Terrorism -- What is it and why?

In the couple of years since 9/11 the phrase "the war on terror" has become part of the political lexicon, and what seems to go with it, is an assumption that there is a consensus about what it means and to whom it applies. Two years on, I think that's far from clear.

There are, for a start, all kinds of terrorism. There is the meaning offered up generally by the mainstream media outlets. This definition is roughly synonymous with individual or small group violence directed against some target of opportunity for the individual or group in question. For want of a better term, for the rest of this post, I will describe this as "individual terror" (while noting the possibility that sovereign states may directly or indirectly foster such acts). Much of the analysis of "terrorism" focuses on this, as if it were all there were to talk about. But there is much more than this to terrorism.It seems to me that at some level at least, one can describe any action (or set of actions) that undertaken to obtain political, social or cultural ends by resort to violence (or threats of violence) as a form of terrorism. By this standard, it is not only small groups and individuals who are guilty of terrorism. The coalition that forced Saddam from power clearly used violence to obtain a political end (regime change), and in so doing they were not restrained by the knowledge that innocent people would suffer as a consequence.

The United Nations itself imposed an economic embargo on Iraq in order, ostensibly, to force compliance by the Ba'athists with Security Council resolutions, knowing full weel that a consequence of the embargo would be the reduction of large parts of the population to grinding misery and premature death. The British and American governments bombed Iraq for 12 years ostensibly to prosecute Operation Provide Comfort (now there's an Orwellian title!) even though this was not even sanctioned by the UN and they must have known they were killing innocents.

The Israeli state uses violence in the Gaza Strip and West Bank in order to obtain an end to the intifada, and once again, does not foreswear this on the basis that innocents may be harmed.So why aren't these acts seen widely as "terrorism" in the west? It is surely not a question of the intent to harm innocents. Foreknowledge that innocents will be harmed is sufficent for one to assume intent, and defences of this kind are entirely spurious. It seems to me that the principal difference lies in the actors. The governments of Britain, the United States, Israel and other countries are sufficiently well resourced and strategically positioned to carry out their acts in full view with high tech equipment, and to give them the imprimatur of state actions.

They may or may not be endorsed by their own populations, they may be seen as more or less justified according to circumstance, but for most westerners, these acts will never qualify as terrorism, and if those from the less developed world say otherwise, they are regarded as just ranting fanatics. So whether one qualifies as a terrorist is really about wealth, power and position. High tech countries with massive military infrastructure can proudly list the attempts they have made to avoid "collateral damage", cry crocodile tears for some small child burned in one of their air raids, and tout their moral superiority over those who attack non-combatants, when really what is at issue is the balance of power and advantage, rather than the ethical implications of violence.
Let me be clear. I do not condone or seek to apologise for violence against non-combatants in a conflict regardless of the cause or the group involved. Such acts are always ethically indefensible. I do however seek to understand what motivates others to think it legitimate. At first, like most people of my age, I assumed that what was at work were different paradigms different value systems surrounding human life. Yet the more I consider the matter, the less persuasive this view becomes.
It seems to me that all of us want to live, to be happy, to see good things happen to those we care about. For most people "those we care about" live near us, or speak our language, share our lifestyle or resemble us in some way. It is understandable that in a world where happiness is in short supply and misery is freely available, most of us conclude not that it should be shared around equally, but that the bulk of happiness should be reserved for those who are like us, our own "fellow travellers", and that the bulk of misery ought to fall upon people we don't know, or whom we deem backward and uncivilised, or better yet, who are invisible to us.But think of the logic of this statement! If this is so, then it applies equally to people who are not like us does it not? Why should people whose daily lives involve drinking from open sewers, or being bombed from the air with missiles from helicopter gunships, in short who UNLIKE US wake up each morning wondering if they will see nightfall care even a jot about the suffering that we might endure if someone killed one of our own? Those who can't take life for granted may conclude that we shouldn't either.

Those who think that they are bearing more than their fair share of misery may think it just that we accept some part of what is their daily lot. I wonder, if these people simply consented to "go quietly into the good night" and die, how many of us would give their fate even a passing thought? Would this be enough for the western world to make it its business to see to it that the scales of happiness and misery were balanced more fairly. There's simply no evidence at all to conclude that it would.

If people in the less developed world believe what western governments claim that they are democracies who reflect the will of the people and further, that the people in these countries either believe you deserve all the misery that is your lot or at best don't see your ending your misery as of relevance to them then it may seem rational to set about acts that change people's minds, that force your problem to be their business. Clausewitz said some years ago that war was politics, waged by military means, and while they may not have read Clausewitz, to those who think their life will soon be over in any event, the idea surely has resonance.Inevitably, just as in the west, they draw upon the resources they have. They lack laser guided precision bombs, access to satellites and AWACS, or even large well trained armies. Still less do they have the infrastructure to move personnel en masse. So attacking military targets is much harder. Worse still, it may not be effective. Horrendous loss of civilian life, particularly when these lives are those of privileged westerners who have instant access to the sympathy of the richest people of the planet is there any better way to stop being invisible and start becoming a concern? I think it was Macchiavelli who said that no prince was safe from an assassin who was prepared to die.

Well in the impoverished world there are people who have been prepared to die every day from the first day they achieved consciousness. The believe that the first world's sense of comfort, safety and remoteness is the cause of their misery. Let us all ask ourselves how we might in practice behave or feel about the sanctity of human life if this is how we felt. In fact let's not speculate. Let us simply ask ourselves how willing we are to see those who feel like this about us killed, and I think we will have the beginnings of an answer.
Killing innocents is wrong because we are all entitled to life. We all have the right to live well and long, to look forward to a future. But in practice, this is a privilege that is roughly secure only for those who live in a handful of western countries. If there is to be victory in the "war on terror" there must be progress in something quite different (and perhaps even more elusive) - the struggle for human happiness. And before we get anywhere near achieving this, I think we are going to have to deal with the question of equality. Only when happiness and misery are distributed approximately evenly will we all have the same interest in reducing the latter and augmenting the former.
In Contemplation
Chrissy