Misconceptions about terror

When you read the word, “terrorism,” what’s the first thing that comes to mind?

If your first thoughts were about militant Islamism, you’re not alone. Many people associate the word terrorism with violent actions of radical Islamists. Attacks by Islamist groups like Al-Qaeda, the Islamic State (ISIS), and Boko Haram have gotten a lot of media attention in recent years. However, there’s nothing uniquely Islamic about terrorism and nothing terrorist about Islam. Terrorism is a part of our world. It is better for us to figure out why it exists in broad terms than to focus on one type of terrorism.

The United Nations is a global organization that tries to promote world peace and equality. It defines terrorism as “criminal acts intended to provoke a state of terror in the general public, a group of persons or particular persons for political purposes.”¹ Terrorism uses violence to create fear. Terrorism is designed to scare a government or the public. People who use terrorism hope that others will change their behavior.²

The people who employ the tools of terror think of themselves as freedom fighters, not terrorists. They believe they are fighting oppression and want to push their own belief system onto society.

A long history of terror

Terrorism has been around since ancient and medieval periods. In the Roman Empire, a group of Jewish rebels called Sicarri murdered civilians who opposed their revolt against Roman rule. The Hashashins were a Muslim sect in medieval Persia who assassinated political leaders. In 1605, Guy Fawkes, an English Catholic, plotted to blow up the English Parliament. He and his co-conspirators hoped to inspire a Catholic rebellion, but their plot failed. The motivation, tactics, and goals of these early groups shared a lot in common with terrorism today. A non-state group wanted to defeat a state. They attacked civilians and officials to create an atmosphere of fear.

The Industrial Revolution provided new tools for terrorists. Anarchists in the United States and Europe used dynamite for political assassinations. In the 1800s, terrorists targeted political leaders, rather than civilians. For example, a group of Russian revolutionaries used dynamite to assassinate the Russian Tzar in 1881.

Terrorism in the twentieth century

Three social transformations changed terrorism in the twentieth century: democracy, urbanization, and nationalism. More people lived under democratic regimes—which made killing a king much less effective. Terrorists turned their attention toward masses of civilians. And with cities getting more crowded, explosives were more effective.

Nationalism is the belief that national identity comes first. Nationalists used terror against the empires that ruled them. In the Austrian, Ottoman, and British Empires, nationalists used violence to secure national independence. The Irish Republican Army (IRA) was formed during World War I. The IRA was in favor of Irish independence from Britain. Unable to directly challenge the British Empire, they used terrorist tactics. After Ireland won independence, the IRA focused on Northern Ireland, which remained part of the United Kingdom. The IRA attacked Protestant civilians and British leaders until the 1990s.

Other groups used terrorism against their own government. A revolutionary communist group in Peru called the Shining Path attacked Peruvian officials and civilians. They wanted to topple the government and replace it with communism. In the 1980s and 1990s, Shining Path members assassinated leaders, destroyed infrastructure, and bombed public spaces.

Far-right groups have also used terrorism. In the United States, the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) was founded after the Civil War. During the 1950s and 1960s, the KKK reemerged and launched a campaign of terror to intimidate Black Americans and uphold racial segregation.

Today, we often associate terrorism with religion, but most twentieth-century terrorism was secular, or non- religious. At the 1972 Olympics, a group of Palestinian terrorists murdered eleven members of the Israeli national team. Palestine and Israel have a long and complicated relationship concerning territory in the Middle East and nationalism from both sides. As terrorist organizations grew in the Middle East, tactics such as embassy bombing and plane hijacking became more common. These groups focused on political goals. However, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 set the stage for a new sort of terrorism: militant jihadism. The Soviet war in Afghanistan lasted ten years. It provided training and experience to many of the fighters who would later join groups like Al- Qaeda. These Mujahideen³ soon left Afghanistan to fight in conflicts in other parts of the world.

Militant jihadist organizations have become the face of terrorism since 2001. Al-Qaeda’s attacks on 9/11 and the American response helped expand several other militant jihadist organizations. The Islamic State (ISIS) recently rose to prominence. In Nigeria, Boko Haram has committed violence to undermine the government.

Recently, white supremacists have committed terrorist attacks around the world. White supremacy is the wrong and racist belief that white people are superior to other races. In Christchurch, New Zealand, a white supremacist targeted two mosques in an anti-Muslim attack.

When terror wins

Terrorists want to provoke an overreaction. They want to seem like a huge threat to create panic and chaos. Governments have used the fear of terrorism to justify wars and surveillance of citizens. After the 9/11 attacks, a global war on terror mobilized national governments to brutally repress terrorist groups. The Tamil Tigers had operated in Sri Lanka since the 1970s. But in 2009, the government crushed the revolutionary group, using violence and mass imprisonment. The war on terror was so horrifying it changed the strategies of many older, non-Islamist terrorist organizations. Some groups, like the Basque separatist party in Spain, declared a truce in 2006 and ceased violent attacks, partly in fear of becoming a target.

Are we too afraid of terrorists? Deaths from terrorist attacks have increased in recent decades, but the number is still relatively small. 2014 was the deadliest year for terrorist attacks. 32,685 people were killed globally. The media focuses most of its attention on terrorist attacks in wealthy, Western nations, but these are only a small percentage of the global total. In 2017, terrorism accounted for 0.05 percent of global deaths, or 1 in 2,000. Of these, only 0.9 percent were in the world’s wealthiest nations. That’s about 1 in 222,000.

When there is a terrorist attack, it’s all over the news. Governments respond forcefully, and there is an outpouring of emotion and fear. But this fear makes the danger seem larger than it really is. This type of response creates chaos. This is the exact reaction that terrorist attacks are designed to provoke.

1 There’s no single, accepted definition of terrorism. Different governments and organizations each have different definitions. Most definitions look a lot like this one.
2 One can argue that states have used the tools of terrorism to oppress their own citizens. However, state terrorism is something pretty different and not the focus of this particular article.
3 Mujahideen is Arabic for “those involved in jihad.” Some militant Islamist groups use the word jihad to mean a struggle against the enemies of Islam. But in the Quran, jihad has a different meaning.