The Buzz Words

The word 'Terrorist' is a constant referent in our daily language. Terrorism has been magnified, supped up, glossed over and garnished with meaning. But the word has become more ambiguous than it's official definition. One of the definitions provided in the Oxford English dictionary states: 'violent action, or the threat of violent action that is intended to cause fear, usually for political purposes.'

The amplification of this word has permeated every facet of western language and culture. For surely we are living in times of terror, and terrorism is rampant. But the word is also self indulgent, for it feeds a response to terror, anti-terrorist movements, such as the famous oxymoron; War on Terror: and War opens a gate for destructive and genocidal ideologies to manifest, conveying unreasonable mass murder, while the perpetrators are lionized as great leaders of change, employing principals of transformative elimination.

The relationship between the terrorist, extremist and hostage is forever changing and circulating like currency, debt and payment. So how do we define terrorism? Western cultures perceive terrorism as a violent action that is done to us. What then is the act of retaliation, on a much grander scale of chaos? That would be a War on Terror, and War is perceived as something more justified, for with war are all the associations of heroism and valor and honor. Every September we are anually reminded what terrorism means to us, as we watch our screens and relive the falling of the WTC, nostalgically replaying the dread and fear. Our emotive responses are anger, and its angled to the East. This repetition engages viewers to abandon their doubts, keeping people in faith of War and supportive of a reaction. Current events are so hyped up in the present day that it becomes harder and harder to remember the past, as news reports stream into living rooms and inform viewers of current events. But looking back, it's easy to see that the buzzword only thirty years ago was 'communism' and that any threat to a Western Right Wing Capitalism was always associated thusly.

And what is an extremist? Far from what most people consider to be normal, reasonable or acceptable. It was extremists that destroyed the towers on 9/11, and it was the act of extremists who countered with a hail of bombs that killed over 100,000 plus people, not responsible for the suicide attack on the WTC. This demonstrates that extremism can exist in both realms, those of the political left and right. But what it also demonstrates is the overly simplified motive for genocide. With the search of weapons of mass destruction, the political leaders of western civilization needed only search their own back yard. Let's not forget that though no WMD's were found over the period leading upto 2003 bombings of Iraq, we still can be held responsible for proliferating them for profit. So the exchange of terror and the hostage continues. We have a strong policy on non negotiation when it comes to terrorists. However, it seems we're evidently not opposed to weapons technology being distributed through deregulated markets. Much like the negotiations that took place during the 1970's, where Western economists struck deals with Saudi Arabia. This negotiation took place with full knowledge that Saudi Arabian construction companies were arming the Mujahideen. But no effort was made to counter this, because the Mujahideen were opposing Russian communists. Any chink in the armor of communism would be seen as a victory, and so the tactical negotiation takes place, producing a clear paradox in policy loyalty.

Perhaps another strong buzzword would be the use of freedom. We are truly free, but we're imposed with so much trepidation, dependence, alienation and guidance that we're all made to feel incompetent. And so with freedom comes inertia. We are constantly in a phase of powerlessness, throwing out the question 'What can I do?' This is not freedom, and although all the associations of freedom relate to romanticized icons, historic founders, war heroes, crusaders and adventurers, it becomes evident that its meaning is lost in a sea of repetition and ambiguity. Freedom to attack any nation we must in our interest. Freedom to imprison poorer nations into the IMF and global police. Freedom to dismiss a hung Parliament and use a coalition agreement to mask a governmental invasion. We are free to pretend we live in a democracy, and free to live in a benign dictatorship. We are free to turn a blind eye to palpable corruption, we are free to a two party vote. All these freedoms are actually reductions of freedom. No vote will ever really change an overly corrupt government, whose interest is in quarreling with each other to the same end. Take the recent events in the UK, since the coalition of Conservatives and Liberal Democrats. The Lib Dems reversed their policies to tailor to a Conservative regime, repeating the discourse of "there's no alternative", the same unreasonable slogan used by Margret Thatcher. What must be recognized here is the importance of the two party system. Not only did the Conservative party in this move cripple the reputation of the Liberal Democrats, but they forced the hand of Labour to transfer their manifesto to a more center right wing agenda. There were no choices here made by the public.

In popular music, the most common word phrasing made by contemporary lyricists are "I want..." or "I don't want..." which reflects our culture as consumers and materialists. In much the same way, freedom, extremism and terrorism is peddled into the discourse, like ghostly echoes growing louder, becoming more real as they filter through screens and radios. We want freedom, we don't want extremism. We want a War on Terror, we don't want Terror. Weather lyrics in our culture mean to or not they contain a subtle truth within their deconstruction and they do somehow reflect the modern day. But who's to say those wants were ever really yours in the first place? We're free to make our own choices, but those choices can be hindered and directed when the options are whittled down to the inflections described by, so called, civilization. Whose to say those wants were not environmental influences pandering what you think you need to hold your head high in society? Excuses that many people prefer to take in order to deem their lives led by fate, aka, narrative. We're led to believe that our desires, our "wants" are well known by the powerful, and that they do all they can to provide them, so you can be free. But freedom is just another buzzword for modern day slavery, one of the mind. That beyond the walls of a civilized world there can be no rational thought. Beyond these walls logic breaks down, law cannot exist, only the dark ages exists there, and the ragheads that rule it. Yet more pathological is the condition of a developed world, won over by the talking heads and radios, to believe they are fighting for freedom, while being held static in cities of mirrors and billboards. To believe that social issues reported in the newspapers are the acts of people with inherited murderous genetics and not victims of an estranged environment. It's the buzzwords that drive us to keep buying into the potentially dangerous discourses, spotting them early may help us to see that those who operate it trade in our lives.