>>In the U.S. the FBI's definition of terrorism is, "the unlawful use of force and violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce the government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof in furtherance of political or social objectives."

key word here is 'unlawful'. FBI and american government has no problem with the 'lawful' use of such phenomena because these people own the law and they use such 'terror' as a matter of routine. lawful / unlawful, the distinction is facile.

sexism, misogyny, patriarchy... gotta go.

When a woman borrows from the language of Hitler, who coined the term terrorism, and wanted to turn women into mere wombs at mass pregnacy camps, that woman should feel ashamed of herself for buying into such a disgusting form of reductionism.

Feminism should know better than to borrow from the vile demonising language of Hitler / Bush

Shame on you!

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Violence, especially violence against women is genuinely bad enough as it is, without us having to make up spurious arguments to label it "terrorism".

To suggest that a man who beats his wife is doing so because he wishes to bring about a new society based on ultra-patriarchy is far-fetched bollox. He's doing it because he wants to win whatever particular domestic argument he's having with her at the time, and shamefully he thinks that violence is an acceptible way of trying to do this.

Sure the fact that he has this attitude means that he is sexist. It does not mean he is a "terrorist".

When the IRA tore people to shreds with nail bombs, a particular vision of the future of Northern Irish society was at the forefront of their minds.

When a bloke hits his wife or girlfriend is he really thinking "Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha, this'll bring man-kind one step closer to total and final supremacy over the female gender." Is he fuck.

The fact that he thinks it's ok for him to behave like this is indicative of certain prejudice that he has. And the fact that he too often he can get away with it is indicative of too much tolerance of this kind of behaviour in our society. But to claim that he is acting deliberately to bring impose his vision of society on the world is SLOPPY thinking. You're stretching the concept of 'acting to bring about social change' to a highly dubious level.

Violence against women is wrong, and so is violence against civilians by armies or paramilitary groups to bring about political / social change. But to try to say that these two things are the same is sloppy thinking and completely unnecessary.


As far as the term TERRORISM itself goes, I would say that it's fine to use this word, as defined at the top. It's what you do with the word that's important.

I'd say that all violent tactics are wrong. The IRA are a bunch of criminal thugs as far as I'm concerned. I'd give them about 6 out of 10 for being criminal thugs. I'd probably rank the UK government about 9 and a half out of 10 for being criminal thugs and terrorists - even worse (ok they've done FAR worse damage than the IRA but then they do have a far bigger budget). The US government - they just go off the scale.

What Bush does is to hypocritcal label people terrorists when 1) he is ignoring OTHER terrorists who happen to be is friends and when 2) he is supporting terrorists and 3) he is the world's biggest terrorist himself.

THAT is fucked up, but there's nothing fucked up about the term itself. People who deliberately act to strike fear into other people's hearts, through maiming and killing random civilians are terrorists as far as I'm concerned. That INCLUDES state terrorists - who are invariably the WORST terrorists, but this does not mean to say that for example what the IRA did was justified. The situation that provoked what they did was far worse than most people realise - SO much injustice in Northern Ireland. It is important to recognise that. But it does not give legitamacy to blowing people to bits. OK maybe if they'd killed Maggie that would have done the world quite a big favour, but bombs in pubs... that's just not on. It might be UNDERSTANDABLE - if these people feel that they're lives have been treated with contempt and that in their world life is cheap, maybe they'd like to show other people what it's like for life to be so cheap and expendable. But to do that to innocent people is not justified in my opinion. Responding to injustice by creating more injustice is not right. Too wrongs do not make a right. That's the kind of thing your parents tell you when you're a kid and then you find out that they don't practice what they preach, but it's true. Too wrongs really don't make a right, and inequality and oppression in Northern Ireland did not justify blowing up pubs in Birmingham. In an interview once, the Sex Pistols were talking about how bad everything in the world is, and, asked what they intended to do about it, responded: "We're gonna make it worse". Fine rhetoric for a punk band, but surely a dangerous attitude to bring to politics.

In summary, there IS such a thing as terrorism, it IS wrong, ESPECIALLY state terrorism, but ALL terrorism is wrong. AND, violence against women is fucked up and immoral, but it is spurious and sloppy and intellectually dishonest to claim that it's a form of terrorism.

This article utterly ignores over 3 decades of research data proving beyond doubt that women instigate domestic violence against men as often as the other way around. The fact that women are more likely to be hurt in such a conflict is irrelevant when discussing motivation or intent.

The fact is that people will sometimes resort to violence in arguments. People, of either gender.

If anything lesbian couples have a higher rate of partner violence than straights or male gays - not to mention most violence in the home is by women, when you add up violence against children, the elderly and partners.

For many years feminist researchers have deliberately hidden these facts as it doesn't fit within their worldview. They should be ashamed of themselves.


A.