Commentary 23/11/28 The first and largest terrorist state

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The first and largest terrorist state

Terrorism takes different shapes and forms, and it is important always to be perceptive

Published:
November 28, 2023 03:44 AM GMT ▾

US actress and activist Cynthia Nixon, joined by state legislators and activists, launches a hunger strike calling for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza, in front of the White House in Washington, DC, on Nov. 27. (Photo: AFP)

A lot has been written about terrorism and terrorists these days, and most writings blame Muslims.

It is true that there have been Muslim groups that have acted against both civilians and the military with great violence and savagery, and they deserve to be condemned.

But as I have pointed out earlier, this is not a monopoly of Islam alone.

Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs and Jews share the blame for violence and savagery, living up to the adage of Sun Tzu, “Kill one hundred. Terrify one thousand.”

Politics, not religion

In fact, we are mistaken when we attribute violence and savagery to religion as if it is religion that provides the inspiration for such acts of terror. Far from it!

It is more correct to say that it is politics that uses the cloak of religion to disguise its aims. Who will ever dare say that ISIS was god-fearing Muslims, the Tamil Tigers zealous Hindus, and the Mafia devout Catholics?

Political terrorism is the violent response of aggrieved groups to acts of repression and perfidy carried out by the state. So perhaps it is accurate to say that the hegemonistic State is the first terrorist.

The criminal state 

Most governments, even democracies, are prone to covert crime and wrong-doing, because all governments increasingly lust for power and total control, and so soon enough turn to crime.

But democracies are uncomfortable with being associated with crime, so many of them have recourse to the “deep state,” that is, a clandestine network of government agencies exercising power, usually unaccountable, alongside the government.

How is this power exercised? In various ways.

Some of these ways are psychological, and through the mass media and social media, deployed to “manufacture consent” in the inimitable phrase of Walter Lippmann, to all that the state does.

But the state exercises “hard power” as well — arrest, imprisonment, torture, execution, assassination and exile. In many countries, a single ruler or political party may so dominate government that it becomes synonymous with the state.

Fascist and Communist governments have done this for decades. They are the original “terrorist” states.

A good example from the past is the Soviet state under Stalin.

We have known for a long time the depravity of Stalin. He was personally responsible for the deaths of nearly 20 million of his fellow countrymen through execution, assassination, and lengthy prison terms in the Gulag, starvation and famine.

The American writer Robert Conquest has aptly labeled that horrible period of Russian history in the 1930s as “The Great Terror.” Yet such was the naiveté of Western intellectuals like Beatrice and Sidney Webb, Jean-Paul Sartre, Harold Laski and Romain Rolland among others that they simply refused to believe in the rottenness of the Soviet system, and defended it vigorously.

Something like this is happening today with the attitude of the West regarding Israel.

Terrorist states today

Most arguments in favor of Israel begin with the savage attack by Hamas on Oct. 7. That was unconscionable and true.

But the same people have nothing to say about 70 years of Israeli oppression of the Palestinians — of the nakba (calamity) of 1948 and 1967, of the relentless encroachment on Palestinian homes, of the random killing of Palestinian civilians, of the “open air concentration camp” that Gaza has become, of the Zionist settlers on the West Bank, of Israel’s deliberate sabotage of various peace accords.

Is this because Palestinians are poor, dirty and illiterate?

In minute ways but with ruthless consistency, Israel has practiced a policy of state terrorism and apartheid against the Palestinians, much as South Africa did against its black natives earlier, as the Nazis did against the Jews in times gone by, and as the USA does against its “perceived enemies,” even today.

Appearances to the contrary notwithstanding, it is the USA that is the world’s first and largest terrorist state. It wages war where it will, assassinates whomever it chooses, and ignores United Nations protocols, guided solely by self-interest.

How is it that for millions around the world it is such a beacon of freedom and prosperity, a desired haven for migrants, when in fact it has brought misery to so many and over so long?

Is this solely because it has such a superb media presence? A difficult question.

Suffice to say, as we did at the start of this essay, that the violent side may not always be wrong just because we don’t like its members; and that the establishment may not be right just because its language and skin color are so familiar.

Terrorism takes different shapes and forms, and it is important always to be perceptive.

*The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official editorial position of UCA News.