Notes and Quotes.

QUOTES FROM PEOPLE ON TERRORISM :

Noam Chomsky.

. " Everybody's worried about stopping terrorism. Well, there's a really easy way: Stop participating in it"

 Tony Blair.

. " The purpose of terrorism lies not just in the violent act itself. it is in producing terror. it sets out to inflame, to divide, to produce consequences which they then use to justify further terror. "

. PAUL WILKINSON, London Daily Telegraph, Sep. 1, 1992 - 

"The first was that if you were interested in terrorism you must somehow sympathise with the perpetrators. The other was that if you were interested in how governments respond to terrorism, you must be to the right of Genghis Khan and in league with the secret services"


. BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, International Terrorism

" We can't accommodate terrorism. When someone uses the slaughter of innocent people to advance a so-called political cause, at that point the political cause becomes immoral and unjust and they should be eliminated from any serious discussion, any serious debate "

.  RUDOLPH GIULIANI, CNN interview, Sep. 11, 2002

"If inciting people to do that [9/11] is terrorism, and if killing those who kill our sons is terrorism, then let history be witness that we are terrorists"

. OSAMA BIN LADEN, interview, Oct. 2001

"Every leader, and every regime, and every movement, and every organization that steps across the line to terrorism must be banished from the discourse of civilized human life"

. NOAM CHOMSKY, 9-11

"It's not right to respond to terrorism by terrorizing other people. And furthermore, it's not going to help. Then you might say, "Yes, it's terrorizing people, but it's worth doing because it will end terrorism." But how much common sense does it take to know that you cannot end terrorism by indiscriminately dropping bombs?"

. BARACK OBAMA, speech, Feb. 28, 2006

"The big threat to America is the way we react to terrorism by throwing away what everybody values about our country--a commitment to human rights. America is a great nation because we are a good nation. When we stop being a good nation, we stop being great"

. BARACK OBAMA, speech, Nov. 20, 2006

"The most powerful military in the world cannot invade, kill or capture a network or destroy every loose weapon on the planet. The best response to this network of terror is to build a network of our own -- a network of like-minded countries and organizations that pools resources, information, ideas, and power. Taking on the radical fundamentalists alone isn’t necessary, it isn’t smart, and it won’t succeed"

.JEAN BAUDRILLARD, The Spirit of Terrorism and Other Essays

"Serious research and development efforts are required to produce technologies, strategies, organizations, and trained personnel who can go into failed states, work with our allies and friends, and promote the political and economic reforms that will meet popular needs and reduce the sources of terrorism and conflict"

. JACQUES CHIRAC, speech, Sep. 24, 1986

"Terrorism, like viruses, is everywhere. There is a global perfusion of terrorism, which accompanies any system of domination as though it were its shadow, ready to activate itself anywhere, like a double agent"

. BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, International Terrorism

"Terrorism has become the systematic weapon of a war that knows no borders or seldom has a face". 

BOBBY KENNEDY, O Magazine, Feb. 2007

. "Terrorism is carried out purposefully, in a cold-blooded, calculated fashion. The declared goals of the terrorist may change from place to place. He supposedly fights to remedy wrongs -- social, religious, national, racial. But for all these problems his only solution is the demolition of the whole structure of society. No partial solution, not even the total redressing of the grievance he complains of, will satisfy him -- until our social system is destroyed or delivered into his hands"

WESLEY CLARK, Winning Modern Wars

. "Our enemies are fully aware that they can use oil as a weapon against America. And if we don't take this threat as seriously as the bombs they build or the guns they buy, we will be fighting the War on Terror with one hand tied behind our back".

JERRY SPRINGER, interview, Jun. 23, 2003

."Terrorism has replaced Communism as the rationale for the militarization of the country [America], for military adventures abroad, and for the suppression of civil liberties at home. It serves the same purpose, serving to create hysteria".

TERRY WAITE, London Guardian, Feb. 20, 1992

. "I opposed the war in Iraq because I did not believe it was in our national security interest, and I still don't. What we [America] did was akin to taking a baseball bat to a beehive. Our primary security threat right now is terrorism ---and by doing what we did in Iraq, we've managed to alienate a good part of the world and most of the allies whose intelligence and other help we need to combat and defeat terrorism".

SCOTT ADAMS, Dilbert Newsletter #58

. "The terrible thing about terrorism is that ultimately it destroys those who practise it. Slowly but surely, as they try to extinguish life in others, the light within them dies". 

Mary Robinson, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights

   "I believe we should try to move away from the vocabulary and attitudes which shape the stereotyping of developed and developing country approaches to human rights issues. We are collective custodians of universal human rights standards, and any sense that we fall into camps of “accuser” and “accused” is absolutely corrosive of our joint purposes. The reality is that no group of countries has any grounds for complacency about its own human rights performance and no group of countries does itself justice by automatically slipping into the “victim” mode"

Anna Lindh

"Terrorism can never be accepted. We must fight it together, with methods that do not compromise our respect for the rule of law and human rights, or are used as an excuse for others to do so".

Shirin Ebadi

"I hope the example of Saddam Hussein will give a lesson to leaders of other countries where human rights are not respected". 

Islamphobia: issues, challenges and actions, released in June 2004 by the UK commission on Britrish Muslims and Islamphobia argues that systemic discrimination against muslims and the recurrent negative portrayal of muslims has pushed UK muslims to the very margin of society

"That people are suddently more interested in islam could be a positive development, but if the knowledge that is produced only reinforces an orientalist perspective then this will be an apportunity lost" ( poole, 2002:3)

passive (see said, 1978). orientalism is "systems of representation framed by the hegemonic political forces of colonialism, post-colonialism and neo-colonialism, which act towards bringing 'the orient' into'western' consciousness, western dispensation and under western dominion" (Richardson,2004 :5).

"The orientalist approach to Islam can be summarised as essentialist, empiricist and historicist; it impoverishes the rich diversity of Islam by producing as essentialising caricature"(Richard 2004:5)

Kevin Dunn (2001:292) claims, " social constructions of identity are given life through their articulation"

Dunn (2001:293) claims that "muslims are one of the groups that have suffered from a worrying degree of racist violence in Australia, "which has led to a sense of vulnerability of Australian muslims"

Galasinki (2001: 7) argue that "texts are unable to police the meanings to be constructed from them"

Dunn (2001: 292) claims, "in Australia, local and national representations of Muslims are mutually reinforcing, and predominatly negative... there is an intertextualility between the local and national discourses, knitted together in a symbolic web"

Manning (2004) found the most images of Arabs and Muslims in Sydney newspapers come from foreign news media, and that most of this international coverage focused on the middle east; half on the Israel/palestine problem.

Dunn (2001) found that in discourse on the development of mosques in sydney stereotypes of Islam and Muslims were used in different ways to influence local perceptions. he concludes (2001:306) that " the representations of Islam lie at the core of the problems that Muslims in Sydney have encountered in establishing places of worship... (and that)... once muslims were constructed as different, as alien and treacherous, they could be treated as non-citizens"

Awass (1996) argued that news articles on Islam were derogatory and associated Islam and fundamentalism and terrorism.

'Muslims in melbourne denounce holy war' the age 11/10/2004
David Wroe with AAP
positive :
Islamic community leaders in Melbourne yesterday condemned the call for muslims worldwide to declare a holy war, saying Australian Muslims would not be swayed by violent rhetoric. sheik fehmi el-imaam, secretary of the Board of Imaama said Melbourne Muslims stood united against any form of holy war on terrorism. 'They won't be influenced by the message. They will repudiate the message immediately,'sheik fehmi said.'we have no room here for calling for jihad or making terrorist acts'

Kinders slap ban on santa, Herald sun 28/11/2001
Nikki Portyniak, leela de krester and ashley gardiner
positive :
more than a dozen centres across melbourne yesterday said they will not let father christmas in the door this year... ethnic community leaders also say the ban is wrong. they have called on the 14 kinders to bring sants back... "there is a muslim family in one of the groups and we didn't want to offend them" a worker said. But australian arabic council chairman Roland Jabbour said the no-santa ruling was going too far. Santa's part of the Australian way of life. We don't know how such a thing could be so offensive ".

Jinx fear on asylum ship, Herald sun 28/7/2004
Ainsley Pavey
negative :
Muslim asylum-seekers refused to let members of a sect stay abroad their doomed boat, a court heard yesterday.Sect members were kicked off the boat before it left indonesia for christmas island because passengers believed they were jinxed, brisbane magistrates court was told. muslims also tore out pages from the koran-- and threw them into the sea hoping the gesture would calm the waters.

Michael Beach from the Herald Sun 4/10/2001 writes of Muhammed Atta who played a lead role in the September 11 terrorist attacks :

Hijack ringleader mohammed atta left a will barring women from his funeral and instructing mourners not to cry. he also asked his fellow muslims to "pray that I will go heaven". the will was found in a bag left as boston airport along with five page instruction manual for his fellow hijackers... "the person who will wash my body near my genitals must wear gloves so that i am not touched there, i dont want a pregnant woman or a person who is unlean to come and say goodbye to me."i only want to be buried next to good muslims, my face should be directed east towards mecca. "women must not be present at my funeral or go to my grave at any later date."

The Age (23/11/2002)
"terror islamic militants from egypt with links to al qaeda and osama bin laden have successfully sought asylum in Australia to avoid arrest and interrogation by security forces. it is believed they have targeted Australia as a heaven since mid-1990s because of its relatively open immigration system and lengthy avenues for appeal, refugee review tribunal records show. while records show many were rejected by the tribunal after their claims of persecution were dismissed, the age believes a significant number were approved. immigaration minister philip ruddock said a man with links to the terrorist group suspected of the bali bombings was living in Australia."

In the Herald Sun (29/05/2002) reads, "religion led a devoulty muslim woman to join her husband in a plot to blow up their kebab shop, a court heard yesterday. fadime cubuk 24 always stuck strictly to the teachings of the koran- which included obeying her husband, mohammed ."