The cornerstones of Terrorism: Identity and Symbolism (auf Englisch)

In the 2011 movie Four Lions, four British terrorists plan and execute an attack during the London marathon. What looked like a clever movie script two years ago now unfortunately looks like a tragic premonition following the bombings at the Boston marathon in April this year.

While the response of the American government and security forces to this tragedy must be lauded, some of the reactions from analysts and certain parliamentarians, not only in the United States, tended to borrow from the „War on Terror“, using expressions like Djihad and „enemy combatant“. The focus turned to the ethnicity and religion of the Tsarnaev brothers rather than to try to understand why they perpetrated this terrorist act, as if religion and ethnicity are reasons themselves.

Though I may be wrong about this as many of the details about the terrorists remain to be discovered, I very much doubt that we will find a huge network and organisation behind the attacks. This looks much more like a personal action, based both on the type of device used and the general lack of organisation demonstrated in carrying out the attack.

Finally, current information does not suggest that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, barely 19 years of age, was marginalised or poorly integrated: he had friends, was an exemplary scholar and athlete and was socially engaging. Why some may argue this was an act, it’s one thing to be a grown man like Anders Breivik and give the appearance of social life and quite another to be a teenage high school student.

So again, why would someone commit such an act under these circumstances?

A sense of belonging.

Throughout the history of terrorism, one constant in the behaviour of terrorists has been the strong sense of identity they developed for their cause and those who share it. Whether terrorists were Russian anarchists of the 19th century or of Al Qaida in Maghreb, all the men and women that committed acts of terrorism identified fully with the motivation and values at the root of their actions. The alledged perpetrators of the Boston bombings are no different.

How can I make this argument at this point and time? Based on three elements:

1) the symbolic nature of the attack date
2) the timing of the attack
3) the casual and self-assured demeanor of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev just before the attacks

First, Tamerlan Tsarnaev allegedly said about Americans that he does not understand their values or their culture. Perpetrating an attack on one of the most important and politically symbolic holidays is a clear rejection of American values and culture, because April 15 marks the beginning of the American Revolution and the institutionalisation of their values. He did not identify with these values and therefore rejected them.

Second, if the goal of the attack was more than a socio-political symbolic and focused on killing civilians, one does not wait for 75% of the runners to be finished and for the crowd to be about a third of what it was two hours earlier. There was a form of moral restraint i.e. a strong identification with other norms and values.

Finally, and undoubtingly the most debatable element of this analysis,

Let’s examine what we know about the Tsarnaev brothers so far:

• immigrants from war torn Chechnya, conflict they experienced in their formative years
• Muslims in post 9/11 America
• the older brother Tamerlan never felt at home, Dzhokhar allegedly did.
• Dzhokhar described his brother as the brains and the driving force of the attack