In what ways, if any, has terrorism changed over the past half century?

 

Abstract

In this essay we will explore how terrorism has changed over the past half century whilst remaining identical to what it was at the beginning of the half century. Terrorists have proven to be adept at the changes in the technological, political and social landscape that have taken place since 1945 and in particular 1995 to further their goals. The goals of terrorism have not changed over the last half century and remain political in nature.

The means of committing terrorism, the lethality of terrorist acts and communicating the message of the terrorist groups have changed dramatically in the last half century. Terrorists have gone from using bombs on trucks to truck bombs, from using bombs to destroy aircraft to using aircraft as bombs. Not only have terrorists changed their means of committing terrorism, they have changed the media with which they communicate their message. They have gone from making a morning headline in a newspaper to staging attacks in primetime TV. Since 1995 terrorists have adapted to, and benefited from the rise of the Internet and social media to recruit new members, to publicise the articulate their grievances and to engage in what is called cyberterrorism, which are attacks against the computers of governments via the Internet.

                            

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Keywords

Terrorism, Politics, Palestinian Liberation Organisation, Islamic,  Lone Wolf, Internet, Al-Qaeda, Islamic State, Branding, Evolution, Lethality, Mass Media, Internet, Cyberterrorism.

Essay

Has terrorism changed in the past half century? The answer is both yes and no. First  we need to define what is terrorism before we determine whether or not it has changed. A definition of terrorism is: terrorism involves using, or threatening to use, violence against innocent people or noncombatants in order to effect political change and achieve political goals through the establishment of an atmosphere of fear (Lentini, Bakashmar, 2007). The terrorist action has to have a political element to it in order for it to be a terrorist act, and not to be simply another act of criminal violence. In essence what separates the terrorist from a common criminal, is the terrorist is first and foremost  a political actor and his crimes are acts of politics.

I will begin my discussion as to whether terrorism has changed in the last half century with examining the goals of four terrorist organisations: the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO), Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), Al-Qaeda and Islamic State (IS). The goals of the PLO was to create a homeland for the Palestinians. JI  has the goal of establishing a Caliphate in South-East Asia (Barton, 2005)  (Royds, Lewis, Taylor, 2005). Moving in time to the 21st Century, Al-Qaeda and IS have the establishment of a pan-national Caliphate as their goals (Habeck, 2012) (Lister, 2015). The demonstrated uniformity of goals of terrorist groups across demography and time answers the question: “Have the goals of terrorism changed? “ with a No. We can see that the goals of terrorists have remained consistent across decades and across the cultural backgrounds of the terrorist groups. The goals of terrorists have always been political in nature.  The  goals of terrorism have remained constantly political for the last half century.

Terrorists need the mass media in order to articulate their goals and to help create a climate of fear in their target. Due to the dictum “ If it bleeds, It leeds ”  (Serani, 2011) mass media needs terrorists. There is an unarguable symbiosis between terrorism and the mass media which has remained stable over time and changes in the nature of mass media (Farnen, 1990) (Camphuijsen, Vissers, 2012). Terrorist groups have successfully adapted to, and exploited changes in mass media. This will be discussed later in the essay after discussion of the evolution of explosives.   

Where the answer to the question Has terrorism changed in the past half century?  becomes: Yes, is the evolution in the chemistry of the bombs used by terrorists. The use of bombs by terrorists has remained constant over the last half century, it is the chemistry of the explosives that has changed. This will be discussed in the next paragraph.

 The overall number of terrorist attacks has declined over time, at the same time the body count from  attacks has risen (Lesser, Hoffman, Arquilla, Ronfeldt, 1999, p. 7).  As the technology of explosives has evolved terrorist groups have incorporated the changes into their weapons. This is illustrated by the PLO’s use of dynamite in the destruction of its attacks (Cobban, 1984). Dynamite  requires the use of a detonator in order to be used as an explosive (ChemViews, 2012). By the 1980’s terrorists had transitioned to using Semtex, which like dynamite needs a detonator in order to be used, in the Lockerbie bombing (Encyclopaedia Brittanica, 2016). Al-Qaeda used an ANFO (ammonium nitrate-fuel oil) bomb in it’s attack on the World Trade Centre in 1983 (FBI, 1996)  (FBI, 2016) (GlobalSecurity, 2016) (Nazarian, Presser, 2015). Jemaah Islamiyah in its 2002 attacks on Bali used bombs made from TNT and TNT augmented with Flash Powder which needed PETN (Pentaerythritol tetranitrate) as a detonator (University of Cambridge, 2016) (Royds, Lewis, Taylor, 2005). By the attacks on London in 2005, the bombs were made from HMTD (Hexamethylene Triperoxide Diamine) which is unstable in any form and can be detonated with a sharp kick (Matyas, Pachman, 2013) (Woodfin, 2006).

We can see a clear evolution in the chemistry of terrorism. The bombs used by terrorists have evolved from being made from dynamite which needs to be either bought or stolen to being made from HMTD (National Counter Terrorism Centre, 2016). HMTD can be made from ingredients bought in supermarkets and camping stores (Budget Pyro, 2016). There are clear advantages to the terrorist in this evolution. Bombs  can now be made and used within hours, which makes the planning of attacks harder to detect and to prevent and lends them to be used in suicide attacks  (Ray, 2016) (National Research Council (U.S.). Committee on the Review of Existing and Potential Standoff Explosives Detection Techniques., 2004) such as those carried out in Turkey in March 2016 (Tuysuz, Karimi, Greg Botelho, 2016). The ease of construction lends itself to another recent phenomena in terrorism, the Lone Wolf terrorist which will be discussed later in this essay.

There has been a change in the means of attacking targets which has gone from bombs on planes to the planes themselves being bombs, a change exemplified by the bombing Pan Am Flight 103 and the 9/11 attacks (FBI, 2003). Bombs are one of two weapons of choice for terrorists with bombs being used in roughly half of all terrorist attacks (Coombs, 2015). The other weapon of choice is the AK-47 assault rifle (Hodges, 2008) (Burleigh, 2007) with 25% of all terrorist attacks between 1970 and 2012 using them (Lafree, Dugan, Miller, 2015, p. 120) (Database, 2016). None of this matters to the terrorist if they can’t have their message and attacks publicised and it is the use of mass media by terrorists that I will examine next.

         Molecular Structure of TNT       Molecular Structure of PETN (Semtex)                Molecular Structure of HMTD

The evolution of the material that terrorists make bombs with in the last half century is illustrated by the molecular structures of explosives used in attacks. Terrorists have evolved from using TNT to using organic peroxides such as HMTD in their bombs.

The aspect of terrorism that has changed the most is its use of mass media. The rise of the Internet has been a godsend to terrorism like no other, because it is medium which gives terrorists the ability to reach  billions of people instantly (UNODC, 2012). Terrorist groups were early adopters of the Internet (Lentini, Bakashmar, 2007) (Bartlett, 2014). Terrorists use the Internet because it is the easiest, quickest and cheapest way to publicise themselves through their own websites, to research recipes for explosives, to gather intelligence on targets and to network with other groups that share ideologies or goals using chatrooms and social media  (Kaplan, 2009)  (UNODC, 2012). The Internet is the most potent weapon terrorism has. The Internet can be used by a terrorist group to create a climate of fear and perception of effectiveness disproportionate to the groups actual capacity to stage attacks (Weiman, 2004). The Internet is used to radicalise what are called“Lone Wolf”terrorists a phenomena which is explored later in this essay (Steinbach, 2015) (RAND Corporation, 2015)  (Hamid, 2015). 

The Internet has given birth to a new form of terrorism: Cyberterrorism. Cyberterrorism has yet to result in a single confirmed casualty. There are doubts as to whether cyberterrorism even exists (Lentini, 2016.)  (Arquilla, Ronfeldt, 2016) and due to this I will not discuss it further .

IS has used the Internet to become a brand name (Hubbard, 2014). For a terrorist group association with the IS brand lends credibility that it might not otherwise warrant or acquire. Thus IS affiliated groups have arisen in Libya and Indonesia (Stanford University, 2015). One way IS strengthens its brand and the perception of its strength is by claiming all terrorist attacks committed by Muslims as it’s own whether they were committed by it or by attackers sympathetic to it (Aly, 2016).  IS strengthens its brand by using social media such as Facebook  (Andrews, 2016). IS in addition to Facebook in 2016 has a Twitter account (Alexander, 2015) and an online magazine “Dabiq”(Islamic State, 2016) (Sheffield, 2015).

Al-Qaeda planned the attacks of 9/11 with the with the knowledge that given the place, New York,  and time of day, 8:46 a.m. to 9:03 a.m., (National September 11 Memorial & Museum, 2016) the attacks would take place that they would attract saturation coverage in mass media, which by 2001 included the Internet (Louw, 2010).

The Internet has contributed to what have been called “Lone Wolf” or “Leaderless Resistance” terrorists (Steinbach, 2015) (RAND Corporation, 2015). A Lone Wolf is “a person who acts on his or her own without orders from — or even connections to — an organization (Bakker, de Graaf, 2011). Lone Wolf terrorists are a historical phenomena that predate the time period covered in this essay and date from the 1940’s (Steinbach, 2015). There has been a significant increase in Lone Wolf attacks since 2001 ( Spaaj, Hamm, 2015). Lone Wolf attacks are the final stage in how terrorism has changed in the last half century. In 2016 a Lone Wolf is more likely to be motivated by what they have seen and read on the Internet than they are by listening to traditional mass media (UNODC, 2012).

Lone Wolf terrorism is problematic because due Lone Wolves being solitary actors there often is no electronic chatter prior to an attack that will attract the attention of police (Bakker, de Graaf, 2011) ( Brynielsson, Horndahl, Johansson, Kaati, Mårtenson, Svenson, 2013). There is no stereotypical profile of what makes a Lone Wolf (Bakker, de Graaf, 2011). This leads to a randomness in attacks perpetrated by Lone Wolves. Lone Wolf terrorism by its very unpredictability can add to a climate of fear, which is why IS encourages and claims Lone Wolf attacks (Allard, 2015). Lone Wolf attacks although they can be extremely effective, are invariably one off events due to the Lone Wolf either dying in the attack or being captured and imprisoned (Byman, 2015). Having examined how terrorism has changed in the last half century we move to the conclusion.

Conclusion

In what ways, if any, has terrorism changed over the past half century? Terrorism over the last half century can be summed up in the saying: “The more things change, the more they stay the same”. Terrorism has managed to remain constant, yet undergone profound change in the last half century. Terrorists have for the last half century used bombs to attack targets, yet the chemistry of those bombs has changed, an evolution illustrated by the images of molecular structures of explosives used in the middle of this essay. At the beginning of this essay we have Yasser Arafat, Osama Bin Ladin and Al-Baghdadi. Under them is a terrorist attack associated with them: The 1974 El-Al hijacking, 9/11 and 2016 Brussells attacks. Terrorism has gone from bombs on planes to planes as bombs.

The changes in mass media and its use by terrorists is illustrated in the final images of this essay The left hand image of the end piece is the attack at the 1972 Munich Olympic Games by the PLO which was reported in traditional mass media. The middle image is of the 9/11 attacks which were covered by traditional media and the Internet. The bottom image is a screenshot of the BBC news website on the attacks in Brussells in March 2016, an event which whilst covered in all forms of mass media was most extensively covered on the Internet.

We have seen the goals of terrorism and its symbiotic relationship with mass media remain constant over the last half century. By the same means we can see how the Internet has changed terrorism. Yet for all the changes in bomb chemistry and mass media over the last half century, terrorism today is substantially no different from terrorism in 1972. Thus I conclude this essay by asking and answering the question: Has terrorism changed in the past half century? The answer is both yes and no.

He was the lens

I have been thinking a lot about my brother Mark, the brother who died almost 2 months ago.
For half of this life I have actively disliked him.
Mark has been the lens through which I have viewed myself. In knowing him, I have come to know me. Mark in many ways was my nightmare. I was desperately afraid that the remark from my parents "you are just like Mark" was correct and that I was indeed the mess that he so clearly was.
Thus I found my motivation. Because for three-quarters of it I have had not becoming like him as almost the only true goal I've had in life.
Mark was my Nemesis in the Classical meaning of the term., he was the Goddess waiting to deliver punishment should my own abundant arrogance grow too big for its own good. He was always the warning that should I get caught up in my own glory that I would fall. He was the nagging certainty that should I fail that the slope into the abyss was both nearby and very steep.
Mark was my most feared potential.
He was the shadow to my light.
Mark was the complete quiet to my raging, searing, shrieking passion.
He was the passive acceptance to my utter unwillingness to surrender.
He tolerated and understood what I did not.
Mark was the earthing point to the lightning that posessed me.
When I was at my most animated and sending bolts of thought and ideas,
Mark was at his quietest.
Whilst I have spent my life tearing myself apart in a relentless, ruthless quest to both know and reinvent myself. Demanding utter self knowledge and never for a moment listening to anyone else.
Mark accepted the opinions of others of him as a Truth.
Where I dared and challenged, harassed and badgered.
He accepted.
He ran and failed.
I stood and fought and wondered why the fuck I couldn't give in.
He doubted himself completely.
I never took my eyes off my self belief.
In all of my chaos,
In all of my demanding answers from the Gods,
There is one thing I have never understood.
Why didn't you fight!?
Why couldn't you shriek and rage?
Why with you being so much my opposite is there such a hole in me?
Why does a world without you seem that much emptier?
Why in a world where I am loved, is there that profound loneliness?
Perhaps because my brother you exemplified that better part of me.
You had the quiet where I was the noise.
You had the compassion where I had the scorn.
You had the contentment I will never know.
You were simply my brother.

Loch Brewery & Distillery

I visited the charming Gippsland village of Loch last weekend. Loch is tiny, apart from the main street there isn't a lot to Loch....try say that when drunk...a lot to Loch.
What Loch does have is a brewery/ distillery. I'm always on the lookout for new beers & spirits.
I sampled the beers that this very new brewery has on offer. I couldn't sample the Gin they distilled just before Christmas because that sold quicker than I can drink....damn fast in other words. I also couldn't sample the whiskey they are making because that is currently being aged. Apparently vodka is also being distilled here...yet again I was left sad faced and unable to sample any.
The owners and brewers...whose names escaped me. Have decided to concentrate on their alcohol. So if you are wanting a meal with their fine wares you will need to buy it elsewhere and bring it to the brewery. Purists...we are here to brew and distill. They are sharing the wealth...there is some good food in either Loch itself or nearby Korumburra.
 
There are three beers on offer and their photo is above. A beautiful family snap if ever there was one.
The Amber Ale is crisp, bitter and clean. Surprisingly my four year old son was happy having a sip of Dads beer, so it isn't face puckeringly bitter. On a stinking hot summers day this would be perfect for easing the discomfort. I would drink it with fish or something quite fatty...pizza or a cold cuts platter...even antipasto.
The Best Bitter is less bitter than the Amber Ale. It is extremely drinkable. I wouldn't need either an excuse or a summers day to drink this. I would drink this with something simple....I'm having mental images of a very large glass of this beer and....I know hot dogs!!!! Yep, hot dogs with mustard, sourkraut...and weiswurst as the sausage. At the very least something Germanic in name, if not in origin.
The Dark Ale has coffee and chocolate over tones. For me this would work well as a dessert beer...chocolate mousse or 75% chocolate or even Black Forest Cake or with a game meat or fresh oysters. The combination of the chocolate, coffee and the saltiness and richness of the oysters would be utterly divine.
The beers aren't cheap...but then name a boutique brewery that is...they are about $8.50 a 500 ml bottle. They are a reason to stop in Loch on the weekend. The other place where you can buy them is the tourist information centre in Korumburra....none of the bottleshops or supermarkets in nearby towns stock the beers.
So I will give a sound cheer of encouragement. 4.5 glasses out of 5.

Belonging

As you know, I recently returned "home" to attend the funeral of my brother Mark. At the funeral I met "family" I literally hadn't seen in years, one for 30 of them.
Can we "belong" to people we don't know?
When I showed up at the cemetary to say goodbye to my brother I was someone that none of my siblings or my father had met before. Whatever version of me they had known or thought they had known has been swept away in the joyous whirlwind of change that the last seven years since I met Selina has been.

After the ceremony there was a wake. My first chance to meet people Selina had mentioned would be effectively strangers. And this is exactly what they were...strangers. We inhabited different mind sets, different outlooks, different ambitions, different life stories.
I was in a room of people who all knew each other and whether they liked each other or not, at least accepted each other. I was the unknown quantity and quality. I no longer share the same surname, instead the surname I have is one I chose for myself.
My life story has been utterly different from the stories the people who are my genetic brothers, sisters, father, aunt, cousin, niece, great niece, nephew and great nephew, brothers and sisters and fiance in-law have lived. I have physically and intellectually walked in places they barely know exist.
Whilst they have raised families and held down jobs, and been what society asks of them and little else. I have wandered. I have struggled with shadows. I have dreamt, thought, fought and cried. Finally I met and established a healthy relationship with what I am. I have sat down with my personal demons and beaten them at their own games. I have re-invented and reshaped myself so completely that I struggle to remember who it was that I started out as. Lately I have begun to rejoice in being an Aspergers. Being different no longer causes the pain it once did. Now I can accept the joy in having a mind that works in a very different way to the minds around me.
Being different is one thing. Attending university and being taught how to think is quite another. I have spent the last four years learning how to think in a way that my "family" does not, assuming they think at all. The last four years have turned my curiousity from an aimless, ill disciplined wanderer into a focus, into something that pursues facts with a devotion and an attention that is apparently quite the sight and by some opinions at least intimidating.
 The "operating system" of my mind has been changed and my intellect unshackled from the millstone of doubt during the course of being Tertiary educated. I know what I am and what it is that I want to do. I have the "big ticket approval" I have spent this lifetime so desperately wanting
Much of this is well known, I doubt if any of it is "news".
Still it leaves the question unanswered.
Biology isn't family. Mark himself proved as much. When he was dying the hypocrits who hijacked his funeral and mouthed insincere platitudes over his coffin were nowhere near him. More often than not Marks "family" were the people who treated him the worst. Yet he so hungered for and self identified as "belonging" to them, despite there being little or no evidence that they reciprocated these feelings.
For myself, I stood amongst this "family" and felt deeply alone. I knew and acknowledge that they have lived conventional lifetimes, yet I was unprepared for the gap that ached between them and myself. The gap "ached" because I had never expected it to be either so large or  to be such a space I was so unwilling to cross.
For them ET had entered the room and he talked about the places and thoughts he had been to. They struggled and ultimately abandoned the search for reference points and commonality. Yes, there once had been a little boy and then a teenager who had the same eyes. No, that person had left for the south a long time ago. And whilst someone who had the same eyes as that long departed little boy walked the room and took photo's with them, he was a memory to all of them. He was as dead as the man they had gathered to bury. The man in their midst was unknown.
To answer my own question.
No we can't "belong" to people we don't know.
Belonging requires knowledge and a shared identity, a shared history. Things I lack in regards to my birth "family".  And they are precisely what I do have with the family I am literally making myself. It is to Ariel, to Selina and to the as yet unborn Orson and William and whatever other children will bless this lifetime that I belong.
The Bowaters in Mackay....they are strangers I interacted with briefly and will likely never meet again. Whether I belong to them is a concept and a question that never enters the thoughts or dreams of any of us. It is irrelevant because it was answered the moment I entered the space they were in.
I entered that space not needing their acceptance or understanding and told them that in plain terms. In completing a Bachelor of Arts I have gained the acceptance of serious people. I also have the knowledge that I am by solid standards very good. I also took no effort in hiding what I am. I made no effort to hide the fact that in terms of intellect that there was a very clear intellect present in the room and I was the one who had it. They became aware that any time I wanted to I could rip them from whatever intellectual comfort zone they have...and still be at the entrance to what interests and motivates me. The deeper questions that occupy my pensiveness are beyond them. They inhabit a world unknown and unknowable to my "family".
When you are unrecognisable to the people you, on paper at least, "belong" to, then the question of belonging becomes irrelevant. In their company, the person I "belong" to is myself. I belong to the future I will have, a future that will be apart from and unknowable to the Bowaters.
I have answered my question.

Positive Outcomes

 

I haven't been home all that long from attending my brother Marks funeral in Mackay, Queensland. I am extremely reluctant to let the death of my brother pass without some navel gazing.
One of the most irritating things I was told repeatedly by people who had no real idea of what they were talking about during the 4 days I was in Mackay was "You're just like your brother".  I found this deeply irritating because I am nothing like my brother, I didn't look like him and he and I couldn't have inhabited head spaces with less in common if we had tried.

My brother functionally committed suicide. I was told by my sister that whilst he had wet himself when he died....which we all do due to muscles relaxing....he hadn't shat himself. This means that he wasn't about to have a bowel motion....nothing in or near the rectum to expel. When I was helping clean my brothers flat out shortly after arrival on Tuesday December 16, I noticed that his pantry had a number of sweet biscuits, there was chocolate, there was Cola...the high fibre foods I had encouraged him to eat...were closed. This suggests that in his final weeks that my brother had abandoned a healthy diet and returned to one consisting solely of refined carbohydrates, sugars, caffeine and red meat. Precisely the type of diet that he had been eating prior to his first heart attack in March and cardiac unit at Mackay Base Hospital had told him not to eat. This decision to return to a diet that had nearly killed him at the start of the year was a conscious one. My brother had stopped making an effort at returning to health.

Mark's life was dominated by laziness and an unwillingness to take responsibility for his life. He took easily multiples of his own body weight in medications so that he wouldn't have to get to the messy business of dealing with his mental health issues. There was always going to be a magic tablet or new psychiatrist that would fix things for him.  Mark displayed a pathological aversion to what he needed to do and I have done. He never wanted to get his hands dirty dealing with the past and character flaws that handicapped him so clearly.

Mark wanted the positive results without the effort. The simple truth is that the world doesn't work this way. He once asked me: "What do you need to do Honours?"

I replied: "You need and passion. How fucking badly do you want it and how fucking passionate are you about it?"
This is true of life itself. The best lived lives have been those that have displayed deep passion for what they were living be it their loved ones, mountain climbing, literature, or research. The best lived lives are passionate events.
What also defines the best lived lives is responsbility.  We who live properly also take responsibility for who and what we are. We accept and admit our failures both as people and in the choices we make. You cannot rejoice in your success and passion without accepting your failures.
With my brothers life as an example of how not to live and die firmly in my mind, I have made the decision to deepen my commitment to the life changes I had begun implementing before he died. I will use my brothers failure to generate the motivation to seize the positive outcomes that he never did. My changes and decisions are permanent....just like my brothers were.

A New Start

My brother has died. The body that held Mark Daniel Bowater is now a shell laying in a morgue in Mackay.
My brother, the person is now elsewhere.
Mark, as I've said numerous times, was a much nicer person than I am. He was kinder, gentler, more patient, slower to anger and much, much quicker to see the best in people. His entire life was dominated by people who he should never have given the time of day to. People who undermined him and set him up to fail. The person who did this consistently throughout his life was his own father.
Raymond Bowater just never gave Mark a break. He bullied, criticised, undermined and encouraged the worst in Mark. Mark was abused by his parents. He was different and for this he was treated appallingly. His parents beat him with the cord from an electric jug, he was fed dog food and he was never made feel that he mattered to them. In this time my parents would have been charged with abuse.
Mark kept his father in his life until relatively recently. The incident that helped Mark make the decision to exit his father from his life was the complete lack of concern by his father when Mark had his 2nd heart attack. Mark was argued with and told the doctors were wrong. Our father knew better.  I remember Mark telling me that this was when he knew that his father just didn't care...and this realisation hurt Mark deeply.
Mark was angry, deeply angry. He felt betrayed by his parents. He spent his entire life wanting to be loved by them and they had treated him like shit. He intensely disliked most of his siblings.
My brother wasn't perfect.
He desperately wanted to be liked by people and that was his single biggest failing. Because of the complete absence of parental affection, Mark spent most of his life seeking acceptance and love. He rarely found it. I wondered out loud to Mark about a year ago, that I have so much "cunt" in me and he so little. Mark was spineless and allowed people to treat him badly. I understand that this was because his parents had planted the message very early in his life that he was worthless.
Mark was a passenger in life and never took charge of it. He was also lazy. He wanted a magic pill to solve his many problems. The absence of "cunt" meant that he never adopted a combative approach to dealing with his anxiety and other mental health issues and because of this has left this lifetime with them intact.
I hope that death has given Mark the new start he so desperately needed. He certainly wasn't going to create one. Nor were his "family" ever going to start treating him as they always should have.
I love him dearly and will miss him for a very long time. I tried to encourage Mark to be the person he should have been. And it is because of this that I know that I at least treated him as he should have been treated.
Not skillful this entry. It is however, honest.

Was Aung San a Minlaung?

 Was Aung San a charismatic leader in a Western sense, or was he a uniquely Burmese creature who used concepts deeply rooted in the Burmese psyche and worldview?

I actually had to look up charisma. The word is used so frequently that I wanted to know if I was understanding it properly. The website: oxfordictionaries.com, had this to say on charisma:

Definition of charisma

Noun

1 [mass noun] compelling attractiveness or charm that can inspire devotion in others: he has tremendous charisma and stage presence

2 (plural charismata /kəˈrɪzmətə/) a divinely conferred power or talent.

Origin:

Mid17th century (in charisma (sense 2)): via ecclesiastical Latin from Greek kharisma, from kharis 'favour, grace'

And this definition certainly seems to describe Aung San.

In their essay “The Rise and Role of Charismatic Leaders” published in the Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science in 1965, Ann and Dorothy Wilner argue that charismatic leaders are more likely to arise in periods of intense change, in times of transition where the established order is being supplanted by a new order that hasn’t quite fully come into being. Charismatic leaders according to the Wilner’s are leaders who are without exception unifying figures. They co-opt cultural symbols. They have the ability to inspire love. Even their enemies admit to succumbing to their appeal. In a Burmese context this is true of the Minlaung, the Righteous King. It is certainly true of Aung San, every author I examined, from Viscount Field Marshal Slim to Maung-Maung, without exception remarks on Aung San’s charm[1]. Even in the midst of criticising other traits such as arrogance, these men observed that Aung San possessed a deep charisma. The Minlaung, holds a deeply central place in the Burmese concept of politics[2]. The Minlaung appear regularly in Burmese history, every time a dynasty begins to lose its hold on power, a Minlaung arises to set things straight again, they are part of the natural order of things. Far from being a relic of the past, the Minlaung is still a powerful force in Burmese politics into the 21^st Century[3].

What isn’t mentioned by the Wilner’s as a characteristic of charismatic leadership and certainly applies to Aung San, is his extraordinary intelligence. Aung San was one of the intellectual elite in the Burma of his time. Only Aung San’s political activities prevented him from completing his studies at the University of Rangoon. Had Aung San not fallen in love with politics, and in particular independence politics, he was assured of a leading role in Burma.

In “Burma: A Socialist Nation in S.E Asia”, Steinberg remarks that Aung San was viewed by some of his followers as a reincarnation of King Alaungpaya who ruled Burma between 1714 and 1760[4]. I found this deeply curious until I researched Alaungpaya.  Alaungpaya it turns out happens to be the Burmese equivalent of the Siamese monarch Chulangkorn the Great[5], who ruled between 1868 and 1910. Chulangkorn is the monarch who succeeded in avoiding Siam being colonised by the Western powers Britain and France and brought much of what is modern Thailand under the governance of Bangkok.  Alaungpaya not only founded the last dynasty in Burma, he also expelled the British in their first attempt at controlling Burma and excluded the French permanently.

The similarities between Alaungpaya and Aung San are obvious. Both of them expel the foreign coloniser, which in both cases happened to be the British, and they both unify Burma, or in Aung Sans’ case, making an effort to. Both were from relatively humble backgrounds and both of them were militarily successful. Both are remarked on for the depth of their charisma. Both emerge in a time of change. With the connection to Alaungpaya, Aung San is directly connected to the last time the Burmese were powerful and independent. At the time of his death Aung San was involved in trying to bring the ethnic minorities into the fold of a unified Burma. He is a centralising figure who is directly connected to a glorious past.

This seemed as far as the connection would go. At the point where I was about to throw my hands up in frustration at just where this essay wasn’t going, I came across an essay by Susanne Prager that tied Aung San into an aspect of Burmese culture that I have hitherto been ignorant of, and it changed everything. In her essay “The Coming of the "Future King": Burmese Minlaung Expectations Before and During the Second World War” published in the Journal of Burma Studies Volume 8 in 2003, Prager writes of a Burmese prophecy that British rule would end and that a “future or righteous king” would arise, we have already met this person and he is called the Minlaung.  

In 1939, a certain verse was very popular in Rangoon, perhaps the British knew of it, if they did, they apparently didn’t understand it.  The version of it in Prager’s essay is below.

And on the lake a Brah’miny duck alights

When with a bow a hunter bold, he killed it;

The umbrella rod laid low the hunter bold

But the rod by Thunderbolt was struck.

Prager writes that the verse was pregnant with Millenarian symbolism, with the lake being the Burmese Kingdom of Ava, the duck being the Burmese ethnic group the Mon who had been a major power in the South-east Asian mainland, the hunter being no less than Alaungpaya, last two lines of this short verse referred to the British who are the umbrella rod and that a thunderbolt was about to lay them low. Little wonder that when the Japanese invaded and rapidly vanquished the British, that they were viewed as the thunderbolt. The point is, that in 1939 the Burmese were viewing British rule as an event that was about to end. A view that no doubt caused much amusement in the halls of colonial power in Rangoon and beyond, for the British had no plans to leave Burma. In this Millenarian world view, the appearance of the Minlaung was only a matter of time. In fact he was not only expected, if anything, he was late. The portents for the appearance of the Minlaung were everywhere, the rice crops were failing, the countryside was in disorder, the peasants were becoming homeless, morals were collapsing and the Sangha and Buddhism were in decline. The Minlaung was about to set aright what was awry.

As if the above was not enough, there were events happening in Burma that were a great deal more pregnant with change and symbolism than the British apparently realised. An entire culture was in the process of orientating itself towards their expulsion.

“Whereas the newly established alliance was called “Freedom Bloc” in the English language, in Burmese it was called Htwet Yat Gaing, “Association of the Way Out.” This term alluded to a prevailing omen about the impending arrival of a magician, weikza Bo Bo Aung, who was supposed to help the Burmese in driving out the British and who would finally enthrone the Minlaung, the king to-come. After a public meeting of the Freedom Bloc in June 1940 in Mandalay, many Burmese testified that Bo Bo Aung had already revealed himself in the famous Mahamuni Pagoda (Ba Maw1968:93).

I believe that the name of the association is deeply significant. It operates on at least two different levels. The first level, as Prager argues above, is the level that is directly connected with the Minlaung, the other level is the implication that this association was The Way Out….of British Rule. That it is tied into the Minlaung prophecy only deepened the level of significance of the association for the Burmese and the depth of grief that was about to befall the British in Burma. To put it simply, the British were about to have a prophecy fall on them. I am left wondering whether the Japanese in a way actually did the British a favour by expelling them from Burma in a relatively tidy fashion when they invaded, for the impending revolt by large sections of the Burman population would have been messy to say the least.

We must remind ourselves that the Burmese in common with other Buddhist cultures, view time as cyclical, not linear. Understanding this is crucial to understanding events in Burmese history and it is not uncommon for non-Buddhist Westerners to experience difficulties with understanding time as being something other than linear. The Buddhist teaching of Anicca (Impermanence) means that dynasties, even foreign ones, are viewed in Buddhism and Buddhist cultures as ephemeral things. They come, they go. They arise, grow old and die, just like everything else. The colonial rule of the British was, in Burmese eyes, fated to end even as it was beginning. The British would come, and they would go, and the Burmese and their culture would remain.

 Another aspect of Buddhism that we must remember, and it is directly related to Aung San, Alaungpaya and the Minlaung prophecy, is the Buddhist teaching on Rebirth/Reincarnation. In Buddhism it is entirely logical and possible that you could have been in a past life someone such as King Alaungpaya. It was entirely logical and possible that Aung San could be/ could have been Alaungpaya. Theravada Buddhism teaches that it is possible to remember our past lifetimes. Alaungpaya himself as it happens, was a Minlaung.

Prager writes that the Nationalists in Burma actively co-opted the Minlaung for their own ends. Every action undertaken by Burmese Nationalists according to Prager, must be seen through this lens. Aung San and the Nationalists in Burma made calculated use of the Minlaung prophecy and were careful to be seen behaving in accordance with Burmese expectations and traditions associated with the prophecy. The formation of the “Thirty Comrades” was meant to fulfil the Minlaung prophecy. The blood drinking ceremony were loyalty is sworn, is a classic Minlaung tradition. Even the presence of a cadre of blood tied band of brothers is a Minlaung symbol. That Aung San and the Thirty Comrades left Burma and returned with the Japanese Army didn’t adversely affect the prophecy. What mattered to the Burmese was that they were Burmese fighting for Burmese independence.

According to Prager, Aung San went one step further and explicitly identified with the prophecy and presented himself as embodying the essence of the Minlaung. Aung San also identified himself as the current rebirth of King Alaungpaya (something it must be noted that his daughter cannot do, as she was alive at the time her father died. Su Kyi, however has been identified as another deeply powerful Buddhist concept. She has been identified as a Bodhisattva[6]). In Burmese terms, Aung San wrapped himself in a cloak made from two very potent threads of Burmese culture. Not only was he a Minlaung coming to restore order to Burma, he was also the last successful Minlaung returning to once again free his people from the British. Which of course with the help of the Japanese, he duly did. Aung San and the Burmese Nationalists took great care to fulfil and to be seen as fulfilling every aspect of the Minlaung. They very much wanted to be seen as fulfilling the verse I quoted earlier. We can imagine the utter potency of this to the average Burman. Aung San is not only a Minlaung which whilst important in a Burmese context, are hardly rare, he is also the embodiment of a man the Burmese looked back on with affection and pride, Alaungpaya was the last strong Burmese ruler…and he had returned for his people in their hour of need. I am left wondering whether the British ever stood a chance against such a man.

Now I will wrap this essay up. In it I have shown that Aung San was a charismatic leader, as defined by Anne and Ruth Wilner. Aung San essentially ticks all the boxes that the Wilner’s defined charismatic leaders as, in that he arose as a leader in a time of deep change, he co-opted cultural symbols, in this case the Minlaung and King Alaungpaya and he concentrated power into himself. The charismatic leader according to the Wilner’s is essential to the success of change and not too many of them are democrats by nature. Aung San is nowhere recorded as being what would be regarded in the West as a democrat[7]. What Aung San is, is a uniquely Burmese example of a charismatic leader, he was a Minlaung. At that point in time he was a completely new form of grief for the British, in that he was Western educated, understood modern Western politics and used deeply Burmese concepts in his efforts to remove the British from Burma.  Aung San stood astride two very different world views and used them brilliantly to achieve his goal of Burmese independence. Aung San was a charismatic leader, a Minlaung par excellence.

With this I give this essay into your gentle hands.

References

Aung-Thwin. M “The Return of the Galon King: History, Law and Rebellion in Colonial Burma”.

Baker. C and Phongpaichit. P “A History of Thailand”.

http://ann.sagepub.com.ezproxy.lib.monash.edu.au/content/358/1/77.full.pdf

 Maung-Maung “Aung San of Burma”.

McCarthy. S “The Buddhist Political Rhetoric of Aung San Su Kyi” page 78 of Contemporary Buddhism: An Interdisciplinary Journal. Published online February 17 2007

Prager. S  “The Coming of the "Future King": Burmese Minlaung Expectations Before and During the Second World War” published in the Journal of Burma Studies Volume 8 in 2003.

Slim. Field Marshal Sir William “Defeat into Victory”.

Smith. M “Burma: Insurgency and The Politics of Ethnicity”.

Steinberg. D “Burma: A Socialist Nation in S.E Asia”.

Steinberg. D “Burma: What Everyone Needs to Know”

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[1] Slim. Field Marshal Sir William “Defeat into Victory” pages 500-5. Maung-Maung “Aung San of Burma” pages 5-15.

[2] Aung-Thwin. M “The Return of the Galon King: History, Law and Rebellion in Colonial Burma”.

[3] Smith. M “Burma: Insurgency and The Politics of Ethnicity” page 455

[4] Steinberg. D “Burma: A Socialist Nation in S.E Asia” page 114

[5] Baker. C and Phongpaichit. P “A History of Thailand” pages 52-8.

[6] McCarthy. S “The Buddhist Political Rhetoric of Aung San Su Kyi” page 78 of Contemporary Buddhism: An Interdisciplinary Journal. Published online February 17 2007

[7] Steinberg. D “Burma: What Everyone Needs to Know” page 142.