Posted on 09/21/2001 8:58:24 PM PDT by Atticus
A collection of speeches and essays of historian Paul Johnson (author of Modern Times and other best-sellers) was published in Great Britain in 1980 by Basil Blackwell Publisher under the title The Recovery of Freedom. I do not believe the book was published in the United States and it is almost certainly out of print. Chapter 18 of The Recovery of Freedom is titled, "The Seven Deadly Sins of Terrorism" and consists of a speech delivered by Mr. Johnson at the opening session of the Jerusalem Conference on International Terrorism in July 1979. Here are some highlights of the speech:
Before looking at the correct approach to the problem of terrorism, let us examine what I am certain is the wrong one. The wrong approach is to see terrorism as one of many symptoms of a deep-seated malaise in our society, part of a pattern of violence that includes juvenile delinquency, rising crime rates, student riots, vandalism and football hooliganism, which is blamed on the shadow of the H-bomb, Western materialism, TV and cinema violence, rising divorce rates, inadequate welfare services and poverty-an analysis that usually ends in the meaningless and defeatist conclusion that "society" itself is to blame.
The truth is, international terrorism is not part of a generalized problem. It is a specific and identifiable problem on its own; and because it is specific and identifiable, because it can be isolated from the context which breeds it, it is a remediable problem.
To say it is remediable, however, is not to underestimate its size and danger. On the contrary; it is almost impossible to exaggerate the threat which terrorism holds for our civilization. It is a threat which is in many ways more serious than the risk of nuclear war, or the population explosion, or global pollution or the supposed exhaustion of the earth's resources. These dangers to our civilization can be, have been or are being contained. The threat of terrorism is not being contained; it is, on the contrary, increasing steadily. Indeed, one central reason why it is such a formidable threat is that very few people in the civilized world-governments and parliaments, TV and newspapers, and the public generally-take terrorism seriously enough.
Most people, I fear, tend to underestimate the sheer fragility of a civilization. They do not appreciate that civilizations fall as well as rise….
To say that terrorism is a war against civilization may provoke the objection that terrorists are often idealists pursuing worthy ultimate aims-national or regional independence, and so forth. I do not accept this argument. I cannot agree that a terrorist can ever be an idealist, or that the objects sought can ever justify terrorism. The impact of terrorism, not merely on individual nations, but on humanity as a whole, is intrinsically evil, necessarily evil, and wholly evil. It is so for a number of demonstrable reasons: let us consider the Seven Deadly Sins of Terrorism.
First, Terrorism is the deliberate and cold-blooded exaltation of violence over other forms of public activity. The modern terrorist does not employ violence as a necessary evil, but as a desireable form of activity. There is a definite intellectual background to the present wave of terrorism. It springs not only from the Leninist and Trotskyist justification of violence, but from the post-war philosophy of violence derived from Nietzche through Heidegger, and enormously popularized by Satre and his disciples….
….It is precisely this line of thought, that violence is positive and creative, which helps the terrorists to perform the horrifying acts for which they are responsible. Of course, the same argument, almost word for word, was used by Hitler, who repeated endlessly: 'Virtue lies in blood.' Hence the first deadly sin of terrorism is the moral justification of murder not merely as a means to an end, but for its own sake.
The second is the deliberate suppression of the moral instincts of man. Terrorist organizers have found it is not enough to give their recruits intellectual justification for murder: the instinctive humanity in us all has to be systematically blunted, or else it rejects such sophistry....The theory is based on the assumption that neither man nor woman can be an effective terrorist as long as he or she retains the moral elements of a human personality. One might say, then, that the second deadly sin of terrorism is a threat not merely to our civilization, but to our very humaniy itself.
The third, following directly from the first two, is the rejection of politics as the normal means by which communities resolve conflicts. To terrorists, violence is not a political weapon to be used in in extremis; it is a substitute for the entire political process….
Terrorism, however, is not neutral in the political battle. It does not, in the long run, tend towards anarchy: it tends towards totalitarianism. The fourth deadly sin of terrorism is that it actively, systematically and necessarily assists the spread of the totalitarian state. The countries which finance and maintain the international infrastructure of terrorism, which give terrorists refuge and havens, training camps and bases, money, arms and diplomatic support-all as a matter of deliberate state policy-are, without exception, totalitarian states. The governments of all these states rule by military and police force. The notion, then, that terrorism is opposed to the 'oppressive forces' in society is false; indeed, it is the reverse of the truth. International terrorism, and the various local terrorist movements it services, are entirely dependent on the continuing good will and active support of the police states. The terrorist is sustained by the totalitarian tank, the torture chamber, the lash and the secret policeman. The terrorist is the beneficiary of the Gulag Archipelago and all it stands for.
So to the fifth deadly sin. Terrorism poses no threat to the totalitarian state. That kind of state can always sustain itself by judicial murder, preventative arrest, torture of prisoners and suspects, and complete censorship of terrorist activities….Hence, the fifth deadly sin is that terrorism distinguishes between lawful and totalitarian states in favor of the latter. It can destroy a democracy, as it destroyed the Lebanon, but it cannot destroy a totalitarian state. All it can do is to transform a nation struggling towards progress and legality into a nightmare of oppression and violence.
This leads us to another significant conclusion about terrorism. Its ultimate base is in the totalitarian world: that is where its money, training, arms and protection come from. But at the same time it can only operate effectively in the freedom of a liberal civilization. The sixth deadly sin of terrorism is that it exploits the apparatus of freedom in liberal societies and thereby endangers it….
….Yet the seventh deadly sin of terrorism operates, paradoxically, in the reverse direction, and is yet more destructive. A free society which reacts to terrorism by invoking authoritarian methods of repressing it necessarily damages itself, as I have argued. But an even graver danger, and a much more common one alas, is of free societies, in their anxiety to avoid the totalitarian extreme, failing to arm themselves against the terrorist threat, and so abdicating their responsibility to uphold the law. The terrorists gain ground when they provoke repression. But they triumph when they are met with appeasement. The seventh and deadliest sin of terrorism is that is saps the will of a civilized society to defend itself. Hence we find governments negotiating with terrorists, negotiations not aimed at disarming the terrorists, for such negotiations may sometimes be necessary, but negotiations whose natural and inevitable result is to concede part (or even the whole) of the terrorists' demands. We find governments providing ransom money to terrorists; we find governments permitting private individuals to provide ransom money, even assisting the process whereby it reaches the terrorists, and so goes to finance their further efforts. We find governments releasing convicted criminals in response to terrorist demands. We find governments according terrorists the status, rights and advantages, and above all the legitimacy, of negotiating partners. We find governments according terrorist convicts the official and privileged status of political prisoners….We find newspapers and TV networks, often indeed state TV networks, placing democratic governments and terrorists on a level of moral parity. We find governments failing, time and again, in their duty to persuade the public-and this is the heart of the matter-that terrorists are not misguided politicians: they are first, last and all the time criminals; extraordinary criminals indeed, in that they are exceptionally dangerous to us all and pose a unique threat not merely to individuals they murder without compunction but to the whole fabric of society, but criminals all the same.
In short, the seventh and deadliest sin of terrorism is its attempt to induce civilization to commit suicide.…
Terrorism, in conclusion, is no longer a marginal problem for the civilized world, something to be contained and lived with, a mere nuisance. It is a real, important and growing threat to the peace and legitimacy of all civilized states, that is all those states which live under the rule of law. It is an international threat: therein lies its power. That power can only be destroyed or emasculated when there is international recognition of its gravity, and international action, by the united forces of civilization, to bring it under control.
This is why it is critically important to understand who perpetrated and conceived of the bombings.
Excellent essay, pure and written with unassailable logic.
The terrorists gain ground when they provoke repression. But they triumph when they are met with appeasement.
I have always liked Johnson, and thought his Modern Times was the most fun history book ever written. With the above, he shows well his brilliance. We would do well to listen carefully to his wise counsel.
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