There's Glory For You

'There's glory for you!', [said Humpty Dumpty]
`I don't know what you mean by "glory",' Alice said.
Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. `Of course you don't -- till I tell you. I meant "there's a nice knock-down argument for you!"'
`But "glory" doesn't mean "a nice knock-down argument",' Alice objected.
`When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, `it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less.'
`The question is,' said Alice, `whether you can make words mean so many different things.'
`The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, `which is to be master -- that's all.'

"Through the Looking Glass", by Lewis Carroll. From Chapter 6, "Humpty Dumpty"

Britain's Home Secretary Charles Clarke, has been taking a leaf out of Humpty's book. His latest wheeze is to seek to imprison for up to 5 years anyone who "glorifies, exalts or celebrates" any terrorist act committed in the past 20 years. Anybody with any experience of looking at government legislation will know that the presence of three alternative words descriptive of an offence, especially when at least two of them (in this case "glorifies" and "exalts") have a rather nineteenth century air about them, is never a good sign. Indeed, it almost inevitably points to hurried legislation aimed at something which the Home Secretary and the tabloids deem to be an obvious evil but which they are unable to define with any real precision. In this case what is meant by "glorifying", "exalting", "celebrating" is anybody's guess (will party hats be required? Is an iced Victoria sponge a pre-requisite for the commission of the offence?). The real bugbear, however, is "terrorist offence". It seems that the definition of this term will be at the Home Secretary's discretion, with certain offences being "listed" as a result of which any "glorification" of them will still be an offence even after the 20 year cut off period has elapsed. Already pencilled-in on the list is the 11 September attack on New York's twin towers (potentially bad news for Harold Pinter) and already excluded from it is the Irish Easter Rising of 1916 (which will doubtless have "Dr" Ian Paisley ranting about caving in to the papists). But what happens when we get to something like the violent political resistance of the African National Congress in
the early 1960's? And will Martin McGuinness/Gerry Adams have to face arrest every time they speak of the "armed struggle" in Northern Ireland? Might a future devoutly protestant Home Secretary ban anyone from seeking to justify Guy Fawkes's actions, or a Muslim Home Secretary try to have Tony Blair jailed every time he tries to justify the war on Iraq?