| Table of contents no. 2/2006 |
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The victory of Hamas:
consequences and prospects |
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Answers by: Khaled Fouad ALLAM, Lucia ANNUNZIATA, Lucio CARACCIOLO, Renzo GUOLO, Carlo PANELLA
At a distance of several months from the victory of Hamas in the Palestinian elections, reflection still goes ahead about an event which, as often happens in these times, violent, but significant for our future, has such an impact as to make the present which we live coincide with the history that will be read. After the first ‘rigid’ reaction at the prospect of management, by a group who has made terrorism its principle instrument of action, of a tiny area, poor, but fundamental for world geo-political equilibrium, today, there is, perhaps, a gleam of a more optimistic attitude and analyses which try to identify, with extreme curiosity, the dynamics which will accompany the inevitable adjustment of this organization towards the political responsibility which it has wanted to assume; a responsibility which could be the key to the development of violence in debate. The scenarios to identify, both possible and probable, are therefore, numerous. |
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| Essays and articles |
|  | In this number of the Review, we thought it would be useful to deepen our knowledge of what is happening in Palestine. Consistent with the editorial line adopted since the first issue, we offer different points of view and analyses of the situation, according to various perspectives. Therefore, besides ‘Forum’, we give our readers a further instrument to outline the scenario in that area. Often, we have the impression from the analyses we read of the Middle-East events that their society is so completely different from our own and follows its own particular dynamics, which are difficult for us to grasp. Unfortunately, the experts seem to make an effort to render the situation even more obscure and complex. Rarely, we are able to obtain a description which is rich in intelligent simplicity. In this article, however, the examination of the Palestinian ‘political’ situation and the balances between the various factions are proposed, revealing aspects which are completely similar to those which we are accustomed to seeing in our own part of the world .This is made possible by the ability of the author. The logical path offered to the reader is enriched by all that information which is necessary to outline a complete picture of the situation, allowing us to recognize and interpret those aspect and strategies, without the necessity of any special expertise. (photo ansa) | | | |
|  | By courtesy of the ‘Institute of the Italian Encyclopaedia’, founded by Giovanni Treccani, the editorial staff offers to the reader, the participation of the Director of the SISDe, Prefect Mario Mori, on the subject ‘Intelligence and National Security’, published in the TRECCANI BOOK OF THE YEAR 2005. The following pages, therefore, deal with ‘procedural’ themes, through which to rationalize the significance, ambit and conceptual systems which are the very foundation of intelligence activities, and with this, contributing to the elaboration of a doctrine which boasts of very ancient forerunners. In addition, a section is proposed on the other international realities of intelligence, above all, with regard to the different systems of national security defence and to the underlying socio-political and juridical culture. Also analysed is the evolution of the growing risk and the threats which are becoming, like terrorism and criminality, part of the profoundly destabilized areas of the global geo-political scenario. In conclusion, the overall evaluations enable us to appreciate how important it is for a State to provide itself with an effective security organization which, on the one side, is sustained by collective trust and, on the other, instils matured experience into the operative and organizing models, which are able to foresee and intercept the new manifestations of the threat. In this way, far from the hagiography or, to the contrary of prejudice, a very valid contribution can be offered to the political decision makers for the defence of the democratic institutions. | | | |
|  | The analysis process follows an outline which inevitably imposes a rapid theoretical beginning to reach an indispensable conclusion for a correct operative approach. An accurate historical, ideological and cultural study creates the basis to find solutions and strategies. This article, in fact, is a demonstration of this course. However, the validity of the contribution is not limited to this aspect. Indeed, it is interesting, above all, for its capacity to offer a clear scenario of the paradoxical problems of a sociological and political nature, which fundamentalist terrorism has been able to determine. The article explains, with great simplicity, the difficulty which the western governments meet in a conflict which poses enormous risks, but which cannot be defined as ‘war’, only in a rhetorical sense, and anyway, is not perceived as such by the societies which administrate. But there is more. The paper suggests that the reader adequately interprets the fundamentalist strategies and to recognize in them objectives of a political nature that impose solutions which, in the first place, have the same matrix. To combat terrorism solely on repressive grounds is not sufficient, nor desirable. It is indispensable to create ‘opinion’, offer values to adhere to and integrate some expectations of a socio-cultural nature. These objectives are not within the province of weapons and investigations, but rather in politics and programming.
(photo www.//news.bbc.co.uk/) | | | |
|  | God does not pardon those who kill in his name. It is a simple phrase which could interpreted almost as a tautology of the principles which are the subject of any religious faith, as a natural implication when one believes in the existence of a Being which is superior to terrestrial things and is not subject to the simple human sentiments. However one wishes to interpret it, the circumstance that no God could suggest an instrument like death to impose the faith, or punish the lack of faith, is a concept less evident than it appears, since it was necessary that a Pope, Benedetto XVI, should remind us of it, using the phrase indicated above. But the Pope’s admonition did not arrive by chance: this moment in time risks again to transform fear, uncertainty for the future, hostility towards those who are different from ourselves, into fanaticism and terror. Religious terrorism is a complex and variegated macrocosm, which only the news, in these last years, has accustomed us to file in the ‘desktop’ of our minds, under an icon which recalls an Islamic atmosphere. Instead, one cannot forget that violence is, and always has been, the dark side of every faith. The violence that terrorism suggests in the minds of those who comply with this distorted vision of existence, is the most dangerous kind because it transforms murder (and/or suicide) into a ‘just’ and convincing action, capable of opening all the doors of heaven with full merit. It is like saying that the terrestrial existence can be cancelled completely, in any case, its value is so fleeting. And it is possible that these men lost amidst the smoke of mystic delirium, have no need of God’s pardon: in their minds, it is more than sufficient to believe that they are blessed with unequivocal and absolute approval. (photo ansa) | | | |
|  | The major part of the Islamic fundamentalist organizations makes reference, in their proselytizing activities, claims and propaganda documents, to the “caliphate”, the form of Arab government that they wish to restore. This ambition has been interpreted by the West as a Utopian product of Islamic radicalism. In reality, the sieve of western secularism has some rather strong semantic limitations concerning concepts which, almost always, for their inveterate or acquired religious significance, are much wider and are in no way exclusive property of violent fringes. A deeper examination of this subject reveals a form of government which has always been part of the Arab and Moslem history, also in contemporary times. Indeed, it is the very social disparity, the economic difficulties, the unequal treatment on the international scene, the fear of a growing neo-colonialism due to a progressive and inexorable depletion of raw materials, above all, in the energy field which contribute, more than ever, to keep alive this alternative to the present form of government. Certainly, there are many doctrinal positions and, in the most recent, the classical theories have had to come to terms with nationalism, but in all of these positions, the caliphate constitutes the ideal world which aspires to the equanimity which guarantees the administration of the earthly life. The editorial office wishes to offer a guide to the caliphate, which although we cannot neglect a certain amount of historical detail, will permit the reader a correct ideological and theological approach to this institutional call of great topical interest in the Arab and Moslem world.
(photo ansa) | | | |
|  | It has often been said that the West is fighting an asymmetric war, against an enemy which has neither territory nor uniform. On looking more closely, however, the jihadist people, this collection of individuals which constitutes the ‘enemy’ we must fight, has, in effect, its territory, which is reachable and identifiable. It is a territory which must be seen in a different way. It is in a system where the boundaries are not geographical, but electronic; where there are no faces, but nicknames; where there are no frontiers, but log-ins and passwords. The attention which is rightly given to all that appears on the web, transforms the electronic fundamentalist network into a kind of ‘virtual State. ‘State’, in the more ancient meaning of the word, i.e. state-community, inasmuch as it assumes a real credibility, a real power, which is based on the characteristics and structure of the world media system which, involuntarily, supplies ‘cover’ and diffusion to the Islamic codes and message weapons.
(photo ansa) | | | |
|  | The camorra is the flower of Campania which poisons and suffocates. The investigation of Feo, a long-time expert of camorrist affairs and gifted with a keen sensitivity for the ‘things of Campane’, offers observations and reflections on mafia dynamics over recent years, also through the shadows which move in the background and weave subtle and ambiguous intrigues. Between the lines, we can read a call for a public re-awakening, a teasing reproach to the stereotype analysts, and a desire to understand the criminal scenario for a future which is not just hopeful. (photo ansa) | | | |
|  | Paid informers, FBI agents infiltrated to foment internal disagreement, homicides, repeated raids and the unscrupulous use of means of information: using methods which were on the very edge of legality, between the second half of the 60’s and the beginning of the 70’s, FBI agents destroyed the Black Panthers, the organization of militant Afro-Americans which aimed to subvert public order. The record of the Black Panthers is studied by the American Intelligence Community because it has certain likenesses to the danger posed by the Islamic terrorist cells. Today, as before, the danger comes from groups of American citizens which, joined by strong ideological motivations, operate in an organized way on the national territory constituting a serious threat to public security and relying on charitable works to strengthen their position and recruit new followers. (photo www.crimelibrary.com) | | | |
|  | The violent and desperate fight of the NAP (Nuclei Armati Proletari), active over a period of only four years, is part of the history of the ‘organized fighters’ with particular characteristics. Under the slogan of “general revolt in the prisons and armed struggle of the external squads”, they aspired to a society without classes and, above all, without prisons. The NAP turn to the common delinquent, among whom are ex-convicts, politically conditioned in prison. Many have roots in Southern Italy, (Naples), and make a practice in the use of explosives, a modality which is decisively different from that of the BR (Red Brigades), with whom the NAP were later to realize an operative alliance. (photo ansa) | | | |
|  | IN-Q-TEL (www.inqtel.com) is a CIA financed investment fund, in operation since 1999, which has as its goal “to invest in and encourage the production and research of the most innovative and promising technologies” to back up the activities of the U.S. Intelligence Community. In the knowledge that “at the frantic rate at which innovations advance, it is difficult for a public organization to keep abreast of the most recent advances in the informatics technologies”, the CIA has entrusted IN-Q-TEL with the task of the identification and rapid selection of new instruments for safeguarding national security: the most interesting industrial projects being financed by the same CIA. The shares portfolio of IN-Q-TEL presently numbers about fifty enterprises, among which, are companies that develop TAL technologies.The acronym TAL (Automatic Treatment of Language) defines the disciplines which deal with the models, methods, technologies, systems and applications concerning the automatic elaboration of the written and spoken language.The TAL includes, therefore, both the “Speech Processing” (SP) or the elaboration of speech, and the “Natural Language Processing” (NLP) or the elaboration of the text.The technologies employed for the spoken language encompass the elaboration of the word for the coding of the vocal signal and the synthesis of the text by means of equipment capable of reading, and for the recognition of speech by means of equipment capable of writing. As for the written text, the automatic elaboration of the text aims at reproducing the human capacity of understanding a language through syntactic and semantic analyzers, mostly based on algorithms or statistical modules or otherwise, models of knowledge representation and methods of automatic learning.
(photo www.serfin.biz) | | | |
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| Surveys |
ALL-ITALIAN STORIES  | |  | The ability to change, or rather that mechanism which allows an organization to evolve by foreseeing the changes of the system in which it lives, has been, without a doubt, the fact which has assured ’strength and resistance to the Italian criminal organizations. Schumpeter stated that innovation is an unavoidable process and the systems which are not able to adapt in a rapid and proper fashion are destined to disappear; on the contrary, the proper reaction to an innovating pressure provokes a strengthening of the organization because it generates an ‘advantageous’ selection to the detriment of those elements no longer necessary, indeed, discriminatory for the survival of the group. The following passage is a colourful and enjoyable picture of this complex socio-economic mechanism which, aside from the scientific theorization, is able to explain its effects also within a simple social structure and a ‘tribal’ matrix; that is, in the system which characterizes the organized Calabrian delinquency. (photo www.rai.it/) | | | |
| FROM THE ARCHIVES TO HISTORY | |  | Today, hearing one speak of a ‘minimum guaranteed income’, everything could be thought of, but the California of the 1960’s. And yet, it concerns one of the requests formulated by the Black Panther Party, which originated on the West coast at the end of 1966. In the article proposed in this number of the review, Maurizio Molinari reconstructs the strategies adopted by the FBI, within a vast and intricate intelligence operation to combat the movement. The documents presented here come from the American FBI archives and have the purpose of focussing on the organization, showing who the Afro-American black panthers were and ‘what they wanted’. First of all, there is a brief index, summarizing in a page, the most important information on the Party.
Then, the programmatic platform significantly entitled, “what we want and what we believe in”. It is a public declaration of 10 statements, pronounced with effective rhetoric, which cover all aspects of social life, from work to education, from military service to legal rights in trial proceedings. It is also a document of protest, which shows us with a particular sensitivity an America still lacerated by problems of inter-racial living: that America which lacking the CNN, was recounted in “Darkness beyond the barrier”. And lastly, a poem composed to celebrate the animal chosen by the coloured people as a symbol of the fight and to honour the fallen. An ode to the panther of the shining black fur and sharp fangs, which loves liberty and fights to its last breath. (photo www.slantpoint.com) | | | |
| BOOK REVIEW | | | With his usual gripping style, the author of our reviews accompanies us to the discovery of two books which run along the line of the mixed narration of the socio-political analysis. The synthesis which Alain Charbonnier offers, has, as always , an ever increasing rhythm as it takes us to the end of the reading and leaves us with the sensation of who, during a journey, is aware of a panorama which merits a pause; a scene on which to meditate, to photograph, to keep a record. It is what happens when any kind of element of existence gives us a moment of clarity, an emotional gift, an occasion for reflection. | | | |
| CHRONOLOGY OF TERRORISM | | | It is understood that an act of terrorism is a violent action, politically motivated, intended to strike objectives of symbolic value and destined also to intimidate a ‘targeted audience’ socially or politically connected to the primary objective.
The act of terrorism, unlike that of ‘political violence’ (carried out by individuals or groups acting ‘in the open’)and that of the ‘guerrilla ’(carried out with instruments and paramilitary logistics) is usually performed by individuals or groups who operate in secrecy or undercover, or in any event, under disguised conditions within the threatened societies”. | | | |
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