ALL THAT'S LEFT IS VIOLENCE

 Artículo de Fareed Zakaria  en “The Washington Post” del 14/03/2004

Por su interés y relevancia, he seleccionado el artículo que sigue para incluirlo en este sitio web. (L. B.-B.)

Does it matter whether the carnage in Madrid last week was the act of the Basque terrorist organization, ETA, or of al Qaeda? Of course there are important differences. ETA is a local organization, al Qaeda a global one. The former is secular, the latter religious. But they have something in common that is revealing about the nature of terrorism. Both groups had political agendas, but as their political causes have lost steam, they are increasingly defined almost exclusively by a macabre culture of violence.  

"The purpose of terrorism," Vladimir Lenin once said, "is to terrorize." Like much of what he said, this is wrong. Terrorism has traditionally been used to advance political goals. That's why a rule of terrorists used to be: "We want a few people dead and a lot of people watching." Terrorists sought attention but didn't want people to lose sympathy for their cause.

Yet with many terrorist groups -- like ETA, like al Qaeda -- violence has become an end in itself. They want a lot of people dead, period.

Some in Spain have argued that if an Islamic group proves to be the culprit, Spaniards will blame Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar. It was his support for America and the war in Iraq that invited the wrath of the fundamentalists. But other recent targets of Islamic militants have been Turkey, Morocco, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia and Indonesia, not one of which supported the war or sent troops into Iraq in the after-war. Al Qaeda's declaration of jihad had, as its first demand, the withdrawal of American troops from Saudi Arabia. Osama bin Laden does not seem to have noticed, but the troops are gone -- yet the jihad continues. The reasons come and go, the violence endures.

The Middle East scholar Giles Keppel makes an analogy between communist groups and Islamic fundamentalists. In the 1940s and 1950s, communist groups were popular and advanced their cause politically. By the 1960s, after revelations about Joseph Stalin's brutality, few believing communists were left in Europe. Facing irrelevance, the hardcore radicals in the movement turned to violence, hoping to gain attention and adherents by daring acts of bloodshed. Thus the proliferation of terror by groups such as the Red Brigades and the Baader-Meinhof Gang. Similarly, Islamic fundamentalism tried for decades to gain popular support and topple the regimes of the Middle East. When this tactic failed, radicals like bin Laden turned to terrorism.

ETA follows this pattern. Having been founded to protest the brutal suppression of the Basques under Francisco Franco's reign, it has foundered as Spain became democratic and provided the Basques with increasing levels of autonomy. Almost every demand of Basque nationalists has been met over the last decade. Basques run their own region (through a mainstream, non-violent nationalist party), collect their own taxes, have their own police, speak their own language and broadcast their own television and radio programs. As a result support for ETA is down to 5 percent at most. Support for its political sympathizers, the political party Batasuna, hovers under 10 percent. In fact support for Basque nationalism itself has waned considerably. In the last election, 60 percent of Basques voted for parties that did not espouse Basque nationalism.

It is in this context that ETA announced in 2000 the "reactivation of armed struggle" after a 14-month cease-fire. In the next two years it launched 87 bombings and assassinations, in which 38 people were killed. But because of effective police work by Spain and France, ETA's attacks dropped to 20 in 2002, with five deaths, and so far this year there have been 17 hits, in which three people were killed.

In the past ETA hit only Spanish politicians, policemen and other symbols of Spanish rule. Now it targets civilians indiscriminately. In its region, it murders Basques who dare speak out against secession, firebombs bookstores and intimidates the press, creating a pervasive atmosphere of fear.

"Violence has become ETA's main rationale," a former separatist who renounced ETA told the Financial Times in 2002. "The exercise of violence creates antibodies. ETA's new recruits can digest barbaric acts that would have been unthinkable under Franco: the torturing of town councillors, the killing of children, of traffic wardens and local policemen. ETA now is led by its most extreme elements, those who are prepared to go furthest in all this senseless killing."

ETA's goal -- the creation of a single Basque nation -- is not as fantastical as is al Qaeda's dream of a restored caliphate. But given that part of the Basque lands it wants to unify are in France, and none of the French Basques have any interest in this plan, it is utterly unrealistic. The goals are now charades, excuses for bloodletting.

Spanish authorities have estimated that the number of ETA's hard-core activists is well under 100. Most estimates of serious al Qaeda operatives are in the hundreds. Technology means that small numbers can still do great harm -- as last week's tragedy amply illustrates. But that should not obscure the reality that this violence is a sign of weakness.

That's why Friedrich Engels, a shrewder observer than Vladimir Lenin, wrote to Karl Marx in 1870, "Terror is for the most part useless cruelties committed by frightened people to reassure themselves."