Back again, having been less than clear - excuse my muddled head -
there have been 20 arrests in NSW for starting fires, and I think
something like 14 of them are juveniles. There are suspicions of a
serial pyromaniac in the Blue Mountains who has set something like 39
fires in the past year. It's extremely misleading to talk in terms
of "terrorism". Arson, which MEANS deliberate fire-lighting, does
mighty fine, especially if you know what lighting fires does, and of
course it leaves space for different motivations.
All "terrorism", insofar as I understand it, is in part defined by
its being for political ends, no matter what one thinks of what those
political ends are. Though the definitions, as I said, are very
fuzzy and tend to wind into tautology (I had a look at some FBI
reports which were less than illuminating), the problem being
statements like "the use of violent force to terrify a civilian
population to gain political ends" can be many edged, and you end up
with unedifying arguments like those between Palestine and Israel,
with both sides accusing eachother of terrorism and claiming their
own violence (and their political aims) are legitimate. The closest
definition I've found is "illegitimate violence", who decides
legitimacy of course being the begging question. The main point of a
non-word like "terrorism" is of course to obscure discussion, such as
the examination of the tangled political discourse behind such
actions.
As a poet, I have a certain distaste for non-words, a distaste which
reaches beyond the aesthetic, though it is of course part of it.
Best
Alison
>Yes, it's a pretty well-defined psychiatric syndrome, classified with the
>-manias (klepto-, etc.) I believe, and it's important to distinguish this
>kind of arson from arson-for-profit (typically, the burning of a
>money-losing property in order to collect the insurance on it), and the
>arson-terrorism of fire used to destroy large tracts of land (settled or
>unsettled) with the sole aim being the widest possible destruction impacting
>on the greatest possible number (as with all terrorist acts) for its own
>sake or allegedly as a political statement in some cases. (Is anything
>political entailed by this current instance of arson-terrorism?)
>
>Simple "arson" will of course not "do" for all these different--and
>differently motivated--kinds, with only deliberate fire-setting in common.
>
>Candice
>
>
>
>on 1/1/02 8:45 PM, david.bircumshaw at [log in to unmask] wrote:
>
>>> People who light fires (they all seem to be individuals who get off
>>> on it) seem to have a very particular sickness. I don't understand
>>> it.
>>
>> There was a guy, a middle-aged man who drank all day, who used to live in
>> these flats but is now awaiting trial for a series of arson attacks
>> aroundabouts, who used to talk to me in the lobby or the lifts. He was
>> forever cracking off-colour jokes and would go to local churches pretending
>> to be homeless for free meals. All I could understand about him was that
>> 'keep clear' signals flashed through my mind whenever he neared. What his
>> psychology was, is, I think only he knows.
>>
>> While one of the most disquieting things I have seen recently was a
>> documentary on the ironically named Burnley Wood area of said town, a
>> district of almost Third World poverty where houses cannot sell for 5
>> thousand pounds. The principal pastime of the local kids is starting fires
>> both small and petty and full house burnings. There Guy Fawkes bonfires were
>> spectacular, and enthusiastic, but also involved the dismemberment of empty
>> houses as fuel.
>>
>> Best
>>
>> Dave
>>
>>
>> David Bircumshaw
>>
>> Leicester, England
>>
>> Home Page
>>
>> A Chide's Alphabet
>>
>> Painting Without Numbers
>>
>> www.paintstuff.20m.com/index.htm
>>
>> http://homepage.ntlworld.com/david.bircumshaw/index.htm
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "Alison Croggon" <[log in to unmask]>
> > To: <[log in to unmask]>
>> Sent: Wednesday, January 02, 2002 12:56 AM
> > Subject: Re: Happy New Year
>>
>>
>>> Alot of the fires were lit by aronists, but others are the result of
> >> lightning strikes. "Arson-terrorism" seems an inaccurate term to me;
>>> arson will do. So far nobody has been killed, and hopefully nobody
>>> will be. But the damage to the national parks must be very grim.
>>> Though I suppose one must also remember that many Australia plants
>>> need fire to seed, though the increased ferocity of recent fires,
>>> ironically because they are not as regular as they once were and have
>>> more fuel, might be too destructive.
>>>
>>> Bush has an amazing capacity for regeneration. If you go through
>>> bushland six months after fire it has an eerie beauty - all that new
>>> fresh green on the black.
>>>
>>> Being a country child I remember the fires in my childhood - it was I
>>> think 1979 when very bad ones burnt a lot of the Western District in
>>> Victoria. I remember being driven through a small town, Strathan,
>>> which was completely burnt out while the firefighters were out
>>> somewhere battling another fire and the spooky thing of a street of
>>> houses completely reduced to ash, with one in the middle completely
>>> untouched. Acres of black with the bloated and burned corpses of
>>> sheep and cattle in the paddocks, their legs sticking up. My father
>>> coming home completely black and red eyed after fighting fires in the
>>> state forest behind us. Or Ash Wednesday here, watching a huge
>>> bloodred moon rise through the smoke, and flaming bits of bark
>>> falling even in the middle of the city. Enough to give anyone a
>>> feeling of doom. Horrible.
>>>
>>> People who light fires (they all seem to be individuals who get off
>>> on it) seem to have a very particular sickness. I don't understand
>>> it.
>>>
>>> Best
>>>
>>> Alison
--
Alison Croggon
Home page
http://www.users.bigpond.com/acroggon/
Masthead
http://au.geocities.com/masthead_2/
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