WORLD VIEW:OF TERRORISM it can truly be said, in the words of the Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu, that those who know do not speak and those who speak do not know. Reaching for the term to describe targeted acts of violence against civilians, such as the atrocities seen in Mumbai this week, simultaneously excludes those responsible from rational meaning and legitimacy, writes Paul Gillespie.
Is the word best used as a noun, an adjective or a verb? Can it validly analyse what has undoubtedly become a worldwide phenomenon - as in the "war on terror" - and is seriously canvassed by US policy theorist Philip Bobbitt in his book Terror and Consentas the central political reality of our time? Or is it best disregarded by analysts and political actors, because it carries so much condemnatory baggage? After all, it is normally only when protagonists stop describing each other as terrorists that they can sit down to make peace.
Definitions matter in this discourse, especially for media practitioners. At a conference on the reporting of terrorism in Dublin last year, which brought together journalists and government representatives through the EuroMed and the Media taskforce, David Gardner of the Financial Timesoffered this definition: "A targeted act of violence designed to have random and multiplying effect." It usefully combines instrumental and intentional meaning, even if its application to state terrorism or liberation struggles remains ambiguous and contested.
These issues were further discussed in Granada this week under the same umbrella, involving journalists and officials from the European Union, north Africa and the Middle East.
This effort to create a network of media professionals for developing common standards and an input into policymaking is making progress, not least in providing a forum where Israeli and Arab journalists can meet. After three years of varying encounters, there is a willingness to go beyond north-south barriers to discuss mutual concerns. A developing training programme enables a circulation of expertise, standards and reporting (see the European Neighbourhood Journalism Network website).
There is basic agreement among the journalists that in reporting on terrorism they should: have a clear idea of their own role; resist state efforts to assign them one; contextualise political violence to promote better understanding; and oppose censorship and beware of how states and governments use the threat of terrorism as an excuse to impose it. Self-regulation is preferred to legislation or imposed codes of conduct. There is a consensus north and south that civil liberties have been eroded in the "war on terror".
Government representatives say terrorist groups are very good at propaganda, a fact of which journalists need to be fully aware. "Propaganda of the deed" remains central, and media spectaculars are precisely calculated to multiply their effects. Media should be more transparent and honest about their role. Censorship is increasingly difficult because of pan-national and online media, the officials say. In principle, if not in practice, states are more reluctant to intervene directly.
That still leaves ample room for disagreements on whether state security should take precedence over reportage or whether journalists should engage directly with militant groups. There is a growing awareness too of ethical issues concerning photographic portrayal of victims and attacks, how editing, designing and illustrating can distort coverage, and how easy it is to stereotype people in such crises.
Such general principles are, of course, much easier to articulate than implement. It is especially difficult to make the transition from well-meaning and high-minded conferences to the raw practicality of everyday media owned by varying commercial and political interests. But these are influential and experienced people who see the benefits of networking, value potential solidarity and seek a common approach.
Journalists from Algeria, Tunisia and Egypt sharply criticise state repression against them even as they acknowledge there is a growing and more dynamic media diversity throughout the Arab world.
Authoritarian governments find it convenient to frame growing social and political conflict and opposition in terms of Islamic fundamentalism linked to terrorist groups. That gains them understanding and support from western governments.
But in doing this they help create the conditions for these groups to grow, in sheer frustration over the failure to include them in national politics. These are specific movements arising in particular national contexts. They are not linked to the "war on terror" - except when al-Qaeda-type groups are traced back to the US-inspired struggle against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s - as Arab journalists point out with grim irony.
An interesting comparison can be drawn between Turkey's recent reforming Islamic government and similar but excluded movements in the Arab world. In Egypt, for example, there has been much tension between media and the state. A state of emergency in place since 1981 provides 31 ways to jail journalists. There is a strong regional bourgeoisie comparable to the one that provides the social base for Recep Tayyip Erdogan's Justice and Development party in the Anatolian heartland, with a similar reforming impulse inspired by the search for a less corrupt alternative to the Mubarak regime.
Similar pressures in Algeria and Tunisia show how terrorist labels delegitimate reformist movements needing space to develop and grow. Those who know this should not use them.