Mamdani: The War on Terror

My view is that we have two different things that need to be separated; one, we have national movements, who are fighting in their own territory, with their own objectives, and they intend to establish their own rule of law. Whether it is the Taliban in Afghanistan, or Hamas, whether it is in Lebanon or Palestine, these are movements within national territories. They have a certain legitimacy, and a right, which non-nationals don't have. The Americans don't have the legitimacy in Afghanistan, but the Taliban have, which to me is simple, in an age of imperialism; that is the starting point.

Then you have those who cross borders to use violence to implement a particular programme; that is terror, and that is both non-state terror and state terror. So, it is both Al Qaeda, and the Americans. And of course, if you know, historically, one is a child of the other, but they have parted ways. But that is a separate problem; the problem of non-state terror is not a big problem; it is not a bigger problem than the mafia was. I really don't see it; it is more of a police problem, not a military problem. But it has been used as an excuse for a military build up, but as you can see from all the airport screenings, it is a police problem, and not a military problem.

I mean, the war on terror is built on false premises because non-state terrorism has no territory; it is a mafia type problem, they operate from different territories. It is opportunistic, operating wherever there is an opportunity to operate from. It is a police problem, and it is solvable as a police problem. Beyond that, it is a political problem because unlike the mafia, Al Qaeda has a political resume, which is a result of unsolved issues, legitimate grievances. Al Qaeda's allegiance to it may be opportunistic, it may be not, I don't know.

As you said, I have been a victim of strong men, one of my biggest surprises when I went back to Uganda in 1979 was to realize that nobody I met said to me that the Asian expulsion was wrong, the most I heard was that it was wrongly done, that it should have been done differently. The biggest shock of my life was to realize that most people supported the Asian expulsion and it made me think of why? They didn't support (Idi) Amin, they opposed him but they supported the expulsion. Then I realized that there was an unsolved issue; Amin was the demagogue who was able to take advantage of an unsolved issue, and Mugabe is the same.

There is an unsolved issue -- the land question in Zimbabwe. Mugabe, as the demagogue, was able to take advantage of the land question. Zimbabwean society is divided between those with an allegiance to land, and those in the urban areas, and they are 50-50 voting in the elections. Although the oppositions says the elections were rigged, but if you take the opposition results, it is still 50-50, just two points more for the opposition. Then you know that the society is divided; it is in a civil war type situation. So, the problem can't be one person, and those who focus on one person as the problem, I think are becoming part of the problem. Of course, he (Mugabe) is part of the problem, but if you think that by removing him you will solve the problem, no, you may worsen the problem. The major problem of the African continent has been the failure to create a national citizenship. National citizenship is not created under colonialism; nobody can expect that the colonial powers will create nations. Nations are created in the struggle for independence. So, if Africa is going to go beyond the colonial period, it must be able to challenge the colonial legacy of creating different tribal authorities which they called native authorities and turn the native authorities into local authorities as constituents part of a nation. That project would have to be done after independence. In my views, most countries in Africa have not succeeded in doing that.