In 1985, President Ronald Reagan received a group of Washington and Thomas Jefferson! He got angry over the bearded men…. They were very ferocious-looking bearded fact that he has been demoted from “Moral Equivalent” of men with turbans looking like they came from another your “Founding Fathers.” So he is taking out his anger in century. President Reagan received them in the White different ways.… House. After receiving them, he spoke to the press. He You see, why I have recalled all these stories is to pointed towards them, I'm sure some of you will recall point out to you that the matter of terrorism is rather com- that moment, and said, “These are the moral equivalent plicated. Terrorists change. The terrorist of yesterday is of America's founding fathers.” These were the Afghan the hero of today, and the hero of yesterday becomes the Mujahiddin. terrorist of today. This is a serious matter of the constant- They were at the time, guns in hand, battling the Evil ly changing world of images in which we have to keep our Empire.... heads straight to know what is terrorism and what is not. In August 1998, another American President ordered But more importantly, to know what causes it, and how to missile strikes from the American Navy based in the stop it. Indian Ocean to kill Osama Bin Laden and his men in the camps in Afghanistan. I do not wish to embarrass you Eqbal Ahmad with the reminder that Mr. Bin Laden, whom fifteen “On Terrorism” American missiles were fired to hit in Afghanistan, was Talk at the University of Colorado, Boulder only a few years ago the moral equivalent of George October 12, 1998 The novelty of the September 11 terror spectacle was the use of hijacked airplanes to crash into buildings and destabilize urban and economic life. The attacks were symbolic, yet had material effects, disrupting the airline industry, the businesses centered in downtown New York, and the global economy itself through the closure of the U.S. and other stock markets and subsequent downturns of the world’s markets. Indeed, as a response to terror, an unparalleled shutdown occurred in New York, Washington, D.C., and other major cities throughout the United States, with government and businesses closing up for the day and the airline system canceling all flights. Wall Street and the stock market were shut down for days; baseball and entertainment events were Guantánamo Bay, Cuba 2002, photo: Beth A. Keiser/AP postponed; Disneyland and Disneyworld were closed; McDonald’s locked up its regional offices; and most major U.S. cities became eerily quiet. David Barsamian: You wrote an article some years ago The 9/11 terror spectacle unfolded in a city that was called “Comprehending Terror” in which you said it’s one of the most media-saturated in the world and thus important to start by defining the terminology? played out the deadly drama live on television. The images of the planes hitting the WTC towers and their Eqbal Ahmad: First of all, I think terrorism should be collapse were broadcast repeatedly, as if repetition were defined in terms of the illegal use of violence for the necessary to master a highly traumatic event. The purposes of influencing somebody’s behavior, inflicting spectacle conveyed the message that the United States punishment, or taking revenge. If we define terror in that was vulnerable, that terrorists could create great harm, way, the first thing we discover is that it has been and that anyone at any time could be subject to a dead- practiced on a larger scale, globally, both by ly terrorist attack, even in Fortress America. Suddenly, governments and by private groups. Private groups fall the suffering, fear, and death of loved ones that many into various categories. The political terrorist is only one people endure on a daily basis in violent and insecure category out of many others. When we talk about terror, situations in other parts of the world were also deeply then, we are talking about the political variety. When we experienced by U.S. citizens, in some cases for the first talk about the political variety, the first thing to ask is, time. The terrorist attacks thus had the material effect A Project by Ann Messner what are its roots? Who is the terrorist? of harming the U.S. and global economies, and the Commissioned by curator Nina Felshin for the exhibition The official attitude toward terror suffers from a sus- psychological effect of traumatizing a nation. The spec- Disasters of War: From Goya to Golub pension of any inquiry into causation. We seldom ask tacle of terror was broadcast throughout the global vil- September 10 - December 11, 2005 what produces terrorism. “There is no connection,” said lage, with the whole world watching the assault on the Ezra and Cecile Zilkha Gallery,Wesleyan University Secretary of State George Shultz, “with any cause. United States and New York’s attempts to cope with the Terrorism is just a bad crime.” Official definitions, even attacks. Second printing in conjunction with the exhibition academic definitions of terror, exclude the illegal The media became “weapons of mass hysteria” by Meanwhile in Baghdad violence—torture, burning of villages, destruction of playing the 9/11 Twin Tower attacks over and over, curated by Hamza Walker entire peoples, genocide—as outside of the definition of focusing on the devastation at “Ground Zero,” a term November 11 - December 23, 2007 terror, which is to say the bias of terror is against first used to describe the epicenter of the Hiroshima The Renaissance Society at The University of Chicago people and in favor of governments. The reality is that atomic bomb that was appropriated to signify the the ratio of human losses between official and terrorist devastation and enormity of the 9/11 attacks. Day after activity has been one to a thousand. For every life lost day, terrorist “experts” described bin Laden and Al by unofficial terrorism, a thousand have been lost by the Qaeda and repeatedly disseminated everything that was official variety. known about the terrorists, creating a culture of Another characteristic that we have seen of terror in hysteria, as the Bush administration trotted out John our time, if you take my definition of it, is that there was Ashcroft and Dick Cheney to frighten the public with a rise of fascist governments in third-world countries, further warnings of impending terror attacks. The media particularly throughout the 1970s and 1980s. All these thus served in a perverse way as instruments of Al fascist governments—in Indonesia, Zaire, Iran, South Qaeda and terrorism, since one of the goals of terror Korea, and elsewhere—were fully supported by one or attacks is to spread fear and anxiety. the other of the superpowers. They have committed a The U.S. media and the Bush administration thus cre- huge amount of terrorist violence, the source of which is ated a legend of bin Laden and Al Qaeda, projecting into the state. Again, there has been very little focus on this the figure of bin Laden enormous evil and power, which by governments, the media, and even academics.... in turn elevated his status in the Arab and Muslim world to a quasi-demigod able to inflict harm on the American (excerpted from an interview by David Barsamian with superpower…. Eqbal Ahmad) For several days, U.S. television suspended broad- casting of advertising and entertainment programs and Eqbal Ahmad focused solely on the terrorist attacks in New York, Terrorism: Theirs and Ours leading to the claim in a May 2002 HBO film, In Cover photo: Iraqi President Saddam Hussein greets Donald Rumsfeld, 2001 then special envoy of President Ronald Reagan, in Baghdad on Memoriam, that 9/11 was “the most documented event December 20, 1983. in history.” The Bush administration and the images 2 and discourses of the corporate media failed to provide the bathroom. After a few hours they were Iying on the Ray: But the Pentagon claims it is treating the prisoners a coherent account of what happened, why it happened, floor in their own urine and feces. at Guantánamo well, that it is a model institution, that and what would count as intelligent and responsible The photographed arrival of the Guantánamo prisoners it is respecting the prisoners’ religion, providing responses. The Bush administration and corporate media created one of the more enduring images of the U.S. war Muslims with prayer rugs, the Koran, and “culturally privileged the “clash of civilizations” model, established on terror. The Muslim world and others were shocked appropriate meals.” a binary dualism between Islamic terrorism and when they saw crew-cut marines standing over a row of civilization, and largely circulated retaliatory discourses kneeling, shackled, goggled Muslim men in the Cuban Ratner: This is not at all true. There are many different that whipped up war fever and called for military interven- sun. It became an iconic image of all that the United levels to consider in the abuses suffered there. First, tion. Such one-dimensional militarism, however, has the States was doing wrong to the Muslim world. there is a psychological level. People, as far as we potential to generate a cycle of violence and perpetual The British prisoners whom we represent spent the know, have been (and are still being) rounded up and war that makes the current situation even worse. Thus, next two years under extremely high-security imprison- taken to Guantánamo from all over the world, where they although the media in a democracy should critically ment at Guantánamo.