Editorials
Contents Volume CXI, Number 22 Correspondence 674 Editorials 675 Die or say goodbye: Dennis Bernstein & Connie Blitt 676 The pluralism puzzle: John Garvey 677 A different kind of...
...He calmly told me that his teacher had been decapitated outside the schoolhouse...
...Nationalist or ethnic terrorism aimed at driving out a government (or a people) defined as "foreign" and illegitimate...
...In one sense, terrorism is as ancient as the slaughter of women and children, the leveling of cities, the torture of prisoners...
...But perhaps one should not speak so much of terrorism as terrorisms...
...The insidiousness of terrorism lies in its flagrant disregard for one of the foundation stones of civilization -- law...
...Again and again, terrorists strike in situations where the political realm, however recalcitrant, does offer possibilities - - which the terrorists, damning such political efforts as illusion and betrayal, want to foreclose...
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...Responding to Shultz, the New York Times suggested that countries be willing to "close embassies, deny landing rights, freeze assets, or impose any other concerted sanctions," when assaulted by terrorists...
...Canada, $26...
...Many Americans have voiced concern over the amount of violence children witness daily on television...
...Two years later she was in a public bathroom in San Salvador when security police arrested her...
...Maria fled the country soon afterwards for fear she would be next...
...How are we to respond, for instance, to the CIA training manual for anti-Sandinista guerrillas...
...Secretive and choosing its targets virtually anywhere, it creates not only the need for embassies t o " hunker down" defensively all over the world, but for open societies to sap their own civil liberties through extensive security measures, or even to undermine their own moral credibility by adopting the terrorists' standards...
...The assassinations of Bashir Germayel and Indira Gandhi, the bombing of South Korean officials, the attempt on the life of Margaret Thatcher and other Tory leaders in England are among the more spectacular recent examples...
...An eleven-year-old boy came over to tl~e house one day," Elder recalled, "and sat down next to me...
...dollars by International Money Order or by check on a U.S...
...The plural is partly called for by the frightening array of terrorist groups and campaigns: Red Brigades in Italy, Basque and Irish and Corsican and Armenian nationalists, Shining Path guerrillas in the Andes, death squads in Central America, Palestinian and now Israeli extremists, the Islamic Holy War, Libyan hit squads.., the list goes on...
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...foreign, $53...
...it breeds suspicion...
...Yet there are real difficulties in attributing legitimacy to numerous governments...
...Canada, $47...
...The pure type of terrorism involves attacks on innocent bystanders - - civilians and noncombatants by any stretch of the imagination - - in order to coerce government policy or gain publicity for a cause...
...She described the conditions of her imprisonmen t. Torture was an everyday occurenqe: "They dripped acid on our hands...
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...The insidiousness of terrorism lies equally in the fact that it is an attack on politics - - on the whole process of public mobilization, deliberation, appeals to reason and affection, and in many cases resort to the ballot, that allows the messy but peaceful resolution of differences...
...Some returning Commonweal: 676...
...Military intelligence should pinpoint guilty parites...
...Now in the United States, Maria is afraid she will be discovered by the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) and deported to E1 Salvador...
...her head was barely hanging on by the threads...
...Modem technology creates linkages that were once beyond the imagination - - plotting to bomb an embassy in Rome, for example, in order to draw attention to conflicts in Lebanon...
...The world does need an alliance against terrorism, and we are compelled by the ever-lengthening litany of victims not to practice ourselves what we deplore in others...
...Airplane passengers are seized, athletes are slain, synagogues are bombed...
...Jack Elder is one of an estimated 50,000 Americans who are risking felony charges in order to provide shelter for a small portion of the hundreds of thousands of undocumented Central Americans now living in the United States...
...Television broadcasts can transform destructive acts into theatrical performances for millions of viewers...
...So are the Basque ETA killings in Spain, and the silencing of voices for moderation in the PLO...
...Telephone: (212) MU 3-2042...
...Refugees DIE OR SAY GOODBYE SALVADORANS ON THE RUN KB I , , W HAT I HAVE DONE is completely legal under the W terms of the Geneva Convention," remarked Jack Elder, Vietnam veteran and former Peace Corps volunteer...
...Slightly less random but no less terrifying are the kidnapping, torture, and murder of unofficial opponents of the terrorists: union leaders, independent intellectuals, popular "tribunes" like Aquino in the Philippines, or Father Popieluszko in Poland, or even the pope in Rome...
...But what, outside of tightened security, can in truth be done...
...Revolutionary terrorism aimed at overthrowing a whole political or social order in favor of some other...
...bank...
...10016...
...We were given electric shocks on our stomachs, behind our ears, and everywhere else imaginable...
...We must, he says, distinguish between what is a violent struggle against despotism and what is terrorism "aimed at the destruction of democratic institutions...
...But what about the youth of E1 Salvador...
...The IRA attempt to murder Margaret Thatcher is a case in point...
...The stories which Elder and others hear regularly from these refugees are ones of horror and loss...
...We began to talk...
...I f our government denies the refugees this protection, then I have the right as a civilian to step in...
...Terrorism threatens chaos...
...Elder, who now directs Casa Oscar Romero in southern Texas, is facing a prison term of up to fifteen years and a fine of six thousand dollars on charges of aiding "illegal aliens," mostly Salvadorans...
...In the event that economic sanctions prove insufficient, military retaliation might be necessary...
...Several days after they let us go, two of my friends were found dead...
...the one thing clear is that traditional distinctions between civilians and armed forces are no longer respected...
...At age fourteen Maria witnessed the brutal murder of her parents by unidentified men who broke into the family's home in the middle of the night...
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...At the airport, he or she is taken to a special registration with officials...
...Then come attacks on those somehow associated with the government or "enemy" apparatus - - from village officials to police forces, from diplomatic personnel to heads of state...
...Indiscriminate violence is not justified even against terrorists, let alone those who might be supposed to be their sympathizers...
...But the plural is also called for because the term has come to be applied to several different phenomena, which, alas for those preferring exact terminology, overlap in numerous ways...
...That was the drop of poison in the heart of Secretary of State Shultz's trial balloon about counter-terrorist retaliation...
...And obviously such an initiative would be most effective primarily against state-sponsored or state-assisted terrorism...
...Unfortunately, such terrorism is often not as clearcut as some pretend: Here we enter the murky waters of intelligence and covert operations, which seem naturally to foster a mentality disdainful of the moral distinctions that have been maintained even by warfare, and which spawn activities they cannot control...
...foreign, $29...
...Attorney Carol Wolchok of the American Civil Liberties Union's Political Asylum Project has documented a number of cases in which Salvadorans who were for to return to their homeland have disappeared or been killed outright...
...Obviously, such an initiative would have to rest on an international consensus...
...After nearly three years in captivity, Maria was freed during a Salvadoran government amnesty program...
...Contents Volume CXI, Number 22 Correspondence 674 Editorials 675 Die or say goodbye: Dennis Bernstein & Connie Blitt 676 The pluralism puzzle: John Garvey 677 A different kind of politics: Mary Pat Kelly 679 A positive alternative for religious investors: Carol Coston 683 Screen: Tom O'Brien 686 Verse: Robert Swanson, Josephine Jacobsen, Roge r Finch 687 Dance: Don McDonagh 688 The renegade haunted by God: Robert E. Lauder Books 690 I The Sexuality of Christ in Renaissance Art and in Modem Oblivion: David Toolan 692 Prince of Peace: William O'Rourke 694 Up in the Park: Patrick Jordan 696 Staff Editor: Peter Steinfels Assistant Editors: David Toolan, Karen Sue Smith, Patrick Jordan Production Editor: Anne Robertson Poetry: Rosemary Deen, Marie Ponsot Columnists: John Garvey, J. Bryan Hehir, Abigail McCarthy Staff: Karen F. Silva, Harriette Balsky, Patricia Mazzola Advertising Manager...
...I was released with a group of friends and we were immediately hunted by the death squads...
...Terrorism has also become plural in its objectives...
...But terrorism is also a distinctly modem phenomenon, one made possible by communications systems that effectively relay the terrorists' "message...
...According to Wolchok, a deportee who reenters El Salvador is a marked person...
...The latest variant, state-sponsored terrorism, aims at carrying out an established state's objectives by force but without the risk of an open declaration of war...
...How do we view the production by our government of instructions on assassination, the use of criminals as mercenaries, and the murder of other guerrillas to create martyrs...
...Terrorism is an attack on politics in another sense...
...Ruth E. Taylor Publisher: Edward S. Skillin Commonweal, [ISSN 0010-3330] A Review of Public Affairs, Religion, Literature, and the Arts, is published biweekly, except monthly Christmas-New Year's and July and August, by Commonweal Foundation, 232 Madison Ave., New York, N.Y...
...Leszek Kolakowski, writing in a 14 December 1984:675 Harper's forum on terrorism, reminds us that "the worst atrocities committed by the Soviet government against its own people, including the genocide during Stalin's regime, have been for the most part entirely legal...
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...Here the line between "pure" terrorism and undeclared or even declared guerrilla combat or civil war becomes blurred...
...Similarly, The New Republic envisions an alliance of nations that would sign a Terror Defense Treaty which, when violated, would merit "stiff and joint sanctions...
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...Elder contends that these people fleeing an armed conflict must be considered "refugees," and hence entitled to shelter...
...Legality, however, takes on a dubious meaning in the case of all too many contemporary states...
...Her fears are not unfounded...
...I TERRORISM, PURE & COMPLEX A i3AIN THIS Christmas our prayers for peace are burdened not only by the weight of nuclear weaponry but by calculated acts of terrorism as well...
Vol. 111 • December 1984 • No. 22
