“Двойно дъно” или “шизофренично раздвоение”? Взаимодействието между етнонационалистическите и религиозно-екстремистките мотиви в дейността на някои терористични групировки

Abstract

The interaction between ethno-nationalistic and religious–extremist motives in the activities of some terrorist groupings is discussed and analyzed in the text. In plenty of cases such groupings have a specific “double bottom” and behind the universal messages of the religious extremism are visible familiar tribal, ethnical and nationalistic motives. This phenomenon is illustrated with the behaviour of a list of terrorist groupings in West Africa and in Northern Uganda. Some of the surveyed groupings in West Africa self-identify themselves as an independent.

Other are franchises of terrorist organizations like Islamic State or terrorist disorganizations like Al Quaeda. The surveyed terrorist organization from Northern Uganda is the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA). Its leader – Joseph Kony declares that he communicates directly with the Holy Spirit and that he is going do build a state, which will be ruled exactly on the basis of the Ten Gods Commandments. Simultaneously, the activities of the LRA rely to a great extend on the ethnic tensions between the northerners, who belong to the Acholi people and the southerners, who support president Museveni and who speak the languages of the Bantu ethnic group.

The author argues that the identification of the motives of the members of a terrorist grouping is extremely important. It’s a key point is the process of determination of the approach to it. The identification of the motives is even much more important in such specific cases, when it is necessary to find out the real “state of the art” – is the terrorist organization really passing from ethnonationalism to religious – extremist views or it is just “rebranding” itself in a cosmetic way in the search of allies and sponsors.