When Reuters’ global news head Steven Jukes refused to use the word ‘terrorism’ in coverage of 9/11, he defended his position with the quip: ‘One man’s terrorist is another’s freedom fighter.’
We thought this line of reasoning — that it’s legitimate to consider this ‘freedom fighting’ — had been thoroughly discredited by the ongoing wave of horrific world terror. But Antonia Zerbisias of the Toronto Star invokes it yet again, while critiquing a recent article by Daniel Pipes:
So here’s my definition of terrorism, imperfect and subjective as it is: It’s violence against civilians to achieve a political end which one doesn’t support or agree with.
Remember, one nation’s terrorist is another nation’s freedom fighter. Depending on whom you’re asking, American founding fathers George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, South Africa’s Nelson Mandela and Israel’s Menachem Begin could be described as terrorists.
One of Zerbisias’ claims: ‘the word [‘terrorism’] is almost always judgmental, which makes it non-objective.’
It’s another classic example of amoral ‘objectivity’ propping the journalist up beyond the fray of real human beings fighting a very real force, that demands real language to describe it.
In what rarefied atmosphere does the bayonetting of children begging for water not require ‘judgmental’ description?
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