peterms Posted August 29, 2018 Share Posted August 29, 2018 Richard Seymour on terrorism. Concluding paras only... Quote ...The marxist philosopher Norman Geras, writing on the South African freedom struggle, alighted on the shocking severity of its violence to ask searching questions about the "ethics of revolution". His point was relatively straightforward. There are struggles which are uncomplicatedly just, whose methods are uncomplicatedly unjust. Indeed, it is hard to think of an example of a justified political struggle, which hasn't got its hands dirty. There are no clean hands in this world. And the dirtiest, bloodiest hands are attached to those who think themselves good and clean. As it says in the Book of Isaiah, all your righteousnesses are as filthy rags. But one does not have to pretend either that contingency is necessity, or that necessity is virtue. What makes it utterly obscene and reprehensible to call the ANC terrorists is not that they didn't use violence. They did. They used violence and terror. They killed and tortured in order to break the apartheid regime. But the problem with such labelling is entailed in the sentiment from Isaiah. The label 'terrorist' works to identify a little enclave of evil, a sub-population of evil-doers, from whom the rest of humanity distinct. It works to hypocritically stratify global violence, so that we know who is entitled to its use, and whose rustiest weapon is an outrage. No one, certainly no British politician, and certainly no one who aligned with apartheid, is pure enough to offer judgment or absolution. And that's part of the problem with the greatly diminished, patronising and politically sterile images we often receive of the most successful black leaders, whether they deployed violence or not. Shrink-wrapped in a little gloriole, they are separated from their political traditions, histories, movements, doubts, and strategic dilemmas. This is to deny them their full stature and dignity, its own form of dehumanisation. It is not an alternative to the demonisation of, say, Irish republicans or PLO leaders; it is part of the same logic. It is part of what allows politicians to go on demonising the people who haven't yet won. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
meregreen Posted August 29, 2018 Share Posted August 29, 2018 29 minutes ago, Chindie said: Terrorism can encompass sabotage actions. Mandela was a terrorist. One with a justifiable and righteous cause, and one that showed restraint, but a spade is a spade. No he wasn’t. Not unless you would class the French Resistance in WWII as terrorists too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chindie Posted August 29, 2018 VT Supporter Share Posted August 29, 2018 Terrorism is a methodology. That it's become a label with connotations doesn't change that. Mandela started a terrorist organisation. His aims and goals being righteous doesn't change that. You don't have to be evil to be a terrorist. You don't have to kill to be a terrorist. You don't have to be opposed to the moral right to be a terrorist. You just need to undertake actions intended to bring about fear in an effort to achieve a political goal 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chindie Posted August 29, 2018 VT Supporter Share Posted August 29, 2018 5 minutes ago, meregreen said: No he wasn’t. Not unless you would class the French Resistance in WWII as terrorists too. In some cases, they will have been. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
meregreen Posted August 29, 2018 Share Posted August 29, 2018 Your definition would then also class the RAF as terrorists . Mandela was pretty much driven to violence in order to free his people from oppression. I simply wouldn’t put him alongside Pol Pot, Bin Laden et al. One mans terrorist is another mans freedom fighter, as the saying goes. I believe most people would class Mandela as the latter. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chindie Posted August 29, 2018 VT Supporter Share Posted August 29, 2018 6 minutes ago, meregreen said: Your definition would then also class the RAF as terrorists . Mandela was pretty much driven to violence in order to free his people from oppression. I simply wouldn’t put him alongside Pol Pot, Bin Laden et al. One mans terrorist is another mans freedom fighter, as the saying goes. I believe most people would class Mandela as the latter. Yes. States can commit acts of terrorism as well. Freedom fighters and terrorists aren't mutually exclusive. It makes some people feel better to think they are, but they often aren't. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peterms Posted August 29, 2018 Share Posted August 29, 2018 7 minutes ago, meregreen said: Your definition would then also class the RAF as terrorists This would miss the central point that "terrorist" is not simply a description of motives, methods and actions, but (crucially) is a label applied by states to non-state actors to signal both disapproval and illegitimacy. This is why the most extensive, destructive, long-lasting, oppressive and terrifying use of systematic violence the world has ever seen (the foreign policy of the USA, post 1945) is not called terrorism. We sometimes see states described as having committed or supported acts of terror. We don't see states described as terrorist, except rhetorically. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chindie Posted August 29, 2018 VT Supporter Share Posted August 29, 2018 It's use as a label is a bastardisation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blandy Posted August 29, 2018 Author Moderator Share Posted August 29, 2018 2 hours ago, peterms said: They killed and tortured in order to... What’s that thing we say? If we stoop to the evil they do, we’ve lost? If we adopt the same standards as the terrorists... if killing and torture is wrong ( sorry, I used that word again), then it’s universally wrong. And it is wrong. Does the end justify the means? When did our standards slip like that? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HanoiVillan Posted August 29, 2018 Share Posted August 29, 2018 26 minutes ago, blandy said: What’s that thing we say? If we stoop to the evil they do, we’ve lost? If we adopt the same standards as the terrorists... if killing and torture is wrong ( sorry, I used that word again), then it’s universally wrong. And it is wrong. Does the end justify the means? When did our standards slip like that? Do you really believe that killing is universally wrong? I didn't have you down as a pacifist. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VILLAMARV Posted August 29, 2018 Share Posted August 29, 2018 What standards? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrisp65 Posted August 29, 2018 Share Posted August 29, 2018 1 hour ago, blandy said: What’s that thing we say? If we stoop to the evil they do, we’ve lost? If we adopt the same standards as the terrorists... if killing and torture is wrong ( sorry, I used that word again), then it’s universally wrong. And it is wrong. Does the end justify the means? When did our standards slip like that? By universally wrong, are you saying you would never do it or aid people in the machine that do it on 'our' behalf? I think I'm asking, does wrong mean never? Which potentially then causes me to leap to that world war II question... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blandy Posted August 30, 2018 Author Moderator Share Posted August 30, 2018 8 hours ago, chrisp65 said: By universally wrong, are you saying you would never do it or aid people in the machine that do it on 'our' behalf? I think I'm asking, does wrong mean never? Which potentially then causes me to leap to that world war II question... In my short post, I didn’t help my self with the use of “universally”, so I’ll try again. It’s often said, in regard to terrorist attacks etc. that we need to tighten our laws, arrest more suspects, interrogate them a little more “firmly”, worry less about human rights. We condemn the terrorist acts as outrages - blowing up kids in Manchester, buses and trains in London...So we rightly say the killing is wrong and torture of suspects is wrong. I don’t see how anyone could then excuse it or say it isn’t wrong to kill or torture people if (in the example given) the ANC does it “to battle apartheid”. Torturing terror suspects, summary executions, blowing up pubs, cars, hotels..it’s all wrong in this terror/war on terror situation. I didn’t mean it to include people in their homes faced with armed burglars and defending themselves or families from....etc. Or military intervention to stop the mass killings in Bosnia, or Rwanda or Sierra Leone, or as you mentioned it WWII. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peterms Posted August 30, 2018 Share Posted August 30, 2018 9 hours ago, blandy said: What’s that thing we say? If we stoop to the evil they do, we’ve lost? If we adopt the same standards as the terrorists... if killing and torture is wrong ( sorry, I used that word again), then it’s universally wrong. And it is wrong. Does the end justify the means? When did our standards slip like that? He addresses these questions earlier in the piece (I didn't copy it all, it's a little too long for that). Quote ...There is no pure armed struggle, just as there is no good war. No matter how justified and necessary the fight, it will include actions that are completely unacceptable. We are talking about the torture and murder of fellow beings. Even where those actions are themselves necessary to prevent worse outcomes, it can't alter the fact that, in their immediacy, in the moment of their execution, they are not okay. I am here denying outright the possibility of any utilitarian calculus of violent struggle... 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blandy Posted August 30, 2018 Author Moderator Share Posted August 30, 2018 32 minutes ago, peterms said: He addresses these questions earlier Thanks. That's what I was trying to get across (only without the big words or the w***ky ones - "utilitarian calculus of violent struggle" - I have no idea what that's supposed to mean! - I take it to indicate the writer is a plum, which probably isn't what he/she intended). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peterms Posted August 30, 2018 Share Posted August 30, 2018 1 hour ago, blandy said: Thanks. That's what I was trying to get across (only without the big words or the w***ky ones - "utilitarian calculus of violent struggle" - I have no idea what that's supposed to mean! - I take it to indicate the writer is a plum, which probably isn't what he/she intended). He often uses unusual words, and there's often something I have to look up - this time it was "gloriole", often terms from psychoanalysis. But the reference to utilitarian calculus is saying that the ends don't justify the means, ie if you do something bad in a worthy cause, that doesn't excuse the badness of what you do; you have to accept responsibility. Or, "own it", to use the recently popular term. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jon Posted August 30, 2018 Share Posted August 30, 2018 18 hours ago, Chindie said: but a spade is a spade. Racist! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jon Posted August 30, 2018 Share Posted August 30, 2018 4 hours ago, peterms said: He often uses unusual words, and there's often something I have to look up - this time it was "gloriole" Glory Hole? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peterms Posted August 30, 2018 Share Posted August 30, 2018 42 minutes ago, Jon said: Glory Hole? Since he's so interested in Freud and other psychologists, I'm sure he will be alive to the resemblance and the connotations, including the church-related ones. And I gather it's also another word for areola. Breaking new ground in how far off topic we can drift here...unless you want to discuss the connection of the tory party to either glorioles or glory holes, I suppose. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NurembergVillan Posted August 31, 2018 Moderator Share Posted August 31, 2018 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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