Noam Chomsky is Institute Professor Emeritus in the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His most recent book is “Masters of Mankind.” His web site is www.chomsky.info. The views expressed in this commentary are solely his.
After the terrorist attack on Charlie Hebdo, which killed 12 people including the editor and four other cartoonists, and the murder of four Jews at a kosher supermarket shortly after, French Prime Minister Manuel Valla declared “a war against terrorism, against jihadism, against radical Islam, against everything that is aimed at breaking fraternity, freedom, solidarity.”
Millions of people demonstrated in condemnation of the atrocities, amplified by a chorus of horror under the banner “I am Charlie.” There were eloquent pronouncements of outrage, captured well by the head of Israel’s Labor Party and the main challenger for the upcoming elections, Isaac Herzog, who declared that “Terrorism is terrorism. There’s no two ways about it,” and that “All the nations that seek peace and freedom [face] an enormous challenge” from brutal violence.
The crimes also elicited a flood of commentary, inquiring into the roots of these shocking assaults in Islamic culture and exploring ways to counter the murderous wave of Islamic terrorism without sacrificing our values. The New York Times described the assault as a “clash of civilizations,” but was corrected by Times columnist Anand Giridharadas, who tweeted that it was “Not & never a war of civilizations or between them. But a war FOR civilization against groups on the other side of that line. #CharlieHebdo.”
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It is not difficult to elaborate. These few examples illustrate a very general principle that is observed with impressive dedication and consistency: The more we can blame some crimes on enemies, the greater the outrage; the greater our responsibility for crimes — and hence the more we can do to end them — the less the concern, tending to oblivion or even denial.
Contrary to the eloquent pronouncements, it is not the case that “Terrorism is terrorism. There’s no two ways about it.” There definitely are two ways about it: theirs versus ours. And not just terrorism.
The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Noam Chomsky.
