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"Domestic Disturbance" = "International Terrorism".
It is difficult to believe that there is anyone on this planet who was not horrified by the events in the Russian territories over the past few days. There are many who empathise with the Chechen plight, but acts of this nature very quickly change the dynamic. The simple fact that children are murdered always places these events on a whole different level.
But what is also horrifying is the way governments fall over themselves to make political currency of such events. Political leaders and their cohorts have wasted no time in damning the rebels, and have solemnly explained that this is another example of the global terrorism they have been warning us about.
But is it? Chechnya was invaded by Russia over a hundred years ago, and many of their population have been killed by the Russion State, particularly during Stalin's rule. They have been fighting for liberation all that time. Their methods have become abhorrent, but are they international terrorists?
There is speculation that they have been trained by Middle Eastern groups, and as fellow Muslims, that is quite possible. Adherents of like political persuasion do tend to help each other out. After all, when the aims of Osama Bin Laden and the US were of a kind, they trained him and his men, and supplied them with arms and intelligence. They did the same with Saddam Hussein. And Augusto Pinochet. Between them, these men have since murdered and tortured thousands of children, many of whom will never be found. Makes the lines kind of grey, doesn't it?
Hussein and Pinochet were not considered international terrorists. After all, they were trying to run their countries, and they didn't consider that it was really anyone else's business what they did. And mostly, we, and our various governments, turned a blind eye to that. No-one suggested we invade Chile, or that we rescue the Haitians from Papa Doc, or stop Pol Pot from continuing to dig those mass graves. When Rwanda exploded into a bloody massacre, we didn't raise the armies to save the millions of men, women and children who were brutally murdered. And there's not much comfort to be taken from the sad little effort that was our contribution to the murder of the innocents of Kosovo, or Bosnia-Herzogovina.
But suddenly, what was so recently considered a 'domestic disturbance' is now 'international terrorism'. The need of western governments to justify their involvement in the domestic politics of Iraq has led them to claim that every incident is a terrorist act perpetrated by terrorists, who were probably trained by Al Qaeda.
There probably are international terrorists behind every tree. Some hijacked and blew up planes in the 'sixties, killed athletes in the 'seventies, blew up energy facilities in the 'eighties, kidnapped women and children in the 'nineties, and crashed into buildings in the noughties. And they were just the 'illegal' terrorists. We have lived with terrorism most of our lives, and for the most part, our governments have passed it by with a nod.
Those days are gone. Now that the USA and Australia have been attacked, we view things differently. And so we should. But does that also mean that every incident in every country that involves rebels or insurgents or freedom fighters or terrorists (call them what you will) is now a justification to frighten the population of your country? To tell them that only your government can protect them, so don't vote for anyone else? To intimate that you are putting yourself and your children in danger if you do so?
When the level of persuasion that you are exposed to terrifies you into making choices that you might not otherwise make, who then, really, are the terrorists?
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