INTERVIEW WITH FERNANDO SAVATER: “THE WORLD, HOW MUCH MORE JUST, HOW MUCH SAFER?”

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MADRID, Mar 1 2005 (IPS) - Basque writer and philosopher Fernando Savater gave this interview shortly before the anniversary of the March 11, 2004, bomb attacks on three passenger trains in Madrid, Spain, which killed 192 people and wounded two thousand. Savater (born in San Sebastian, 1947) is a philosophy professor and the author of numerous essays, which have been translated into a dozen languages. He leads the Basta Ya movement, which represents the victims of terrorism in the Basque Country. The previous Spanish government, of Jose Maria Aznar, stated that there should be no discussion of the causes of terrorism because there could be no possible justification. What is certain is that there is still no internationally-accepted definition of terrorism today. Why is this important? I think there is a mistaken notion that all terrorism is equal. This is the same as saying that all fatal diseases are equal. But cancer is not the same as AIDS. They may both kill you, but they are not the same. Their causes must be understood for them to be treated. Similarly, and with no intention of justifying terrorism, the causes of terrorism must be understood. Ethnic terrorism is not the same as religious terrorism, or the terrorism of the poor against the rich.

Basque writer and philosopher Fernando Savater gave this interview shortly before the anniversary of the March 11, 2004, bomb attacks on three passenger trains in Madrid, Spain, which killed 192 people and wounded two thousand. Savater (born in San Sebastian, 1947) is a philosophy professor and the author of numerous essays, which have been translated into a dozen languages. He leads the Basta Ya movement, which represents the victims of terrorism in the Basque Country.

The previous Spanish government, of Jose Maria Aznar, stated that there should be no discussion of the causes of terrorism because there could be no possible justification. What is certain is that there is still no internationally-accepted definition of terrorism today. Why is this important? I think there is a mistaken notion that all terrorism is equal. This is the same as saying that all fatal diseases are equal. But cancer is not the same as AIDS. They may both kill you, but they are not the same. Their causes must be understood for them to be treated. Similarly, and with no intention of justifying terrorism, the causes of terrorism must be understood. Ethnic terrorism is not the same as religious terrorism, or the terrorism of the poor against the rich.

There is a type of violence which is at times the explosion of people who are left no other political path for expression. Attempts to kill Hitler were terrorist acts, but it would seem there were not many other options. Although we do not accept it morally, we must also recognize that those people who create a situation of political exceptionality around themselves cannot expect to be treated according to normal standards. In contrast, there are other forms of terrorism that arise from the desire for power.

In general we all accept that terrorism does not solve problems, even for those that practice it. Osama bin Ladan is a millionaire and he has not raised anyone out of poverty. He will not solve the problems of the Third World or the Arab World. But he can take advantage of the anger and rage of the poor.

There are cases of rich-against-poor terrorism, like in the Basque Country, where it is the rich and the upper levels of society that practice terrorism to put an end to the ambitions of the rest of the population.

The same condemnation can be made of all forms of terrorism, and therefore they must continue to be studied. Because there is a type of terrorism that could be resolved through fighting against injustice and inequality. It is also a way of countering the alibis of terrorism. The more just the world becomes, the safer it will be. The search for justice is in the interest of all of us.

However, no one should accept the idea that this alone can solve the problem because, for example, the terrorists who carried out the March 11 attacks in Spain were integrated into Spanish society, not marginalised or excluded from it. They lived regular lives. Were this not the case, today we would be lamenting: if only they had been integrated in society, if only we have given them jobs, … But they had jobs, and yet acted out of religious fanaticism. The conditions of society must be improved first for reasons of human dignity rather than of prudence.

One of the things that makes me most nervous is a statement that I just heard from the Spanish president Rodriguez Zapatero: that all violence is useless. Violence is the most useful thing in the world; that is why it is prohibited. Were we allowed, we would use violence to induce our neighbours to give us sexual favours, or make the bank give us money when our accounts are empty. Violence is useful, and the Basque Country offers gleaming proof. Through violence, Basque terrorism was able to force 200,000 people from the country (10 percent of the population) and to create a situation in which policies antagonistic to Basque nationalism have practically no voice or vote, the people live in fear and don’t dare say what they think out loud. Fortunately, we can say that it is not omnipotent.

How would you define terrorism? There are very strong words that run the risk of turning into pretexts and losing their meaning through overuse, as happened with the term fascist. Today fascist means everything that is bothersome, the person who steps on my foot on the bus, the mother-in-law. There are true fascists in the world today, but not everyone we find intolerable is a fascist.

The same is true for the word “terrorist”.The husband who beats his wife, the man who spews venom on the radio — they are called a terrorists. There are many crimes and many awful acts that are not terrorist. Terrorism is the use of violence against civilians with the objective of creating a change of government or policy; the taking of civilians as hostages, the use of victims to pressure a government or given institutions to change their policies. In contrast, bombing a civilian population is a heinous act, but it is not in and of itself necessarily terrorism.

In what cases can acts of terrorism be justified? Can it be compared with the Spanish resistance to the invasions of Napoleon, for example? Or the French resistance against the invasion by Germany. In a country that has been invaded by another, the resistance commits acts that the invader considers terrorism but that the invaded considers part of a struggle for liberation. In the case of Iraq, it seems that the acts being committed not only against the occupation troops but also against Iraqis themselves, the Iraqi authorities, are, I think, canonical acts of terrorism. But there can also be groups that feel they are acting because they are under occupation.

People frequently talk about the advantages of democracy in the fight against terrorism. In Spain the dictatorship did not prevail over terrorism, but nor did democracy. Democracy is good for countries but not for fighting terrorism. It is very vulnerable, dedicated to the protection of civil liberties. Every democracy grants rights to every individual, however criminal, and naturally there are some that take advantage of these rights. In an iron-fisted dictatorship it is probably easier to control the population, but there is also the danger that it might produce more people disposed to fill the ranks of terrorists. It would be absurd to believe that a dictatorship is the best way to end terrorism.

But in democracies exceptional means have been approved to fight terrorism, in the United States for example. When speaking about the relation between freedom and security, there is a range of things that one can do. It is clear that any search for security always limits certain kinds of freedom. There are evident limitations of freedom that are necessary. But what cannot be accepted is the suspension of legal standards: for example, detention without a trial or hearing; incarceration for months without trial or access to counsel. This in unjustifiable, it goes against the very structure of a democracy.

What is the significance of the March 11 attacks for the victims of terrorism in Spain? It was an attack of extraordinary breadth. Before that, no comparable terrorist attack had occurred in Spain or anywhere else in the European community…But there is something that at times is not understood: just as not all forms of terrorism are equal, not all victims are either. Victims are the same in the sense that all deserve support, help, understanding. But the victims that the terrorists strike because of who they are are not the same as those who are victims simply because they were there when the bomb went off. All of the victims of March 11 are victims of terrorism, but accidental victims; in contrast, those of the Basque Country are specific victims, with first and last names, that the terrorists sought for perfectly clear reasons, with the deliberate intention of attacking certain security forces, institutions, elements of the press, and public attitudes. This is very different, because the latter victims have a political identity that is far clearer than other victims.

The reactions are different as well. In Madrid commemorations were held for the victims of the March 11 attacks. There were no such demonstrations in the Basque Country because no one dared. Here people know that Muslim fundamentalists are not going to do anything against painting expositions, for example; whereas in the Basque Country something would happen. Moreover in Spain there is no political group that backs the Islamic terrorists, while in the Basque Country there are those who support the terrorists. (END/COPYRIGHT IPS)