Leis, Solidarity with Spain

The first principle is respect for humanity, and thus no person and no thing --- not any idea, cause or struggle --- can justify the existence of terrorism. The attacks against the population of Madrid are execrable and inhuman acts, crimes against humanity that must never be repeated, which have elicited a worldwide chorus of voices in solidarity and brotherhood with Spain and its dead and injured, along with those of other nationalities who were victimized on this day of horror.

For the American social scientist Noam Chomsky, terrorism can be defined as the threat or use of violence, generally for political ends, against non-combatant civilians. For this writer, a more precise definition is found in the United States Criminal Code, which defines the “act of terrorism” as an activity that includes a violent act or an act that’s hazardous to human life, the purpose of which is:

• To intimidate or coerce a civilian population;

• To influence a government’s policies by means of intimidation or coercion; or

• To affect a government’s conduct by means of assassination or kidnapping.

There exist different varieties of terrorism: international terrorism, when the act or the support activities cross national borders; wholesale terrorism, directed against large groups; retail terrorism, focused on individuals. There is also state terrorism and the terrorism of individuals.

We can’t evade the fact that diverse governments have on many occasions, through interventions, invasions, threats and eliminations of political leaders, used means that can be defined as state terrorism. Notice that counter-terrorist excesses are also a danger. For example, the events of September 11, 2001, which led the mighty United States to feel challenged by the tragedy and declare an indefinite world war that seeks to exterminate not only the attackers and those directly responsible but against all terrorism --- be careful with this --- that the US government labels or pigeonholes as such. The invasion of Iraq, widely rejected on the worldwide level, carried out on the basis of unproven arguments and in defiance of international law, is an example of this. As H. Vedrine, the foreign minister of France, put it, it’s “a simplistic proposition that reduces all the problems of the world to the fight against terrorism.”

A twisted appreciation of counter-terrorism can generate a colossal global witch hunt, expressions of fanaticism and intolerance toward certain national or ethnic groups, shows of force against populations or territories unrelated to the acts of provocation, or a worldwide conflagration in which we all lose. Those guilty of cruel terrorist acts must be punished, but without bellicose errors and blunders because wars conceived as such only lead to greater tragedies of unforeseen consequences.

The Spanish people knew how to vote with maturity and a few days later punished the warlike incumbent politicians with a political change that hadn’t been indicated in the polls. This, as Guillermo Castro H. says, “interrupts the trend toward the hegemony of the most conservative sectors in Europe and North America, who have dominated over the past decade, and does so, moreover, in direct relation to the bankruptcy of the most recent phase of this hegemony, expressed in the policy of endless war against terrorism abroad and dissidents within their own societies.”

Spain has thus reaffirmed democracy, but also solidarity and peace, since, as the Pope says, it’s necessary “to work for the building of more brotherly and cooperative world, despite the difficulties and the obstacles that are found along this necessary and non-postponable path.”

Also in this section:
Leis, Solidarity with Spain
Committee to Protect Journalists, Attacks on the Panamanian press in 2003
Silié, Historical background to Haiti's troubles
O'Donoghue, Two standards of human rights in Venezuela
Fisher, Scarlet Letters
Jackson, Martín's election to lose

opinion

With Spain