THE US has rejected the Taliban’s offer to talk. They are designated terrorists under resolutions 1267 and 1373. The US was the power behind these resolutions.

Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights Thomas Hammarberg (2008) observed that “arbitrary procedures for terrorist black-listing must now be changed”. There is no definition of terrorism.

Both India and the US appear to consider Hafiz Mohammad Saeed the mastermind of Mumbai attacks. Yet, a host of critics consider Mumbai trials lacked transparency.

According to principles of penology, an offence has to be first defined before it is made punishable. In the absence of a global, universally acceptable definition of the word ‘terrorism’, any figment of imagination could be stretched to mean terrorism.

Unless ‘terrorism is defined, it will not be possible to distinguish it from a freedom movement, protest, guerrilla warfare, subversion, criminal violence, para-militarism, communal violence or banditry. A nation cannot be punished for individual acts of terrorism, according to principles of natural justice and penology.

In the historical context, the term meant different things to different individuals and communities. The oldest ‘terrorists’ were holy warriors who killed civilians. Recent examples of religious terrorists are Aum Shinrikyo (Japanese), Rabbi Meir Kahane and Baruch Goldstein and Yigal Amir (Jews).

The Jewish-controlled media describes Hezbollah and Hamas as ‘religious terrorists’. In the first century A.D Palestine, the Jews publicly slit the Romans’ throats, in the seventh century India, the thugs strangulated gullible passersby to please the Hindu Devi Kali, and the 19th century adherents of Narodnaya Volya (People’s Will) mercilessly killed their pro-Tsar rivals.

Most historians believe that the term ‘terrorism’ received international publicity during the French reign of terror in 1793-94.

It is now common to dub one’s adversary a ‘terrorist’. Doing so forecloses possibility of political negotiation, and gives the powerful definer the right to eliminate the ‘terrorist’.

Saman Malik

Rawalpindi

Published in Dawn, February 28th, 2018