Terrorism Essay

Erika Dennery

Professor Shirk
Global Politics Of Terrorism
February 5th, 2018

Terrorism Essay

         When people talk about terrorism today the conversation almost always remains political in nature. Many define terrorism as requiring a political motive, and thus only certain events can be considered terrorism regardless of the fact that many non politically motivated acts inflict terror in much similar ways that those with political motives do. As times change the definition of terrorism has changed slightly as well, but the need for a political goal has almost always remained a part of the definition with little to no questioning as to why, and this creates a major problem. If the definition of terrorism does not include events such as mass shootings and bombings perpetrated for non political motives then the definition itself diminishes the terror felt by the victims of such events and blinds people to other threats that may be present. Any goal to inflict terror or harm against civilians, regardless of motive, should be recognized as a form of terrorism, and this challenges the solely political aspect of terrorism that is accepted by so many Americans today.
               The definition of terror is “extreme fear”, a sharp contrast from the commonly used definition of terrorism, which is “the unlawful use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims”. Therefore one must ask why it is that terror and terrorism have completely different definitions. While the fear being inflicted stays exactly the same, why does terrorism morph into something with a goal that is strictly political in nature? For years this has been the widely accepted definition of terrorism; when a horrific act of violence occurs in the United States the ever so present debate of “Is This Terrorism?” usually surfaces and those on both sides will argue their way into yet another deadlock. Those who believe a non politically motivated event can be considered terrorism would typically argue that the sheer atrocity of said event is what would classify it as terrorism, but those arguing against would typically assert that the definition of terrorism requires a political motive and thus if there isn’t one, an event can’t be classified as terrorism. The latter of the two arguments is supported by scholar David Rapoport, also known as one of the founding figures of terrorism studies, who believes that terrorism can be defined as political violence against non-military targets by non-state actors (Rapoport, The Four Waves of Rebel Terrorism). While yes, the definition of terrorism does include the word political, many of the extreme acts that generate or have generated terror in the U.S, besides 9/11, are perpetrated by white male citizens of the United States with no political motivations. And yet, we don’t label the horror they’ve created as terrorism, in some ways letting the greatest threat of all off the hook. For example, the recent shooting in Las Vegas has been considered the deadliest shooting in American history: 58 people were killed and 851 were injured. This shooting was the fault of a single white male with no political motives whatsoever, a man who for reasons that will forever be unknown to the world decided that he wished to kill as many innocent civilians as he possibly could. It can easily be argued that he inflicted “extreme fear” among the hundreds of people he attacked, and it can be argued that those affected by the tragedy will never feel the same again. Putting oneself in any of the victims shoes, it is most likely safe to assume that in the very moment they realized they were being shot at, none of them would’ve felt any more fear if they had known that the actor was doing so with a personal goal rather than a political one.
               Philip Bobbitt, an author and a lawyer who is best known for his work on military strategy and constitutional law and theory, would argue that terrorism is violence in opposition to current constitutional order and that the actions used to inflict terror change based on the times (Bobbitt, Terror & Consent). This argument leads to the idea that terrorism must be political because there is the sense of a “continued threat” that accompanies political motivations and the fact that opposition of constitutional order will not cease until a change has been made. For example, when an act of terrorism occurs that has a clear political motive then this attack typically sends a message that there will be more attacks to follow, and while this may be true, it can take years before a follow up threat even makes itself known. If all that is necessary is the threat of another attack, ask any victim of a non politically motivated attack such as the Las Vegas shooting how they feel the next time they think of going to a concert; the threat for them will always be there, regardless of how likely another similar event is to actually occur. Thus, in both cases, whether the perpetrator has politically oriented or personally oriented goals, the threat of further attack will forever be present, therefore an opposition to constitutional order is not necessary; in the U.S. white males working for personal goals are a bigger threat than highly feared attacks from political terrorist groups we so frequently hear about. Unfortunately the fear that we have for political attacks tends to outweigh the fear we have for other attacks, and this leads us to label, for example, muslims and groups such as ISIS as terrorists and white American males who should be on our side, for example the Las Vegas shooter Stephen Paddock, as a “mass shooter”; we simply can’t bear to include him and those like him in our commonly accepted definition of terrorism. Along with this, when anyone without political ties commits a horrendous act people search for any reason, be it rough upbringing, falling in with the wrong crowd, etc., to justify their behavior, and yet no one dares suggest that any political terrorists may be committing an act for any reason other than the fact that they are simply and without a shadow of a doubt “evil”.  Because of this, the definition of terrorism must be expanded to include horrendous acts committed by any person who intends to inflict fear and/or to harm large quantities of people, even if their actions aren’t strictly political.
               Looking at the evidence it almost seems as if the United States is not willing to accept that the majority of terrorism in the country is perpetrated by our own citizens. According to the Patriot Act, in order to be charged with terrorism a person must be linked to one of approximately 60 known terror groups. This is true no matter how much terror a person who isn’t linked to one of these groups may have caused, and it seems a little twisted to think that a person can kill hundreds of his fellow citizens without blinking an eye and simply get charged with murder, and not the much more serious charge of terrorism. Instead of looking simply at what ties a person has and what their motivations are, we should be looking at the severity of the actions a person takes, the amount of harm and terror that the actions caused, and the actions themselves. This should be what determines whether or not an act is considered terrorism, not a person’s motivations. Similar to this, Charles Tilly, an American sociologist, political scientist, and historian, writes on the relationship between politics and society and he argues that terrorism is a tactic or a strategy which encompasses the fact that terrorism changes over time and that the strategy used by the actor should be the focal point (Tilly, 5-13). This is effective considering how strategy is one of the easiest things to determine about a crime, while on the other hand something like motive can be one of the most difficult aspects to uncover. Because of this it doesn’t make sense that motive is one of the sole factors determining whether or not an act can be classified as terrorism rather than the actions themselves. It is no wonder why we don’t want to call our own people terrorists, but by limiting our definition of terrorism to only those tied to certain groups or with certain motivations we are attempting to avoid the fact that there is a serious threat brewing right in our own country, and it has nothing to do with politics. Acts of terror come in many forms, and to recognize this means to put aside our biases and our preconceived notions and look at terror from an objective standpoint. This is not to say that terrorism can’t be political, often times it is political, but denying the fact that terror is created in ways other than political ones is simply an unwillingness to challenge ideas that may be difficult to think and talk about.
                In the end, terrorism should be defined as an act that causes extreme fear through the unlawful use of violence and intimidation against civilians, typically with a political goal but not requiring one. It is a socially constructed idea, as supported by Lisa Stampnitzky, and it it because of this that the definition should be stretched to include non political acts that inflict terror as well as the political ones that do (Stampnitzky, Disciplining Terror). While writing this, more mass shootings have occurred for no political reason whatsoever, and yet we still sit terrified of politically motivated terror attacks. Terror comes in many different forms and it is about time that we stop limiting the definition to politics, maybe then we can attempt to put an end to the true threat.

Citations:

Rapport, David C. “The Four Waves of Rebel Terror and September 11.” Anthropoetics, Anthropoetics: the Journal of Generative Anthropology, 10 Apr. 2017, www.anthropoetics.ucla.edu/ap0801/terror.htm.

Stampnitzky, Lisa. Disciplining Terror: How Experts Invented "Terrorism". Cambridge University Press, 2014.

Bobbitt, Philip. Terror & Consent: the Wars of the 21st Century. Syracuse University College of Law., 2009.

Tilly, Charles. “Terror, Terrorism, Terrorists.” Sociological Theory, vol. 22, no. 1, 2004, pp. 5–13., doi:10.1111/j.1467-9558.2004.00200.x.