In the past few weeks there has been a rash of terror-related stories, some of which have been more disturbing than others. While Israel has set yet another dangerous strategy in place, this time killing the Hamas spiritual leader Sheik Ahmed Yassin, Al Qaeda’s number two man Ayman al-Zawahri was allegedly very close to capture on the Afghan-Pakistan border. While these stories generally leave me with a feeling of despair, it also got me thinking about the structure and cause of terror groups such as Al Qaeda.
In the past few weeks there has been a rash of terror-related stories, some of which have been more disturbing than others. While Israel has set yet another dangerous strategy in place, this time killing the Hamas spiritual leader Sheik Ahmed Yassin, Al Qaeda’s number two man Ayman al-Zawahri was allegedly very close to capture on the Afghan-Pakistan border. While these stories generally leave me with a feeling of despair, it also got me thinking about the structure and cause of terror groups such as Al Qaeda.
When al-Zawahri was in danger of being killed or captured, there were several other stories circulating that Osama Bin Laden’s capture or death would have virtually no effect on his organisation’s ability or motivation to conduct more monstrous acts. The reason the war on terror is facing such difficulties (apart from growing community dissatisfaction with the war in Iraq which daily appears more likely to have been started on the premise of a lie) is that there is a growing number of people in the world willing to wage war on the US, Israel and their allies.
What struck me about all of this, is the heavy influence values has on terror organisations and how they are run. There has been reams written about the war on terror as well as the structure of extremist Islamic groups around the world. The most poignant fact that can be distilled out of this literature is that the Western world is not fighting one man in Osama Bin Laden or one organisation in Al Qaeda. If it was, the war on terror would almost certainly be won by now and we might be living in peace. Rather, the West is fighting an idea – an idea that blames much of the world’s misery on the influence of America and its interests. An idea that has as its core objective the removal of such American influence from a very large part of the world.
Each Al Qaeda cell operates in a different manner. This is why they are so hard to track down as there is no one set pattern or trait to pin them to. The Madrid bombers, for instance, did not use suicide as their mode of attack. What is consistent, however, is the same goal of unsettling the West through acts of violence seemingly able to be executed with impunity.
So a question that may be asked is: what is the driver for this value of removing American influence? Again, the answer to that question has many answers, but the most likely answer is that fundamentalist Islamic teachings have taken hold in the Third World, which has seen little benefit from the global capitalist system. To such countries, the McDonalds style culture of the West is abhorrent when they cannot share in the spoils of such rampant consumerism.
To the material have-nots, the modern publicly listed company must appear as a completely valueless monster where ‘profit is king’.
If the world is facing a threat from a loosely aligned consortium of worldwide groups with the defeat of the Western world and its capitalist system at its core as an overriding value, can we comfortably propagate our own belief that values-driven organisations are those that are most admired in our business community. Just as terrorist groups are many and varied, so too are publicly listed companies. Can these companies, however, really adhere to any meaningful values other than shareholder value, which ultimately means profits?
It would seem fair comment that your average terrorist has a higher level of commitment than your average corporate worker. Returning to Bin Laden’s dispensability to the Al Qaeda cause, it would also seem that a values-based rather than a command and control approach, still prevalent in the corporate world, is a more effective manner of engagement.
Could it be that the lived values of terror and the subsequent callously implemented acts of those living out the values, has something to teach the Western world about really wanting something other than shareholder profits.
Could it be that the breaking of the social covenant between employer and employee has left us exposed to the consequences of watered-down values left hanging on a boardroom wall rather than kept at the top of mind of all employees at all times?
The social consequences of shutting out a large portion of the world from the benefits of globalisation has manifested itself in the shape of a seemingly unstoppable force, which uses the very trappings of Western society, such as modern technology, to wage a war against the engine of the modern world – the faceless majority who make up the shareholders in the modern corporation. Few would dispute that the age of terror is a nightmare of our own making. Certainly the death of more terrorists, soldiers and innocent victims would seem a futile attempt to address the disconnect between the various cultures in this global village.
