Misconceptions about terror

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

Many people associate the word terrorism with radical Islamists. Islam is one of the most widely practiced religions in the world. As such, there are different groups within Islam with various beliefs and ideas. Attacks by Islamist groups like Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State (ISIS) have gotten a lot of recent media attention. However, there’s nothing uniquely Islamic about terrorism. There’s also nothing terrorist about the Islamic religion. Terrorism is a part of our world. We should understand why it exists in broad terms rather than focus on one type of terrorism.

The United Nations is a global organization that promotes world peace. It defines terrorism as “criminal acts intended to provoke a state of terror... for political purposes.” Terrorists can target “the general public, a group of people or particular people.”¹ Terrorism is designed to scare a government or the public. People who use terrorism hope that others will change their behavior.²

People who commit acts of terrorism think of themselves as freedom fighters, not terrorists. They want to push their own belief system onto society.

A long history of terror

Terrorism has been around since ancient and medieval periods. For example, there were terrorists in the Roman Empire. A group of Jewish rebels called Sicarri revolted against Roman rule. The Sicarri killed anyone who opposed their revolt. The Hashashins were a Muslim sect in medieval Persia. They assassinated political leaders. In 1605, an English Catholic named Guy Fawkes plotted to blow up the English Parliament, but his plot failed. These early groups shared a lot in common with terrorists 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. Bullets and explosives like dynamite were used to target political leaders and other groups.

Terrorism in the twentieth century

Three social transformations changed terrorism in the 1900s: democracy, urbanization, and nationalism. More people lived under democratic regimes. Killing a king was 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. The Irish Republican Army (IRA) was formed during World War I. The IRA supported Irish independence from Britain. Unable to directly challenge the British Empire, they used terrorist tactics. Ireland eventually won independence, but Northern Ireland remains part of the United Kingdom.

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

The Ku Klux Klan (KKK) is one of the oldest terrorist groups in the United States. The KKK was founded after the Civil War. During the 1950s and 1960s, the KKK reemerged and launched a campaign of terror to intimidate Black American citizens.

Today, we often associate terrorism with religion, but most twentieth-century terrorism was non-religious. 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 other conflicts.

Militant jihadist organizations have become the face of terrorism since 2001. Al-Qaeda’s attacks on 9/11 and the American response helped expand 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. White supremacy is the wrong and racist belief that white people are superior to other races. In 2019, a white supremacist in New Zealand attacked two mosques. The attacker wanted to hurt the Muslim community. Muslims are people who follow the religion of Islam.

When terror wins

Terrorists want to provoke an overreaction. They want to seem like a huge threat to create panic. 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 war on terror was so brutal that 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. They 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. The media plays a large part in this exaggeration, focusing primarily on terrorist attacks in wealthy nations. In 2017, terrorism accounted for 0.05 percent of global deaths, or 1 in 2,000 deaths. Of these, less than 1 percent were in the world’s wealthiest nations. That’s about 1 in 222,000 deaths.

When there is a terrorist attack, it’s all over the news. Governments respond forcefully, and there is an outpouring of fear. But this fear makes the danger seem larger than it really is. 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 like this one.
2 One can argue that states have used the tools of terrorism to oppress their own citizens. However, state terrorism is 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.