McJihad: globalization and terrorism of the diaspora

Abstract

This paper begins by making a distinction between terrorism in the diaspora and terrorism of the diaspora. An argument is developed to the effect that what we witness of terrorism of the ‘al-Qaeda’ type (as a generic albeit broad and imprecise label) is to be understood as a specifically diasporic phenomenon, a phenomenon of the diaspora. The argument behind this assertion is multidimensional. The diaspora production is analysed against the political and economic developments in some Middle East countries, and in particular the arrest of nationalistic, capitalistic and class-based interest manifestations. The argument here focuses on how these processes have been conceptually linked to the role played by ‘the West’, and the US in particular. The diaspora, partly produced by these processes of arrestation, in the specifics of its preconditions, make possible the shaping features of a ‘symbolic universe,’ an integrated worldview, where terrorism becomes expressive of a globalised understanding of the world. Thus understood, the ‘al-Qaeda’ type of terrorism is not a response to modernisation and globalisation, but is indeed as expressive of it as the fight against it.