Such a perfect democracy constructs its own inconceivable foe, terrorism. Its wish is to be judged by its enemies rather than by its results. The story of terrorism is written by the state and it is therefore highly instructive. The spectators must certainly never know everything about terrorism, but they must always know enough to convince them that, compared with terrorism, everything else must be acceptable, or in any case more rational and democratic.
The modernization of repression has succeeded in perfecting -- first in the Italian pilot-project under the name of pentiti [1] -- sworn professional accusers; a phenomenon first seen in the seventeenth century after the Fronde, when such people were called 'certified witnesses.' This spectacular judicial progress has filled Italy's prisons with thousands of people [2] condemned to do penance for a civil war which did not take place, a kind of mass armed insurrection which, by chance, never actually happened, a putsch woven of such stuff as dreams are made on.
It can be seen that interpretations of terrorism's mysteries appear to have brought about a symmetry between contradictory views, rather like two schools of philosophy adhering to absolutely incompatible metaphysical systems. Some would see terrorism as simply a number of acts of blatant manipulation on the part of the secret services; others would reproach the terrorists for their total lack of historical understanding. [3] But a little historical logic should rapidly convince us that there is nothing contradictory in recognizing that people who understand nothing of history can readily be manipulated; even more so than others. And it is much easier to lead someone to 'repent' when it can be shown that everything he thought he did freely was actually known in advance. It is an inevitable consequence of clandestine, military forms of organization that a few infiltrators can activate, and eliminate, a lot of people. Criticism, when evaluating armed struggles, must sometimes analyze particular operations without being led astray by the general resemblance that will finally be imposed on all of them. [4] We should expect, as a logical possibility, that the state's security services intend to use all the advantages they find in the realm of the spectacle, which has indeed been organized with that in mind for some considerable time: on the contrary, it is a difficulty in perceiving this which is astonishing, and rings false.
Judicial repression's present objective here, of course, is to generalize matters as fast as possible. What is important in this commodity is the packing, or the labeling: the price codes. One enemy of spectacular democracy is the same as another, just like spectacular democracies themselves. Thus there must be no right of asylum for terrorists, and even those who have not yet been accused of being terrorists can certainly become them, with extradition swiftly following. In November 1978, dealing with the case of a young print worker, Gabor Winter, wanted by the West German government mainly for having printed certain revolutionary leaflets, Mlle Nicole Pradain, acting on behalf of the Department of Public Prosecution in the Appeal Court of Paris, quickly showed that the 'political motives' which could be the only grounds for refusing extradition under the Franco-German agreement of 29 November 1951, could not be invoked: "Gabor Winter is a social criminal, not a political one. He refuses to accept social constraints. A true political criminal doesn't reject society. He attacks political structures and not, like Gabor Winter, social structures."
The notion of acceptable political crime only became recognized in Europe once the bourgeoisie had successfully attacked previous social structures. The nature of political crime could not be separated from the varied objectives of social critique. This was true for Blanqui, Varlin, Durruti. Nowadays there is a pretense of wishing to preserve a purely political crime, like some inexpensive luxury, a crime which doubtless no one will ever have the occasion to commit again, since no one is interested in the subject any more; except for the professional politicians themselves, whose crimes are rarely pursued, nor for that matter called political. All crimes and offenses are effectively social. But of all social crimes, none must be seen as worse than the impertinent claim to still want to change something in a society which has so far been only too kind and patient, but has had enough of being blamed [...]
Footnotes added by NOT BORED!
[1] A relevant example of an alleged accomplice who "repents" and, in exchange for favorable treatment, turns state's evidence (becomes a "supergrass") would be Aldo Tisei, a member of the Palladin organization. (Also known as "The Guerillas of Christ the King," Palladin was founded in Spain by ex-Nazi Otto Skorzeny in the late 1960s and was concerned with the assassination of ETA separatists who had escaped to France.) On 14 June 1976, Tisei murdered Judge Vittorio Occorsio, the judge investigating the Italicus train bombing of 1974.
[2] On 7 April 1979, the Italian authorities arrested more than 20 left-wing intellectuals, including Antonio Negri. Many more arrests followed.
[3] Among those who "see terrorism as simply a number of acts of blatant manipulation on the part of the secret services," Debord would include Gianfranco Sanguinetti, author of On Terrorism and the State, which Debord criticized in his 23 February 1981 letter to Jaap Kloosterman. Among those who "reproach the terrorists for their total lack of historical understanding," Debord would include Antonio Negri, Oreste Scalzone and other "doctrinaires of 'armed struggle.'"
[4] A reference to Debord's critique of Sanguinetti's On Terrorism and the State. Among those "particular operations" to be analyzed, Debord would include those conducted by "Blanqui, Varlan, [and] Durruti," to whom he refers in the context of the inseparability of "political crime" and "social critique."