The Importance of Context

Laurent Bonnefoy from the Institut Francais du Proche-Orient has written an excellent essay, “Violence in Contemporary Yemen: State, Society and Salafis.” In her essay she criticizes the intellectualist tendency to reduce violent actions to its ideological components. Her thesis is as follows:

 

Building on the variable of the evolving state/society relations, this contribution intends to shed light on the way violent Sunni-based groups are embedded in the Yemeni context. In doing that it means to assert that structures often matter more that ideologies and that the context in itself determines many of the outcomes, either violent or not. My purpose here is then to argue that increased repression and coercion are provoking violence, rather than limiting it. (325)

 

Thus Bonnefoy argues that an increase in violence, including terrorist violence, is often better explained by society’s structural shifts than by a singular focus on ideologies.

 

In her essay she starts with investigating the socio-political context in Yemen particularly the structure of how “successive Yemeni governments have interacted with Islamist groups and with society as a whole.” (326) After presenting the history and the dynamics at work between varies players in Yemeni society, Bonnefoy explains what political / structural changes led to an increase in violence in Yemen. This shift to an increase in jihadi-related violence has been explained in two different ways: “First, it was suggested that AQAP (al-Qa’ida in the Arabian Peninsula) has changed its strategy and has been able to learn from the errors of fellow jihadi groups, particularly those coming from Iraq and Saudi Arabia.” (333) This interpretation is built on the assumptions that the AQAP exists apart from Yemeni society at large. It fails to take into consideration what socio-political circumstances have led to an increase in violence. This explanation of the increase in violence in Yemen “focuses on ideology and ends up legitimizing the emerging sub-discipline of ‘jihadology’ to try to make sense of the new AQAP ‘enemy’ and evaluate its ‘threat’ and expose its ‘plans.’” (333) However, attributing so much to ideology is a too simplistic understanding of the increase of violence in Yemen.

 

The second explanation of increase in violence in Yemen goes as follows: “… the change in attitude of violent groups was primarily linked to a transformation of the structure of state / society relations and to an increase in repression.” (333) It is important to clarify that this second explanation does not deny “ideology” as a variable in the increase in violence. However, it argues for the increase in violence based on the shift in the structure of state / society relations and to an increase in repression.

 

My takeaway of the essay is as follows: Like everything else, terrorist violence needs to be understood with in its socio/political context in which it is embedded.