mike,
i've been dealing with this as a transition of categories for large scale
organized violence, something that has become necessary in a global society
which has only really come into its McCluhan own in the last decade. Wars
happen between nations or within nations for the seizure of control or
forceful separation from a nation. What we are dealing with is more like a
rebellion within the global society by groups that only a few governments
even want to support.
It is funny that the military has the term for this lilliputian phenomena
that we keep calling 'terrorism", I forget exactly right now, but something
like "assymetric attacks"
To me this is more of a problem of identifying when a violent movement
within a single, global society is criminal (e.g. 9-11 without any doubt,
but also Hiroshima), and when that violence is the expression of
self-defense,. at the individual or collective level. That is the problem
for me, mike, the way I'm trying to address it. If we were being oppressed
by invaders who have taken our homes and best resources, and had much
greater armed forces than we, miserable salt of the earth, could ever dream
of meeting on an equal footing, would we resort to any means necessary to
end the oppression, and justifiably so?
Maybe that's sort of a way to get completely around the term "terrorism"
which is a very ideologically charged word; eg., we always see the term
"Islamic Terrorism" but last night on 60 minutes 4 of the most respected
imams in the US categorically affirmed and demonstrated from the Quran and
Hadith that such a term was inherently contradictory. To me, the term
terrorism is just as bad as Islamic terrorism. So I'm not trying to deal
with the word, I have to avoid it altogether, to even hope to be able to
grasp the problem of mass anonymous violence in contemporary society,
without prejudice as to who legitimately wields it. Don't we all agree that
it isn't legitimate under any circumstances, or is it?
Whose side is god on?
Paul H. Dillon
----- Original Message -----
From: Mike Cole <mcole@weber.ucsd.edu>
To: <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
Sent: Monday, October 01, 2001 1:34 PM
Subject: Re: Xwar
> Hi Paul-- Thanks for the tip on discussion of world crisis discussion
group.
>
> It has been my experience that xmca works best when our discussions are
> grounded in our areas of professional competence. But I have no desire to
> force my preferences on the group, which, at times, appears to need to
> deal with other topics -- as we have seen.
>
> Who is the leader for part 1 of LSV? (I assume your advice on an
alternative
> list is fine by others, but if someone wants to start up an xwar list
because
> they DO want to discuss this issue with xmca-ers, let me know and I will
do
> my best to have it created).
>
> mike
> PS-- In the la times today (www.latimes.com) there is a lead story on the
> terrible time Congress is having defining terrorism-- a la my earlier
query
> to you, Paul.
>
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Nov 01 2001 - 01:01:20 PST