Terror and Tyranny Seumas Milne

For a war that, in the words of US Vice-President Dick Cheney, "may never end", the
enemy is proving embarrassingly hard to define. Of course, we know all about Osama
bin Laden, supposed mastermind of the twin towers attacks, and his Taliban protectors,
and we have become ominously aware of the demands from within the US
administration that Iraq be brought into the frame. But this campaign is intended to be
something grander still. The bombs and missiles now raining down on Afghanistan
have been proclaimed as the curtain-raiser of a war against terror itself, which will not
cease until the scourge of political violence is dealt with once and for all. The days of
toleration for any form of terrorism from Baghdad to Ballymurphy are, it is said, now
over. British ministers may mutter that the war is aimed at al-Qaida and the Taliban
alone - but then they are not in charge.

Yet for all the square-jawed resolution on display in western capitals about the
prosecution of this war, there is little agreement even within the heart of the coalition
about what terrorism actually means. Both the EU and the UN are struggling to come
up with an acceptable definition. The European Commission has produced a
formulation so broad it would include anti-globalisation protesters who smash
McDonald's windows; while Kofi Annan, UN secretary-general, warned wearily that
reaching a consensus would be well-nigh impossible since "one man's terrorist is
another man's freedom fighter". President Bush has pledged that the war will not cease
so long as "anybody is terrorising established governments" and Britain's latest
terrorism legislation outlaws support for groups opposing any regime, including an
illegal one, with violence.

Pacifists apart, however, virtually everyone across the political spectrum supports
terrorism in practice - or, rather, what passes for terrorism under the rubric being
promulgated by western chancelleries. The transformation from terrorist to respected
statesman has become a cliche of the international politics of the past 50 years, now
being replayed in Northern Ireland. Almost every society, philosophy and religion has
recognised the right to take up arms against tyranny or foreign occupation. In History
Will Absolve Me, his 1953 trial speech after the abortive Moncada barracks attack, Fidel
Castro reels off a string of thinkers and theologians - from Thomas Aquinas and John
Salisbury to John Calvin and Thomas Paine - who defended the right to rebel against
despots. In modern times, few would question the heroism or justice of the wartime
resistance to the Nazis or of armed rebellions against British or French colonial rule, all
damned as terrorists by those they fought.

More recently still, the US government trained and funded the armed contra rebellion
against Nicaragua - ably assisted by John Negroponte, the current US ambassador to
the UN and in defiance of the international court in the Hague. Along with its faithful
British ally, the US also backed the Afghan mojahedin (even before the Soviet
intervention), as it is now funding opposition groups waging bombing campaigns in
Iraq. So the Bush administration's problem with terrorism is evidently not about
breaking the state's monopoly of violence.
The right to resist occupation is in any case recognised under international law and the
Geneva convention, which is one reason why routine western denunciations of
Palestinian violence ring so utterly hollow. Having failed to dislodge the Israeli
occupation after 34 years or implement the UN decision to create a Palestinian state
after 54 years, there are few reasonable grounds to complain if those living under the
occupation fight back. But the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestinian, which
last week assassinated Israel's racist tourism minister in response to the Israeli
assassination of its leader in August, is officially regarded as a terrorist organisation by
the US government, which has now successfully pressured the Palestinian leadership to
ban its military wing.

The tendency in recent years, encouraged by the scale of last month's atrocity in New
York, has been to define terrorism increasingly in terms of methods and tactics -
particularly the targeting of civilians - rather than the status of those who carry it out.
Such an approach has its own difficulties. Liberation movements which most would
balk at branding terrorist, including the ANC and the Algerian FLN, attacked civilian
targets - as so mesmerisingly portrayed in Pontecorvo's film Battle of Algiers. But more
problematic for western governments is the way such arguments can be turned against
them. The concept of modern terrorism derives, after all, from the French revolution,
where terror was administered by the state - as it is today by scores of governments
around the world.

If paramilitary groups become terrorists because they kill or injure civilians, what of
those states which bomb television stations, bridges and power stations, train and arm
death squads or authorise assassinations? After days when hundreds of Afghan civilians
are reported to have died as a result of Anglo-American bombardment - while hundreds
of thousands are fleeing for their lives - Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's remark
that the aim was to "frighten" the other side couldn't have more sharply posed the
paradox of terror.

In his City of God, Saint Augustine tells a story about an encounter between Alexander
the Great (the last ruler successfully to garrison Afghanistan) and a pirate captain he
had caught on the high seas. Ordering the pirate to heave to, Alexander demands: "How
dare you molest the seas as a pirate?" "How dare you molest the whole world?" retorts
the plucky pirate. "I have a small boat, so I am called a thief and a pirate. You have a
great navy, so you are called an emperor, and can call other men pirates." Substitute
terrorist or rogue state for pirate and the episode neatly encapsulates the morality of
the new world order.

Political violence emerges when other avenues are closed. Where people suffer
oppression, are denied a peaceful route to justice and social change and have exhausted
all other tactics - the point the ANC reached in the early 1960s - they are surely entitled
to use force. That does not apply to adventurist and socially disconnected groups like
Baader Meinhof or the Red Brigades, nor does it deal with the question of whether such
force is advisable or likely to be counter-productive. Islamist "jihad" groups, especially
networks like al-Qaida with a "global reach" and a religious ideology impervious to
accommodation, are considered by many to be beyond any normal calculus of
repression and resistance. Certainly, the September 11 atrocity was an unprecedented
act of non-state terror. But such groups are also unquestionably the product of
conditions in the Arab and Muslim world for which both Britain and the US bear a
heavy responsibility, through their unswerving support of despotic regimes for over half
a century. It was precisely that blockage of democratic development that led to the
failure of secular politics, which in turn paved the way for the growth of Islamist
radicalism. Groups like al-Qaida offer no future to the Muslim world, but Bin Laden
and his supporters have their boots sunk deep in a swamp of grievance. As the assault
on Afghanistan continues, no one should delude themselves that cutting off al-Qaida's
head or destroying its Afghan lair will put an end to this eruption.

What is Terrorism?
Since the terrible events of September 11, 2001, with the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon,
the subject of terrorism has exploded on the world stage. President George W. Bush has declared a war against
terrorism. The vast resources of the United States and other countries have been directed toward ending
terrorism in America and around the world. Yet, in spite of these developments, it is clear that countries are not
only divided about what to do about terrorism, but even about how to define it.

By its nature, the term "terrorism" is bound up in political controversy. It is a concept with a very negative
connotation. Because terrorism implies the killing and maiming of innocent people, no country wants to be
accused of supporting terrorism or harboring terrorist groups. At the same time, no country wants what it
considers to be a legitimate use of force to be considered terrorism. An old saying goes, "One person's terrorist
is another person's freedom fighter."

Terrorists often justify their acts on ideological or religious grounds arguing that they are responding to a greater
wrong or are promoting a greater good. For example, Leon Trotsky, a communist leader during the Russian
Revolution, justified the use of terror by the Red Army as a necessary evil to promote the worldwide cause of
workers and as a response to the military actions of counterrevolutionaries and Western powers.