Session 7: Fear, Horror and Terrorism

Session 7: Fear, Horror, and Terrorism
Chair: Michele Huppert

The Horror of the “Enemy of Humanity”: On Pirates, Terrorists, and States
Mikkel Thorup
Institute of Philosophy and the History of Ideas, University of Aarhus, Nobelparken, Aarhus, Denmark

There are a number of interesting parallels between the pirate and the terrorist when seen from the viewpoint of the state. They are both named the ‘enemy of humanity’ and a global war is declared against them in which all means are legitimated. This paper will explore the construction of the pirate as the opposite of the state and the orderly society in the works of Bodin, Grotius, Gentile and others up to the Achille Lauro affair, trying to understand what it means in practice to name someone, as Francis Baon did in 1629: “such routs and shoals of people, as have utterly degenerate from the laws of nature; as have in their very body and frame of estate a monstrosity; and may be truly accounted … common enemies and grievances of mankind; or disgraces and reproaches to human nature”. The paper then explores how the American administration has used the idea of an totally disrecognized and illegimate combatant developed against pirates in the present war on terror, saying (and acting) as the former deputy assistant attorney general John Yoo did: “Why is it so hard for people to understand that there is a category of behavior not covered by the legal system?” he said. “What were pirates? They weren’t fighting on behalf of any nation. What were slave traders? Historically, there were people so bad that they were not given protection of the laws. There were no specific provisions for their trial, or imprisonment. If you were an illegal combatant, you didn’t deserve the protection of the laws of war.”

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Engineering Terror: The Role of Engineers and Engineering in the Development of Modern Terrorism
Mats Fridlund
Technical University of Denmark (DTU), History of Technology Division, Technical Knowledge Center of Denmark, Kongens Lyngby, Denmark

Discussing engineer Osama bin Laden and the 9/11 attacks Chandra Mukerji (2003) stated that the World Trade Center buildings had been made  ”vulnerable to a social type that has until recently seemed impossible in the culture: the terrorist engineer.” This paper intends to demonstrate that this is a fallacy and that the ”terrorist engineer” has existed all through the history of modern terrorism and that the knowledge of engineers and artifacts of engineering might even be seen as some of the central resources in its development.
The emergence of modern terrorism is generally connected to the terrorist group Narodnya Volya (translated as People’s Will) and its attacks against the Russian state in the 1880s. Central in this was the engineering student Nikolai Kibalchich that was responsible for the group’s bomb-making efforts which included the development of bombs using nitroglycerine, dynamite and electric detonators. The efforts were directed towards the assassination of Czar Alexander II which succeeded in 1881 with the use of two of Kibalchich’s hand-thrown bombs. Kibalchich was the first of many terrorist engineers. Some of his many followers include Mohamed Atta, Leonid Krasin, Martin Ekenberg, Yassir Arafat, Ramzi Yousef and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. The first part of the paper gives examples of how engineers through their expertise and knowledge contributed to the development of terrorism.
In addition to engineers’ invention of new technologies of terror, the paper explore the impact of engineering on modern terrorism through providing it with new tools of terror. Terrorists’ appropriation of commercially available products of civilian and military engineering have made it possible for terrorists to innovate new practices of terror of previously unthinkable magnitude or effect. Examples abound regarding arms and explosives but also include commercial airplanes, television, computers, and the postal and internet systems.

Rending the Terror-Horror Nexus: The Manifest Lie and its Role in Facilitating Illegitimate Acts of Political Violence
Craig Ferguson McGregor
School of Global Studies, Social Science and Planning, RMIT University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

Hanging proudly upon the outer perimeter of the world’s most infamous prison, shrouded by coils of razor wire, is a sign that reads Honor Bound to Defend Freedom.  The logical incongruity between that noble message and the terrifying space of violence to which it refers is as profound as it is obvious.  It is a discordance that works to render the message highly implausible.  Yet, this message, loaded with unabashed Orwellian intent, exists.  That it does says much about the crucial role fallacious language plays in the complex relationship between political violence and power.  In writing this paper, I aim to reveal the mechanisms by which the manifest lie facilitates, and provides meaning for, illegitimate acts of violence.  Central to my argument is the notion that the manifest lie operates at the interface between terror and horror, a site eminently suited to promoting the operation of doublethink—the art of ‘controlled insanity’, of concurrently knowing and not knowing, of seeing contradiction, repudiating it, forgetting the repudiation and then forgetting the forgetting.  It is our ability to engage in this remarkable practice that allows us to remain morally indifferent in the face of overt acts of violence—such as those we have seen transpiring at Camp Delta, Guantánamo Bay—while being acutely aware of the demonstrative brutality of such acts.  In essence then, the manifest lie, in its unapologetic transparency, works to magnify the terrifying visceral impact of political violence, while diminishing the moral condemnation, or horror, of that violence.  It is at this point, where horror and terror part company, that we see political violence at its most effective, for where horror is absent, terror is most capable of corralling power.