Are
Protestors Now Terrorists Under the New Anti-terrorism Law?
-
Sandra L. Smith -
The question "Are
protestors now terrorists under the new anti-terrorism law?" is very important.
Justice Minister Anne McLellan has said that the law conforms to the Canadian
Charter of Rights and Freedoms. By this we are to assume that it respects the
rights guaranteed in the Charter and that we can entrust the government not
to criminalize dissent. But the Charter contains what are called "reasonable
limits." Who decides what the "limits" are and whether they are
"reasonable?" It is the government which decides. In order to assure
ourselves that the Government will not do so on a self-servicing basis, we have
to know the criteria which the government uses to decide.
We are to understand that
it is on the basis of criteria set in the new law of what constitutes terrorism,
a terrorist act and a terrorist organization. This would lead us to believe
that utmost attention should be paid to that definition. This, in turn, raises
another well-founded concern which is that definition of terrorism and what
constitutes a terrorist act and a terrorist organization are highly controversial.
During the UN General Assembly plenary debate on measures to eliminate terrorism,
Britain's UN Ambassador Jeremy Greenstock said, "What looks, smells and
kills like terrorism is terrorism." Others repeat the well-known phrase
that "One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter." George
Jonas of the National Post called this phrase "adolescent sophistry,"
totally dismissing the need to define terrorism.
The fact that new ground
is being opened in providing terrorism with a definition concerns us greatly
because of attempts to criminalize dissent. The anti-globalisation movement,
for instance, has understood that when self-servicing aims are pursued by governments,
many things are done to justify the criminalisation of dissent in the name of
guaranteeing security. One of the concerns of the working class and people is
that they do not want to see dissent criminalised. The notion has been concocted
of "legitimate" and "illegitimate" dissent to justify the
criminalisation of that dissent which the ruling circles do not accept. The
obvious answer is that if only dissent which is acceptable to the ruling circles
is permitted, then this is precisely the criminalisation of dissent. So this
too is problematic.
But besides the definition
of terrorism which is enshrined in the Act and the need to have a definition
based on objective criteria so as to not permit the criminalisation of dissent,
it is necessary to look into the issue more deeply.
Behind the issue of defining
terrorism is why the need to do so presents itself. The simple answer would
be that the events of September 11 proved that the circumstances dictate it.
Calls have been issued that unless the cause of the terrorist attacks is established
-- or what some have described as "why some people hate America so much?"
-- it will not be possible to root out its causes. Methods which rely on revenge,
it is pointed out, will give rise to more anger and reprisals. Similarly, methods
which themselves resort to terror, such as the bombing of whole populations
in countries such as Afghanistan, will sow the wind and we can only expect to
reap the whirlwind as a result.
The basic issue here concerns
the raison d'etat which is to provide internal and external security for a state.
Unless this is appreciated and the working class and people involve themselves
in establishing how this can be achieved at this time, then the argument that
"exceptional circumstances warrant exceptional measures" will be given
to justify the suppression of rights and the criminalisation of dissent. This
raises the very real danger of legalized state terror. In this discussion, who
the state serves and how it can be protected from internal and external threat
will have to be established as will the significance of providing a modern conception
of rule of law.
If we are to accept the argument provided by both the government and civil libertarians
that the issue is to strike the "right balance" between rights and
the need to provide "collective security," then we will be in contempt
of a modern conception of rights and collective security and of the relationship
between them, and of a modern conception of rule of law.
According to official
reasoning, before September 11 we erred on the side of individual rights and
now circumstance dictate that we err on the side of collective security. In
other words, providing security is not a matter of rule of law but of a "trade
off" between defending rights and negating them in the name of "collective
security." The issue cannot be to provide justifications for violating
the rule of law, based on the presumption that the defence of security warrants
it. The argument that "extraordinary circumstances warrant extraordinary
measures" when these measures are to justify overthrowing the rule of law
are wrong in theory and wrong in practice. The issue has to be posed of the
kind of rule of law which is warranted to safeguard security. Anything less
will be to justify elevating anarchy to authority.
Sandra L. Smith is the National Leader of the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist).