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Heroic memory and contemporary war

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 October 2019

Gilbert Holleufer
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Abstract

Inter-State wars seem to have come to an end in the late 1990s; ever since, the global reality of collective violence has come down to the chaos of contemporary civil wars and terrorist attacks. In this article, it will be argued that in today's civil wars, as well as in terrorist violence, the traditional warrior ethos is fading, giving way to types of violence governed by a new psychological and social paradigm. In other words, it is assumed that the very set of values that has universally determined the male gender role and the frame of hegemonic masculinity since time immemorial has also informed the waging of war according to a “heroic regime of violence”, and this phenomenon has made war a desirable option for countless generations of young men. On the other hand, the global changes entailed by modernity seem to have undermined this warrior ethos, giving way to a “post-heroic regime” in which extermination-oriented violence, rather than combat-oriented violence, is fostered. In this article, the author will scrutinize the founding psychological and social determinants that have so far upheld the cultural construct of the heroic model, in order to illuminate the ominous consequences of the deculturation of war in today's chaotic conflicts. In such contexts, the men who are fighting1 suffer from a loss of meaning and the impossibility of gaining dignity and social recognition in an ecosystem of humiliation and ubiquitous violence that has little to do with the expectations of pride and dignity conveyed by the past ideals of heroism associated with a certain vision of masculinity. The article will also discuss ways and means of getting the message of international humanitarian law through to men on the front lines caught up in such circumstances.

Keywords

fightersheroismmasculinitiesarmed conflictterrorism
Type
Reconciliation and (re)writing history: What to remember
Information
International Review of the Red Cross , Volume 101 , Issue 910: Memory and war , April 2019 , pp. 229 - 249
Copyright
Copyright © icrc 2019 

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Footnotes

1

While it is a reality that combatants have historically been predominantly male, it is important to remember that women and girls are also involved in conflict, both as part of the military and fighting forces and through being impacted by sexual and gender-based violence. In this article, the author focuses his reflections on the experiences of men on the front lines.

References

2 The terms “terrorism” and “civil war” are not defined in international law. As regards terrorism, the author will hereinafter use the definition proposed by Alex P. Schmid, i.e. “an anxiety-inspiring method of repeated violent action, employed by (semi-)clandestine individual, group, or state actors, for idiosyncratic, criminal, or political reasons, whereby – in contrast to assassination – the direct targets of violence are not the main targets. The immediate human victims of violence are generally chosen randomly (targets of opportunity) or selectively (representative or symbolic targets) from a target population, and serve as message generators.” Schmid, Alex P. and Jongman, Albert J., Political Terrorism: A New Guide to Actors, Authors, Concepts, Data Bases, Theories and Literature, Transaction Books, New Brunswick, 1988, p. 28Google Scholar.

“Civil war” is a term that is even harder to define. It no longer refers to the wars of liberation, decolonization or independence that made up the conventional typology of civil wars; rather, it now refers to wars between communal, ethnic and religious groups, such as those that became more common at the end of the twentieth century – wars between “neighbours”, certainly, but literally wars “against civilians”, who are these conflicts’ primary victims. They are infra-State wars, characterized by an outbreak of violence that disrupts the internal structures of a community, whose constituent sub-groups previously coexisted in a common territory and on the basis of balanced compromises. They are wars that originate in an explosion of traumatic events caused by a breakdown in social trust, leading to violence that tears up the social contract.

The recent history of Afghanistan shows how a liberation war can descend dramatically into an “inter-ethnic” civil war: when victory was secured against the Soviet-aligned regime and the Red Army, the war of liberation that had previously been a source of meaning, pride and hope for all involved turned into a fratricidal struggle, absurd but deadly, between rival clans, factions and ethnic groups.

3 The People on War project consisted of a quantitative and qualitative survey of fighters and civilians in twelve regions devastated by war in the second half of the twentieth century: Afghanistan, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Cambodia, Colombia, El Salvador, Georgia and Abkhazia, Israel and Palestine, Lebanon, Nigeria, the Philippines, Somalia and South Africa. Overall, more than 14,000 civilians and combatants responded to the questionnaire and more than 100 discussion sessions were held, including some in regions that were exceptionally difficult to access. For a first primary synthesis on the quantitative findings of the survey, see ICRC, The People on War Report: ICRC Worldwide Consultation on the Rules of War, Geneva, October 1999, available at: www.icrc.org/en/publication/people-war-report-icrc-worldwide-consultation-rules-war (all internet references were accessed in July 2019).

4 For an illustration of the dilemmas arising in the post-Cold War period regarding methods of implementing humanitarian law, see Stephens, Dr Dale’ critical discussion entitled “Behaviour in War: The Place of Law, Moral Inquiry and Self-Identity”, International Review of the Red Cross, Vol. 96, No. 895–896, 2014CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 Gilbert Holleufer, Jennifer Leaning and Nancy Briton, “Afghanistan: Country Report”, “Bosnia-Herzegovina: Country Report” and “Israel and Palestine: Country Report”, in The Harvard People on War Project, 2002. Unpublished, on file with author.

6 Holleufer, Gilbert and Cotter, Philippe, Humiliation and War, Eclectica Editions, Geneva, 2010, p. 12Google Scholar. This one-off publication, in which the authors borrow from the People on War project discussed in this article, summarizes the main results of the research carried out at Harvard.

7 Ibid.

8 Khalid, Maryam, “Gender, Orientalism and Representations of the ‘Other’ in the War on Terror”, Global Change, Peace & Security, Vol. 23, No. 1, 2011CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The term “toxic masculinity” is also affiliated with war: see Connell, Robert W., Masculinities, 2nd ed., Polity Press, Oxford, 2005Google Scholar; Kimmel, Michael S, Hearn, Jeff and Connell, Robert W (eds), Handbook of Studies on Men and Masculinities, Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA, 2005Google Scholar.

9 However, see M. S Kimmel, J. Hearn and R. W Connell (eds), above note 8, pointing to the influence of both gender and culture in shaping masculine norms. From the anthropological point of view, the roles of the masculine and feminine genders must under no circumstances be confused with biological characteristics. Many women have taken on the gender role traditionally assigned to men in a wide range of cultures, fighting on the front line “like men”. Female Kurdish fighters, who played a “heroic” role in the war of liberation conducted by their community against the Islamic State group, are currently the best-known example, but there have been many others in the past. For more on masculine gender roles, see R.W. Connell, above note 8. “To speak of masculinities is to speak about gender relations. Masculinities are not equivalent to men; they concern the position of men in a gender order. They can be defined as the patterns of practice by which people (both men and women, though predominantly men) engage that position”: Raewyn Connell, “Masculinities”, available at: www.raewynconnell.net/p/masculinities_20.html.

10 There are certain parallels between the warrior ethos and the concept of hegemonic masculinity. For more, see R. W. Connell, above note 8.

11 Mawson, Anthony, Mass Panic and Social Attachment: The Dynamics of Human Behavior, Ashgate, Farnham, 2012Google Scholar.

12 Ibid.

13 Honneth, Axel, The Struggle for Recognition, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1996Google Scholar. Concerning the theory of attachment, the essential reference is the work of its founder, John Bowlby: see John Bowlby, Attachment and Loss, Vol. 1: Attachment, Basic Books, New York, 1969; Attachment and Loss, Vol. 2: Separation: Anxiety & Anger, Hogarth Press, London, 1973; and Attachment and Loss, Vol. 3: Loss: Sadness & Depression, Hogarth Press, London, 1980.

14 There is no single idea of a “real” man. One may argue that the term refers to norms which change based on geography, culture and time. See Kimmel, Michael and Aronson, Amy, Men and Masculinities: A Social, Cultural, and Historical Encyclopedia, Vol. 1: A–J, ABC-CLIO, Oxford, 2004Google Scholar.

15 See, for example, Gilligan, James, Preventing Violence, Thames and Hudson, New York, 2001Google Scholar.

16 Ibid., p. 29.

17 A. Honneth, above note 13.

18 This links again to the work of Axel Honneth, who does not view social conflicts in terms of biological or material interests per se, or in terms of self-preservation, but always in relation to the need for symbolic recognition, which is given form by the often excessive material wealth and privileges that powerful men, with their oversized need for recognition, strive to gain.

19 See, in particular, Badie, Bertrand, Le temps des humiliés: Pathologie des relations internationales, Odile Jacob, Paris, 2014, p. 13Google Scholar. Badie very simply defines the concept of institutional humiliation as the process by which a status inferior to the desired status of an individual, a group, or a State is authoritatively conferred by another individual, group or State, which therefore places the latter party in a position of superiority. War radicalizes this process in a paroxysmal way.

20 For more details on the notion of “orders of recognition” as major structures that regulate social interaction, see Ricœur, Paul, The Just, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL, 2003Google Scholar.

21 Dunant, Henry, A Memory of Solferino, ICRC, Geneva, 1959 (first published 1862)Google Scholar.

22 There has been a great deal of literature on this subject from the end of the Second World War to the present day: see, for example, Marshall, S. L. A., Men against Fire: The Problem of Battle Command, University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, OK, 1947Google Scholar; Janowitz, Morris, The Professional Soldier: A Social and Political Portrait, The Free Press, Glencoe, IL, 1960Google Scholar; Wong, Leonard, Kolditz, Thomas A., Millen, Raymond A. and Potter, Terrence M., Why They Fight: Combat Motivation in the Iraq War, Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War College, Carlisle, PA, 2003Google Scholar.

23 Herman, Judith, Trauma and Recovery, Basic Books, Philadelphia, PA, 1992, p. 25Google Scholar.

24 Regarding the traumatic origin of violence and the way it is passed down through the generations through social learning in disciplinary and authoritarian patriarchal societies, see the interesting study by de Zulueta, Felicity, From Pain to Violence: The Traumatic Roots of Destructiveness, John Wiley & Sons, Chichester, 2006CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

25 ICRC, above note 3.

26 J. Gilligan, above note 15, p. 29.

27 As regards this type of collective descent into hell, it is impossible not to refer to Browning, Christopher's essential work, Ordinary Men: Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland, Harper Collins, New York, 1992Google Scholar. However, the extraordinary accounts of Hutu killers, reported in Rwanda by Jean Hatzfeld, are possibly even more illuminating. See Hatzfeld, Jean, Machete Season: The Killers in Rwanda Speak, Picador, New York, 2006Google Scholar; and The Antelope’s Strategy: Living in Rwanda after the Genocide, Picador, New York, 2010.

28 See Muchembled, Robert, A History of Violence: From the End of the Middle Ages to the Present, Polity Press, Cambridge, 2011Google Scholar; Elias, Norbert, The Civilizing Process, 2nd ed., Wiley-Blackwell, London, 2000Google Scholar.

29 See von Clausewitz, Carl, On War, trans. Howard, Michael and Paret, Peter, David Campbell Publishers, London, 1993Google Scholar.

30 For example, the contexts of Afghanistan, Angola, Congo, the former Yugoslavia, Liberia, Mozambique, Somalia, South Africa, South Sudan, Iraq, Libya, Syria and Yemen could be mentioned. We could add, while emphasizing the obvious difference in scale, the Rwanda genocide, the causes of which feature dynamics similar to those of civil wars in the post-Cold War era. This tendency is paradigmatic in the author's view, although it should be noted that in certain infra-State conflict situations, “heroic” motivations, the sense of one's own history and purpose, clearly still exist. In the Kurdish fight for self-determination or in the Israel–Palestine conflict, to take just two examples, the motivation and bravery of many fighters is based, albeit to varying extents, on a consistent, consensual heroic narrative.

31 This is the counterintuitive view of Scott Atran, who believes that the West is making a major strategic mistake by closing its eyes to the genuine appeal of the Islamic State. Scott Atran, “ISIS Is a Revolution”, Aeon, available at: https://aeon.co/essays/why-isis-has-the-potential-to-be-a-world-altering-revolution.

32 See Hearn, Jeff, “From Hegemonic Masculinity to the Hegemony of Men”, Feminist Theory, Vol. 5, No. 1, 2004CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

33 See Enzensberger, Hans Magnus, Le perdant radical, Gallimard, Paris, 2006Google Scholar; Hans Magnus Enzensberger, “The Terrorist Mindset: The Radical Loser”, Spiegel Online, 20 December 2006, available at: www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/the-terrorist-mindset-the-radical-loser-a-451379.html.

34 While Olivier Roy, an expert in Islam, is right to state that the “umma” does not exist other than in a Western fantasy, the People on War accounts relating to Afghanistan emphasized the extent to which a form of “ideal umma” remains a reference in the minds of many Muslims exposed to violence and the dissolution of their specific culture, who find in it a consoling hope of a “superior” identity. See G. Holleufer and P. Cotter, above note 6, p. 25 ff.

35 In the conclusion to his essay, Hans-Magnus Enzensberger emphasizes unambiguously the systemic nature of the “radical loser” phenomenon, which is a product of our modern times: “Attacks [by radical losers] represent a permanent background risk, like ordinary everyday deaths by accident on the streets, to which we have become accustomed. In a global society that constantly produces new losers, this is something we will have to live with.” H. M. Enzensberger, Le perdant radical, above note 33, p. 57. Our modern times constantly exclude certain individuals, whose violence can therefore not be reduced to any disease of individual subjectivity.

36 See, in particular, Roy, Olivier, Jihad and Death: The Global Appeal of Islamic State, Hurst Publishers, London, 2017Google Scholar.

37 S. Atran, above note 31.

38 The author chooses to focus on Western societies as an example because he believes they could feel particular frustration since the West tends to consider itself as being in charge of global security issues.

39 The useful work done by Edward Luttwak on “post-heroic warfare” should be mentioned. Luttwak analyzes in detail the Western tendency to avoid loss of life and its consequences in conducting war in his essay “Toward Post-Heroic Warfare”, Foreign Affairs, May–June 1995. However, the present author uses the term “post-heroic” in its more widely accepted meaning, which aims to include the experiences of fighters in conventional armed forces and in the full range of irregular armed formations seen today, within the same overarching psycho-social reality.

40 Regarding the ethical issues arising from drone warfare, see the outstanding book by Grégoire Chamayou, Drone Theory, Penguin, London, 2015.

41 A. Honneth, above note 13.

42 For example, there are numerous fighters who have no knowledge of international humanitarian law. One may argue that their original culture should have taught them some traditional rules as warriors, but this may not be the case today given the above-mentioned global deculturation of war, which places it further from the traditional “paradigms” of war.

43 This story is a personal memory of the author.