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terrorist groups, incidents have been increasing at an annual rate of about 12 to 15 percent. Even more
30 alarming, there is an apparent trend toward «large-scale indiscriminative violence» in everyday locations—
like the bomb that ripped through a Brighton hotel in 1984 where British Prime Minister Margaret
Thatcher was attending a Conservative Party conference — or in airplanes or railroad stations resulting in
35 multiple fatalities. In one such incident, during a bloody splurge of terrorism last
June, an Air-India flight
carrying 329 passengers plunged into the Atlantic, off Ireland. Investigators suspect Sikh terrorists had
planted a suitcase bomb aboard the plane.
The escalation of violence may stem from the peculiar and troubling relationship between terrorists and
40
the news media, in Jenkin's view. That an airplane hijacking or the bombing of a crowded marketplace will
command headlines is no less axiomatic for the perpetrators of the act than for those who report it. Yet as
such events grow more commonplace, terrorists can no longer count on instant public sensation or
45 prominent coverage. In fact, notes Jenkins, some kidnapping of minor U.S. government officials abroad
have not been reported by the press at all. Thus, in a curious way, the sheer frequency of terrorist acts can
be self defeating, he says. Terrorists appear to be dealing with the problem with ever more spectacular
50
assaults. «They may feel compelled to escalate their violence in order to keep public attention», his report
theorizes, «or to recover coercive power lost as governments have become more resistant to their
55 demands.» Like most students of the phenomenon, Jenkins seems more inclined to describe then prescribe.
«I can't think of any way you are going to eradicate international terrorism», he confesses. «It's a condition,
not a specific disease, and you can treat the condition, but you can't cure it.» And the condition is apt to
60 grow more sophisticated, says Jenkins. «I know this seems like a bleak and unpromising
picture. But it's
what's there, it's what there is.»
The one consolation he seems to find is that the mayhem may be self-limiting, since even terrorists
should draw the line at committing acts that would alienate the constituency they are trying to reach or that
65
might provoke massive reprisals. Yet that consideration did not deter such a ruthless venture as the
hijacking of the Achille Lauro.* In truth, the experts seem barely able even to describe effectively any
longer. As more and more splinter groups and competing factions set out to distinguish themselves in the
70
busy arena of international banditry, terrorist incidents seem to become more random, more arbitrary in
their targets, less connected to any identifiable cause. A year ago, when a bomb tore through a Naples-
Milan express train, killing 15 passengers and injuring more than 150, everyone from the neofascist Black
75
Order to the left-wing Red Brigades to an Islamic guerrilla group claimed credit for the act.
* Achille Lauro — An Italian cruise ship, hijacked by Palestinian terrorists in 1985. An American passenger in a wheelchair was
murdered.
It is a disturbing thought that terrorism has become routi nized — taking on, as historian Walter Laqueur
noted in his own 1977 study of the subject», a certain resemblance to the anonymous character of a
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multinational corporation.» Even more disturbing, says Jenkins, is the prospect that it will merge into the
quotidian routine. As the media sharpens its techniques for instant coverage, «we will see even more
terrorism. The extraordinary security measures taken against terrorism will have become a permanent part
85
of the landscape.» That, he concludes, «may be the most insidious... development in the coming years.
Terrorism will become an accepted fact of contem porary life — commonplace, ordinary, banal, and
therefore somehow "tolerable".»
From: Newsweek, January 6, 1986
TWO ANALOGIES FROM THE NOVELS OF CHINUA ACHEBE
An ANALOGY is a comparison that is set up between two similar things. The usual reason for using
analogies is to explain complex, abstract ideas or unfamiliar things in terms of something concrete and familiar:
life may be compared with a journey, death with sleep, etc. The following anecdote about Frederick the Great
of Prussia uses analogy to present an object lesson:
The king asked his guests at a state banquet to explain why his revenues continued to shrink
even though the taxes remained heavy. An old general volunteered a demonstration. He called
for a large chunk of ice, held it up, then handed it to his neighbour. It was passed from hand to
hand around the table to the monarch. When it reached Frederick, it was the size of a bean.*
Now consider the following analogy set up by a character in a novel — Things Fall Apart — by the African
writer Chinua Achebe. (This novel dramatizes traditional Ibo life in its first encounter with colonialism and