On the Levithian which Anish dedicated in Ai Weiwe
Anish Kapoor dedicates Leviathan sculpture to Ai Weiwei
“State terror is almost always much more extreme than retail terror, and this is no exception.”
Interview by Tony Jones on Lateline, April 8, 2002 http://www.chomsky.info/interviews/20020408.htm.
Quotes 2000s, 2002
Context: [Q: do you think the Palestinian suicide bombers are freedom fighters or terrorists? ] They're terrorists - they're both, actually. They're trying to fight for freedom, but doing it in a totally unacceptable immoral way. Of course they're terrorists. And there's been Palestinian terrorism all the way through. I have always opposed it, I oppose it now. But it's very small as compared with the US-backed Israeli terrorism. Quite typically, violence reflects the means of violence. It's not unusual. State terror is almost always much more extreme than retail terror, and this is no exception.
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Noam Chomsky 334
american linguist, philosopher and activist 1928Related quotes

“It's only terrorism if they do it to us. When we do much worse to them, it's not terrorism.”
Source: Media Control: The Spectacular Achievements of Propaganda

Great English Short Stories (1957), selected and introduced by Isherwood, p. 267 <!-- [Laurel TM 674623] -->
Context: Horror is always aware of its cause; terror never is. That is precisely what makes terror terrifying.

“…a sordid act of international state-backed terrorism.”
Referring to the Bombing of the Rainbow Warrior.
Source: M. King, Death of the Rainbow Warrior (1986), p. 202.
The status of proper usage is settled not merely by the official or unofficial status of the perpetrators but also by their political affiliations.
Source: The Washington Connection and Third World Fascism, with Noam Chomsky, 1979, p. 6.

“Terror, terror, terror. Life was a reign o terror in the shadow of the guillotine.”
The Devil and Miss Prym [O Demônio e a srta Prym] (2000), p. 86.