Almost Human: What Makes Someone A Terrorist?

Consider the American revolution; consider the Resistance fighters in France during World War II; consider the Israelis in Palestine and later the Palestinians in Israel. Objectively, there is no difference in their motivation, their actions, and some of their tactics; yet only the latter group is labeled ‘terrorist’. In reality, these laws against terrorism are actually laws against Arabs and Islamic people. While many will doubt this or simply deny it, most Arab and Islamic people see it very clearly. The world is fundamentally a racist place; and the current object of derision among westerners is the swarthy A-rab. Even the usual victims of racism have joined in this distrust and dislike of all things Islamic and this distaste has become so widespread and so acceptable in otherwise decent circles that it is becoming almost obligatory. Since September 11, 2001, ‘why do they hate us’ has been a frequently asked question. And it usually presupposes that ‘they’ means Arabs or other Islamic people. I am unaware of any reason to not believe that the perpetrators of the September 11 attacks were exactly who the American officials say they were. Further, it may also be safe to accept that Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaeda organization were behind, or at least connected with, the September 11 attackers. But the fact the perpetrators may have been Islamic does not mean this was an Islamic attack. If they had all been Roman Catholic instead, would we now be bombing St. Peter’s Basilica? A counterattack against exclusively Islamic and Arab targets has been the response of the world. Wars are usually between nations, but in this case we have a war against a specific group of people and it can have nothing but catastrophic results. Those who are being targeted and demonized have not lost sight of the fact that despite political and social upheaval elsewhere in the world, the only target of the ‘war on terrorism’ is Islamic. Their countries are under attack, or threat of it, for fabricated reasons; their assets are being frozen or seized without any due process; their movements are being restricted; they are subjected to scrutiny that would have most of us running for our lawyers. Within individual countries in the loose alliance of anti-terrorist nations, governments have seized a golden opportunity to thump political and social dissidents as part of their local war on terror. They have in some cases taken the opportunity to suspend or remove civil liberties and rule of law within their borders in a bid to stifle even legitimate opposition. By simply labelling it ‘terrorism’, political opposition is readily vilified and made anathema. But what exactly qualifies something as ‘terrorism’? We have all heard the notion that what is terrorism to one person is freedom fighting to another, that terrorism is in the eye of the beholder. The fact is that terrorism is anything someone declares it to be; generally, fighting for a cause you don’t support with methods you don’t like makes someone a ‘terrorist’ and it allows you to declare that cause, those actions, and the perpetrator to be the ultimate evil. Even concepts like ‘mass murder’ and ‘sabotage’ don’t carry the demonizing power of the word ‘terrorism’. And yet the actions are almost always the same. The motivations of those (alleged) nineteen men on September 11 are incomprehensible to many of us; but only because of the horror we all saw and our inability to separate the pictures from the motives. Yet they did nothing more than murder innocent people in what may have been an act of political protest; freedom fighters round the world have done the same thing, if not on so large a scale, for centuries. When Churchill ordered the senseless bombing of Dresden during World War II, or the Shah of Iran ordered mass killings of his people, or Janet Reno ordered the attack on the Koresh compound in Waco — what makes these actions escape being labelled as ‘terrorism’? “A crime labelled ‘terrorism’ is almost always punished more severely than the same act to which the label ‘terrorism’ is not attached. Thus, killing to advance a cause in which one deeply believes is deemed more reprehensible than killing because one dislikes the victim or wants to steal his property. One can understand why those in power might consider the former motivation more dangerous. The moral and ethical balance between the two motivations is less clear. Any dispassionate analysis of the use of the word ‘terrorism’ also reveals that the choice to use or not to use the word is frequently based not on the act itself but on who is doing it to whom.” (John V. Whitbeck) So now consider how the Arab and Islamic world views their religion and their way of life being the only target of the ‘war on terrorism’. Then ask yourself if the leaders of the ‘war’ have not openly declared that the quiet racism against Islam no longer needs to kept in the closet. It has become almost mandatory among ‘civilized’ people. Arabs and Muslims have long been aware of a tendency to consider them something less than fully human, or at least not entitled to the same level of human rights as everyone else, and the blinding hatred against them that arose after September 11 is a truly frightening thing. A ‘war on terrorism’ which labels all efforts by Arabs and Muslims to correct deeply felt wrongs as not only illegitimate but also criminal, and treats Arabs and Muslims as suspects with ‘terrorist’ intent and unworthy of basic human rights, is almost certain to produce even worse instances of precisely what this ‘war’ is supposedly intended to eradicate. And therein lies the great peril before us: terror begets terror. Nineteen men with box cutters temporarily brought to its knees the greatest power the world has ever known and changed it forever; in response, that power terrorized a nation which was neither the base of nor the home country of any of the alleged perpetrators. But we didn’t call that ‘terrorism’, we called it justice. Those nineteen men succeeded in bringing about suspension or removal of many of the rights and liberties of the country claiming to be the most free on earth. Acts of terrorism are usually committed by the weak against the strong and generally the actions committed are the only useful options available to the weaker party. Most ‘terrorists’ would far prefer to fight with sophisticated weapons, to drop bombs and missiles from the safety of the sky or the ocean, but such weaponry is not usually within their grasp. So they use the delivery systems they can muster, be that commandeered aircraft or their own bodies. No one dares to criticize the countries involved in the war on terrorism. Even accepting that some people labelled as ‘terrorists’ are truly reprehensible people, many others are simply idealists of one stripe or another motivated by very legitimate grievances which are completely incapable of being redressed in the absence of dramatic and catastrophic action. In the United States, where a national fever has gripped since September 11 that calls out for revenge, civil liberties are shredded and constitutional protections are abrogated to thunderous applause in some circles, and at least quiet acquiescence in most others. It is astonishing to think that nineteen little men could accomplish such a level of damage beyond the actual killing of the day. Prior to September 11, the Taliban was considered by most people (including most Muslims) to be a backward and repressive group. When the United States decided that Afghanistan must be where bin Laden was hiding and demanded that he be turned over, the Taliban sealed Afghanistan’s fate by daring to ask for proof. That resulted in an immediate change from ‘backward repression’ to ‘harbouring terrorists’ to actually being ‘terrorists’, all within the blink of an eye. It didn’t matter that the United States offered no proof or that it had no treaties of extradition with Afghanistan. It didn’t matter that the US had long had a list of ‘terrorist’ states and that neither Afghanistan nor the Taliban appeared on that list. The mullahs of Afghanistan tried to characterize the war on terrorism as a war against Islam — and they were right. This was purely a war of revenge against a target that was easy because its people were already despised. There is an old adage that if someone is cornered and the only way out is over top of you, that’s the route he will choose. We have repeatedly failed to notice when the other guy was trapped in a corner, or we have been so cocky as to assume he wouldn’t dare. But the world must recognize that it is full of injustice. And in a world where the only tool available to the oppressed in their efforts to alleviate their misery might be violence, it must be expected that violence will occur. Rather than fighting back with even greater oppression, it behoves those in power to seek to redress some of the concerns of the complainants; it may be very possible to avoid a lot of unnecessary violence and death. Recently, there were massive explosions in the subways of Madrid. Although at the time I am writing this there have been arrests, no one has been convicted. Still, it appears that at least some of the perpetrators were Moroccan, an Islamic nation. Coincidentally, this bombing occurred just days before Spaniards were to go to the polls in a national election. The sitting government was rejected in favour of a party that was always opposed to Spain’s participation in and support for the war in Iraq (ver. 2.0). Many political pundits around the world have condemned the Spanish, saying they have capitulated and that the terrorists have won because the new president has already confirmed he will withdraw Spain’s troops. I think those pundits are failing to understand the dynamic of the political reality but, more important, they are failing to identify the real victors in the Spanish election: democracy and reason. It is no secret that upwards of 90% of Spain's citizens opposed their government's support for and participation in what they considered to be an illegal invasion of Iraq. If they had any doubt about how some of the friends and relatives of the victims of that war felt about the invasion, the bombs in Madrid's subway will have certainly erased those doubts. But the reaction of the voters is not a capitulation or appeasement as many seem to think; it is a democratic rejection of the government whose actions they believe were responsible for instigating the subway bombings. And the promise of withdrawal from Iraq by Spain's new prime minister is a restating of his previous rejection of the Iraq policy and a careful response to the wishes of his constituents. But there continues to be a real disconnect in the whole debate about terrorism. It is certainly out there, and it is certainly deadly, but any sensible person should be able to understand that addressing the causes would probably eliminate the terror. Instead, we blithely refuse to accept that terrorists may have legitimate grievances while the truly committed among them continue to try to exorcise those grievances with the only weapons they have. If the perpetrators of these acts are, as we persist in believing, beyond appeasement, then it follows that their goal was not to defeat the Spanish prime minister. Rather, in the classic gambit of clandestine resistance, the goal was more likely to elicit a knee-jerk and brutal reaction against apolitical Muslims who might then be more readily co-opted into militant ranks. If that is the case, then the Spanish election was not a victory for terror, it was a defeat. But if we all continue down a path where our only response is to fight fire with even more fire, then we better break out the asbestos suits. It seems Spanish voters were smart enough to realize this. * This writer owes a debt of thanks to international lawyer John V. Whitbeck who shared with me his article ‘Terrorism: The Word Itself is Dangerous’ which was commissioned by the quarterly journal GLOBAL DIALOGUE (Nicosia).