In Annamarie Oliverio's new book (SUNY Press, February 1998), Gunder
Frank writes in the Foreword:
Oliverio's powerful appeal is to comprehend that it is the state,
including especially the academy and the media, who serve their own
interests by labelling, denouncing, and persecuting the powerless as the
sources of "terrorism." Concomitantly, Oliverio also appeals to our
comprehension of how the same interested parties use this same power to
shape our perceptions in their (largely successful) attempt to protect
themselves from the terrorist label and other critiques and to exempt
their polices from reform.
What, for example, exempts the British state from charges of routine
state and army of occupation-terrorism for twenty five-years in Northern
Ireland and in its notorious H block prisons. And speaking of prisons,
Oliverio asks why the U.S. is also exempt from charges of "terrorism"
when more of its young African American males are locked away in prison
and on parole than in "normal" society, not to mention in school?
She observes that "practices such as spousal or child abuse, racism, gang
violence, environmental destruction, poverty or even medical malpractice
and abuse, to name a few, are not recognized as terrorism." Neither are,
she observes, the violence of poverty, disease, exploitation, or
oppression in the Third World, nor the economic polices imposed by the
International Monetary Fund, which have aggravated the same. Why not?