Eco-terrorists top the FBI’s threat list after wave of arson attacks – Times Online
Interesting article in the Times above. Main thrust:
It began 16 years ago with a meeting of disaffected environmentalists in Brighton. Today the radical organisation they created – the Earth Liberation Front – is described as a decentralised al-Qaeda-style network and America’s No 1 domestic terrorism threat. It even provided inspiration for the villains in Michael Crichton’s 2004 thriller State of Fear….
When the ELF was created in 1992 by members of Britain’s law-abiding Earth First! group, it was designed to operate under the same leaderless, hard-to-prosecute, resistance-style principles as the Animal Liberation Front, which also engaged in direct action and sabotage. Within two years ELF cells had emerged in continental Europe and by the mid-1990s they had spread to Canada and the US.
“There are over six billion people on this planet, of which almost a third are starving or living in poverty,” an early ELF statement said. “Building homes for the wealthy should not even be a priority. The time has come to decide what is more important: the planet and the health of its population or the profits of those who destroy it.”
You might have heard about the Earth Liberation Front before. I wonder if ten or fifteen from now years the threat of Islamist groups like Al Qaeda will have been superseded by even more virulent groups. Groups like this one Global Justice Movement make me apprehensive, for instance. Yes, I understand that their ‘Warning’ is not a threat:
Unless a reasonable standard of living and true democracy are quickly extended to all the poor and oppressed peoples of the world, there may be large-scale destruction by terror weapons including bio-engineered disease.
In December, 2001, on the one hundredth anniversary of the Nobel Prize, one hundred Nobel laureates stated that the most profound danger to world peace in the coming years will stem not from the irrational acts of states or individuals but from the legitimate demands of the world’s dispossessed. They added:
“Of these poor and disenfranchised, the majority live a marginal existence in equatorial climates. Global warming, not of their making but originating with the wealthy few, will affect their fragile ecologies most. Their situation will be desperate and manifestly unjust.”
The events of 11th September 2001 are a wake-up call that we ignore at our peril.
It is, however, ambiguous. The US government uses this Conflict Assessment Model to explain the emergence of political violence:
Motive + Means + Opportunity + Shock Trigger → Use of Violent Strategies
Motive refers to the existence of political, social, economic or other grievances that can serve as a foundation for the identity and aims of a group. Means refers to the capacity to engage in organized violence, including access to funds, weapons, and recruits, the ability to mobilize the population, and organisational and logistical capabilities. Opportunity refers to a state’s response to the existence of motive and means. How does the state respond to grievances? Is it strong enough to reduce the group’s capacity? Can it co-opt its aims and leadership? Finally, shock trigger alludes to the fact that violent strategies commonly emerge in the wake of some kind of shock event: disputed elections, economic shocks, natural disaster or external war.
When I look at these groups I see many of these factors. A group narrative that expresses:
- a sense of identity and belonging? Check.
- the grievance(s) to be rectified? Check.
- offer a plausible course of action? Err, maybe.
Add to that horizontally-networked cellular structures and what’s left? The willingness to use violence whether targeted or discriminate to further the group’s agenda. Admittedly there is a strong taboo against the use of violence by non-state groups to which for all I know outfits like the Global Justice Movement subscribe to rigorously. But history is replete with splinter groups who differ not with the aims but the means of the parent group. It would just require the right shock to convince some that the ends justify the means. As Colin Gray says ‘Another Bloody Century.’
(The weather in Britain has been gloomy and dismal for days. Perhaps it’s my mood catching up with the climate.)
{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
As an anarchist who has contacts with contacts within the ELF, I think that the “danger” you will face will be Argentinian style protests, combined with economic sabotage. The taboo on hurting individuals is very strong inside the envirmonetalist extremist camp. So relax.
Actually, on a merry note, we did a low-frequency insurrection in Oslo 5 years ago, based on the netwerk you mention. They were trying to close down an autonomen house called Blitz (http://blitz.no). Our response was to gather around a 1000 people and smash the front of the city hall. No violence, just rugby with the police. Shoulder in and push. Then we declared that any company that bought us would get hounded to the ends of the earth by vandals. If you multiply the cost of changing a central lock-system by 300 it is enough to drive any firm bankrupt.
Is this terror? I think not, because it does not hurt people, but businesses. It is not offensive but defensive. The anti-nazi scene has much respect in Norway, and that is us. It is rather a solid political barrier in many european cultures, that certain extremes are not tolerated and that working class people are allowed to fight back within certain rules. If the capital tries to destroy beautiful things, people protest. In my scene, we have many special soldiers who lend their weight when it gets rough, and the police and politicans respect that. (BTW, see the immortal battles between the firefighters and police in Paris!!)
This is fascinating fnord. I’m not exactly shrieking ‘DANGER!’ but I am apprehensive; I think I’m right to be so. I’d like to learn more about these groups, what it is they think, how strong the taboo is, etc; fact is I am not sanguine about the situation. Real question: I don’t know anything about the battles between firefighters and police in Paris. Do you mean fire lighters, by chance?
The British are probably the bravest people in the world – but even the sun has its spots!
It seems that you from time to time chose objects that serve as object of fright by proxy, such as rabies infected foxes penetrating the Eurotunnel; or this recent environmental issue… add to that the almost ‘pre-raphaelitic’ respect you cultivate for ‘nature’ and the ‘welfare’ of ‘animals’… (is that an intellectual heritage from your Victorian era?)
To Fnord: I agree with the late Italian film maker Pier Paolo Pasolini…
When in the 60s he was asked by his anarchist friends to go out on the streets of Bologna on May Day to ‘fight’ the police, he just said ‘No!’ — and then he added ‘You anarchists are all spoiled bourgeois brats – the only real working class people I ever see on May Day are the policemen. God bless the Police!’
Hehe… /Erik
“If you multiply the cost of changing a central lock-system by 300 it is enough to drive any firm bankrupt.”
Uh…that is terror, isn’t it? Or certainly the instrumental use of the threat of damage to property and economic well-being to the point where it has an impact on decision-making. You say potato, I say potahto.
It seems interesting that these groups feel free to be anarchical within the context of a well ordered and organised state. The only reason someone would feel free enough to disrupt commerce (and thereby jeopardise the level of employment) is because they feel safe enough, grace à l’Etat. Minimum wage, social welfare, hospitalisation, security forces abiding by the rule of law—the list goes on.
Want to be a tough anarchist? Move to Somalia. See how long your ‘low level insurrection’ tactics last there. Bourgeois? And how. Decadant dilatantes out for a cheap thrill.
Erik: lol, good point. I have met good police and bad police while demonstrating, it is interesting from a militant pov. Remember we are not pacifists, some of us have the motto of fighting for the king and screw the politicans ;-) But again, to assure, the problems you will most propably see are massive civil disobedience actions on the lines of G8. Swarming.
Faceless Buerocrat: Sir, I can not see this as terror when it comes as a reaction to demands that all must follow the holy market forces. As long as there are no guns and explosions and terrorizing situations, I do not define resistance as terror. We have, in our city of Oslo, a living interaction. The politicans realized this, and backed down. We got our house.
ps: Faceless buerocrat, I hope we stand united in fighting nazism? I have been to some nazi-marches in Germany, Sweden and Denmark, and they are truly scary. The russian nazis come and do hits for them. Us vegetarians pale in comparision.
betz451: Obviously I wont go in details, but there has been a big discussion going in the autonomen scenes wich the pink block won. (google). Remember that this is a rational scene, but with our own wars and streetfighters. St Pauli forever, etc. An interesting fact I learned in jail is that we are very respected by the muslims. Wich is nice, you get to know people. Oslo has 8% muslims, so we get to meet many cultures. Because we actually got beaten up outside the US embassy a few times. Etc.