When Terrorism becomes Speakable

This chapter examines Gillo Pontecorvo’s The Battle of Algiers as an example of the type of critical discourse that can happen when terrorism becomes speakable. It looks at how a poet, a novelist, and a film-maker adopt different approaches to the Troubles. “Declares Terrorism Reigns in Russia” is the headline for a November 11, 1918 New York Times article about how a group of refugees described conditions in Russia. A 1962 Rand Corporation symposium on terrorism began with the proposition that the “insurgent starts off with nothing but a cause and grows to strength, while the counterinsurgent often starts off with everything but a cause and gradually declines in strength to the point of weakness.” Eion McNamee takes a different approach to the Troubles in Resurrection Man, a novel exploring a particularly brutal campaign of Protestant sectarian terrorism against Catholics.