August 30, 1975
Vietnam syndrome didn’t infect The New Republic—perhaps because it opposed that war. The magazine searched for a reasonable alternative to pacifism, an alternative that came in the form of the political philosopher Michael Walzer. He insisted that ethics play a central role in debates over military intervention. Over the years, he has provided a running interpretation of the moral justness of violence. His pieces for the magazine—on the Gulf Wars, the Arab-Israel conflagration, the advent of drones, the Bush administration’s authorization of torture—could be culled into their own history of conflict in our times.
Conceived as a form of political warfare against the established order, terrorism is now about 100 years old. The terrorism of governments, of course, is much older and, except in histories of the French Revolution, is rarely given its proper name. But the terrorism of dissident groups has its origins in the 1860s. It has been a feature of far left and ultra-nationalist politics ever since, though its legitimacy has been much debated and many leading leftists and nationalists have condemned it. Throughout these debates it’s been assumed that a single phenomenon was at issue: killing for a cause, strategic murder. In fact two very different activities are hidden here behind a single name, and in the years since World War II, terrorism has undergone a radical transformation.
Until about the middle of the 20th century, terrorism was most often a modernist version of the older politics of assassination—the killing of particular people thought to be guilty of particular acts. Since that time terrorism has most often taken the form of random murder, its victims unknown in advance and, even from the standpoint of the terrorists, innocent of any crime. The change is of deep moral and political significance, though it has hardly been discussed. It represents the breakdown of a political code, worked out in the late 19th century and roughly analogous to the laws of war, developed at the same time.
I can best describe this code by giving some examples of “terrorists” who acted or tried to act in accordance with its norms. I have chosen three historical cases, from different parts of the world. The first will be readily recognizable, for Albert Camus made it the basis of his play The Just Assassins.
• In the 1870s, a group of Russian revolutionaries decided to kill a Czarist official, the head of a police agency, a man personally involved in the repression of radical activity. They planned to blow him up in his carriage, and on the appointed day one of their number was in place along his usual route. As the carriage drew near, the young revolutionary, a bomb hidden under his coat, noticed that the official was not alone; on his lap he held two small children. The revolutionary looked, hesitated, decided not to throw his bomb; he would wait for another occasion. Camus has one of his comrades say, accepting this decision: “Even in destruction, there’s a right way and a wrong way—and there are limits.”
• During the years 1938-39, the Irish Republican Army waged a bombing campaign in Britain. In the course of this campaign, a republican militant was ordered to carry a pre-set time bomb to a London power station. He traveled by bicycle, the bomb in his basket, took a wrong turn, and got lost in the maze of London streets. As the time for the explosion drew near, he panicked, dropped his bike, and ran off. The bomb exploded, killing five passers-by. No one in the IRA (as it was then) thought this a victory for the cause; the men immediately involved were horrified. The campaign had been carefully planned, according to a recent historian of the IRA, so as to avoid the killing of innocent bystanders.
• In November, 1944, Lord Moyne, British Minister of State in the Middle East, was assassinated in Cairo by two members of the Stern Gang, a right wing Zionist group. The two assassins were caught minutes later by an Egyptian policeman. One of them described the capture at his trial: “We were being followed by the constable on his motorcycle. My comrade was behind me. I saw the constable approach him . . . I would have been able to kill the constable easily, but I contented myself with . . . shooting several times into the air. I saw my comrade fall off his bicycle. The constable was upon him. Again I could have eliminated the constable with a single bullet, but I did not. Then I was caught.”
What is common to these three cases is a moral distinction, a line drawn between people who can and people who cannot be killed—the political equivalent of the line between combatants and noncombatants. The obliteration of this line is the critical feature of contemporary terrorism. In former times children, passers-by and sometimes even policemen were thought to be uninvolved in the political struggle, innocent people whom the terrorist had no right to kill. He did not even claim a right to terrorize them; in fact his activity was misnamed—a minor triumph for the forces of order. But today’s terrorists earn their title. They have emptied out the category of innocent people; they claim a right to kill anyone; they seek to terrorize whole populations. The seizure of hostages (barred now in wartime) symbolizes a general devaluation of human life, which is most clearly expressed when the terrorist’s victims are not held for ransom but simply killed. A bomb planted on a street corner, hidden in a bus station, thrown into a cafe or pub: this is a new way of taking aim, and it turns groups of people, without distinction, into targets.
I don’t want to recommend assassination. It is a vile politics; its agents are usually gangsters (and sometimes madmen) in political dress. But we do judge assassins to some degree by their victims, and when the victims are Hitler-like in character, agents of oppression and cruelty, we may even praise the assassin’s work. It is at least conceivable, though difficult, to be a “just assassin,” while just terrorism is a contradiction in terms. For the assassin fights a limited war: he aims at known individuals and seeks specific political and social changes.
The new terrorism, on the other hand, is a total war against nations, ethnic groups, religions. Its strategic goals are the repression, exile or destruction of entire peoples. Thus the victory of the FLN in Algeria forced the emigration of the French colons, while the victory of the OAS would have brought savage repression for Algerian Arabs. If the Provisional IRA were ever to triumph in Northern Ireland, the majority of Protestants would have to leave. The PLO would destroy the Israeli state and force most of its citizens into exile, if it were able. Such goals cannot be kept secret; they are the unmistakable message of random murder—whatever the official program of the terrorist group. The line that marks off political agents from uninvolved men and women, officials from ordinary citizens, is critically important. Once it has been crossed, there is no further line to draw, no stopping place beyond which people can feel safe. Terrorism is the ultimate lawlessness, infinitely threatening to its potential victims, who believe (rightly, it seems to me) that no compromise is possible with their would-be murderers.
And yet terrorists operate today in what has to be called a permissive atmosphere. Statesmen rush about to make bargains with them; journalists construct elaborate apologias on their behalf. How is this indefensible activity defended? It is said that contemporary terrorists are not doing anything new; they are acting as revolutionaries and nationalists have always acted, which is demonstrably false. It is said that terrorism is the inevitable product of hardship and oppression, which is also false. Both these statements suggest a loss of the historical past, a kind of ignorance or forgetfulness that erases all moral distinctions along with the men and women who painfully worked them out. Finally it is said that random murder is an effective political strategy; the terrorist will win the day—which, if true, is the most frightening assertion of all, less a defense of the terrorist, than an indictment of the rest of us.
“The revolution,” says one of Camus’ characters, “has its code of honor.” At least it once had. Political militants struggling against forms of oppression as cruel as anything in the contemporary world taught one another that there are limits on political action: everything is not permitted. These were not necessarily gentle, or even good, people. Many of them were all too ready to kill officials, collaborators, traitors to the cause. In discussing means and ends, they were often ruthless and, once in power, they were often tyrannical. But except for a few deranged individuals, seizing hostages and killing children lay beyond their ken, outside the range of their strategic considerations. They did not want the revolution to be “loathed by the whole human race.”
Today, in many parts of the world, radical politics has been taken over by thugs and fanatics. One of the reasons they are as strong as they are is that the rest of us have lost the courage of our loathing. To deal with terrorists, police work is necessary; so is intelligence work, and all the security devices of an advanced technology. But none of these will be enough unless we can also restore a collective sense of the moral ugliness of terrorism. For the moment we are only confused: frightened, defensive, weakly indignant. The American consul in Kuala Lumpur, released in Libya by the “Red Army” a few weeks ago, earnestly told reporters that his captors had been “perfect gentlemen.” I suppose he was grateful not to have been beaten or shot, but the description could not have been more inaccurate. Prepared to kill some 50 hostages, already responsible for acts of murder in Japan, Western Europe and Israel, these were revolutionaries entirely without honor. Nothing is more important than to recall the code that they have consciously rejected. It is, to be sure, little more than the minimal standard of political decency. But reasserting minimal standards would right now be a great advance for civilization.