[Reader-list] Terrorism or Tragicomedy?

[anupam chakravartty]

 Terrorism or Tragicomedy?
Free the Tarnac 9
Giorgio Agamben

On the morning of November 11, 150 police officers, most of which belonged
to the anti-terrorist brigades, surrounded a village of 350 inhabitants on
the Millevaches plateau, before raiding a farm in order to arrest nine young
people (who ran the local grocery store and tried to revive the cultural
life of the village). Four days later, these nine people were sent before an
anti-terrorist judge and "accused of criminal conspiracy with terrorist
intentions." The newspapers reported that the Ministry of the Interior and
the Secretary of State "had congratulated local and state police for their
diligence." Everything is in order, or so it would appear. But let's try to
examine the facts a little more closely and grasp the reasons and the
results of this "diligence."

First the reasons: the young people under investigation "were tracked by the
police because they belonged to the ultra-left and the anarcho autonomous
milieu." As the entourage of the Ministry of the Interior specifies, "their
discourse is very radical and they have links with foreign groups." But
there is more: certain of the suspects "participate regularly in political
demonstrations," and, for example, "in protests against the Fichier Edvige
(Exploitation Documentaire et Valorisation de l'Information Générale) and
against the intensification of laws restricting immigration." So political
activism (this is the only possible meaning of linguistic monstrosities such
as "anarcho autonomous milieu") or the active exercise of political
freedoms, and employing a radical discourse are therefore sufficient reasons
to call in the anti-terrorist division of the police (SDAT) and the central
intelligence office of the Interior (DCRI). But anyone possessing a minimum
of political conscience could not help sharing the concerns of these young
people when faced with the degradations of democracy entailed by the Fichier
Edvige, biometrical technologies and the hardening of immigration laws.

As for the results, one might expect that investigators found weapons,
explosives and Molotov cocktails on the farm in Millevaches. Far from it.
SDAT officers discovered "documents containing detailed information on
railway transportation, including exact arrival and departure times of
trains." In plain French: an SNCF train schedule. But they also confiscated
"climbing gear." In simple French: a ladder, such as one might find in any
country house.

Now let's turn our attention to the suspects and, above all, to the presumed
head of this terrorist gang, "a 33 year old leader from a well-off Parisian
background, living off an allowance from his parents." This is Julien
Coupat, a young philosopher who (with some friends) formerly published
Tiqqun, a journal whose political analyses – while no doubt debatable –
count among the most intelligent of our time. I knew Julien Coupat during
that period and, from an intellectual point of view, I continue to hold him
in high esteem.

Let's move on and examine the only concrete fact in this whole story. The
suspects' activities are supposedly connected with criminal acts against the
SNCF that on November 8 caused delays of certain TGV trains on the
Paris-Lille line. The devices in question, if we are to believe the
declarations of the police and the SNCF agents themselves, can in no way
cause harm to people: they can, in the worst case, hinder communications
between trains causing delays. In Italy, trains are often late, but so far
no one has dreamed of accusing the national railway of terrorism. It's a
case of minor offences, even if we don't condone them. On November 13, a
police report prudently affirmed that there are perhaps "perpetrators among
those in custody, but it is not possible to attribute a criminal act to any
one of them."
The only possible conclusion to this shadowy affair is that those engaged in
activism against the (in any case debatable) way social and economic
problems are managed today are considered ipso facto as potential
terrorists, when not even one act can justify this accusation. We must have
the courage to say with clarity that today, numerous European countries (in
particular France and Italy), have introduced laws and police measures that
we would previously have judged barbaric and anti-democratic, and that these
are no less extreme than those put into effect in Italy under fascism. One
such measure authorizes the detention for ninety-six hours of a group of
young – perhaps careless – people, to whom "it is not possible to attribute
a criminal act." Another, equally serious, is the adoption of laws that
criminalize association, the formulations of which are left intentionally
vague and that allow the classification of political acts as having
terrorist "intentions" or "inclinations," acts that until now were never in
themselves considered terrorist.
**
*Libération*, November 19, 2008