Dear <<Salutation>> <<Last Name>>:

On the eighth anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the threat of another such spectacular act of performance violence seems to have waned, but those who fight the unseen war in the name of God have not declared an end to their struggle.

Professor Mark Juergensmeyer and terrorism expert Steven Simon offer helpful metaphors for understanding religious militants, militant groups and their behavior.

“Almost to a person, they [the militants] think of themselves as soldiers in a war – an invisible war; and through these acts they are trying to wake us up into their view of the world at war,” said Juergensmeyer, director of Global and International Studies and Professor of Sociology and Religious Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Juergensmeyer said outrageous acts such as suicide bombing can be understood as “performance violence” -- “The act is meant for its own sake, to be seen – to show a government’s vulnerability and the possibility of some kind of transformation. It’s almost performance art, an act, conceptual theater designed to draw us into their world view. They act; they perform to what they perceive is a sympathetic audience.”

During the previous administration’s “war on terror,” government officials often likened Al Qaeda to snake, which can be killed by cutting off its head -- in this case by eliminating Osama bin Laden and his top deputies. Steven Simon, Senior Fellow for Middle Eastern Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, said the snake metaphor doesn’t work if the snake can continually re-grow its head.

“These zoomorphic images are very revealing about the way in which people deal with the situation,” he said. “If on the other hand you don’t believe it’s like a snake, but more like a deadly mold, you might get a better sense of the difficulty in developing strategy to deal with it.”

Read more from Simon and Juergensmeyer in the Web Sage primers, Inside the Global Jihad and Getting Inside the Minds of Religious Militants.

Also see the Web Sage section on religion, politics and culture, which includes articles on the “clash of civilizations,” world religions and more.

October lecture series

Web Sage President Bruce Murray will deliver a series of lectures on religion and politics at the United University Church on the USC campus, Oct. 6, Oct. 13 and Oct. 20.  Click here for details.