The "But" word

Why is it hard for everybody to condemn Beslan in unambiguous terms without blaming, in the same breath, Russia's Chechenya policy for this!! This guy, a Chechen, makes the point that Russians have devastated the Chechen homeland and that even Chechen kids have died and are dying. Of course, he goes on to say that this argument "does not" detract from the horror of terrorists killing hundreds of children.

But the whole point of mentioning the Russian mishandling of Chechenya is *precisely* to detract from the enormity of the Beslan massacre. Saying that the perpetrators of this "crime" (oh, the euphemism!) deserve to be punished sounds as if the guys just stole a bunch of car radios. Tavleen Singh makes a similar point.

An interesting counter-argument to what I've said is discussed in this article. The author says that the act of labeling someone as a terrorist (as opposed to an "insurgent", or even "gunman") involves an unwanted/incorrect act of judgment on the part of the reporter/newspaper. In other words, one man's terrorist is another's freedom fighter. There are two arguments that can be made against this.

The first argument is that moral relativism has its limits. Some terrorist acts are so heinous and target such a defenseless civilian population that there should not be any justification for them whatsoever. Beslan massacre is an example. So is 9/11. And so are the Mumbai bombings of 1993 and 2001. Indeed, my biggest grudge against lefties and the various human-rights organizations is that their condemnation of such acts is either non-existent, perfunctory, or peppered with a string of "but"s that make a mockery of the event and are just plain insulting to the victims. They immediately lose any credibility, in my opinion, to condemn anything else.

The second argument about labeling a terrorist as a terrorist is less theoretical. Despite their attempts to remain impartial, reporters/newspapers make moralistic labeling judgments all the time and such judgments are affected by the social milieu they are in. A child molester is called just that; not somebody who likes to explore child sexuality. Thus, the people who attacked WTC and the Pentagon are called terrorists simply because the world media is overwhelmingly influenced by the American people's preferences. And the Americans are very clear that the perpetrators of 9/11 were "terrorists" and nothing less. Nothing wrong with that, I'd say-- I too believe they were terrorists. However, is the pain suffered by Americans on 9/11 more than what the Indians have suffered because of Kashmir and the related acts of Islamic fundamentalism? How about the pain suffered by the Israelis? How about the pain suffered by the people of Moscow and Beslan? Clearly, everybody would like to label our respective opponents in these cases as terrorists while others may or mayn't agree. It then boils down to power play.

The side that has greater power over the media will get its labeling accepted. And here again the likes of Arundhati Roy bug me to no end. India's portrayal in the media (especially western media) is far less favorable than it could be. By the dint of a small vocal leftist intelligentsia, India's job of discrediting Kashmiri terrorism as just that - terrorism - has become harder than it needs to be. Pervez Musharraf doesn't need to repeat that Kashmiri terrorists are freedom fighters; there are enough Kuldip Nayars and Praful Bidwais and Arundhati Roys that will do the job for him. All of whom go conveniently silent whenever said "freedom fighters" selectively pick off Hindus. Sure, such attempts to get your labeling accepted is probably unfair. But the world is already an unfair place and somebody has to win. What would you rather read in the papers- "Kashimiri terrorists" or "Kashmiri freedom fighters"?

Sidenote: this whole anti-"but" tirade started after somebody said "yes, Godhra was wrong but what happened afterwards...". I am revolted by Gujarat riots-- I really hope they punish everybody involved, including Narendra Modi. The riots were inhuman acts about which no moral relativism should apply. However, why aren't others willing to similarly condemn the Godhra incident by itself, without a guilt-assuaging "but" involved ?

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