Wednesday, December 21, 2005

The Little Warriors

By Mark Hand

guer•ril•la - n. A member of an irregular military force, operating usually in small, independent groups capable of great speed and mobility.

With Steven Spielberg’s “Munich” film scheduled for release on Friday, ESPN this week decided to broadcast a documentary about the killing of 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics. The documentary contained many clips of Jim McKay, the ABC sports anchor who provided hours of commentary during the tragic event.

From his anchor chair, McKay described the members of the Black September group, which orchestrated the Munich operation, as “guerrillas.” I hadn’t heard that term uttered by someone on television in years. Even before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, “terrorism” had become the buzzword to describe any non-state act of violence. Our culture had lost all creativity in describing participants in a conflict, which made the flashback to 1972 terminology all the more surprising.

McKay’s reference to the “guerrillas” revealed how the U.S. media’s vernacular has evolved during the past 30 years. Today, any individual or group who commits violent (or, in some cases, nonviolent) acts against a state is labeled a “terrorist” by the government’s leaders and its mouthpieces in the mass media. On the other hand, the defining instances of violence committed by states are described as either “counterterrorism” or battles in the “war on terrorism.”

In 1972, the groups who resorted to violence to fight for the Palestinian cause had yet to graduate into “terrorists” in the eyes of many in the mass media. They were “guerrillas.” Even today, the acts of “guerrilla” fighters are not inherently malevolent as opposed to the work of the prototypical “terrorist.” The term “guerrilla,” albeit general in nature, has a neutral value, although guerrilla fighters often engage in acts of grotesque violence.

Black September’s objectives in Munich were two-fold: raise awareness of the plight of Palestinians at the hands of the repressive Israeli state and seek the release and safe passage to Egypt of Palestinians jailed in Israel and German prisons. Black September failed on both counts.

No prisoner was released in exchange for the Israeli hostages. While Black September’s operation in Munich certainly put the Palestinian cause on center stage, the targeting of Israeli athletes met with worldwide condemnation and helped to usher in an era in which many Western governments and media adopted a lexicon that equated Palestinians with “terrorists.”

Today, the “terrorist” label is so ubiquitous in the United States that it no longer possesses any real meaning. The mass media’s adoption of the term to describe any action in opposition to U.S. foreign policy and domestic corporate interests lets policymakers off the hook. Government and corporate leaders are excused from discussing grievances against their actions when their alleged foes are “terrorists.”

Given that propaganda is one of the most potent weapons used in conflicts, perhaps it’s time for some concessions on this front. Let’s either describe all terror-inducing acts of violence – committed by states and non-state actors – as terrorism or do away with the term altogether. Agreeing to adopt Jim McKay’s parlance from 1972 to describe stateless military actors would be a nice first step on the part of the U.S. mass media.

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