Terrorism and the Roman Empire

The modern world faces terrorism; the ancient world faced barbarians. The barbarian invasions were a response to the contrast between Roman wealth and barbarian poverty. Al Qaeda is a response to the instability brought on by modernism; terrorism is resistance to radical change that people feel is beyond their control. The jihadists are striking out against the perceived takeover of their societies by global corporations.

The barbarians (Huns, Goths) saw Roman riches and wanted them, but some, at least, also realized that those riches had been stolen from others, that the affluence of Rome and Constantinople had come from Roman invasions and Roman tribute. Something similar motivates today's radical islamists.

Capitalism is probably the most revolutionary and destabilizing economic system that has ever circled the globe. The Roman Empire, in its era, undermined and destroyed societies it confronted. But Capitalism is much more revolutionary than the Roman Empire, or even than Communism, because it subverts all traditional values in order to sell goods. In The Gods Must Be Crazy the !Kung saw just how radical the intrusion of one capitalist artifact (a Coke bottle) proved to be for their people; finally, the hero dropped it off "the end of the world." Terrorism of the Islamist persuasion aims to do the same thing, but violently: rejecting capitalism and all it stands for.

The Huns were much like that; they wanted Roman gold, but rejected Roman ways (and tried to destroy their cities), while the Goths (and other Germanic tribes) wanted both. It didn't matter. Their combined pressure, often looking much like terrorism, contributed to the bankruptcy and subversion of the Roman Empire. Nevertheless, the Romans had been doing a pretty good job of bringing down the Empire even before external pressures.

But here is where the modern world is more destabilizing, more prone to create extreme responses, such as terrorism. Roman ways were not so far removed from other civilizations; Roman armies integrated large numbers of both Huns and Germans; many of the conflicts with Rome started out as pay disputes--even Attila's conquests. But the modern capitalist system sets up a dynamic that is ultimately subversive of all traditional arrangements.

Think about it: what is valued most highly in capitalism? Money, the more of it the better. What does a corporation concern itself with above all? The bottom line. Capitalism discounts Divine will, or accumulating friends, or bequeathing improved land to your descendants, or nurturing your family--unless it sells. Nothing in capitalism is inherently respectful of traditional ways. Management gurus write books like: If it Ain't Broke, Fix it. Our advertising slogans routinely include "New!" "Improved!"

The very success of capitalism over most of the world, the very power of global corporations to affect the lives of billions of people, has created the "terrorist threat." The people who are strewn at the margins of radical economic change, those who experience these changes as threats to their own self-identity, they are the ones who are drawn to terrorism, to organizations like al Qaeda.

Here is another difference between the modern and ancient worlds: Goths, Vandals, Franks all wanted what the Romans had, and even tried to recreate it when they gained power in places like Gaul, Spain and North Africa. The modern terrorists have a much more regressive vision. Their ideal would be to go back to a pre-capitalist age, like the Islamic radicals who tore through North Africa in the ninth century, pulling down the Roman aqueducts so that the (highly cultivated) region fell backward into desert wilderness. Except for weaponry, the terrorists' ideal of a revived Caliphate would hark back to the medieval era.

There are other parallels, however, between modern terrorism and the Romans' barbarians: both barbarians and modern terrorists learned military techniques, acquired military technology and gained ideological sophistication from their opponents. The Romans took chiefs and princes as royal hostages to woo them and teach them Roman ways, and also sent Christian missionaries to their tribes. The superior Roman weaponry was not supposed to be sold to the barbarians, but Roman Senators realized they could make money from it; barbarians also stripped fallen Roman troops of their weapons.

Terrorists now use cell-phones to trigger IED's in Iraq, and use the Internet to organize far-flung units, and of course they arm themselves on the black market and in raids on armories. In addition, the US aided Islamic radicalism during the Afghan war against the Soviets, and even recruited people like Osama bin Laden. Reportedly, the CIA came up with the idea taken over by the mujahadeen, which evolved into al Qaeda's ideology: Islam, an integrated worldview, is in danger. The only change from then to now: then Islam was supposedly threatened by Communism, now it is threatened by the West. Then, Communists put girls into schools, now the West does, but with capitalism, the West more massively subverts the traditional way of life, the ways which many Muslims equate with Islam.

Ultimately, however, terrorism is not the threat that the barbarians were. Barbarian tribes were not monolithic, but all their members (except for the Huns) wanted what they could take from Rome: land, wealth, technology, but they were unable to translate Roman civilization into their way of life--almost all were illiterate--so they participated in its destruction, by for example, settling on a Roman estate, but burning down the villa, because they didn't know how to work the Roman hypocaust.

Today, even terrorists are sophisticated, and literate. But the greatest difference is this: terrorists and terrorist organizations represent only a tiny fraction of the peoples from which they are recruited. Most people of the Middle East-- Arabs, Persians, Kurds, Turks--may reject American imperial designs, but they don't reject capitalism; they may reject domination by global corporations, but they want to do business with them.

Like the Romans, we have what most people want all over the world, but unlike the Romans, we can do business with them. We should just stop trying to dominate them and ripping them off, and should be more sensitive to the revolutionary aspect of the capitalist system. Instead of ramming it down peoples' throats with "structural adjustment" programs for example, or market "shock therapy," we should attempt to ameliorate its most de-stabilizing effects.