Calling Terror Terror
Oliver Kamm is a moderate and careful online commentator. Here is a part of what he says about the misunderstanding of what terrorism really is in the media, and when the term should be used:"" The democratic state uses violence, and terrorists use violence; but these acts are not alike.
No one has perceived the essential moral difference more clearly than the historian Conor Cruise O'Brien, who as a Labour member of the Irish government in the 1970s argued cogently (and at great personal risk) against Republican terrorism and its sympathisers. In a lecture on Granada Television in 1976 (reproduced in his book Herod: Reflections on Political Violence 1978, pp. 77-8) he said:
Institutionalized violence is a necessary part of every organized state, since without its availability any state would disintegrate. But those who make most use of the term tend to ignore the fact that the institutionalization of violence within a democratic system is the most responsible way available to us for containing violence.
Democratic institutions can be altered by non-violent means; the use of violence by the democratic state is subject to scrutiny and criticism, and abuses can be punished and corrected. None of this works perfectly, but it works to some extent, and no such restrictions at all apply to other uses of violence, whether by non-democratic states or by terrorist organizations.
If the violence used by the young men who bombed London's trains and buses last July is classified as "primarily an extreme form of demonstration", it elides the most important aspect of this issue. ""
Indeed, a British professor did use that absurd phrase recently.
Despite O'Brien's rational and enlightened view, the media are regularly glossing over whether even Jihadists are really terrorists. If Iraq is 'occupied' by a foreign army, supposedly anything goes in using violence to stop that. "Look at France in WWII", they cry, ignoring all the vital distinctions. Iraq has had several democratic elections, and the foreign military are now there at the express wish of those elected.
Moreover, the terrorism in Iraq is not aimed only at this military, but indiscriminately at all kinds of citizens. There is also sectarian terrorism there between Sunni and Shi'ite, which is partly carry-over terror revenge issuing from the horrible treatment various groups suffered under Saddam Hussein; but it is also a terror tactic to try to foment a civil war.
None of this is comparable to the Resistance in France.
Another bad example of avoiding the word terror when it fully applies, is the recent use of a weaselly circumlocution to avoid calling Hamas terrorists, presumably because an elected party cannot be so called despite their recent history. [Following the ambiguity always allowed to the terrorist Arafat's PLO]
The sort of phrase used instead of 'Hamas' terrorism' is 'employing means that are not supported by Western ideals or aims'. This is like saying that Hitler stopped terrorizing Jews and others when he was appointed leader of Germany.
Good grief. Moral blindness and relativism rules!
posted by Barrie @ 4/17/2006 04:23:00 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home