Is this just?

[Nilsi]

 

Discuss.

[zazen]

On 25/05/2025 at 4:12 PM, zazen said:

There’s a distinction to be made between contextual violence and fanatical violence.

Contextual violence is localized, geopolitical, reality based = resistance

Fanatical violence is usually globalised, political in an absolutist sense, ideological based = terrorism

Hamas and Hezbollah get lumped in with the fanatical kind like ISIS and Al Qaeda when they are localized reactions to geopolitical injustices. They use terrorist tactics but aren’t really defined by terrorism in their totality.

This is why Iran and co are called the “axis of resistance” - because they are resisting something. ISIS and Al-Qaeda start off by resisting something (Western occupation - intervention) but mutate to domination. Irans support isn’t fanatical but contextual - although fanatical tactics are deployed. The actual sponsor of terrorism was a US backed ally who exported a radical version of Islam - Saudi Arabia, which they are now trying to counter.

Those resistance groups have a certain limit to them based in reality - their geopolitical locality. Actual terrorist groups like ISIS and Al-Qaeda are limitless in their aspirations - they go for ideological purity and domination, not just geopolitical justice and liberation.

The thing is that the fanatical usually also comes from the contextual. When resistance to (contextual or colonial) occupation and suppression is crushed - that resistance mutates into fanatical terrorism due to desperation and resentment.

The reason that violence then goes global is because those crushing their resistance are global - in the Middle East’s case that would be the West and the US. The fight is taken to where they are at - but in a fanatical and violent manner. It becomes globalized when that localized resistance is crushed by those not local to it.

Western foreign policy created the foreign policy of terrorism as its consequence and backlash. This can be geopolitically traced. A domestic struggle (jihad) becomes a foreign one, because foreigners are involved. Local geopolitical struggles who would otherwise remain domestic and contextual become global and fanatical.

The remaining local struggles conveniently get gaslit and lumped in with the global fanatical ones.