Speaking of Terrorism
The folowing is a speech given by Ren Powell in Milan during the PEN Italian Conference in June of 2006. It will be published along with the other speeches in the autumn of 2006.
All words have at least two definitions: the denotation and the connotation. In English humid, muggy and sultry all have similar denotations, but differing connotations. I once got into a heated debate about whether the word sultry was really the appropriate choice for a children’s picture book: as in “it was a sultry afternoon”. Perhaps it’s true that I’d read too many Hollywood magazine articles about “sultry blonds” and “sultry brunettes”. But if it’s true, I’m not alone; it’s irresponsible to ignore the historical context of a word. The meanings of individual words alter over time through use, through the contexts of their applications. Remarkably few words are neutral in tone. More significant than nuance of meaning, is nuance of feeling. Tone, feeling, color, taste—the aspect of meaning that forces us to employ metaphor and synaesthesia to communicate. I am talking about the definition that is not noted in the dictionary: the quality that makes translation so demanding, that makes it an art rather than a science. It is also the quality that makes it so easy for individuals, governments and media to misdirect the attention of their audience: a linguistic sleight of hand. Words laden with emotion are the political illusionist’s tools: they can make things appear as they are not; they can make things and people and opinions disappear.
When I grew up in the Reagan-Thatcher years, the English language media was swamped with the nouns separatists and freedom-fighters. A separatist: separatist is one of those rare words that has an almost neutral connotation. If I call a person a separatist you can’t be certain of my attitude regarding the “cause” in question. Freedom-fighter: well, there’s an emotional word. I’d not likely set myself against someone fighting for “freedom”. I hope you’ll indulge me in sharing an entirely unscientific observation, but when I type the word separatist in the Google search engine I get 3, 130, 000 hits. When I type in Freedom-fighter I get 16,800,000 hits. Freedom-fighter suited the Reagan-Thatcher agenda.
When I type in the word terrorist I get 92,600,000 hits. I don’t expect this comes as a surprise to anyone. If heads of states in every part of the world were asked to list their most prized power tools, I’m certain the word terrorist would top every single list. The label is a gun with a silencer. Not only does it silence the non-violent separatist, the dissident, the political disobedient, it silences the international community. Though there are a myriad of definitions for terrorist, the tone is identical: “criminal acts”, “violence and intimidation”, “psychological warfare”, “inciting fear” among and within civilian populations, and the use “coercion to promote political or ideological goals”. Clearly, terrorists are the Bad Guys. The term obliterates all shades of gray in a discussion. Once a head of state labels an individual or a group of people with a common ideology, the situation is polarized: you are either with us or against us. The word separatist frees the international community from taking sides, but once the label terrorist has been put on people’s heads, avoiding the word terrorist, or replacing it with another word shatters the illusion. It is looking up the magician’s sleeve and questioning his or her integrity.
Of course there are terrorists. The deaths of 14,600 civilians in 2005 were not illusions. It’s not an exaggeration to say that every day the media relate a truly horrifying incident somewhere in the world, an incident expressly designed to terrify us, to keep us up nights, to force us to beg governments, “Please, just let them have their way so this will stop.” It would be ridiculous for me to suggest that governments not protect their citizens from terrorist acts. It would be equally ridiculous to suggest that governments do so by giving in to the demands of terrorists. However, fighting fire with fire is not the solution.
When the word terrorist comes to mean a person who holds a dissenting opinion rather than a person who commits an act with the intension of inciting terror, the word itself becomes a state-sanctioned terrorist tactic. By this, I mean that the threat of being labelled a terrorist coerces the civilian population into submission, compliance and silence. Countries with effectively single-party systems can and do censor opposition by declaring any and all dissidents as terrorists or potential terrorists or terrorist sympathisers. Countries involved in intercultural conflicts can and do use the “fight against terrorism” as an excuse to suppress people with specialized education. Fear creates an anti-intellectual climate and in this climate language becomes a blunt force instrument. Polarizing Rhetoric. Slogans. The World in Black and White.
I’m here today as a representative for ICORN- the International Cities of Refuge Network. Our objective is to help threatened or persecuted writers connect with a city somewhere in the world that can offer them a safe place to live and write for a period of time. Our job isn’t to get the good guys out of the bad countries. Our job is to make the shades of gray visible again: to facilitate a more nuanced dialogue.
Today there are seven cities of refuge in Norway alone, nearly 30 internationally, and spanning 3 continents. Norway’s guest writers have come from countries as diverse as India, Zimbabwe, Iran, Benin, Yemen and Russia. Their stories are just as diverse: Islam Elsanov, a Chechen filmmaker, whose ticking alarm clock sealed to his status as a terrorist suspect; and Easterine Kire, an indigenous woman in Nagaland whose political ideology has been tied to terrorism by the Indian government, and whose non-violent principles have been interpreted as traitorous by radical separatists: she is caught between poles. As I began writing this speech our current guest writer in Stavanger told me about how Zimbabwe’s president, Mugabe, is rushing to enact anti-terrorist legislation. If this novelist, Chenjerai Hove, were to return home now and meet up with more than three other people for a nice chat, under these new laws, he’d run the risk of being labelled a terrorist. It’s a sobering realization. A frightening thought. Still, I know that won’t silence Chenjerai Hove, just as it hasn’t silenced Easterine Kire or Islam Elsanov.
The former guest writer and exiled Yemeni poet Mansur Rajih wrote about the importance of language and communication in his poem Language:
Don’t you see?
If we couldn’t enunciate
How could we sing?…
How could we call out for each other?
Talk to the children?
And how could we share our dreams
If there were no language?
The poet Robert Frost said that freedom lies in being bold. Expressing oneself, one’s beliefs, opinions and convictions is perhaps the boldest thing a person can do. Expressing oneself is the ultimate assertion of freedom. It is our right and our responsibility to take part in and to facilitate a careful and nuanced dialogue. We need to “watch our language”—not to be polite or politically correct, but to be meaningful.
by Ren Powell, BABEL contributing editor 
