Say that again!

Terror is not simply an abbreviation of terrorism, wrote Nunberg, it signals a broad linguistic shift. It draws upon a different set of meanings. Terror is more ‘‘amorphous’’, more ‘‘elastic’’ than terrorism. ‘‘It evokes both the actions of terrorists and the fear they are trying to engender… (it) can be applied to states as well as to insurgent groups… Even if Mr Hussein can’t actually be linked to the attacks of September 11, ‘terror’ seems to connect them etymologically’’.

Far away, in Egypt’s Al Ahram Weekly, film critic Samir Farid was tracking the images conjured by another term in Bush’s speech. The ‘‘broader Middle East’’ or the ‘‘Greater Middle East’’, he wrote accusingly, is just another western label for the Arab world. ‘‘By lumping this world together with Iran and Turkey, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Israel, those who coined this term are hoping to dilute history. They are trying to take the leverage from Egypt, Syria and Saudi Arabia and hand it over politically to Iraq, economically to Israel and militarily to Turkey’’.

Farid warned against a US design to rearrange a variety of Arab and Asian cultures in a framework the west finds easier to manage and use. The real fear, he argued, is this: ‘‘Unless we come together, we may soon be living in the Greater Middle East, not in the Arab world.’’

Many a slip

India’s budget is receiving more hard-eyed treatment the week after. The Economist put it under the scanner. And sounded terribly underwhelmed.

P. Chidambaram’s budget may be ‘‘balanced’’ it said, but it does little to advance reform. The magazine blamed the untidy coalition Chidambaram is part of, particularly the communists, for his failure to meet the expectations of ‘‘keener reformers’’ — on privatisation, subsidies and labour reform.

It noted the new emphasis on agriculture and rural areas: ‘‘Politically astute, no doubt, but possibly not the stuff of which a new Asian tiger is made.’’

Blame ‘them’

Two high-level inquiries into intelligence failures over Saddam Hussein’s supposed illegal weapons announced their findings. In Britain, Tony Blair accepted ‘‘full personal responsibility’’ for ‘‘the way the issue was presented and, therefore, for any errors made’’. In the US, as NYT columnist Maureen Dowd noted, Bush took ‘‘full personal irresponsibility’’.

But those were minor differences. The culprit, according to both investigations, appeared to be the same one. And he is not an individual.

Lord Butler’s report went out of its way to insist that no individuals could be blamed for the misleading contents of the notorious ‘‘September dossier’’; its failings were ‘‘collective’’. In the US, they said that the Senate Intelligence Committee also pointed its finger at ‘‘groupthink’’.

In the New York Times, columnist Barbara Ehrenreich lamented the dwindling of any thinking in the US that doesn’t qualify for the prefix ‘‘group’’. Conformity has become as American as apple pie and prisoner abuse, she said. Especially since 9/11.

‘‘One thousand coalition soldiers have died because the CIA was so eager to go along with the emperor’s delusion he was actually wearing clothes’’, Ehrenreich wrote with a fine longing about the shaman,the wise woman and the ‘‘king of fools’’ in the European carnival tradition who was allowed to mock the authorities, if only for a day or two.

In a secular world

Is organised politics nudging organised religion to cross a crucial line, in what is possibly the most churched society in the world? The Bush-Cheney campaign is reportedly flirting with this danger.

The campaign has directed congregation volunteers to perform a list of ‘‘duties’’, starting with submitting local church membership directories to party headquarters so that the faithful can be exhorted to vote in November. At least one newspaper editorial expressed dismay at this ‘‘ham-handed proselytising’’.

Religion and state and the blurring lines between the two are the subject of public discussion in secular Britain as well. Home Secretary David Blunkett wants to make it illegal to stir up religious hatred. Commentators are worried about where the line may be drawn. There are whispers about a ‘‘grand bargain’’ between the government and British Muslims, many of whom have deserted the Labour party, to isolate the extremists.