TERRORISM AT HOME AND ABROAD - SYRIA AND THE UNITED NATIONS
BY JULIANNE MALVEAUX
What is terrorism? According to the dictionary, it is violence (as
bomb-throwing) committed by groups in order to intimidate a population or
government into granting their demands (insurrection and revolutionary). I
had to look the word up as the discourse about September 11, and our nation’s
response to it rages. I had to try to figure out how Syria, accused of
harboring terrorists, has also agreed to join the current fight against
terrorism.
Some see Syria’s support of Hizbollah guerillas in Lebanon as harboring
terrorists. They are one of only seven countries on the State Department’s
list of countries harboring terrorists because of its support for Lebanese
and Palestinian groups. But while some would define Hizbollah as terrorist,
others would call them freedom fighters, noting that they are simply
attempting to defend national territory that is occupied by outsiders.
Can a country that is accused of harboring terrorists serve on the Untied
Nations Security Council, a group that will implement counter-terrorism
resolutions next year? The overwhelming majority of countries considering
the question said “yes”. With 160 of 177 possible votes assenting, Syria was
elected to a nonpermanent seat on the United Nations Security Council. The
ballot was a secret one, so no one knows who the 17 dissenters were, but 38
members of the United States House of Representatives went on record urging
the Bush Administration to oppose Syria’s election to the Security Council.
Israel’s UN Ambassador Yehuda Lancry formally opposed Syria’s membership in a
letter to Secretary-General Kofi Annan. And several Jewish organizations
said they opposed Syria’s election to the Security Council. Despite this
opposition, Syria had the backing of the 50-nation Asia grouping of the UN
for seat that was designated for an Arab nation. They replace Bangladesh on
the Security Council.
The United States did not vocally or visibly oppose Syria’s addition to
the Security Council, and that was an appropriate decision. Had we decided
to make a public stink, we might have faced public repudiation. That would
have been all we needed as we are attempting to rally world support around
our war against terrorism. Can terrorists fight terrorists? Do those who
“harbor terrorists” also have a set of sensibilities that would allow them to
aggressively oppose Mr. Bin Laden and his organization? Syria distinguishes
between bin Ladin’s brand of terrorism and the efforts of groups who fight to
end Israeli occupation of Arab territory. They say that the groups they
harbor are engaged in legitimate struggle and that their resistance to Israel
ought not be considered terrorism. Anyone related to the 241 US Marines
headquartered in Beirut in 1983 when headquarters were bombed would say
Hizbollah has committed acts as terrorist as any that bin Ladin has
motivated. And one is hard pressed to justify or defend such terrorism, so I
won’t.
I will suggest, though, that there are all kinds of terrorism, and that
the United States sets itself up for world ridicule when we do not recognize
the terrorism we harbor on our own soil. I will suggest when terrorism is
defined as violence for the purpose of coercion, we might look at
organizations like the Ku Klux Klan, whose historic role was to use violence
to intimidate black people. Klan violence in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in Rosewood,
Florida, in hundreds of other cities in the South put a damper on African
American ambitions and achievements. When we say we are going to stamp out
terrorism around the world, are we going to take a look, finally, at the Klan?
I can hear someone suggesting that Klan activity was part of the past. I
wonder of Hizbollah would say the same thing. I can watch someone
enumerating the lives lost in Beirut, and I can watch a set of scholars
measuring the thousands of lives the Klan cost the African American
community. No, it’s not the same thing, but it is terrorism nonetheless.
And while many in the United States feel seething outrage toward Syria and
Hizbollah, enough outrage to exclude them from the world table as members of
the UN Security Council, they seem never to have felt the same outrage toward
the Klan. That is just “part of our history”. White-sheeted white men who
do re-enactments or erect museums to their pathology are to be grinned at and
tolerated. Others who can be described as terrorists are to be vilified.