Cut From the Same Cloth: Why it hardly matters if it was ETA or al-Qaeda [Archives:2004/721/Opinion]

Brian O'neill
For the Yemen Times
[email protected]
Before the blood was even dry- and it will never be fully dry- before the scope was fully known, before the first families knew for certain that their life was torn apart, all honest speculation about the brutal attack on Spain was focused on ETA, a secessionist pocket of anachronistic terrorists. And this was done with good reason: all notable terrorist murders in Spain came at the hands of ETA, who speak for a minority in their bloody calls for a separate Basque state.
Later in the day, thoughts turned to al-Qaeda, as the British based Al-Quds al-Araby received a letter from the Abu Hafs al-Masri group, a self-proclaimed faction of al-Qaeda, an organization most experts believe is affiliated with al-Qaeda in declaration only and had previously claimed responsibility for North American blackouts. Shortly before the declaration, a stolen van was found carrying detonators and tapes of the Koran.
This raised many questions: if Abu Hafs wasn't responsible, why claim responsibility? If ETA was responsible, why not boast of it, as they had always done? If ETA wasn't behind it, why not release a statement? It is unlikely they failed to predict the scale of devastation; it is equally boggling to imagine them pulling off something so far beyond their previous scope and outside their usual modus operandi.
Another, more troubling prospect is that ETA, or rogue ETA operatives (and one has to be pretty loathsome to be considered rogue by ETA) coordinated the attack with Islamist militants. ETA target, Qaeda talent, ancillary Qaeda target in a coalition country- everyone wins. This has long been a possibility discussed by experts, notably Jessica Stern: homegrown terrorists teaming up with foreign experts to attack mutual targets. Even if it turns out this wasn't the case in Spain, it is a troubling and likely scenario in the future.
As of writing, little is known. But what is known is that, in a way, it doesn't matter if it was al-Qaeda, ETA, or some previously unknown group who had a bone to pick with commuters. It matters, of course, in terms of justice (which needs to be swift, harsh and accurate) and strategy. But it doesn't matter if it was done by people agitating for independence from a democratic state or as revenge for Spain's role in the war to oust Saddam Hussein. They are of the same mentality; in all reasonable dialogue they are the same group.
Their hallmarks are this: an obsession with the past, a blinding vision of justice, an infantile obsession with violence that is the hallmark of all revolutionaries and a need to recreate society in an image that they have decided is the best solution for everyone. And, it hardly needs to be said, the absolute lack of human empathy inherent in anyone with this combination.
In their statement, Abu Hafs talked of striking back at Crusaders, a brutal group at times lead by Spanish kings. They also mentioned Spain's role in the war against Islam, a term used to describe geographically disparate battles in Kashmir, Palestine, Afghanistan and Iraq. The Crusades were obviously unjust and wicked, led by religious fanatics with a monopoly on the truth. The Israeli occupation of Palestine is a crime, and Kashmir is a weapons-filled playground for Indian and Pakistani chess games, with Kashmiris left to bear the casualties. All are important elements in history and politics, but it takes the warped mind of a fanatic to decide that workers in modern Spain are legitimate targets to avenge wounds inflicted centuries ago or thousands of miles away. It takes a diseased morality to warp time in that fashion, to take any historical wound and bring it to life. It takes, indeed, a Crusader mentality.
It absolutely does, and it's a mentality all the separate reactionary groups have. The Crusaders wanted to reclaim the Holy Land for the glory of Christ (and kings), dead 1200 years and probably in little need of temporal real estate. It was a cruel and idiot mind-set, and it is far from dead. It is resurrected in the Islamic radicals, who are striving for the glory of an ancient and largely imagined Islamic paradise that is anyway divorced from today's realities. But reality has little sway over revolutionaries.
ETA is another transubstantiation of dead idea into flesh. The Basque region has more autonomy than any ethnic enclave in Europe. They have a monopoly over tax revenue, the importance of which can hardly be overstated. But that is not enough for ETA, who are sure they are right and are willing to make others pay any price to see it their way. Spain is a democratic state that has dealt wonderfully with its chaotic legacy and has made peace with most Basques. But once, possibly, Basques were free and didn't have to deal with a state system- just like everyone else in Europe. But Europe moved to the state system, and is moving toward the supra-state system, with the Basques in tow. History, however, is meaningless to ETA, except the narrow slice of it they want to replicate.
Examples of that abound. In the Balkan Wars, the Serb nationalists went through books until they saw the time when Serbia was at its territorial height and- there!- history stopped being relevant. The Croatians did the same thing. Romania and Hungry argue about land claimed hundreds of years ago. In America, the idea of Manifest Destiny led to history's most effective genocide.
These are loose connections, not direct ones, but they are important. There are those in the world that realize the world never stopped, and has in many ways (though shamefully not enough) progressed toward freedom. It has accepted the idea, at least in theory, that people should be able to live their lives the way they want to in political and economic security, and should not be held hostage to ancient blood debts. Reconciliation with the past is the basis of civilization.
But there are those who think the past should be brought back in all its fabled glory- these are the disparate elements that the world must always fight. There are no words too strong to describe them. Their most awful trait is a carryover from what Robert Conquest called “a ravaged century:” the idea that anything goes. The fervor of misguided revolutionaries, so sure of their wisdom, so eager to impart it to the ignorant masses, so willing to destroy anyone who opposes them, or is perceived to impose them, or who may just be in the way, is what guides them. Along with this is always- but always- the glorification of violence. And that, sadly, is what makes them attractive to many: an unstoppable will, the ability to shake free the moral ties that bind the meek. They are romantic carnivores.
The French Revolution was carried out by fanatics with shouting slogans about liberty but carrying contempt for the common man, and thus, The Terror. The imposition of Marxism in Russia was impossible by slow means, and so a bunch of amoral violence-junkies used any means necessary to bring it to fruition (both Lenin and Trotsky, bored intellectuals, praised the use of terror as means to an end). This gave us Stalin. Hitler and Mussolini came to power by promising to bring back past glory- Mussolini reached all the way back to the Roman Empire. Hitler, of course, was the apex of this virus. He used perfectly the fetishis for a Romantic past and the lust for violence to create a New Order, and in doing so nearly brought civilization to an end.
To tie this back to Spain, which, like the above examples is not a historical abstract but a living and dying place: commentators are wrong when they say Thursday's attacks were the worst terrorist strikes in Spanish history. They are, but only by our modern and shallow definition of history. The fascist bombing of Guernica and the Stalinist executions of legitimate socialists during the Civil War were also terrorist attacks. They used both targeted and indiscriminate killings to show their might and impose their vision upon a people who wanted only freedom. These are neither idle history lessons nor exaggerated comparisons. Great states are no longer the vehicle for blood-soaked ideologies. Their legacy is carried on by smaller groups with separate goals but common beliefs. ETA, though local, is no different from al-Qaeda, and it should not be treated differently because its claims (a free state, national pride) sound more modern and rational than do bin Laden's. Hussein, who had the same violent paranoia and megalomaniac power-lust as Stalin, should never be excused because the people he crushed were related to him by a border. Ends change, means don't, and the will to fight those means should not either.
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[archive-e:721-v:13-y:2004-d:2004-03-18-p:opinion]