The figures of Terror and the Philosophical Debate on Modernity

FRANCISCO NAISHTAT

Terror, Terrorism, States & Societies. A Historical and Philosophical Perspective

Women Unlimited

Lugar: New Delhi; Año: 2010; p. 284 - 294

ABSTRACT After the 9/11 something was dramatically displaced in the semantic space of what we associate to the terms of “terror” and “terrorism”. These events seem to be fitted with new characteristics that are no longer linked to an ideological classical politics in the framework of national insurrections, or of anti-colonialist traditions, as strategic aspects of defined and comprehensible political struggles. In this new context, the flamboyant beginning of the 21stCentury provokes the displacement of question of terrorism towards the center of international media attention. It now appears as a universal anguish and as a sign of brutal rupture with the past, prolonging the political culture of resistance in a permanent state of turmoil and disorientation. Thus, the action of this new terrorism would mark the beginning of a new era of violence, relatively different from political, secularized and classical violence. 9/11 reactivated an eschatological and esthetic figure of terror that seems more narrowly linked to a forced exit of classical politics, rather than to a political struggle that we could decode in terms of modern nation-States. Terror and terrorism seem indeed to introduce a meta-narrative that is functional to globalization. Terror seems just as global and bio-political harmful today as seem climate change, natural catastrophes and uncontrolled migrations, in the sense that it is fitted within an ontological evil condition of the global world, submitted to global expertise outside of democratic politics.