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

[taraprakash]

Dear Taha and all. if we start stretching the definitions of any word like 
"terrorism" there will be no limits. The coverage of Israel attacks on media 
frightens people like me; should we call the media terrorist as they 
terrorize me? JMM leader has recently been terrorized by UPA allies; and 
withdrawl of support to JMM by RJD and other parties will murder several 
hopes and dreams. So is bringing down a government a terrorist activity? 
Many news agencies call Kashmiri militants as terrorists, but not those 
belonging to Fatah in Gaza. The media in Israel will do other way round. The 
media I use for reading/listening news never calls Nuxal activists as 
terrorists; but Naxlites are called terrorists by many other news papers. 
The question, what can be called terrorism and what not, brings back to one 
of the properties of language known as arbitrary relationship between the 
signifier and signified. Unfortunately to what extent you can be arbitrary 
with this relationship is also arbitrary.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Taha Mehmood" <2tahamehmood at googlemail.com>
To: <kshmendra2005 at yahoo.com>
Cc: <reader-list at sarai.net>
Sent: Saturday, January 10, 2009 7:42 AM
Subject: Re: [Reader-list] Is the singular Rhetoric of Terror flawed?


> 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<http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=terrible>).
> Meaning "quality of causing dread" is attested from 1528; terror
> bombingfirst 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 <http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=terrorism> [image: 
> Look
> up terrorism at
> Dictionary.com]<http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=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 <http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=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
> _________________________________________
> reader-list: an open discussion list on media and the city.
> Critiques & Collaborations
> To subscribe: send an email to reader-list-request at sarai.net with 
> subscribe in the subject header.
> To unsubscribe: https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list
> List archive: &lt;https://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/>