Remembering International Terrorist Attacks

Research Paper (postgraduate) from the year 2014 in the subject Sociology - Social System Social Structure Class Social Stratification grade: 17 Humboldt-University of Berlin (Institut für Asien- und Afrikawissenschaften) course: Memory Making and Heritage in Southeast Asia language: English abstract: Worldwide numerous terrorist attacks have shattered societies. In recent time especially those generating a sense of the West versus the Muslim world gained large public attention such as the attacks of the World Trade Center in New York City in 2001 and the bombings of Madrid in 2004 and London in 2005. Attacks such as these have not only happened on 'Western ground' but also Indonesia has been a victim of several terrorist attacks mainly targeting sites predominantly visited by Westerners such as the hotel bombings in Jakarta in 2009 and the Bali Bombings in 2002 and 2005. The initiator of these terrorist attacks was the Islamic group Jemaah Islamiah with its spiritual leader Abu Bakar Bashir (West 2008). This organization strives for an introduction of Shariah law in Muslim nations and perceives the Islamic faith to be oppressed by increasing influence of Western values in the Islamic World (West 2008). Jemaah Islamiah thus justifies its attacks as defending the religion of Islam and its values from the perceived thread of the Western influence. Large attacks such as these in Indonesia lead to a large media attention especially the random and high number of foreign victims lead to worldwide attention (Blakesley 2007; Crenshaw 2000; Turk 2004). Therefore following definition of terrorism by Gibbs (in Turk 2004 p. 284) will be used in this paper:Terrorism is threatening perhaps illegal clandestine (avoiding conventional warfare) violence against human or nonhuman objects that is intended to change or maintain some belief law institution or other social norm by inculcating fear in persons other than the immediate targets. Gibbs ther