There is a word that is used to spread terror: it is, of course, the word terrorism.
Its history is long and short, very complex. One could talk about a lot of terrorism forward the letter —before the word was invented—but that invention was French. In 1793 the Revolution and the Patrie they seemed in danger from external and internal attacks; The war against the Prussians did not subside; internal enemies were plotting; His most popular leader, Jean-Paul Marat, was murdered in his bathtub by a young lady. Then the Assembly and Robespierre’s “Committee of Public Safety” decided that it was necessary to “use terror to save the people.” There were months of so much execution, the full guillotine, that they were called “la Terreur”and the fugitive monarchists began to talk about “terrorism” to condemn what the French State was doing in those days.
Over time, the word branched into two main currents: State terrorism, terrorism against the State. The first was always more powerful and more deadly: the States have many more means. The second ended up being the most mentioned, the most feared: the States have many more means. And that’s how the word is used now: as a way to disqualify, as a way to produce terror. Saying that something or someone is a terrorist does not need any further argument; It is, in itself, the condemnation. So it is used as a thrown weapon—as “populism” is used, with the same lightness—and weapons do not accept nuances or debates.
So the terrorist is, above all, the more or less armed enemy of the one who controls the discourses. The French partisans who resisted the German occupation and its horrible crimes were, for those Nazis, terrorists. The Spanish maquis who resisted the murders of the Franco regime were also. The very founders of the State of Israel, organized into militias and planting bombs, were terrorists—and they managed to create a State and accuse others of being one. Sometimes it would be said that, in general, a terrorist is a combatant who lost his war; Those who win them are liberators, heroes, fathers of a country. It is often very difficult to differentiate between a “terrorist” and a “freedom fighter”; The definition depends much more on who issues it than on who receives it.
That is why I think a more accurate description is more useful: terrorism is the attempt to sow indiscriminate terror in a population. Whether it is a State that kidnaps, that tortures, that murders; already a State that bombs civilian populations; and a group that carries out attacks without a clear objective, at random with bombs or knives. I mean: that a State that bombs a barracks or a group that kills an “enemy” general is not terrorist; It is something else—not necessarily good, but something else. Terrorism consists of this attempt to sow the most confusing terror, to convince the inhabitants of a place that anyone could suffer that violence – and that it is then in their best interest to give in to the impositions of those who produce it.
But, even if they do not do this, even if they have precise objectives and enemies, all those who attempt some change by means of some weapon are called terrorists. And blowing up and killing 193 passengers in Atocha or blowing up and killing 21 customers in a Corte Inglés is not the same as blowing up and killing an admiral who was supposed to replace Franco, with sorry. The conception is very different, the consequences of course are.
But it is easy to skip these considerations, stand on the moral stool and condemn all types of violence: they are all reprehensible. With which the bench remains so plump and Europe, for example, would have been clean for a few decades of Jews, homosexuals, invalids, blacks and any other inferior race, under the benevolent and meticulous control of the Fuehrer shift.
Yes, it is easier to say that they are all terrorists. And to be a terrorist is to remain outside of norms and laws, to become legalized and tolerated cannon fodder. Terrorists have, among others, the rare privilege of being “killed.” In the media, police or soldiers do not kill, shoot, assassinate, eliminate, shoot terrorists: they shoot them down. In French, again, slaughterhouse is said abattoir. Our media, which cares so much about the famous political correctness, does not dislike that word that turns them into animals. But what do we care: they are terrorists. There is nothing more comfortable than labeling and disqualifying. That ends any discussion, any nuance, any attempt to understand what we are experiencing—and what we will experience.
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