For my selection of critiques I have chosen Talal Asad’s On Suicide Bombing (2007), Saba Mahmood’s Politics of Piety (2004), and Reza Aslan’s No God but God (2005). Written in the post September 11th world and published after the 2003 American invasion of Iraq, all three of these texts developed in a volatile political world, one that juxtaposed American foreign policy goals with identity politics, as well as a distinct American social milieu, whose sole source of education about the Middle East and Islam were dictated by media soundbites, secular and religious pundits, and tragic events around the globe. Their focuses confront the Clash of the Civilizations thesis, which had aggressively re-surfaced in the public debate about the Middle
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Asad was able to trick me into a much more pertinent discussion of terrorism than I could have ever imagined. Asad’s analysis of power dynamics within Western liberal discourses of war, terrorism, the civilized, ‘the other,’ and justice is phenomenal, for he places each term in its Western context and analyzes the discrepancies between Western theories and their worldly manifestations. The essence of power is what makes this book so amazing, for as Asad says it best, “My argument, however, is directed against thinking of terrorism simply put as an illegal and immoral form of violence and advocates an examination of what the discourse of terror – and the perpetuation of terror – does in the world of power” (26). Typically, Western societies maintain the moral high ground in whatever military endeavors or other colonizing efforts they attempt; however, as Asad highlights, they are the ones who determine the differences between war and terrorism, military and non-military action, and moral and immoral. Although war is inherently cruel, terror inducing, and threatening to civilians, all characteristics which define terrorism, countries such as Israel and the United states cloak their war efforts in the terms of just war theory, good intention, and domestic security. Moreover, not only have they created the epistemology, but they also possess the money, the military, and the means to secure their own interests abroad, dictating that those who directly oppose them are opposed to the values to which they propagate such as democracy, equality, and freedom. Hence why terror is perceived as “the end of democracy”
Asad was able to trick me into a much more pertinent discussion of terrorism than I could have ever imagined. Asad’s analysis of power dynamics within Western liberal discourses of war, terrorism, the civilized, ‘the other,’ and justice is phenomenal, for he places each term in its Western context and analyzes the discrepancies between Western theories and their worldly manifestations. The essence of power is what makes this book so amazing, for as Asad says it best, “My argument, however, is directed against thinking of terrorism simply put as an illegal and immoral form of violence and advocates an examination of what the discourse of terror – and the perpetuation of terror – does in the world of power” (26). Typically, Western societies maintain the moral high ground in whatever military endeavors or other colonizing efforts they attempt; however, as Asad highlights, they are the ones who determine the differences between war and terrorism, military and non-military action, and moral and immoral. Although war is inherently cruel, terror inducing, and threatening to civilians, all characteristics which define terrorism, countries such as Israel and the United states cloak their war efforts in the terms of just war theory, good intention, and domestic security. Moreover, not only have they created the epistemology, but they also possess the money, the military, and the means to secure their own interests abroad, dictating that those who directly oppose them are opposed to the values to which they propagate such as democracy, equality, and freedom. Hence why terror is perceived as “the end of democracy”