[Reader-list] Is the singular Rhetoric of Terror flawed?

[Kshmendra Kaul]

Dear Taha
 
Maybe you should not put forward a poser if you expect only "Wow! Taha"; "Brilliant! Taha".
 
Do not start or enter an argument if you do not have the capacity to hear dissent or do not have the tolerance for being questioned. Swadhin Sen elsewhere equated such an attitude to 'fascism'.
 
Repeating yourself will not make any less ridiculous your original 'wondering' why Media does not call "Flood Deaths" as "Terror".
 
You have obdurately refused to think over the responses that would help you sort out your 'confusions'. You have asked questions but refused to answer questions asked of you. The answers to such questions might have de-terrorised your mind from your confusions.
 
An act of "Terror" needs  initiator(s)/executor(s) for that act with the end-purpose being to "Terrify". As Partha pointed out to you, your own quoted etymological reference gives that understanding. 
 
Even if you dismiss any single one of the 'Flood Deaths' as being due to Nature/GOD, you would have to prove with evidence that the causing of the Flood was intentional and the motive was to 'terrify'. Only then would the Flood be an "act of Terror". Think over that. 
 
Floods being caused by human ineptitude or by inconsiderations fuelled by greed are NOT 'acts of Terror' even if one of the consequences of such acts is 'Floods that Terrify'.
 
Connectedly, though not very pertinent, very many times Etymology can be nothing but academia and the flogging of a dead animal when current usage has picked up newer definitions to the meaning. At times starkly different meanings and some even the opposite of the original.  Excellent examples of that are the word groups called 'Autoantonyms' or "Janus Words".
 
It would be reasonable to expect the Media, who you complained about, to use meanings that are common currency. 
 
You confusions are aggravated by your trying to find a commoin recipe for cooking up the meanings of the words "Terror", "Terrorist" and "Terrorism".
 
I suggest to you to first fixate yourself on understanding "Terrorism" as an ideology as followed today and not through some 1794 Robespierre lecturing or the history of usage of the word 'terrorism'. Two excellent translations are the Hindi-Aatankvaad and the Urdu-Dehshatgardi. The contextual meanings for "Terror" and "Terrorist" will then be simpler to derive.
 
The (extracted by you too) much quoted "one party's terrorist to be another's guerilla or freedom fighter" is from positions held on the basis of subjective evaluations. That is a different topic altogether with each pertinent situation having it's own unique history and characteristics.
 
Much before any such subjective judgments, there is the defining of what constitutes an act of 'terror'. To put the tail into the snout that led it at first, the referred to "Flood Deaths" are not due to 'acts of Terror'.
 
Here are some random thoughts:
 
- A school teacher might 'terrorise' his/her students but would not be called a 'terrorist' or accused of 'terrorism'
 
- A pedestrian might feel 'terror' or be 'terrified'  by an oncoming speeding vehicle that is likely to hit him, but the driver would not be called a 'terrorist' or the rash driving be called 'an act of terror' 
 
 
Kshmendra
 
PS. It would have a context of it's own, but I found extremely interesting the 1794 Robespierre quotation:

"If the basis of a popular government in peacetime is virtue, its basis in a time of revolution is virtue and terror -- virtue, without which terror would be barbaric; and terror, without which virtue would be impotent." 
 

--- On Sat, 1/10/09, Taha Mehmood <2tahamehmood at googlemail.com> wrote:

From: Taha Mehmood <2tahamehmood at googlemail.com>
Subject: Re: [Reader-list] Is the singular Rhetoric of Terror flawed?
To: kshmendra2005 at yahoo.com
Cc: "reader-list at sarai.net" <reader-list at sarai.net>
Date: Saturday, January 10, 2009, 6:12 PM


Dear Kshmendra, Dear Rakesh, 

Thank you for your posts. 

We seem to be moving in the range of ad hominem arguments and I have no desire to be dragged into that. 

So for the sake of reinstatement of my views kindly allow me to present my thoughts again. 

1. Events related to loss of human life, property, and livelihood are happening in our country. 
2. These events are framed and articulated by our media. 
3. Media frames some of these events as 'Terror' and 'Terrorism' others are not given this tag. 

when I say -Terror- I refer to the following interpretation- 

c.1375 "great fear," from O.Fr. terreur (14c.), from L. terrorem (nom. terror) "great fear, dread," from terrere "fill with fear, frighten," from PIE base *tre- "shake" (see terrible). Meaning "quality of causing dread" is attested from 1528; terror bombing first recorded 1941, with ref. to German air attack on Rotterdam. Sense of "a person fancied as a source of terror" (often with deliberate exaggeration, as of a naughty child) is recorded from 1883. The Reign of Terror in Fr. history (March 1793-July 1794) so called in Eng. from 1801. O.E. words for "terror" included broga and egesa.

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=terror&searchmode=none

and  by Terrorism my interpretation is informed by the reading below-


terrorism 
1795, in specific sense of "government intimidation during the Reign of Terror in France" (1793-July 1794), from Fr. terrorisme (1798), from L. terror (see terror). 
"If the basis of a popular government in peacetime is virtue, its basis in a time of revolution is virtue and terror -- virtue, without which terror would be barbaric; and terror, without which virtue would be impotent." [Robespierre, speech in Fr. National Convention, 1794] General sense of "systematic use of terror as a policy" is first recorded in Eng. 1798. Terrorize "coerce or deter by terror" first recorded 1823. Terrorist in the modern sense dates to 1947, especially in reference to Jewish tactics against the British in Palestine -- earlier it was used of extremist revolutionaries in Russia (1866); and Jacobins during the French Revolution (1795) -- from Fr. terroriste. The tendency of one party's terrorist to be another's guerilla or freedom fighter was noted in ref. to the British action in Cyprus (1956) and the war in Rhodesia (1973). The word terrorist has been applied, at least retroactively, to the Maquis resistance in occupied France in
 World War II (e.g. in the "Spectator," Oct. 20, 1979).http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=terror&searchmode=none

4. I was curious that why does one type of event is constructed as -Terrorism- or -Terror- while the other not?

Warm regards 

Taha