Terrorism
Shooting dead some guy because he ‘looks suspicious’, *ala’* the British police, is terrorism. Locking people up indefinitely, *sans* a fair trial, *ala’* the architects and keepers of Guantanamo Bay, is terrorism. These actions are motivated by fear and ignorance, designed to appease an over-zealous and stupefied population, and are exercised outside any traditional consensual legal frameworks. They are not understood as terrorism because the governments that execute these situations have the power to name their actions as legitimate, to manufacture consent. Excuse *my* excesses … but oh, this grief and anger.
sorry ann, but that should be ‘a la’ not ‘ala’
adrian? what do you reckon?
Comment by matrine — 7/26/2005 @ 9:48 am
terrorism! terrorism everywhere!
;-)
Comment by ann — 7/26/2005 @ 9:59 am
Ann! You are not exhibiting excesses at all. Feeling anger and frustration is entirely legitimate! Especially seeing as though we are only one degree of separation away from speaking of our very own elected national representatives.
Shooting someone is excessive.
Further more the lack of conversational time committed to this amongst the stupefied population you speak of, will seriously pale in comparison to the passion and volume of conversation committed to the ‘victims’ of the London bombings. That in itself is an injustice and perhaps the terrorism of othering - us and them – or the haves and have-nots.
Have/Have not:
Armies, Arsenal, WMD, faith, civility, good, evil….
Conversational time committed to:
September 11? War against Terror? Collateral Damage (oh, yer know - I mean… civilian deaths… ) vandalism of mosques? War in Iraq? Bombing of the local market place in Baghdad…. Bali Bombing?, Madrid?, and London?
Put Iraq in a search engine and the first result you get back is the CIAs world factbook! Second is Iraq Body Count.
Really, I think once again google has told it like it is!
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/iz.html
http://www.iraqbodycount.net/
Comment by Melissa — 7/26/2005 @ 12:25 pm
Ah, google as truth teller! … and yeah, I agree, expressing anger and frustration and grief here is entirely legitimate. I was being mildly ironic (ie the sort of opinion I express is often written off as ‘bloody bleeding heart leftism’), but I do sometimes feel that there is so much hyperbole already (ie the London Victims etc) that I get antsy about adding to it. This self-imposed repression itself is perhaps one of the de-humanising effects of our waronterror-happy culture, one which puts such bullshit boundaries around what Judith Butler refers to as “a liveable life and a grievable death”. Thinking AND feeling is a difficult task, but heavens, we all gotta do it. At the same time. (To return to an earlier theme! ;-)
Comment by ann — 7/26/2005 @ 1:48 pm
I feel mixed about the shooting to be honest. Clearly the shooting of an innocent person is a bad thing, that’s beyond dispute. But I think it’s the process that leads to that point, not the actual result (otherwise, you have a very straightforward black and white issue - which obviously it isn’t - namely, the shooting of an innocent person = terrible thing, whereas shooting of someone about to detonate a bomb = very good protection of public). I think the key issues are why did they not stop him before he boarded the bus, on the bus, or really at any point before the underground. There hasn’t really been an explanation for this. Also, what was the warning given to him to stop.
My initial reaction was why go for the head and not just try and immobilise him, but apparently they do that because someone with a gammy leg can still detonate a bomb.
I think the London met were probably in a really difficult position. In the space of two weeks, they had eight people detonate bombs in the underground. Naturally this does nothing to mitigate the loss and certainly I don’t imply that the Brazilian chap brought it on himself, but if he was ordered to stop and then jumped the turnstile or whatever, he must have raised a reasonable level of suspicion in the eyes of the police.
I think that these sorts of decisions are very difficult and, like I said, there are many grey areas which unfortunately lead to a very stark, black and white conclusion one way or the other. They’re also made in the blinking of an eye. I think that to London met’s credit, Ian Blair came out and apologised unreservedly, as did the foreign secretary and the home secretary. Amongst the bravado and machoism that so often goes along with these things, I thought that was refreshing (by contrast, the US didn’t apologise for the “accidental” killing of an Italian secret agent in Baghdad in March when, arguably, an apology was all the more appropriate and necessary).
Within reason, I think what needs to happen is an explanation by the relevant authorities about what they mean by increased security. It’s arguable that if people had known there was a shoot to kill policy, the Brazilian guy might have acted differently and been in a position to avoid five bullets (important also from the point of view that police in Britain are normally entirely without firearms and so might not have been expected to be in the position they were in).
Comment by Adrian — 7/26/2005 @ 6:35 pm
I just read in the paper that they reckon he didn’t stop at the turnstile because he had breached his visa conditions. Do you think Howard would be taking notes about possible remedial action for overstayers??
Comment by Adrian — 7/27/2005 @ 2:40 am
Thanks Adrian … mmm, it seems a constant task to balance the universal with the particular in a situation like this.
I must be getting horribly cynical, because normally I would wholeheartedly agree with your point about the apology being refreshing. However I assumed that the apology was issued because the mistake was so stark.
Comment by ann — 7/27/2005 @ 8:33 pm
There was an interesting article in the Guardian that spoke about the history of the London met and how they’ve usually been at odds with, rather than esteemed by, the London community. Maybe it that context it adds weight to the apology, whereas before there would never have been the inclination. Or maybe it was a piece of politicking. But I do find it hard to believe that, however hardened they may be, the police responsible for shooting wouldn’t be feeling pretty bad. I think it must be an awful thing to go through and I don’t think that, when you get down to it, it’s a case of trigger happy geronimos running around there. At least that’s my insight based on what I’ve seen on the Bill.
Also, the apology represents a clear difference between terrorism, terrorists being indifferent to the loss of innocent life (in fact encouraging it), the state in this case attempting to target culpable parties (albeit prone to error, though that doesn’t modify the morality of the action which is to be found in the intention rather than the result).
Comment by Adrian — 7/27/2005 @ 11:35 pm
dudes! havent youse been reading marx blog? it was the cia wasnt it???
Comment by bling freddy — 7/29/2005 @ 8:52 am