Anwar Ahmad

It seems elementary that before, or even after, beginning to rain death on Afghanistan to decimate the "barbarianism" which "threatens civilisation and democracy," the over-worked term "terrorism" would be defined. Yet, the UN and US-led West show no inclination towards doing so. The unabated crescendo against undefined terrorism has drowned out the meek voices protesting the fast blurring distinction between terrorists and freedom fighters. The US, in particular, is in no mood to listen. As the mind-numbing tragedy of Afghanistan shows, it wants to destroy first.

In an earlier article (The News, October 8, 2001), readers were introduced to a prescient presentation given at the University of Colorado, Boulder, by the late Professor Eqbal Ahmad, an eminent Pakistani-American academic, on October 12, 1998. This was soon after President Clinton had showered "Monica Missiles" on Afghanistan and Sudan. Dr Ahmad had traced the American cold-war baggage of installing terrorist regimes ("Somoza, Batista, all kinds of tyrants have been America's friends.") and groups (Contras, Nicaragua, Afghan Mujahideen like Osama Bin Laden) and discarding them when used. He had forewarned that the US would reap a greater whirlwind than had struck its embassies in East Africa.

He had also stressed the urgency of defining terrorism as the prerequisite for a universal and consistent policy against it. He had attributed the absence of a definition primarily to the changing expediencies of world powers. The terrorist label was first slapped on the pre-World War-II Jewish underground. For killing British administrators in Palestine (their many more Arab victims being lesser beings), Zionist leaders like future prime minister Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir carried official head money. Begin's was worth 100,000 pounds sterling. But as the holocaust horror unfolded in Europe, sympathy for the Jews led these terrorists to be described as freedom fighters.

From 1969 to 1990, the PLO carried the mantle of terrorism - with Yasir Arafat "described repeatedly by the great sage of American journalism, William Safire of the New York Times, as the 'Chief of Terrorism.'" Then, on September 29, 1998, the once menacing Arafat was pictured beside President Bill Clinton, "looking literally like a meek mouse." On the other side was Israeli premier Benjamin Netanyahu (After the breakdown of the Oslo process, the terrorist mantle again hangs over a spent Arafat).

In 1985, President Reagan had proudly introduced to the media a group of bearded-turbaned Afghan 'Mujahideen' as "the moral equivalent of America's founding fathers". In August 1998, unbeknown to them, the "founding fathers" (including Osama Bin Laden) became arch terrorists. So, president Clinton bombed them.

The moral of these stories, said Dr Ahmad, is that "the matter of terrorism is rather complicated. Terrorists change. The terrorist of yesterday is the hero of today, and the hero of yesterday becomes the terrorist of today. This is a serious matter of the constantly changing world of images in which we have to keep our heads straight to know what is terrorism and what is not. But more importantly, to know what causes it, and how to stop it."

The need to facilitate this deliberate inconsistency necessitates that terrorism remain undefined. Having examined at least 20 official US documents on terrorism, Dr Ahmad found not one definition of the freely used term. "All of them explain it, express it emotively, polemically, to arouse our emotions rather than exercise our intelligence."

Even a longish address on terrorism by Secretary of State George Schultz (delivered on October 25, 1984, to the New York Park Avenue Synagogue), did not define the term. What Dr Ahmad found galore were descriptions like" "Terrorism is a modern barbarism," "a form of political violence," "a threat to Western civilisation" and "a menace to Western moral values."

"Did you notice," Dr Ahmad asked, "does it tell you anything other than arouse your emotions? This is typical. They don't define terrorism because definitions involve a commitment to analysis, comprehension and adherence to some norms of consistency." This subjective value-addition is typical of the "official literature on terrorism."

Without a definition and loaded with an emotive imagery to arouse anger (even hatred and bigotry as we now see), the West wishes to stamp it out worldwide. This reaction flows from a misplaced feeling of omniscient and omnipotence. Inevitably, the causation becomes inconvenient and is eschewed. Dr Ahmad cited a New York Times report (December 18, 1985) on Schultz's reaction to the Yugoslav minister's plea to please "consider" the causes of "Palestinian terrorism": Schultz "went a bit red in the face... pounded the table and told the visiting foreign minister, there is no connection with any cause. Period."

Terrorism remains undefined also because the moral revulsion it arouses has been selective. There were the good and evil terrorists, the former to be applauded and the latter condemned. Hence, President Reagan's declaration: "I am contra." He was identifying with the CIA-trained and funded cutthroats and drug-dealers let loose to demolish the elected Sandinista government of Nicaragua.

Also excluded from castigation was (and still is) "the terror of friendly governments" even though, according to Dr Ahmad's calculations, "the ratio of people killed by the state terror of Ziaul Haq, Pinochet, Argentinean, Brazilian, Indonesian type, versus the killing of the PLO and other terrorist types is literally, conservatively, one to one hundred thousand. That's the ratio. History unfortunately recognises and accords visibility to power and not to weakness."

Thus, Columbus Day for the Americans, he reminded, marks also the wiping out of the great Mayan, Inca and Aztec civilisations and the American-Canadian Indians. No one mourns these catastrophes but "When a Custer is killed or when a Gordon is besieged.... you know that they were Indians fighting, Arabs fighting and dying."

Against this backdrop of shifting morality on terrorism, Dr Ahmad raised the central issue of its value-free definition. He referred to the Webster's Dictionary which defines terror as "an intense, overpowering fear; the use of terrorising methods of governing or resisting a government. "This simple definition, he said, has the great virtue of fairness.

"It focuses on the use of coercive violence, violence that is used illegally, extra-constitutionally, to coerce. And this definition is correct because it treats terror for what it is, whether the government or private people commit it." He left motivation out of the definition, and the contentious issue "whether the cause is just or unjust," because "Motives differ and make no difference."

This definition seems perfect in forbidding violence by an individual, group or state under any pretext. But it needs a perfect world to work in. It includes, for example, the immensely more destructive state-terrorism. But would this be acceptable to the "self-defence" warriors like the US, Israel, India? Please recall that the US does not even support the proposed International Criminal Court (ICC). Secondly, it makes no allowance for the freedom fighters. Where, then, should the Palestinians or Kashmiris seek justice from?

For Dr Ahmad's definition to become a recipe for world peace, at least two things are needed. The UN security council should not only endorse it, but also put its coercive power behind its implementation. Two, it should craft a just international arbiter to adjudicate the disputes which spawn group and state terrorism. And, unlike the toothless International Court of Justice, its jurisdiction must not be circumscribed by the consent of both parties (which gives the aggressor a veto).

To prevent anti-terrorism from degenerating into tyranny of the powerful (and, thus, defeating itself), just-cause disputes must be provided a forum for peaceful resolution. Please recall that Nelson Mandela - the greatest person of this era - was jailed as a terrorist for 27 years because he refused to lay down arms against the abomination called apartheid. His white-supremacist oppressors were supported by the "civilised" world, while he had help form "terrorists" like Muammar Gaddafi. There is, clearly, no monopoly on righteousness.

As an immediate measure, however, "intentional and egregious" violence by groups or states against innocent civilians needs to be forbidden because no cause can justify it. Neutral monitors and the ICC can ensure that the transgressor is brought to justice based on fair investigation - and not left to the mercy of any group of nations acting as the judge, jury and the executioner.

Given the gross asymmetry between their fire-power and the military's protective shields, excluding non-military targets would disadvantage the freedom-fighters. But their cause would gain far more international sympathy if they cannot be painted as killers of women, children and civilians. This could be a critical hedge against being given a bad name and bludgeoned, which is the intent of the terrorist states.

The write is a freelance columnist

aa52pak@hotmail.com