I once addressed the issue of the semantics of terrorism in this Medium post, What is terrorism? ( https://medium.com/@jimfarmelant/what-is-terrorism-14a5cac9bd8e )
Drawing upon a younger and wiser Christopher Hitchens, I wrote: As Sakib Arifin pointed out in his Quora answer ( Sakib Arifin’s answer to What is terrorism? ( https://www.quora.com/What-is-terrorism/answer/Sakib-Arifin-1 ) ), there is no universally agreed upon answer to that question. But I would submit that the problem is even worse than that. I am reminded of the younger and wiser Christopher Hitchens’ article, “Wanton Acts of Usage: Terrorism: A cliché in search of a meaning.” Harper’s Magazine 273 (September 1986):66–70, which can be found online, behind a paywall, at: [Criticism] Wanton Acts of Usage, By Christopher Hitchens | Harper’s Magazine ( https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/peg9edt904rvabgyhojxg/HarpersMagazine-1986-09-0016283.pdf?rlkey=7g259dqd49h2woctiuljv6uh2&st=4s8e8054&dl=0 ). There, Hitchens made the case that the very concept of terrorism was in fact a pseudoconcept, lacking a coherent definition that wasn’t tendentious. In that article from thirty-eight years ago, Hitchens examined the then new discipline of terrorism studies. He found that not one of the cold war and anti-Palestinian experts that he interviewed could explain what they meant by the term, terrorism. Some of these experts conceded that their discipline was founded on a meaningless concept. As Hitchens put it back then: > > > > This is a bit of a disgrace to language as well as politics. . . English > was studded with dozens of accurate words from guerrilla to fascist, > psychopath to assassin, which described different types of violence > precisely and allowed rational argument about their application. > “Terrorist”, by contrast, was “a convenience word, a junk word, designed > to obliterate distinctions. It must be this that recommends it so much to > governments with something to hide, to the practitioners of instant > journalism, and to shady consultants. > > And at the end of that article, Hitchens summarized his main points in the following paragraph: > > > > ‘Propaganda terms, whether vulgar or ingenious, have always aimed at > making political problems seem one-sided. Why should they not? That is the > propagandist’s job. What is frightening and depressing is that a > pseudoscientific propaganda word like ‘terrorism’ has come to have such a > hypnotic effect on public debate in the United States. A word which > originated with the most benighted opponents of the French Revolution; a > word featured constantly in the antipartisan communiques of the Third > Reich; a word which is a commonplace in the handouts of the Red Army in > Afghanistan and the South African army in Namibia; a word which was in > everyday usage during the decline of the British, French, Portuguese and > Belgian empires. Should we not be wary of a term with which rulers fool > themselves and by which history is abolished and language debased? Don’t > we fool and debase ourselves enough as it is?’ > > -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#39782): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/39782 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/116866507/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. #4 Do not exceed five posts a day. -=-=- Group Owner: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/13617172/21656/1316126222/xyzzy [[email protected]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
