Is terrorism thinkable?

The work of Hélène l’Heuillet aims to propose an inventory on the philosophical questions posed by terrorism. While resuming the consensual historical starting point of Russian anarchism, it does not stick to the only evolution and changes in the phenomenon and favors an approach by thematic contiguity. Two postulates are at the principle of research: 1) Terrorism is another form of war ; 2) There is a “ Current terrorism Which comes down to Islamist terrorism. Consequently, his method is to pose moral condemnation as premise to ignore justifying ideologies.

Russian anarchism of XIX^e Century provides the book its guiding thread and its philosophical problem: according to the author, the elements, words and ideas of this current would be more or less, in the form of nihilism, in the negation of oneself and others specific to terrorism. The strength of the argument is also its weakness: Heuillet has the great merit of getting rid of the agreed references to dive without hesitation in literature, and it is Dostoyevski or Tourgueniev who make the Nihilist Netchaïev speak (1847-1882). In doing so, the author’s objective is to reveal the essence of current terrorism. The internationalist component would bring Al Qaida closer to Bakounine, who was breaking with Marx in the 1860s ; The criticism of the bourgeois and state West makes Russian terrorism and Islamism join.

But the author’s intention does not stop there. The evocation of Nietzsche and the relationship between resentment and anarchist boredom leads to a second thesis: nihilism is a common source of Nazism and Islamism, in a common refusal of civilization. Likewise, the “ propaganda “Led by the terrorists, who make the change by force on change by law, brings this violence closer to totalitarianism.

Terrorism, a “ psychological war »»

The originality of the work lies in the references to Lacan, often disseminated in the intermediate conclusions, and in the attention it pays to the clinic, whether it is in the texts of Derrida or that it participates in the analysis of the passage to the terrorist act. The suicide bombings, in particular, withdraw all the attention of the author, so that psychological explanation and sociological explanation marry convincingly. If the mechanisms of fear and terror are not discussed for themselves, the Oedipal myth, presented by Freud in Totem and taboobrings figures of classical war – state – to Islamism breaking with traditional Islam. Psychoanalysis provides relevant elements to understand the refusal of the body and sexuality by Islamists and the negation of life in Russian anarchists, or the identity and similarity relationship from parentage. The West and America are “ mothers That Islamism envy ; The authors of suicide bombings, young, serious, lonely, integrated or westernized, experience nostalgia for harmony with the mother. The relay of the individual to the collective is assured: wanting its own death welded the group.

Comparison with war is the starting point chosen by the Heuillet to define its subject. Terrorism, she says, is “ psychological war Who derives from the decisive change in war, which has become popular from the French Revolution. Referring to Clausewitz, for whom the participation of the people in the war repels the limits and exceeds the diplomacy of “ government wars From the old regime, it identifies terrorism and guerrillas or resistance movements. She thus highlights what we are used to understanding as a weapon of the poor: national liberation and terrorism pursue a “ Tactic of failure ». In addition to the desire to replace one legality by another in a violent manner, terrorism, including as absolute deregulation, borrows from national liberations a conception of violence as an end in itself and the opposition between colonized and oppressors.

It is from a moral perspective that the author wants to demonstrate that terrorism is a “ loss of war code “While being a” type of war ». In relation to the conventional war, and even to the guerrilla warfare which maintains a difference between fighters and innocent, terrorism frees itself from all “ code ». So-and perhaps it is a contradiction in terms-terrorism is defined as “ New form of war ” And “ Special use of violence Inside the war.

There “ nihilizing melancholy »»

Hélène l’Heuillet avoids the obvious traps specific to the study of the concept of terrorism: no ambivalence between a condemned terrorism and an acceptable terrorism, passing in silence legal formulations which are effectively unsatisfactory, crossing of multidisciplinary sources. The conclusion, which starts from suicidal terrorism to lead to the idea of ​​a “ nihilizing melancholy », Or Cotard syndrome, makes terrorism a form of psychosis that denies any subjectivity. Do not be blinded by the steep form of the assertion, which is in fact the culmination of several tracks developed simultaneously by the Heuillet. Given the author’s skills in psychoanalysis, we almost regret the sprinkling of references. Likewise, by wanting to avoid the trap of the words of politics and ideology, the author neglects the eminently aspect symbolic terrorist action. However, his work suggests that the study of terrorism would have everything to gain from the psychoanalytic understanding of a political phenomenon.

The overall impression is that of assumed choice (the moral condemnation of the starting and the understanding of terrorism by anarchism as nihilism) which veil allusions likely to prove to be real problems. For example, according to Heuillet, guerrilla warfare would be the common origin of the resistant and the terrorist (she knowingly obscures the possible difference between tactical terrorism and substantial terrorism) ; Besides that the parallel is a bit anachronistic, one is justified in questioning the link between the guerrilla warfare according to Clausewitz and what the author develops on Russian nihilism, especially as the comparison between “ small war ” And “ Great War »Fail. Wouldn’t there be two non-homogeneous filiations to identify ? The wars of liberation, even the revolution, could not bring elements of understanding, especially since the Heuillet refers to the distinction of Raymond Aron between war of national liberation and revolutionary war seeking the annihilation of the adversary ? Likewise, the analyzes could undoubtedly have been enriched by an update of the theories of imperialism, rather than to stick to the only affirmation of “ news Islamist terrorism (no evocation is made of Basque or Corsican separatist terrorism, extreme left terrorism in Greece, so many forms of terrorism which nevertheless constitute the overwhelming majority of acts with which European democracies are confronted).

By dint of refusing any argument which could turn into an excuse, the author neglects to respond to certain objections which are however not assimilated to a moral exemption from terrorists, for example concerning the “ news “Always assimilated to terrorism” Islamist », Or the comparison between terrorism, Nazism and totalitarianism. Likewise, it is not necessarily obvious that terrorism is a form of war. Critics of this thesis have emerged in the wake of panic and apocalyptic analyzes of September 11, 2001, and now constitute a serious, developed and in -depth corpus. The concept of code could be all the more enlightening, provided that they confront it with those of “ law “, of “ customs », Etc., who have linguistic and psychoanalytic resonances.

Finally, if we know how to wretch the Heuillet not to dwell on the definition of modernity and on the relationships that terrorists have with it, the link is not clearly established between archaism and modernity, visibility and invisibility of Islamist terrorists. Lighting on modernity overshadows the crucial question of democracy faced with its contradictions at the same time as terrorism. By wanting to the end to discredit terrorism, the author in flap on his own argumentative forces: certainly terrorism denies democracy by attacking the anonymous mass, it is subservient to the media image as well as the democracy which it criticizes, but if one wants to condemn definitively, resolutely and absolutely terrorism, this moral judgment mined with sociological analysis seems very weak. Why does the author step back in front of what seems to be the logical outcome of the strong theses preceding ? It is undoubtedly that she reserves her best weapon for the last part of the work.

The definition, to be disturbing, is nonetheless stimulating and deserves a study in itself: terrorists would be perverts in the psychoanalytic sense of the term. We will remember from this historical and philosophical synthesis, taking welcome crosspieces, the deepening of messianism-a very good page on Gandhi finally quoted textually and the comparison between non-violence and suicidal terrorism-which leads to a final false paradoxical thesis: terrorism is nihilist but nihilism the refute.