Friday, April 06, 2007

One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter?

Terrorism has become a hard word to define. To repeat the cliché “One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter". Terrorism is a form of political action in some circles where blind killing is the norm as it is the case in Iraq. More random killing means escalating fight against the enemy. Many states are accused of sponsoring terrorism like Syria and Iran. Israel, accusing Hamas of terrorism, is also accused of state terrorism as it practises kidnapping and killing of Palestinian opponents within or outside its territories.

The latest incident of British sailors can be seen as an act of terror if only their televised accounts of the circumstances before and after their capture are to be believed. For sailors to be snatched out of the sea by another army when there is no official declaration of war between their respective countries can be seen as an aggression or an attempt to spread terror. It can be seen as an act of piracy as the Iranian sailors were more interested in acquiring the British boats more than the sailors who could have later been used to get a ransom of whatever kind.

Terrorism takes place when the doors of inhuman and indiscriminate killing are open when all doors of dialogue are closed and when people become ideologically blind or can't see eye to eye.Terrorism tactics have evolved in the past years. The rate of suicide bombing has become the biggest of its kind as it has become for terrorists the most popular, effective and least costly. As some terrorists have no scruples about who and where to hit, any means can be a target. they will continue their acts, careless of what is said about them as long as their acts trigger the biggest loud explosions leaving behind them the biggest bloodbaths and the biggest ruins. To their pleasure, they watch their deeds on major news channels- without which they don’t feel totally self-congratulating.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Abdelilah,
Did you see the news about the Mullah in Isalamabad, Pakistan who has been calling his followers to threaten suicide attacks against the Pakistani state? I think there is real trouble brewing in Pakistan. These types of people seem to pop up in all societies at some point.
We had the IRA of course who seemed to think that they could pursuade people by the bomb and the bullet. Then there was Bader-Meinhoff, and the Red Brigades etc etc.
There was an really interesting program (BBC I think) here that showed how the Iranian revolution and many other crackpot revolutionaries were informed by French revolutionary political thinking of the 60's (as espoused by Sartre).

Which is good because in Britain we just love to blame the French
:-)

Abdelilah Boukili said...

Hi Bill,
Some fanatics of any religion or political tendency are disgrace to humanity. They have the language just of violence. But despite their threats they are just a minority. But they influence the majority by their spread of terror.

Some people don't want to learn from history. IRA or whatever means nothing to them as long as they don't do things their way, repeating history in a silly way.