… Columbia University administrators called in the New York Police Department (NYPD) on Wednesday evening to violently suppress and shut down a pro-Palestinian student occupation of the campus’ Butler Library. Approximately 78 protesters were arrested just over a year after the police-state crackdown at Columbia last April, when the NYPD swarmed the campus to arrest over 100 students and break up the “Gaza Solidarity Encampment.”
On Wednesday afternoon, a group of around 100 anti-genocide student protesters took over Butler’s main reading room and renamed it the “Basel Al-Araj Popular University,” after the Palestinian activist and writer killed by Israeli forces in 2017.
The students’ demands include Columbia’s financial divestment from Zionist organizations, an academic boycott of complicit institutions, cops and ICE off campus and amnesty for all university members unfairly targeted and disciplined for pro-Palestinian actions.
Columbia’s Public Safety officers immediately responded and violently barred protesters from leaving unless they showed identification, which created a prolonged standoff…
Many people who only damage property are still labeled as terrorists by the powers that be. The dictionary can be quite misleading, as it does not really analyze inconsistent usage, particularly for political or propaganda purposes.
For example, “ecoterrorists”. Classically labeled as such even when just destroying property. Or even sometimes just for slowing down logistics. Predominately First Nations protesters and activists were labelled “ecoterrorists” by Rick Orman, citing examples like chaining themselves to equipment.
The inconsistent usage has at least two means of biased use. I’ve already mentioned one, which is using the term for those damaging private property or slowing down enterprise, i.e. equating damage to private property as violence (when private enterprise seizes land or destroys water this is never called ecoterrorism). The other is in inconsistent application: it is a label only routinely used by the targets of capitalist-run states. When their states destroy entire cities and target civilians, it is not called terrorism. When their targets go after a politician insteas of strictly military installations, suddenly they are terrorists. Hell, they can be called terrorists even when going after only military targets. The actusl use of the term corresponds to the means used and the political and ethnic background of those engaging in the acts more than whether the acts are violence for political (isn’t everything political?) ends. Terrorism is when a car bomb and not a JDAM.
The real meaning of terrorism must be understood through describing its actual mainstream use. Descriptivism not prescriptivism, lest we miss the reality of propaganda. This is important because the term will continue to be used as I described and to justify rounding up protesters that occupy buildings or block highways or burn down a Tesla dealership. It doesn’t really matter ehat the dictionary says, tge law will say enough, the cops will arrest on orders of preventing “terrorism”, the judge will convict and sentence based on calling a dumpster fire terrorism, and one might even get sent to a black site to contain such “dangerous” people, “terrorists”.
And this is not new. Anarchists and other cool people were lazily labelled exactly the same way over a century ago for the same types of acts.
Your reply is very well written and on the whole I agree. The one thing I would say is that I am not simply dismissing the mainstream usage of the word, but pointing out its misuse as intentional deception given that the usage contradicts what the word describes. I aim to point out that the word is actively being used for propaganda, and encourage others to associate it as such.
Thanks!
I would say that if a word has been misused for a century it actually just has a new meaning. And I’m not aware of it ever being used consistently.