Deviance - Propaganda by Deed

Very recently, a man named Faisal Shahzad had pleaded guilty in a New York City courtroom for attempting to set off a car bomb in Times Square.

In his plea, Faisal referred to himself as a "M

uslim soldier," and said that in the war the US engages itself in he is "part of the answer to the US terrorizing the Muslim nations and Muslim people."

In an attempt to legitimize the indiscriminate nature of his failed action, Faisal said "Living in the United States, Americans only care about their people, but they don't care about the people elsewhere in the world when they die."

I believe that Faisal raised a really good point in regards to the United State's engagement in terrorist activities. Is not occupying a country and subjugating that population of people based on looks or religious affiliation terror? Wouldn't

the constant threat of death by bullet or bomb, or the threat of losing a loved one or a cherished building, constitute terror?

Within the conflict view of deviance, the Labeling Theory explains how deviance is determined by the audience, and that an action is only deviant when it is labelled as such. In this case, the deviant behavior was the attempt to cause civilian casualties, and the label Faisal Shahzad received is "terrorist." Unfortunately for Faisal, he doesn't have the power in society for his accusation of the US being the "terrorist" entity for very much public opinion to be persuaded to his side. It also doesn't help that he stands out for his action, whereas those people in power in the US who decide to bomb areas that lead to many civilian casualties have the privilege of anonymity. The chain of command also limits liability and obscures accountability; a person acting on their own is much more vulnerable to scapegoating than those who act according to orders.

Although indiscriminate attacks on civilians, a.k.a. terrorist attacks, might seem new, they have actually been around for quite some time. When the US was more of a closed system than it is now, many radicals took up the banner of "propaganda by deed." The point was to show the general population of people that they have the power to take down powerful people and bring revolution closer by way of assassinations and bombings.

Émile Henry came to mind when I first read some of the things Faisal Shahzad said. Émile was a French anarchist who, in 1894, threw a bomb into a cafe that killed one person while wounding twenty. His reasons for indiscriminately targeting civilians were because "The whole of the bourgeoisie lives by the exploitation of the unfortunate," and he was out for revenge.

In his defense speech, Émile, like Faisal, doesn't proclaim to be innocent. In fact, the two of them have a similar level of righteous conviction for what they've done, or attempted to do. Both of them explain how their actions were done for the liberation of those most oppressed: for Émile, it was the working class families and families of the repressed radicals, namely the anarchists; for Faisal, it is the Muslim people who feel the weight of discrimination in the form of deadly arsenal raining down on them.