Terrorism: Destroying the world to save it?
Rich Simons, Contributor , Jakarta
---------------------------------------------------------------------- Understanding Terrorism -- Challenges, Perspectives, and Issues Gus Martin, Sage Publications Inc. 2003 413 pp ---------------------------------------------------------------
Since Sept. 11, 2001, the whole world has been focused on violence and securing people against violent, indiscriminate attacks on symbols -- often with many people inside those symbols -- that represent the usurpation of an ideal order as it has been narrowly defined by a group or an individual.
It could be argued that there are no terrorists. As Janis Joplin so eloquently stated over 30 years ago, "Tomorrow never actually comes man....it's all the same bleep bleep day!" Meaning that when tomorrow "arrives", it is actually today.
You may read this tomorrow, but for all of us it is today. People can talk about tomorrow, expound on the science, the definitions, the metaphysical characteristics and the existential angst regarding tomorrow, but at the end of the day, none of these prognosticators have ever experienced firsthand what tomorrow is actually like.
The same goes for a terrorist. There is not a single person, who uses violence as method to achieve some goal, that would consider themself a "terrorist". Those who are termed terrorists by the media or government officials believe they are justifiably creating a better world for what they represent.
A Palestinian who blows himself/herself up in crowded restaurant full of Israelis is considered a martyr and a freedom fighter by many people -- and a terrorist by many others.
In his very comprehensive book, Prof. Martin details the history, the psychology and the definitions of what has been termed terrorism. It is an extremely detailed, researched academic book geared toward university students, complete with chapter summaries, a glossary, discussion questions and an array of Internet sites for further study of the subject.
In attempting to define terrorism, he uses the Latin/legal terms mala in se, or an act designated as a crime that is fundamentally evil like murder and rape, and mala prohibita, those things that are considered crimes which are not fundamentally evil, like gambling or prostitution. As he readily admits, even those generally recognized terms can be twisted, tweaked and changed or justified depending on different situations.
An interesting discussion involves right-wing extremism (reactionary) that leads to terror attacks and left-wing extremism (radical) that lead to terror attacks. These extremists are so passionate and intensely committed to their respective causes that anything can be justified. The Weather Underground, or Weathermen, were a group of U.S.-based radicals who felt justified in bombing certain symbols of American Establishment.
They incidentally got their name from Bob Dylan's legendary song Subterranean Homesick Blues, which was a sort of anthem for young people who wanted to create a better world. The Weathermen just took it to an extreme and wanted to create an ideal world as soon as possible by blowing things up.
The reactionaries are the al-Qaedas, Timothy McVeighs or the Nazis of the world. They believe -- very very strongly -- that the current world order has usurped what they consider an ideal order from them and they want to take it back and "go back to the good ole days".
At the end of the book, one no longer yearns for a hard and fast definition of terrorism or terrorists. It all comes down to a nexus, whereby violence is a manifestation of hyper-extremist beliefs.