Commentary No. 11, Mar. 1, 1999
"Terrorists, Liberators, and The Rest of Us"
States all over the world are repeatedly faced with movements of groups who consider themselves denied rights as a group within the framework of the state. In February of 1999, two such movements were very much in the news: the UCK representing the Kosovars living in Yugoslavia; and the PKK representing the Kurds living in Turkey. To the governments of Yugoslavia and Turkey, these movements are groups of "terrorists." The movements themselves consider themselves movements of liberation of their people. Both movements are demanding further rights: autonomy, even terrritorial independence.
The most striking thing to notice about these two situations is that, while the local government and the local movement seem to take analogous positions vis-a-vis each other in both countries, the rest of the world, and most notably the United States government, seems to regard them differently. In the case of the Kurds in Turkey, the U.S. has applauded the capture of the leader of the PKK, and even aided the Turkish government in achieving it. In the case of the Kosovars in Yugoslavia, the U.S. is seeking hard to force the Yugoslav government to enter into serious political negotiations with the UCK, and is even threatening the use of force if they do not do so. In both situations, the position of West European governments is more nuanced. In many other parts of the world, attitudes towards the two situations vary considerably.
What is clearly missing is any consistent position, or consistent attitude towards such movements. If we look back over the last 50 years, yesterday's "terrorists" often have become today's honored leaders. Not so long ago, Nelson Mandela and the ANC were "terrorists" to the apartheid government of South Africa. Now they form the much respected government of South Africa, and the former apartheid government is condemned by very many for having engaged in "state terrorism." Not so long ago, the PLO in Palestine and Sinn Fein in Ireland were "terrorists." Now, in the eyes of most persons, they are, or almost are essential participants in the peace process. Not so long ago, the Indonesians had sentenced the "terrorist" leader of Fretilin in East Timor, Xavier Gumana, to life imprisonment for "terrorism." Today he has been freed, and the Indonesian government is discussing with him the possibility of allowing East Timor to be an independent state.
Are there then no "terrorists"? Well, not quite. Most people would consider Aum Shinryiko in Japan a dangerous band of terrorists. Many people (but not all people) would consider Osama bin Laden (a Saudi leader of a movement which claims it wishes to liberate the Muslim world in general from outside domination) to be a dangerous terrorist.
Is a terrorist someone who uses force against governments, or is a terrorist someone who uses excessive force against governments, and against simple citizens of certain states? If you ask someone who is involved in such a movement, he/she will say that they are using force as a last resort against the injustices of given states, injustices which cannot be rectified without the use of force. If you ask the governments in question, and in particular if you ask the ordinary citizens who have been the target of "terrorist" attacks and have suffered personally or who have known others who have died, they will insist that one cannot negotiate with terrorists, and that such movements must first renounce the use of force before they can enter the political arena.
How about the rest of us, that is, those of us who are not directly involved on either side of such a dispute? What should our attitude be? Is every movement for the "liberation" of some group within a state legitimate? Should every group have the right to some kind of territorial autonomy? A fortiori, should every demand for formal secession and the creation of a new sovereign state be considered valid? Almost no one would think so. And yet clearly, groups are really oppressed in many countries, possibly in most countries. Clearly, the demands of oppressed groups for equal rights is not only legitimate but pressing. Sometimes it takes the form of demanding linguistic rights, sometimes religious rights, sometimes access to employment, sometimes political autonomy. The demography and the history of each country is different. The groups demanding the rights are different.
What is clear is that the reflex position of state governments, the refusal to negotiate, the insistence to the outside world that the issue is purely internal, is fundamentally illegitimate. And the history of the modern world has shown, time and again, that it brings on the violence and that, many years later, sometimes 30-50 years later, these states make the kind of political concessions that could have averted the violence from the beginning. It seems clear that Kosovars, who are 90% of the population in Kosovo, have the right to regain the autonomy that was taken away from them a decade ago. It seems clear that the Kurds, who are most of the population in southeastern Turkey, have the right to use their own language, a right denied to them by the Turkish government which further denies that there are even any such people as Kurds.
The governments of the world treat these issues in purely geopolitical terms. The U.S. is against the rights of Kurds in Turkey but is in favor of the rights of Kurds in neighboring Iraq because the U.S. has good relations with the government of Turkey and bad relations with the government of Iraq. But is the attitude of western Europe, of Russia, of China so different? Do they not also decide on their position in terms of short-term geopolitical considerations?
As for the humanitarian NGO's, they defend "human rights." But deciding whose human rights are being violated in given situations is not at all easy. Once the violence begins, all sides begin to engage in actions that are reprehensible, that violate human rights. Of course, we can weigh moral blame. Which side is more to blame than the other? It is at this point that enter the realists, the geopoliticians, who say blame assessment is less important than peace-making, and peace-making involves compromise, political compromise that is often moral compromise.
So what may we conclude? Each situation needs to be analyzed in its details, including where we are in the cycle of violence. There is rarely moral purity on either side, but there are often fundamental issues of human liberation at stake. Governments should rarely be taken at their word, and the defense that the matter is an internal affair should be treated with skepticism. On the other hand, outside intrusion often masks imperialist designs, and cannot be taken at its face value either.
Should we negotiate with "terrorists"? Not at all if they are Aum Shinryiko, and absolutely if they are Nelson Mandela and
the ANC of South Africa. And the rest of the cases fall in-between. And if there are no negotiations, whom should we
support as individuals? Clearly again, we should not support Aum Shinryiko, but we should have supported the ANC, and
the rest of the cases fall in-between. Liberation is more important than order. But all who speak in the name of liberation
are not necessarily liberators. The lesson of history is that prudence in judgment is called for but so is decisiveness.
Immanuel Wallerstein
[Copyright by Immanuel Wallerstein. All rights reserved. Permission is granted to download, forward electronically or e-mail to others and to post this text on non-commercial community Internet sites, provided the essay remains intact and the copyright note is displayed. To translate this text, publish it in printed and/or other forms, including commercial Internet sites and excerpts, contact the author at iwaller@binghamton.edu; fax: 1-607-777-4315.
These commentaries, published twice monthly, are intended to be reflections on the contemporary world scene, as seen
from the perspective not of the immediate headlines but of the long term.]
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