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| Volume IX, March 2002, Number 1 |
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| EXCERPT: Trying to Define Terrorism |
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| Robert V. Keeley |
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Mr. Keeley served as ambassador to Mauritius, Zimbabwe and Greece and was president of the Middle East Institute from 1990 to 1995. The following is the text of his remarks to the Center for International Policy in Washington on November 29, 2001.
My assigned topic is "Trying to
Define Terrorism." It might
be regarded as unwhole-
some and perhaps indeed unpatriotic to take up such a subject while we are engaged in a "war against terrorism," but as it appears that that war is likely to be extensive as well as prolonged, with no discernible limits in space or time, it seems even more important than ever that we try to understand just what this phenomenon is that we are waging war against. For some people it may be upsetting at this juncture to try to examine the problem dispassionately, that is, objectively. But emotional reactions can lead to very bad decisions. We need definitions that go beyond slogans such as "One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter," and "Terrorism, like beauty, lies in the eye of the beholder." True as these formulations may be, they risk getting us bogged down in a semantic quagmire. It doesn't help either when some in the media, like Reuters and CNN, decide to avoid use of the term "terrorist" in order not to be judgmental!
In an op-ed piece published in The Washington Post on October 5, the columnist Michael Kinsley, editor of Slate internet magazine, argued that trying to define terrorism is impossible and in some cases (for example, Osama bin Laden) is actually absurd, though it is, as he said, a problem. He called media avoidance of use of the term "terrorist" an exercise in moral relativism. He noted that the Justice Department's draft anti-terrorism bill defined terrorism to include "injury to government property" and "computer trespass," much too broad coverage in his view. And one congressman complained that the bill could define terrorism to include bombing an abortion clinic, a definition that would not strike many other people as unreasonable. President Bush has made the goal of his war to be victory over terrorism of "global reach," a presumably practical rather than a moral limitation, Kinsley pointed out. But such a victory, he wrote, is unlikely for "terrorism is like a chronic disease that can be controlled and suppressed, but not cured."
Kinsley's piece made some other worthy points. A major problem is how to have a definition that you apply consistently. This was a major industry in our government in the 1980s, when a definition was badly needed to explain why we were supporting a guerrilla movement against the government of Nicaragua and doing the opposite in El Salvador. Can "terrorism" mean acts of violence in support of political goals except when committed by a government? "This sounds deeply cynical, but makes a lot of sense," Kinsley wrote. But how about "state-sponsored terrorism"?
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