International Terrorism: The Achilles Heel of German Security?
By Jochen Bittner

Germany, in comparison to Great Britain, Spain, or France, thought itself comparatively safe from homegrown terrorism for two reasons: First, because it was not involved in the Iraq War, it hoped al Qaeda would grant the country some sort of reprieve. Second, most of the roughly three million Muslims in Germany come from Turkey, where the separation of religion and politics is state doctrine. Last year, though, by the skin of their teeth, German security services prevented what might have been the worst terrorist attack in European history. The would-be bombers, however, aren't some neglected immigrants on the margins of society. Twenty-eight-year-old German Fritz G., twenty-two-year-old Daniel S. and Adem Y., a twenty-eight-year-old Turkish-German, had prepared amounts of explosives that would have been many times more destructive than the Madrid and London bombs.

It looks as though the homegrown phenomenon has not only reached Germany, but has even skipped a developmental stage. The two converts, Fritz G. and Daniel S., did not become extremists through cultural Islam. They took the direct route to political Islam. The phenomenon of extremist converts should worry us for it shows that Islam can be decoupled from its native religious and cultural background. In other words, al Qaedism is becoming a universal, radical ideology of protest. Young Westerners in search of the most brutal anti-Western position find Osama bin Laden's ideas seductive because they are ethically hermetic.

In contrast to most post-modern nation-states, Islamic fundamentalism offers the kind of warm hearth for which many shaken Western souls might yearn: community instead of individualism; moral certainty instead of moral arbitrariness. Indeed, hasn't the fulfilling sense of fighting a "cold evil" always held great attraction for young idealists? The International Brigades in the Spanish Civil War are one example, the revolutionary companeros around Fidel Castro and Che Guevara another. The anti-globalization movement, which never ceases to denounce "unmerciful neo-liberalism," is a third.

In fact, Osama bin Laden's philosophy offers some kind of "counter-globalization": the security the Muslim Umma promises, the global village of all believers. Most recently, the al Qaeda chief has very consciously begun fishing for supporters who share the backward concept of Islamism for non-religious reasons. The secular religions of climate rescue and the critique of globalization meet bin Laden's doctrine of divine salvation. "Disillusioned of the world, unite!" is his motto. The danger that this form of neo-fundamentalism will separate from its religious roots is obvious. Just as many Muslims today in Islamabad, Ramallah, and London consider themselves members of a global underdog community that can most easily be compared with the "international proletariat," so too could young Germans in Munich or Berlin soon begin to feel like the losers of the post-modern world and seek affirmation in a community. And when losers become radical, blood quickly flows. Every al Qaeda attack shows what can happen when disappointment is convincingly explained as the fault of "the other" and embedded in a Weltanschauung. In the conceptual world of al Qaedism, sacrifice for the group is also the most intensive form of merging with the group. Unfortunately, we must assume that somewhere there is a Fritz who is yearning for just that.

This essay is the result of an AICGS conference on "German Vulnerabilities in a Globalizing World," which was held in March 2008 with the generous support of the National Intelligence Council, the University of Birmingham, Deutsche Lufthansa AG, and the International Association for the Study of German Politics (IASGP). For more about the conference, please click here.

Jochen Bittner is the Europe and NATO Correspondent in Brussels for Die Zeit and a regular contributor to the Advisor.

This essay appeared in the July 25, 2008, AICGS Advisor.