FAHRENHEIT 7/7: WHAT IS TERRORISM?

OSAMA BIN LADEN IS THE MOST HATED TERRORIST, BUT IS HE AS WORSE AS THE IMPERIALISTS?

I am posting a feature inspired by the award winning documentary film, "FAHRENHEIT 9/11" by Michael Moore.

My own is entitled, "FAHRENHEIT 7/7".

Before I begin, may we discuss the subject of Terrorism and Terrorists as fully illustrated below from the MICHAEL MOORE'S TEACHERS GUIDE ON "FAHRENHEIT 9/11" which I recommend to most of us who have not fully tried to study and understand the dialectics of the economics, polemics, rhetorics and politics of Terrorism. And the hypocritical double standards of the UN, NATO and the other power blocs ruling the world.


What is Terrorism? Who are the Terrorists?

Instructions:
Based on the definitions of terrorism that your group came up with, decide
1. Which of the situations below are “terrorism;”

2. Who are the “terrorists” in the situation; and

3. What additional information you would need to know to be more sure of your answers.

All the situations below are true, but the names of countries and peoples have been changed. — It may help your group to make a diagram of some of the situations.

Situations:
1. Soldiers from the country of Marak surround a refugee camp made up of people from the country of Bragan. The refugee camp is crowded and the people there are extremely poor. Most of the Bragan people in the refugee camp hate the army of Marak, believing that Marak has invaded Bragan, has taken all the best land and resources for themselves, and treats people from Bragan very poorly. Young men in the refugee camp sometimes fire guns at the soldiers.

According to an eyewitness, a reporter from The New York Times, Marak soldiers use loudspeakers to call insults into the refugee camp — in the Bragan language. Over the loudspeakers, soldiers shout obscenities and things like, “Son of a whore!” They dare young Bragan boys — sometimes as young as ten or eleven — to come out near the electric fence that separates the refugee camp from a wealthy settlement of Marak citizens. When the boys and young men go near the fence to throw stones or yell at the Marak soldiers, the soldiers use silencers and fire on the boys with live ammunition, often killing or maiming them. The reporter was horrified by what he witnessed. He wrote: “Children have been shot in other conflicts I have covered — death squads gunned them down in El Salvador and Guatemala, mothers with infants were lined up and massacred in Algeria, and Serb snipers put children in their sights and watched them crumple onto the pavement in Sarajevo — but I have never before watched soldiers entice children like mice into a trap and murder them for sport.” The government of Marak knows about the behavior of their soldiers and does little to stop them. One additional fact: Every year, Marak is given enormous amounts of money and military equipment by the country of Bolaire, which is aware of how these are used by Marak.

Question:1. Which, if any, of these activities should be considered “terrorism” according to your definition?
2. Who are the “terrorists”?
3. What more would you need to know to be more sure of your answer?

2. Farmers from the country of Belveron are angry at their own government and at a corporation from the country of Paradar. The Belveron government has allowed the Paradar corporation to plant “test” crops of genetically-engineered cotton. The genetically-engineered crops produce their own pesticide. Many Belveron farmers worry that the genetically-engineered crops will pollute their crops — as has happened in other countries — and will lead to a breed of super-pests that will be immune to chemical pesticides and also to the organic pest control methods many poor farmers use. Without growing and selling cotton, the farmers have no way to feed their families. Belveron farmers further point out that the corporation has not told farmers that the “tests” on their land may be risky, and could pollute their non-genetically-engineered cotton crops.

Belveron farmers have announced that they will burn to the ground all the genetically-engineered cotton crops. They hope to drive the Paradar corporation out of Belveron. Belveron farmers have also threatened that they may destroy the offices of the Paradar corporation.

Question:1. Which, if any, of these activities should be considered “terrorism” according to your definition?
2. Who are the “terrorists”?
3. What more would you need to know to be more sure of your answer?

3. The army of Kalimo has invaded the country of Iona, next door. There are a number of refugee camps in Iona with thousands of people living in them. The refugees themselves lost their homes many years before — some in wars with Kalimo, others were forced out of their homes by Kalimo. The area around the refugee camps is controlled by the Kalimo army. The commander of the Kalimo army sealed off the refugee camps and allowed militias from Iona, who are hostile to the refugees, to enter two refugee camps and slaughter hundreds of people. The killing went on for 40 hours. At least 1800 people were murdered, perhaps more. One additional fact: The army of Kalimo receives a great deal of military aid from the country of Terramar. Terramar learned of the massacre of the refugees in Iona, but did not halt military aid to Kalimo.

Question:1. Which, if any, of these activities should be considered “terrorism” according to your definition?
2. Who are the “terrorists”?
3. What more would you need to know to be more sure of your answer?

4. A corporation based in the country of Menin has a chemical factory located in the much poorer country of Pungor. One night, huge amounts of poisonous gases from the factory begin spewing out into the area around the factory. Nobody outside the factory was warned because someone in the company had turned off the safety siren. Not until the gas was upon residents in their beds, searing their eyes, filling their mouths and lungs, did the communities surrounding the factory know of their danger. According to one report: “Gasping for breath and near blind, people stampeded into narrow alleys. In the mayhem children were torn from the hands of their mothers, never to see them again. Those who still could were screaming. Some were wracked with seizures and fell under trampling feet. Some, stumbling in a sea of gas, their lungs on fire, were drowned in their own bodily fluids.” More than 3,000 peopled died in the days after and tens of thousands more continued to suffer in the days, months and years after. The overall death toll was more than 15,000.
The corporation had begun a cost-cutting drive prior to the disaster: lowering training periods for operatives, using low-cost materials, adopting hazardous operating procedures, cutting the number of operatives in half. A confidential company audit prior to the accident had identified 61 hazards. Nothing was done.
After the tragedy, the corporation concentrated on avoiding liability, sending in its legal team days before a medical team. Company officials lied about the poisonous nature of the chemicals at the plant. To this day the corporation refuses to disclose medical information on the leaked gases, maintaining it to be a “trade secret”. The company did pay some of the victims’ families. Most victims received between $350 and $500 from the company — a total loss of 48 cents per share of company stock.
Conditions in this Pungor community are still hazardous: soil and water are still heavily contaminated. Mercury has been found at between 20,000 to six million times the expected levels. In first years after the gas leak, the rate of stillborn infants in the community was four times the national average of Pungor and infant mortality was twice as high as the national average.

Question:1. Which, if any, of these activities should be considered “terrorism” according to your definition?
2. Who are the “terrorists”?
3. What more would you need to know to be more sure of your answer?

5. The government of Tobian is very unhappy with the government of Ambar, whose leaders came to power in a revolution that threw out the former Ambar dictator. Tobian decides to overthrow the new leaders of Ambar. They begin funding a guerrilla army that will attack Ambar from another country next door. So Tobian builds army bases in the next door country and allows the guerrilla army to use its bases. Almost all of the weapons and supplies of the guerrilla army are supplied by Tobian. The guerrillas generally try to avoid fighting the army of Ambar. Instead they attack clinics, schools, cooperative farms. Sometimes they mine the roads. Many, many civilians are killed and maimed by the Tobian-supported guerrillas. The guerrillas raid into Ambar and then retreat into the country next door where Tobian has military bases.

Question:1. Which, if any, of these activities should be considered “terrorism” according to your definition?
2. Who are the “terrorists”?
3. What more would you need to know to be more sure of your answer?

6. Simultaneously, the embassies of the country of Anza in two other countries were bombed. In one country, 213 people were killed and 4,000 injured; in the other, 11 people were killed and at least 70 injured. In retaliation, about three weeks later, Anza launched missiles at the capital city of Baltus, destroying a pharmaceutical factory and injuring at least ten people, and killing one. Anza claimed that this factory was manufacturing chemicals that could be used to make VX nerve gas — although Anza offered no substantial proof of this claim. Anza also claimed that a prominent individual who they link to the embassy bombings was connected to the pharmaceutical factory, although they provided no evidence of this claim, either. Baltus pointed out that two years earlier they expelled the prominent individual, and vigorously denied that the pharmaceutical plant was producing nerve gas agents. They said that this was an important factory, producing aspirin and vital medicines to treat malaria and tuberculosis. They allowed journalists and other diplomats to visit the factory to verify that no chemical weapons were being produced there. Journalists and others who visited the factory agreed that the destroyed factory appeared to be producing only medicines. It is not known how many people may have died in Baltus for lack of the medicines that were being produced in that factory. Anza blocked the United Nations from launching the investigation demanded by Baltus.

Question:1. Which, if any, of these activities should be considered “terrorism” according to your definition?
2. Who are the “terrorists”?
3. What more would you need to know to be more sure of your answer?

7. One million people in the country of Lukin are infected with HIV/AIDS. Over the past decade 700,000 people have died of AIDS in Lukin. Currently, about 300 people die each day of AIDS-related causes. Largely because of the HIV/AIDS crisis, life expectancy in Lukin has dropped from 60 years to only 33, a level last experienced in Europe in medieval times. AIDS could be controlled with a combination of drugs, frequently called a drug “cocktail,” including AZT. However, the cocktail isn’t cheap and can cost as much as $18,000 a year per patient.

This year, Lukin will pay $174 million to its creditors — most of which will go to two large international banks. This debt was incurred many years ago, by a different government than the current one. The loans were pushed by banks that had huge amounts of money and the loans benefited mostly bankers and the rich of Lukin. However, most people in Lukin are poor — the gross domestic product (GNP) per capita is $800. The $174 million in debt payments is more than Lukin spends on health care. Money that could go to pay for AIDS prevention and therapies for people with AIDS instead is being sent to banks in so-called developed countries.

The international banks know about the dire health situation in Lukin. They have allowed Lukin to postpone some debts — but only after Lukin agreed to certain conditions set by the banks that gave the banks greater control over Lukin’s economy, for example requiring Lukin to sell its national bank to private investors. Still, so long as the banks force Lukin to pay interest on its debts, there is no way Lukin can deal effectively with the AIDS crisis. 300 people a day continue to die.

Question:1. Which, if any, of these activities should be considered “terrorism” according to your definition?
2. Who are the “terrorists”?
3. What more would you need to know to be more sure of your answer?

8. Led by the country of Lomandia, the United Nations waged a war against the country of Moretta, saying that Moretta illegally invaded another nearby country. After Moretta’s army was defeated and removed from the country they’d invaded, Lomandia pushed for “sanctions” against Moretta, until Moretta proves that it is not engaged in a program to produce “weapons of mass destruction,” like nuclear bombs or poison gas. The sanctions meant that Moretta was not allowed to buy or sell almost anything from other countries in the world. Moretta cannot get spare parts to repair water purification plants damaged by bombing during the war. It cannot get medicines and spare parts for medical equipment. Moretta claims that it has allowed inspections from the United Nations, but Lomandia says that it has not. 350,000 children have died in the decade since the war, in part because of the sanctions. Documents from Lomandia show that it knew that Moretta civilians were dying as a result of water-born diseases. When asked in a television interview about the reports of massive numbers of civilian deaths — perhaps as many as a million people over several years — a high government official from Lomandia said: “It’s worth it.”

Question:1. Which, if any, of these activities should be considered “terrorism” according to your definition?
2. Who are the “terrorists”?
3. What more would you need to know to be more sure of your answer?

9. Bartavia is considered by many to be one of the most repressive countries in the world, especially if you are not white. Only whites can vote, only whites can travel freely, only whites can live where they like. Most whites live comfortably, even luxuriously. Conditions for people who are not white are some of the worst in the world. Bartavia imprisons people who organize for change. Torture is widespread. Over the years, there have been numerous massacres of non-white Bartavia civilians — sometimes of young children. The main organizations working for change in Bartavia have asked the world not to invest money in Bartavia and not to have economic or cultural relations with the country until it commits itself to change. Nonetheless, many countries continued to do business with Bartavia. At one point, one country had as much as $2.5 billion invested in Bartavia—this during a period of tremendous violence and discrimination. Who knows how many thousands of people have been killed — through guns or poverty — as a result of Sarino’s actions.

Question:1. Which, if any, of these activities should be considered “terrorism” according to your definition?
2. Who are the “terrorists”?
3. What more would you need to know to be more sure of your answer?

10. The Sport-King corporation produces athletic equipment sold all over the world. Although the headquarters of Sport-King is in the country of Morcosas, all of its products are manufactured in other countries. Sport-King contracts with sub-contractors to make its products. Over 500,000 people, mostly women, work for these subcontractors in poor countries.

Sport-King has a “Code of Conduct” which is supposed to ensure that workers are not mistreated by Sport-King’s sub-contractors. For example, no child laborers are supposed to be hired, no prisoners may be used as workers, workers may not be forced to work more than 60 hours a week, etc. Sport-King’s “Code of Conduct” specifies that workers must be paid a country’s “minimum wage.” However, it does not say that this minimum wage needs to be a living wage. Even some poor country governments admit that the minimum wage is not enough for people to live on. Sport-King says that it pays the legal wage, but it knows that not all its workers can survive on this wage.

Companies like Sport-King locate their factories in countries that don’t allow unions, that outlaw strikes, and jail workers who demand higher pay and better conditions. In fact, Sport-King chooses to locate its factories in some of the most repressive countries in the world. Human rights groups argue that companies like Sport-King knowingly locate their factories in very repressive places so that workers can more easily be controlled and exploited. These human rights groups argue that companies like Sport-King could easily afford to pay its workers living wages, but because this would come out of their enormous profits they choose not to.

Question:1. Which, if any, of these activities should be considered “terrorism” according to your definition?
2. Who are the “terrorists”?
3. What more would you need to know to be more sure of your answer?

What is Terrorism? Who are the Terrorists?Teacher background
Who’s who:

Situation 1:
The country of Marak is Israel, Bragan is Palestine, Bolaire is the United States. This particular example is taken from “A Gaza Diary,” by Chris Hedges in the October 2001 Harpers.

Situation 2:
The country of Belveron is India, Paradar is the United States. The corporation is Monsanto. See “We Will Reduce Your Fields to Ashes,” in Rethinking Globalization: Teaching for Justice in an Unjust World; available from www.rethinkingschools.org.

Situation 3:
Kalimo is Israel, Iona is Lebanon, Terramar is the United States, the refugees are Palestinian. The camps were Sabra and Shatila in 1982. The militia was Christian Phalangist.

Situation 4:
The country of Menin is the United States, Pungor is India. The corporation was Union Carbide, in Bhopal, India. The year was 1985.

Situation 5:
The country of Tobian is the United States. Ambar is Nicaragua. The country next door is Honduras. The time is the 1980s during the U.S.-sponsored Contra war.

Situation 6:
The country of Anza is the United States. Baltus is Sudan. The countries where the U.S. embassies were bombed are Kenya and Tanzania. The prominent individual mentioned is Osama bin Laden.

Situation 7:
The country of Lukin is Zambia. The banks are the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. For more information and lessons on the IMF and the Third World debt crisis, see Rethinking Globalization: Teaching for Justice in an Unjust World.

Situation 8:
The country of Lomandia is the United States. Moretta is Iraq. The U.S. official quoted was Sec. of State Madeleine Albright on 60 Minutes, interviewed by Leslie Stahl.

Situation 9:
The country of Bartavia is South Africa during apartheid. Sarino is the United States. See Strangers in Their Own Country: A Curriculum Guide on South Africa, available from www.teachingforchange.org.

Situation 10:
Sport-King is Nike, although it could be many transnational corporations. And the country of Morcosas is the United States.

Enduring Terrors

Number of people who die of hunger every day: 24,000
Number of children killed by diarrhea every day: 6,020
Number of children killed by measles every day: 2,700
Number of malnourished children in poor countries: 149 million
Number of people without access to safe drinking water: 1.1 billion
Number of people without access to adequate sanitation: 2.4 billion
Number of people living on less than one dollar a day: 1.2 billion
Number of African children under 15 living with HIV: 1.1 million
Number of children without access to basic education: 100 million
Number of illiterate adults: 875 million
Number of women who die each year in pregnancy and childbirth: 515,000
Annual average number of children killed in conflict, 1990-2000: 200,000
Annual average number of children made homeless by conflict 1990-200,000: 1.2 million

[All figures approximate.]
Source: New Internationalist, Nov. 2001; www.newint.org