What is a Terrorist?

(By way of preface, I'm Anderson Brown, recruited by Phil to be the "house philosopher." It may be that after a while Ars Notoria will evolve into a coherent set of writers - hopefully individually coherent as well of course - such that we can be seen to have a "house philosophy," but such things evolve naturally. In the meantime, I will sometimes let go with some abstruse philosophy, sometimes with political musings (I only rant by prearrangement) or something else. Discussions will emerge but meanwhile this is "What I'm Thinking About Right Now," served up once a week here on Ars Notoria.)

Hillary Clinton is in Pakistan, and yesterday she faced a group of local people from an area heavily attacked by "predator drones," unmanned aircraft that have been heavily used to hit targets in Waziristan, allegedly an Al-Qaeda stronghold and the site of an ongoing Pakistani military operation. All of the comments from the locals reported in the article are along the same lines: the presence of the Americans, and the civilian casualties from the drone attacks, are alienating the population.

Specifically, one woman asked Clinton if she considered drone attacks and the suicide bombing that killed more than 100 people in Peshawar this week to both be acts of terrorism. "No, I do not," Clinton replied. This gets to the definition of the word "terrorism." As the name of a political-military tactic, Clinton is right: "terrorism" in this sense is defined by two features: 1) the use of deliberate attacks on civilians ("non-combatants") in order to foment political destabilization and 2) the resort to such attacks in lieu of the ability shared by established states to finance, organize and apply conventional military power. Speaking strictly in this way, if civilian deaths are a consequence ("collateral damage") of a military attack, but not its intention, then such attacks are not acts of terrorism as they were not intended to cause these deaths. Staying strict, the bombing of cities in World War II, although intended, among other aims, to beat societies into submission by deliberately targeting civilians, were not the resort of otherwise powerless combatants but rather one option out of many available to established states, and thus were not terrorism under our definition.

This last point is important because the basic defense of terrorism as a morally justified activity is that it is a justified resort of parties to political violence who do not have any other means of projecting force. Thus one might hold that aerial bombing intended to (using the word in its idiomatic sense) terrorize civilians by states is not morally justified as states have alternatives, whereas a subject people, say, may not and thus might legitimately resort to terrorism.

My view? I think that the issue here is violence itself. The woman who questioned Clinton was making a rhetorical point: your blowing up innocents is not morally superior to anyone else blowing up innocents. Waving the bloody shirt of "terrorism" does not change this. Notice that that cuts both ways. This is the insight of pacifism: the only (even possibly) moral question is, who will break the cycle? Who is willing to renounce violence altogether? This is a different point than the point that the Americans' use of force in Pakistan and elsewhere does not appear to be achieving American ends (that is, it's a bad strategy). It's a much deeper point. The ultimate moral point and the situational strategic point come together in a very worn adage: "Live by the sword, die by the sword."

Is blogging together being like Iceland?

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[Scroll down to read a new addition to this post which first appeared on http://acacciatura.wordpress.com/]

By wordnerd7

de•lin•quent (dĭ-lĭng’kwənt, -lĭn’-)

adj. 1. Failing to do what law or duty requires.

2. Overdue in payment: a delinquent account.

[Latin dēlinquēns, dēlinquent-, present participle of dēlinquere, to offend : dē-, de- + linquere, to leave, abandon; see leikw- in Indo-European roots.]

… Yes, I know. . . I know. The long gap between posts – if nothing else – proves that nearly all shades of that word apply to the writer of this blog. But whereas most people wander from their accustomed haunts when the days are long and the weather balmy, some of us put off going away until the wind picks up, the thermostat drops, and we can maximise our chances of surreal experiences. I’ve been busy haggling over steamer trunks, mules and camels, and calculating how many tents I’ll need.

I’ve been recalled to duty at this site by @ISA, also known as Philip Hall, who has just launched an experiment in collaborative blogging. If Phil had consulted me beforehand about timing – never mind that there’s no reason why he should have done — I’d have explained that I couldn’t accept either his invitation or his ‘all hands on deck’ summons over at Ars Notoria, or certainly not in the immediate future.

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I wish the new site every success. Its launch has dovetailed tidily with reflections over the last few days on what I’ve learnt from running acciaccature — one year old next month, when I might not have access to a computer or even a net-capable mobile telephone. Moments before I had Phil’s birth announcement, and looking for attractive trunk-lining, I came across this paragraph in an excellent travelogue by Rebecca Solnit in last October’s issue of Harper’s Magazine:

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Iceland is the only part of Europe that never begat monarchs or a hereditary aristocracy […] Iceland’s national parliament, or Althing—the word for “assembly” being, in Icelandic, thing—was formed in 930 a.d., about sixty years after the first settlers came over from Norway. They met at a site whose name, Thingvellir, “the plain of the thing,” still commemorates this ancient annual gathering, which was a combined parliamentary session, court review, and country fair.

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Aha, I thought, re-reading that – a nation founded in the spirit of collaborative blogging, which Phil’s charter demonstrates to perfection. I dearly hope that Ars Notoria can avoid the obvious pitfalls of all such idealistic enterprises, never depicted more splendidly than by Orwell’s hypocritical, self-righteous oinks ‘more equal’ than the other beasts in Animal Farm.

About Icelandic government, though, what Solnit mentions as its most glaring flaw puzzled me at first. That, it seems, is cowardice – lily-livered citizen-governors – on which she quotes Svanur Kristjánsson, an Icelandic professor of political science:

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“You can run into your prime minister at the store,” he said. “You know the minister, the president—you can make an appointment with the president.” But at the same time, there is “an incredible lack of civic courage” within the governing class, “a lack of people standing up and telling the truth,”

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The idea seemed less surprising after I remembered the striking ratio in this very spot between the swarms of clicks, indicating reader interest, and the low comment count, for posts critical of The Guardian — taking it to task not just for silencing dissenting voices but far, far worse.

Whether or not Icelandic cowardice has any application at Ars Notoria - I’d guess none, if it turns out to be just a friendly chat forum, or one where bloggers with strange hobbies embrace fellow-hobbyists — countries could supply the best fast metaphors for what collaborative blogs should and shouldn’t aim at being.

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Since most of the bloggers I know and love best are almost militantly independent, I suspect that we’re most like nations made up of hardy and idiosyncratic mountain peoples when we attempt to blog together. Think of Switzerland, a country of only seven and a half million inhabitants splintered into twenty-six cantons speaking either wholly different languages or different dialects of the same language, and operating something like fractal micro-Switzerlands with their own laws.

Well, … perhaps not Switzerland, as after the 19th century its tribes, acting collectively, seem to have acquired a mysterious gift for attracting peace to themselves – or certainly for keeping out of international disputes.

Afghanistan would be its opposite, since that’s a mountainous nation that you might suppose to have a magical knack for magnetising conflict.

Collaborative blogging – in my experiences to date, starting with Desmond Swords’ heroic blogger-nation, Lit-Lovers’ Forum, in 2007 – is rather more like Afghanistan.

When I can help with Ars Notoria (and if Phil’s invitation still stands) I almost certainly will – though that won’t be for several weeks. Why the note of hesitation? Since Phil has some connection never quite spelt out with administrators at The Guardian, I confess that I’ve been wondering whether we aren’t being invited to act, unpaid, as laboratory mice for an experiment in moderation-free blogging whose most constructive and productive features will simply be copied by that newspaper.

I have trouble completely believing my suggestion myself – since Phil, unlike GNM, is as far as possible from a hypocrite or, as the subject has been mentioned, coward. I’m more deeply in his debt than anyone else’s for posting notices of this site’s existence in other places, and he has been unstinting with every form of encouragement. But for family-related reasons he has openly explained, he feels bound by respect and affection to certain editors at that newspaper.

I don’t envy him his complicated tight rope act, supporting both us and them. If I’m right in my guess … and I could be wholly mistaken … and if the policy-makers and online publishing strategists at The Guardian make the apology they owe a few of us for outrageous mistreatment; if they can be modest enough to ask for our help in trying out new kinds of blogging platforms; if they compensate us in some way for our effort, I’ll sign on. Who would doubt that that’s the right way forward for any newspaper serious about thriving in the ethersphere?

21 October 2009 

… Racing to put up this post two days ago, I forgot to mention one conclusion from watching several recent attempts at joint blogging – or setting up blog-zines. It’s that they are most likely to thrive and carry on when the bloggers choose a common theme, or specialise in a subject or few. . . I’m sure we can all agree that shared ideals and a common vision have a lot to do with the U.S. being more successful, so far, than other New World countries. (As delightful as they are, who can say what Canada or Brazil stand for?)

I have actually thought of an umbrella theme for those of us who met blogging on the arts site of a certain newspaper – one that would fit all of us to a ‘t’, accommodating the huge variations in our styles, and appealing equally to both genders and all points in-between. It has nothing to do with any protest or campaign, but would celebrate something we have in common. (No, not our ferocious independence.)

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But it’s an idea that could well be hugely attractive to blogging czars on newspaper and magazine sites – not least because it would put stars in the eyes of their advertising managers. I’m afraid that it would be stolen in an instant and, since I’m one blogger who – unlike some of our comrades -- _does_ need to think hard about ways of ‘monetising clicks’, down the road, I’ve been hoping that one of us can find a bright and honourable investor with a good reputation in some branch of the arts who would (i) get my drift in a flash; (ii) scrupulously refrain from trying to dominate the setting of our mutually agreed – extremely broad – guidelines for content and style; (iii) treat any preliminary discussions of the collaboration (some time after early November) as strictly confidential. . . The scheme could be set up as a not-for-profit venture, but – to be perfectly blunt about it -- I’d have to be paid.

This isn’t just my decision. The din from the people closest to me complaining about work being given away for free has grown deafening, and – speaking for many a comrade, I don’t doubt – my blogging days could soon be behind me unless this lovely medium can make some contribution to keeping wolves from the door.

Now, I realise that I might very well be whistling in the wind, … but then that can be good for the lungs, they say.

A Change of Surname

When Phil invited me to contribute to this blog I told him I had nothing to offer, that intellectually (and you will probably agree after reading what i have to blog) I was not up to it, I write songs that no one listens to and take photographs that no one looks at, what could I offer? I guess i am preparing for the bright eyes amongst you to lower your expectations, a cheap trick, but an honest one. I said I would give it a go because, I suppose I was flattered.

But what to write? I know Phil is political, a passionate man, a man of many interests, I didn't want to let him down - so, Phil if you are reading this (which I know you will be at some stage) - apologies for lowering the tone.

So, here goes - Yesterday someone said something that made me think in a way I have never thought before. It was so simple. He said that when he and his girlfriend decided to have children they wondered what surname to give their children. They didn't believe in marriage and all its connotations, nor did they like double barreled names (which name would get dropped?). So, like in days of old, they considered changing their name to one that reflected their occupations or where they lived.

I won't say what they chose, but somehow it was a perfect choice. It seemed right. It suited them, and even though I have never met their children, I bet it suits their children. It also made me think of the freedom of such a move. History smacked into the past and left there, a clean slate, no associations, a freshness, a newness, a sense of starting again, a cancelling out of all that has gone before, a clean break, an invention, a rebirth, how refreshing and liberating. A new family. A new future. An end to ancient family feuds.

But what about the past? Family history? Did it hurt those who believed the continuation of the family name was important, that their place, that their ink/digital existence had been threatened by a new and tiny family tree (a seedling). Did it seem disloyal? A slight? A stab in the back?

So reader, what if you decided to change your name? Now. Right now. Change it to suit your occupation, or the place you live? Joseph Journalist? Anthony Twickenham? Andrew Doncaster? Thomas Teddington? Philip New Malden? Lawrence Lawyer? Colin Weatherman? Brian Banker? Janice Insurance? Sue Southampton? William Wimbledon? Roger Public-Relations? Julie Animator? Bernard Biddulph? Nick Racist? John Plasterer? Bob (middle name - the) Builder? Mick Richmond? David Inverness? Simon Welder? Eric Programmer? Alan Administrator? Sharon Marketing? Bob Artist? Daisy Social Worker? Danni X-Factor? Tracy Counsellor?

Try it. How does it make you feel? Does it suit you? If you adopted it, what effect would it have on you? On your future? On your confidence? Your ambition? How people perceived you?

If you are doing a job that you love, that fits, that is right, and you live in a place that you feel secure and happy with, then why not change your name? Go on, give it a go....

Yours, Billy Blog.

An Appeal To Reverse Fate

The dog is dogged in chasing pigeons, his three-legged ziggedy zag a Sack Posset perfection of tongue-waggling slobberised smiling. When I was a youngster the jacaranda’s purple bruise signalled the arrival of November, exam time and a momentary sobriety. Now, because of all the boojwah cattle cars farting fumes they have bloomed and it is just October.

So here am I, in the park, with pepperment tea and a notebook, this one here where these words are, scrawling a strange sensation, like a singularity in my centre with the dog an electron planet wildly rotating sending silly birds whirring. I want to give the pigeons names but my sense of humour is so strangely inward, exclusive to various recluses, I would most probably get sued.

I must start submitting actual poems to magazines again instead of parodies in assumed names. I mean, I must stop pretending that I have submitted parodies to every Australian Literary journal (a hoax hoax) and start actually attempting to contribute to our (ahem) vibrant and honourable literary culture again. First of all though, I must brush these crushed purple blooms from my stolen heffalump pyjamas, gather that mad beast in and see if I can persuade Huehuecoyotle to remain still enough to sketch.

(cross posted at gingatao)

A warm welcome

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Why blog on ARS NOTORIA?

I have set up this website, ARS NOTORIA, (the notable art) as an opportunity for like-minded people like you to jot down your thoughts and share them with us on what I hope will be a high profile blog.

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ARS NOTORIA is conceived as an outlet: a way for you to get things off your chest, shake those bees out of your bonnet and scratch that itch. The idea is that you do so in a companionable blogging environment, one that that is less structured - freer.

Every article you care to write or photograph or picture you care to post will appear on its own page and you are pretty much guaranteed that people will read with interest what you produce and take time to look at what you post.

Personal blogs are OK, but what we long for, if we can admit it, are easy-going, loose knit communities: blogging hubs where we can share ideas and pop in and out as frequently, or as seldom, as we like.

You will be able to moderate and delete any of the comments made on any blog you care to post. You can blog under a pseudonym if you like. You are trusted implicitly and there are no limits. Neither are there limits on the topic or the subjects or the media you use or the number of blogs you decide to write.

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If you like you may repost something you have already published elsewhere on ARS NOTORIA. Perhaps, you will get a worthwhile response.

And as for punctuation, grammar and spelling; well that's up to you.

Phil Hall - ISA