"Terrorists"

Today the word "terrorist" is invariably used by states who seek to dehumanise and delegitimise all of their opponents. Once the term is applied the adversary has lost not only a legal right to resist but has also become an immoral, inhuman and inherently evil entity and as such is to be be wiped off the face of the earth. However, not only are those who are offering active resistence to be exterminated but also any group, community or, indeed, nation with, which they are associated is also to be punished and, when the punishment is sometimes sold uses phrases such as, "we are freeing them" or "we are helping them", one is, in fact, reminded of how the Nazis dehumanised and exterminated not only their opponents but also millions of innocents and in doing so talked about putting them in "Schutzhaft" (protective custody) until an "Endlösung" (Final Solution) could be reached. The connotations of "Schutzhaft" and many other words changed and today in the Federal Republic of Germany they use the term "Poliziegewahrsam" (in police custody). Since 9/11, it would not suprise me if you were to say the word "terrorist" in a psychological word association test and hear as a reply, "Muslim". Moreover, this response wouldn't be confined to the West; for the Russian the "terrorist" would be in Chechnya or in some other predominantly Muslim part of the country and for the Chinese the "terrorist" is to be found in the province of Xinjiang, where the Muslim Uyghurs are in the process of becoming a minority in their own homeland. Nevertheless, my confrontation with the word invariably comes through the newspeak of the mainstream western media and, post 9/11, it is a word that I am increasingly exposed to.
It was, therefore, with a special interest that I read Robert Fisk's article in John Pilger's edited book, 'Tell Me No Lies', where he writes about the massacre of innocents at Sabra and Chatila in September 1982 when the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) allowed Phalangist militiamen to enter the camps there and slaughter thousands of unarmed men, women and children. He then goes on to tell how, after the slaughter, the IDF was to move into the camps looking for "terrorists".1 There were, of course, no "terrorists" left in the camps and the only thing the Israelis would be confronted with would be the odd stray dog, or the stench of the dead. However, at least it made me remember that the "terrorists" were around long before 9/11.
It is, however, in the seven years after September the 11th, 2001that the term "terrorist" has become a high frequency word for all of us. Every day when we open a newspaper we are confronted with it and our "terrorists" are to be found in the Middle East, Aghanistan, Pakistan and Iran. They are Muslim and it is permitted to bomb all of them as the dead men, women and children in Iraq and Afghanistan testify to. Now, if you were to play that little word association game mentioned above somewhere in Israel and you were to say the word "terrorist", the response would in all probability be "Palestinian". At Sabra and Chatila the IDF stood by and let the Phalangist militias enter the camps because the women and children in the camps were Palestinian and. Of course, a similar scenario might be possible in Grozny in Chechnya or Kashgar in China, with Russian troops or PLA toops standing by and watching as some local psychopaths kill the locals and it is quite alright to bomb wedding parties and villages in Afghanstan because we are bombing "terrorists". It is time, perhaps, to redefine the term "terrorist" and who it really applies to otherwise we should not be too surprised when the "terrorists" kill innocent men, women and children closer to home.
1 Robert Fisk, 'Terrorists' pp253-283 in John Pilger's edited, 'Tell Me No Lies'.