Discussing legitimatised violence in society leads me to the phenomenon that we call terrorism, which is rarely out of the news. Throughout my life it has been ever present.
As most of you know, the word terrorism is used to describe the violence that is visited upon society, (often, though not exclusively, against civilians), and usually randomly and unexpectedly to effect maximum casualties, by illegal paramilitary groups.
Once again, because of my training as a solider, I find it very revealing that the term terrorism is used to describe such behaviour, and that such a term has become derogatory.
After all, the legally formed army that wins what is called a just war is the army whose soldiers ruthlessly terrorise the other army into submission until they surrender. There is nothing gentlemanly about conducting war of any kind – it is indeed the purest form, and best example of terrorism.
And in virtually every war in history large numbers of non-combatant civilians, once again, including children, were terrorised by armies fighting so-called just wars, i.e. rendered homeless, injured/maimed, ethnically cleansed and killed. In fact, one would be hard pressed to identify a war where they weren’t.
For example, hundreds of thousands of people were burned to death by the Allies who were always, and still are, portrayed to us as the unblemished, blame-free heroes of World War Two, as they did a really good job terrorising Germany and Japan into submission. Why don’t we call them terrorists? And as I mentioned elsewhere during our own 1916 Rising more civilians than combatants were killed. I have never heard the men who fought in 1916 referred to as terrorists.
As I said in the post on similarities and differences, it was nothing personal, just the business of war.
So I propose that the almost exclusive use of the word terrorist to describe the person who kills illegally for a political cause is surely proof of the old saying that the first casualty in war is truth.
Because the truth is that all soldiers in war should be ruthless terrorists; and if they don’t strike terror into the hearts of the enemy – they aren’t good soldiers!
Whether it is poor peasants in France in the 1780’s, poor Catholics in Northern Ireland in the 1960’s, or, in modern day, Rohinga Muslims in Myanmar or Palestinians in Israel, autocratic leadership that allows one side to exploit the other leaves a democratic vacuum that is filled with people who resort to the same violence that has been perpetrated against them to get their needs met – but using methods not approved by the Pillars.
Non-state terrorism is almost always the result of years if not centuries of lack of freedom, perpetuation of injustice, discrimination (and sometimes cruelty, hunger and even famine), usually so severe in nature that people are suffering pain that they cannot endure any longer.