-Caveat Lector-
From
http://www.portal.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2001/12/01
/nterry01.xml&sSheet=/news/2001/12/01/ixhome.html
}}}>Begin
Why grammar is the first casualty of war
By Terry Jones, Monty Python member, writer and performer
(Filed: 01/12/2001)
WHAT really alarms me about President Bush's "war on terrorism" is
the grammar. How do you wage war on an abstract noun? It's rather
like bombing murder.
Imagine if Bush had said: "We're going to bomb murder wherever it
lurks. We are going to seek out the murderers and the would-be
murderers, and bomb any government that harbours murderers."
The other thing that worries me about Bush and Blair's "war on
terrorism" is: how will they know when they've won it? With most
wars, you can say you've won when the other side is either all dead
or surrenders. But how is terrorism going to surrender?
It's hard for abstract nouns to surrender. In fact it's very hard for
abstract nouns to do anything at all of their own volition - even
trained philologists can't negotiate with them. It's difficult to
find their hide- outs, useless to try to cut off their supplies.
The bitter semantic truth is that you can't win against these sort of
words - unless, I suppose, you get them thrown out of the Oxford
English Dictionary. That would show 'em. Admittedly, the Second World
War was fought against fascism.
But that particular abstract noun was cunningly hiding behind the
very real Nazi government. We simply had to defeat Germany to win. In
President Bush's war, there is no such solution. Saying "We will
destroy terrorism" is about as meaningful as saying: "We shall
annihilate mockery."
Moreover, in its current usage, terrorism cannot be committed by a
country. When America bombed a Sudanese pharmaceutical factory under
the impression that it was a chemical weapons establishment, that was
stupid. But it was not an act of terrorism because the US Government
did it officially. And it apologised for it.
That's very important: no self-respecting terrorist ever apologises. It's one of the
few things that distinguishes legitimate governments from terrorists. So, it was
difficult for President Bush to know whom to bomb after
the World Trade Centre outrage.
If Bermuda had done it, then it would have been simple: he could have bombed the
Bahamas. It must have been really irritating that the people who perpetrated such a
horrendous catastrophe were not a nation.
What's more, terrorists - unlike a country - won't keep still in one place so you can
bomb them. They have this annoying habit of moving around, sometimes even going
abroad. It's all very un- American (apart from the trai
ning, that is).
On top of all this, you have no idea who the terrorists are. It's in their nature not
to be known until they've committed their particular act of terrorism. Otherwise,
they're just plain old Tim McVeigh who lives next doo
r, or that nice Mr Atta who's taking flying lessons.
So, let's forget the abstract noun. Let's rename this conflict the "war on
terrorists"; that sounds a bit more concrete. But, actually, the semantics get even
more obscure. What exactly does President Bush mean by terrori
sts? He hasn't defined the term, so we'll have to try to work out what he means from
his actions.
Judging by those actions, the terrorists all live together in "camps" in Afghanistan.
Presumably, they spend the evenings playing the guitar and eating chow around the
campfire. In these "camps", the terrorists also engag
e in "training" and stockpiling weapons, which we can obliterate with our cluster
bombs and missiles.
Nobody seems to have told the President that the horrors of September were perpetrated
with little more than a couple of dozen box-cutters. I suppose the US could bomb all
the stockpiles of box-cutters in the world, but I
have a sneaking feeling that it's still not going to eradicate terrorists.
Besides, I thought the terrorists who crashed those planes into the World Trade Centre
were living in Florida and New Jersey. I thought the al-Qa'eda network was operating
in 64 countries, including America and many Europ
ean states - which even President Bush might prefer not to bomb.
But no: the President, Congress, Tony Blair and pretty well the entire House of
Commons are convinced that terrorists live in Afghanistan. And what is meant by: "We
mustn't give in to the terrorists"? We gave in to them t
he moment the first bombs fell on Afghanistan.
The instigators of September 11 must have been popping the corks on their
non-alcoholic champagne. They had successfully provoked America into attacking yet
another poor country it didn't previously know much about, there
by creating revulsion throughout the Arab world and ensuring support for the Islamic
fundamentalists.
Words have become devalued, some have changed their meaning, and the philologists can
only shake their heads. The first casualty of war is grammar.
This is an edited version of an essay by Terry Jones, extracted from Voices for Peace:
an Anthology (Scribner, �7.99) published in aid of Warchild.
Previous story: Arab anger goes off the boil
Next story: I drove on autopilot, says Selby crash man
Related reports
Arab anger goes off the boil
� Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited 2001.
End<{{{
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