| Publication |
2009.
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| Summary/Abstract |
In a recent essay in The Age newspaper,1 John Roskam accused Judith Brett of denying the existence of the threat of terrorism in Australia, and of erecting an entire edifice of 'left-leaning' thought which, according to him, construed the powers that use such threats to national security of cynically manipulating the electorate during an election year. 'Terrorism' he argued, 'is real. Just ask those who have lost loved ones'.2 This intellectual stand-off is symptomatic of the deep rifts that are evident in discussions and debates on terrorism as a quintessentially twenty-first century threat to society. In regions such as the Indian subcontinent, acts of terror and the existence of organisations willing to resort to violence have been a fact of life for quite a while. But here too the currency of terrorism has recently assumed new value and a novel configuration.
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