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Date Posted: 13:08:11 12/03/01 Mon
"Intelligence" as an Alternative to Repression
Friends,
Since most of you received the complete entry on “Terrorism” from the Oxford Companion to Politics that I sent out earlier this note will focus on those things that seem to me to most be in need of discussion during the present crisis.
What has most struck me from reading this essay and I should certainly appreciate hearing what most struck you is the extent to which “state actors” have historically been among the major offenders, i.e., terrorists. The use of the term in this way seems to have waxed and waned but the willingness of states to engage in acts which meet the definition of terrorism has been disconcertingly frequent.
A major feature article on Anne McLellan’s Anti-Terrorism bill, C-36 in the Canadian House of Commons concludes that the bill is not excessively repressive “if you trust the Government.” But if you perceive that this Government, Canadian governments at large and most governments, democratic or otherwise, exhibit strong recidivistic tendencies, i.e., they revert to terror as a means of achieving their goals with great regularity then the question of whether we should trust the present Government is one where the Attorney General needs to prove her trust worthiness and that of all her successors for the life of the legislation. Considering the unwillingness of the Prime Minister to include a sunset clause this might be hard to do.
The second thing that struck me was that every First Nation that
resisted the westward or northward expansion of the United States,
Canada or other imperial powers engaged in terrorism from the
perspective of this definition. Whether or not it was state terrorism depends in part on whether you conceive that First Nations are states.
Whether or not it was terrorism or a war of self defence depends upon whether you support imperialist aggression when it is performed by a state from which you receive benefits. (There must have been some reason that Mohawk communities referred to George Washington as “Town Killer.”)
Those who indulge in intellectual honesty and who also life in North America will, however, want to curtail their obeisance to the Eternal Flame and their willingness to support a War on Terrorism that, Mr. Bush proposes, will continue until all terrorism is forever stamped out. We might even ask if such a proposal emanates from a responsible, mature political mind or whether it arose from a fundamentalist in search of a crusade. (It was he who introduced the word.)
The third thing that struck me was that there is not a consistent
correlation with any one religious movement to the exclusion of others.
This might give us reason to pause yet again if we have started to move about after the consideration of state terrorism and its use against peoples whose populations have recently been collapsed through the spread of smallpox. (See, for ex., Thornton’s American Indian Holocaust and Survival for full documentation).
Although it is apparent that some Islamic groups presently embrace
violence and terrorism, it is not evident that Islam has historically been more inclined toward terrorism than other imperial religions. By imperial religions I mean those who seek to constantly expand their territory and their adherents through conversion.
What, after all, is the medieval doctrine of the Christian Church,
“compelle entrare” if it is not a form of “sanctified terrorism”. Those who lend credence to the idea that there is an internal terrorism condoned by the state, such as women’s movements have identified, need to consider that such internal terrorism runs through much of the history of settler populations in North America and elsewhere. Ask the folks who were burned at Salem. Ask the folks who were lynched in one or another southern State during the hundred years following the U.S. Civil War. This kind of internal terrorism, although not directly committed by the state is only possible with the collaboration of the state.
State collaboration enabled the pogroms of eastern Europe and Russia no less than the lynchings of the southern United States. So if there is now a president who proposes to stamp out terrorism in all its manifestations let us watch carefully to see whether he curtails the collaboration of his government and those with which his Republic is allied.
Only now, after accounting for state terrorism and state collaborated terrorism am I really ready to look at the terrorism associated with nationalist movements. This is the one kind of non-state terrorism that has been seen to appreciably further the goals of the movements who do these acts. Terrorism committed by nationalist movements is, on the other hand, somewhat hard to distinguish from civil warfare.
The examples arising in pre-independence Israel are justified if you conceive that the occupation by Britain was of dubious legitimacy and if you conceive that the small remnant of European Jews who survived the Holocaust had no place else to go except their most ancient homeland.
This justification is open to challenge by showing that there were other safe havens for the Jews of the Displaced Persons camps ready, willing and able to receive them.
The difference in the role of the IRA in 1916 and the role of the IRA in its most recent manifestations will be apparent to all.
What then, are the questions, to be asked?
One question that needs to be asked again and again, may not be whether certain acts are acts of terror, but whether those who perform the acts have been placed in a position in which no other means of resistance and self-preservation is possible.
Another, is whether we are in danger of being victims of our leaders’ rhetoric? Does a declaration of war against terrorism even constitute a proper sentence? Does the war have an identifiable enemy? This is possibly a more fundamental question than whether it can be won.
A third question arises when we distinguish between the charismatic fanatic leaders who seek to enlist people in organizations bent on acts of terrorism and those vast numbers that are needed to sustain such activities. Hitler, as a personality, might well have emerged from the end of World War I, whether or not the Treaty of Versailles maintained the German republic in a state of penury. But would he have attracted
such a large following.
A fourth question that arises from a global perspective is whether the “rhetoric of uniqueness” that has been invoked by many American leaders and leaders of American allies serves a public interest other than the careers of those who make the speeches. Is it possible for those who lost family, friends, colleagues or even simply a sense of security in the city that they love (and many people love New York who do not live within its boundaries) to express their grief without their leaders
declaiming that such events have never happened before?
My final and most pressing question is whether the repressive
legislation that has been passed in the United States, and its
counterpart that is making its way through the Canadian Parliament have anything to do with the prevention of terrorism. Several more knowledgeable commentators have pointed out that the U.S. and the U.K. have each had anti-terrorist legislation on the books for several years. At least one witness in an earlier antiterrorist trial in New York City testified that the Al Qaeda was planning something along the lines of the horrors of September 11 long before those events took place.
One might have though that real “intelligence” would stand as an
alternative to repression. Just as there is no evidence that terrorism actually furthers the goals of non-state parties who perform such acts neither is there any evidence that repressive laws provide greater security against acts of terrorism.
Those are my questions. Feel free to add your own or to borrow these.
Give credit if you care to do so. Unlike fine china, when you borrow ideas there is no need to return them. Nor is there much likelihood you will ever really be finished with them.
Michael (Mickey) Posluns.
--
If we knew where knowledge goes when it evaporates, perhaps we might learn to recover what we have lost and to reconstitute it as distilled wisdom.
"How long will you judge unjustly, and show partiality toward the
wicked? Do justice to the poor and fatherless, deal righteously with the afflicted and destitute. Rescue the poor and needy; save them from the hand of the wicked." (A Psalm of Asaph, The Psalm for the Third Day.)
How can we be sure that the unexamined life is not worth living?
Michael W. Posluns,
The Still Waters Group,
First Nations Relations & Public Policy
Daytime: 416 995-8613
Evening: 416 656-8613
Fax: 416 656-2715
36 Lauder Avenue,
Toronto, Ontario,
M6H 3E3
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