globalisation in the sense that it uses some of the components of globalisation to become global and to improve its impacts and its goals. Furthermore, globalisation has unfortunately reinforcing global terror by inviting people to immigrate in the western countries which eventually promoted communitarianism. Finally, the main goal of global terrorists groups, most of the time, is the fight against the western values specially the civil liberties that are promoting by globalisation.

By observing the last decades, I would argue that it is easy to underline a link between terrorism becoming global and the world globalised. In fact, as Baylis, Smith, and Owens (2008: p.274) claim, before the 90 's terrorism did not happen outside the local and national borders and was not targeting the international community; terrorists were not as ambitious as today. Moreover, previously, terrorists were only using smaller means such guns and small explosive; they did not have access to any kind of technological weapons and important funds. I would argue that before the emergence of a globalised world, terrorists had no reason to become global and to target the international community since they were not feeling threatened. In other words, terrorism has faced an evolution while the world was becoming more and more globalised, using different means and targeting different enemies.

In fact, globalisation has massively caused and promoted the spread of new technologies. With these technologies, terrorists have gained access to new king of weapons: more destructive and advanced because they benefit from new technologies. One of the characteristics of the globalisation is the interconnectedness of the world and therefore that is why terrorists have gained the access to nay kind of destructive weapons in an expensive ways. Furthermore, as Weimann states (2006: p.26), one of the most components of globalisation is internet which have been used ' 'by modern terror organisations to terrorise the international community can be conceived as a form of psychological warfare ' '. Thomas (2003) claims that ' 'It is clear that the internet empowers small groups and makes them appear much more capable than they might actually be, even turning bluster into a type of virtual fear ' '. By promoting the ease of access to any kind of technology and more particularly internet; globalisation has provided the means, and the causes, for terrorists to become global. Nowadays, ' 'militant jihad has become the global phenomenon in term of the major threat that terrorism is, replacing the previous terrorist organisations. i.e. Al-Qaeda as the sacred terrorism ' ' (Elmi, 2011).

Globalisation has enabled and encouraged mass migration from the periphery to the core, but this migration has provoked the confrontation of different cultures and religions which were bring to live together. ' 'A survey conducted in 2004 of British Muslims found a diminishing desire even reluctance by Muslims to fully integrate into mainstream British culture because the majority of Muslims felt disconnected from western society due to the occurrence of what they consider is a ‘war on Islam’(Hopper, 2006, pp. 82) ' ' (Elmi, 2011), in other words, globalisation has lead to communitarianism, segregation and racism, extremism that can sometimes end up by the recourse of terrorism. By creating an 'open-world ' without borders, at the same time globalisation has promoted communitarianism and has aroused religious and cultural tensions. I would argue that, most of the time these extremist groups become terrorist because they want to express their reject of the norms and values because they feel like those norms are being imposed to them. Although globalisation has enabled the interconnectedness of ideologies and civilisations, according to Huntington (1996), this phenomenon can be seen as 'the clash of civilisations ' that globalisation would have brought and then we can argue that terrorism is the dark side of globalisation.

Rumford (2001: p.3) stated that ' 'The international coalition against terrorism hastily assembled by U.S. President George Bush and british Prime Minister Tony Blair which has resulted in support for military action against the Taliban in Afghanistan, represents a fight against the ' 'dark side of globalisation, ' ' a struggle which takes place on a global terrain ' ' clearly underlines the fact that global terrorism is the dark side of globalisation. In fact, I would argue that globalisation is a cause of the development of the global terrorism. We can claim that it is a ' 'dark side ' ' because first and obviously terrorism has for main goal to kill violently innocent people and therefore it undermines civil liberties: ' 'Devji highlights the fact that various emblems of the west such as freedom and human rights have been undermined by the 'war on terror '. ' ' (Elmi: 2011). Moreover, Appadurai qualifies terrorism as the 'nightmarish side of globalisation ', 'violent action against public spaces and civilian populations in the name of anti-state politics ' (2006: 87), is based on a 'cellular ' (networked) form of organisation and ' 'it is evident that the ' 'dark side ' ' is in fact the irradiation of civil liberties ' ' (Elmi: 2011).

To sum up, many academics such as Aparudai (2006) have clearly stated that global terrorism is the 'dark side ' of globalisation, indeed I have demonstrated how global terrorism uses components of globalisation in order to achieve its main purposes which are, for most of the terrorist organisations, the triumph of the muslim culture and religion over the western 's collapse. But why do global terrorism threaten and fight western values ? Can we talk about the reject of americanisation that could be an other word for globalisation ?

' 'The mobility of ideas, capital, technology, and people is hardly new. But the rapid advance of globalisation 's evils is. Most of that advance has taken place since 1990. Why? Because what changed profoundly in the 1990s was the polarity of the international system. For the first time in modern history, globalisation was superimposed onto a world with a single superpower. What we have discovered in the past 15 years is that it is a dangerous mixture. The negative effects of globalisation since 1990 are not the result of globalisation itself. They are the dark side of American predominance ' ' (Weber and Barma and Kroenig and Ratner, 2007: p.50). After the cold war, one superpower came to impose its values (western). In our context, most of the time, terrorist organisations come from the muslim world. Thus, after the triumph of liberalism, it is true that the United States have been acting unilaterally, some would say they were acting only for their own interests. That is why, globalisation is frequently considers as an americanisation of the world: the U.S. are trying to spread the western culture all over the world, which can be seen as a form of modern colonialism and thus it has aroused nationalism and the rejection of american values. Extremists groups from the muslim word started to reject those western values, claiming that the only way for their culture and religion to flourish and exist will exist through the fail of the Western system, and since the U.S represents the face of the western ideology and is the superpower; ' 'Oftentimes, mere frustration over political, economic, or religious conditions is not enough. Al Qaeda understands that, and, for that reason, it weaves a narrative of global jihad against a "modernization," "Westernization," and a "Judeo-Christian" threat. ' ' (Weber and Barma and Kroenig and Ratner, 2007: p.53). ' 'They protect themselves by joining groups that can hold a hegemonic threat at bay. But what if there is no viable group to join? In today 's unipolar world, every nation from Venezuela to North Korea is looking for a way to constrain American power. But in the unipolar world, it 's harder for states to join together to do that. So they turn to other means. ' ' (Weber and Barma and Kroenig and Ratner, 2007: p.51). In other words, countries that feel threaten by a superpower and do not find allies who are welling to counter them and fight for their interest go underground, nuclear, ' 'bad ' '. That is how global terrorism became a major global issue in the world of politics. Therefore, I claim that globalisation and its interconnectedness has facilitated the connection and the development of terrorist groups, but this development was a respond and a rejection of the americanisation and the unipolarity of power. ' 'The predominance of American power has many benefits, but the management of globalisation is not one of them […] unipolarity and globalisation do not go along: more U.S. power is not the answer; [...] it 's actually part of the problem […] A multipolar world would almost certainly manage the globe 's pressing problems more effectively ' ' (Weber and Barma and Kroenig and Ratner, 2007: p.50-53). Within international relations, states naturally try to balance power, they thus protect them selves and their interests by joining groups that ' 'can hold hold a hegemonic threat at bay ' ' (Weber and Barma and Kroenig and Ratner, 2007: p.52). ' 'By contrast, a world of several great powers is a more interest-rich environment in which nations must look in less obvious places to find new sources of advantage. In such a system, it 's harder for troublemakers to spring up, because the cracks and seams of globalization are held together by stronger ties ' ' (Weber and Barma and Kroenig and Ratner, 2007: p.51), this argument proves that globalisation is not the real cause of the rise of global terrorism: globalisation is the consequence of americanisation: ' 'if there were rival great powers with different cultural and ideological leanings, globalisation 's darkest problem of all – terrorism – would look different ' ' (Weber and Barma and Kroenig and Ratner, 2007: p.53).

Moreover, Rumford (2001) also argues that globalisation is not 'bad ' and he agrees with Bush 's administration and Blair 's argument, claiming that globalisation is the solution to fight this dark side of the globalisation, but he does not argue that globalisation is the problem and that it should not exist. He characterises terrorism as ' 'uncivil society ' ': ' 'In contemporary discourse, examples of uncivil society range from child pornography, right-wing extremism and anti-globalisation protestors, to the general lack of social consensus and civic values which many believe characterise contemporary western societies. ' ' (Rumford, 2001: p.1). Therefore, Rumford agrees with the idea that globalisation can take over terrorism but only if western countries are welling and do actually spread ' 'the wealth they generate more equitably, thereby developing a greater number of partners in the world ' ' (Rumford, 2001: p.2).

The rise of global terrorism is a complex phenomenon and can not only be defined as the dark side of globalisation, it is the result of the rejection of western values which are promoted by globalisation since the superpower of nowadays is the U.S. Global terrorism can also be define as uncivil society and some actually argues that globalisation is the solution to this problem; it has to spread wealth fairly but unfortunately so far globalisation has done nothing more than increasing the gap between poor and rich, causing even more tensions.

' 'What went wrong ? The bad news of the 21st century is that globalisation has a significant dark side ' ' (Weber and Barma and Kroenig and Ratner, 2007: p.50). At the end of the 20th century, the world has entered a new world order, characterised by the american unipolarity. The supremacy of this superpower and its unilateral ideology has aroused tensions all around the world but when we talk about global terrorism we directly think about the war against terror lead by the U.S. against Al-Qaeda.In other words, ' 'The pundits are partly right: Today 's international terrorism owes something to globalization ' ' (Weber and Barma and Kroenig and Ratner, 2007: p.53) but this is a much more complicated phenomenon, since globalisation grew in importance while the U.S. became the superpower, globalisation can be called americanisation and in that sense global terrorism is a direct response to the modern colonialism and to the western values.

The important question is, what is the solution ? If the U.S. remains the only superpower, would the globalisation be the actual solution to defeat global terrorism ? Or, only a multi-polar world would be able to stop the terror ?

Bibliography

Rumford, C. (2001) 'Confronting 'Uncivil Society ' and the 'Dark Side of Globalization ': are Sociological Concepts up to the Task? ' Sociological Research Online, 6(3) Available at: http://www.socresonline.org.uk/6/3/rumford.html> (Accessed: 30th august 2001)

Calvani, S. (2000) The effects of 'The dark side of globalisation ' on citizens ' freedom and security http://sandrocalvani.com/darkside.pdf

Kiras, J. (2008) Terrorism and Globalization in Baylis, J. Smith, S. and Owens, P. (eds) The Globalisation of World Politics (4th ed) Oxford University Press: Oxford

Weber, S. and Barma, N. and Kroenig, M. and Ratner, E. (2007) 'How Globalisation Went Bad ', Foreign Policy, (148), pp. 149-153

Fukuyama, F. (1992) The end of history and the last man Free Press: New York

Huntingdon, S. (1996) The clash of civilizations and the remaking of world order Simon & Schuster: New York

Aparudai, A. (2006) Fear of small numbers: an essay on the geography of anger Duke University Press: Durham

Emli, M. (2011) Is Global Terror the 'Dark-Side ' of Globalisation ? Available at: http://www.e-ir.info/2011/03/12/is-‘global-terror-is-the-‘dark-side’-of-globalization’/

Thomas, T. (2003) 'Al Qaeda and the Internet: The Danger of “Cyberplanning ', Parameters,[Online]. Available at: http://www.iwar.org.uk/cyberterror/resources/cyberplanning/al-qaeda.htm (Accessed: Spring 2003)

Weimann, G. (2006) Terror on the Internet: the new arena, the new challenges (1st ed.) United States Institute of Peace: Washington D.C.

Bibliography: Rumford, C. (2001) 'Confronting 'Uncivil Society ' and the 'Dark Side of Globalization ': are Sociological Concepts up to the Task? ' Sociological Research Online, 6(3) Available at: http://www.socresonline.org.uk/6/3/rumford.html> (Accessed: 30th august 2001) Calvani, S. (2000) The effects of 'The dark side of globalisation ' on citizens ' freedom and security http://sandrocalvani.com/darkside.pdf Kiras, J. (2008) Terrorism and Globalization in Baylis, J. Smith, S. and Owens, P. (eds) The Globalisation of World Politics (4th ed) Oxford University Press: Oxford Weber, S. and Barma, N. and Kroenig, M. and Ratner, E. (2007) 'How Globalisation Went Bad ', Foreign Policy, (148), pp. 149-153 Fukuyama, F. (1992) The end of history and the last man Free Press: New York Huntingdon, S. (1996) The clash of civilizations and the remaking of world order Simon & Schuster: New York Aparudai, A. (2006) Fear of small numbers: an essay on the geography of anger Duke University Press: Durham Emli, M. (2011) Is Global Terror the 'Dark-Side ' of Globalisation ? Available at: http://www.e-ir.info/2011/03/12/is-‘global-terror-is-the-‘dark-side’-of-globalization’/ Thomas, T. (2003) 'Al Qaeda and the Internet: The Danger of “Cyberplanning ', Parameters,[Online]. Available at: http://www.iwar.org.uk/cyberterror/resources/cyberplanning/al-qaeda.htm (Accessed: Spring 2003) Weimann, G. (2006) Terror on the Internet: the new arena, the new challenges (1st ed.) United States Institute of Peace: Washington D.C.