5 October 2001 - The moving and growing target of terrorism

If there is to be a war on terrorism it is essential to define what is meant by terrorism. The UN has a definition which distinguishes freedom fighters from terrorists. However, this definition is now being drastically stretched. 

In the UK the legal definition now includes any act of violence in pursuit of ideological or religious aims, the threat of such an act, open support for such acts or even attending a meeting where such acts are supported by a speaker. Not happy with this drastic change of definition which already could include the ANC, the French resistance to the Nazis and the resistance of the Jews in the Polish ghettos, there are currently proposals to expand the definition of terrorism in US law to mean civil disobedience or any act of violence or threatened violence not done for financial gain. Now Martin Luther King becomes a terrorist, and Ghandi too is a despicable "terrorist". Incidentally these definitions apply perfectly well to almost every government in the world. Defending the American way of life by use of force is clearly within this definition. But of course, as in the UK legislation, acts of the government are immune from prosecution. The only uses of force, its threat or its support, excluded by this new definition are 

a) anything done by the government 
  and 
b) robbery. 

These are the rather too familiar bed-fellows of capitalist imperialism.