|
ok so we are going to do this. fine.
barging in on a conversation requires that you say something
so let me dispense with the static being caused already by my old pal, the noun "terrorism"
there are no terrorist organizations.
there are political organizations that sometimes use terrorist tactics.
a terrorist tactic is in general the targeting of civilians.
it is obvious that in practice the word "terrorism" only obtains when a non-state organization that is not officially sanctioned by the united states acts in a way that do not further the interests of the united states.
and of course we know that states have recourse to the notion of "total war" and they get to sanction their military actions my assembling factions of the ruling class to pass nice laws and promulgate Impressive Declarations and when these Impressive Declarations are written they go on the nice stationary and when they are printed they get set in Suitably Martial Typeset and so obviously when a state attacks a civilian population it is necessarily within the purview of war---so when israel dropped cluster bombs on southern lebanon it was collateral damage---but because of the lack of nice laws, Important Promulgations, affirmation by members of the ruling oligarchy and nice stationary, a hezbollah rocket shot into israel is terrorism blah blah blah.
and we have also had a six year piece of performance art undertaken by those fine fellows in the bush administration called "the war on terror" that gives everyone a good idea if just how effective this word is in getting people to understand fuck all but be afraid anyway.
so if there is to be a discussion of the conflicts that set israel against arab, and in the course of that conversation the word "terrorist" is going to float around, that conversation can and will go nowhere.
to say an organization is "terrorist" and then pretend to say something about it analytically it is like being asked to analyze the biological organization of the pole bean plant and responding: "i dont like them"
__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
-kamau brathwaite
|