těr'ə-rĭz'əm: Why We Struggle to Define the Defining Threat of Our Time

While addressing an international counter-terrorism meeting in Tunis last Thursday (15th), Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, Secretary General of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC), spoke about the need for the world to come up with a clear, internationally recognised definition of the term ‘terrorism’.

“One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.”– unattributed

Ihsanoglu made a similar call at a High-Level Plenary Meeting of the UN General Assembly back in September 2005. In doing so, he brought the problem facing the body charged with coming up with a definition - the United Nations Sixth Committee on Aggression - into sharp focus.

To be equitable, any definition of terrorism should include State terrorism, and should not prejudice the rights of people struggling for their selfdetermination or under foreign occupation to resistance.

This has proven to be the main stumbling block for the Committee, with the US and Israel, most notably, rejecting attempts to recognise the rights of those pursuing self-deterministic or nationalistic goals - the fundamental drivers behind the rise in terrorist activity - when defining the term ‘terrorism’ (click to show/hide selected definitions). There was no such debate over its original meaning, however.

The UN’s ‘academic consensus definition’, which was written by Alex Schmid, the Officer-in-Charge of the Terrorism Prevention Branch of the United Nations states, that:

Terrorism is an anxiety-inspiring method of repeated violent action, employed by (semi-) clandestine individual, group or state actors, for idiosyncratic, criminal or political reasons, whereby — in contrast to assassination — the direct targets of violence are not the main targets. The immediate human victims of violence are generally chosen randomly (targets of opportunity) or selectively (representative or symbolic targets) from a target population, and serve as message generators. Threat- and violence-based communication processes between terrorist (organization), (imperilled) victims, and main targets are used to manipulate the main target (audience(s)), turning it into a target of terror, a target of demands, or a target of attention, depending on whether intimidation, coercion, or propaganda is primarily sought.

Whilst not explicitly defining the term ‘terrorism’, The European Union sets out a list of serious offences against persons and property in Article 1 of the Framework Decision on Combating Terrorism (2002).

1. Each Member State shall take the necessary measures to ensure that the intentional acts referred to below in points (a) to (i), as defined as offences under national law, which, given their nature or context, may seriously damage a country or an international organisation where committed with the aim of:

— seriously intimidating a population, or

— unduly compelling a Government or international organisation to perform or abstain from performing any act, or

— seriously destabilising or destroying the fundamental political, constitutional, economic or social structures of a country or an international organisation, shall be deemed to be terrorist offences:

(a) attacks upon a person’s life which may cause death;

(b) attacks upon the physical integrity of a person;

(c) kidnapping or hostage taking;

(d) causing extensive destruction to a Government or public facility, a transport system, an infrastructure facility, including an information system, a fixed platform located on the continental shelf, a public place or private property likely to endanger human life or result in major economic loss;

(e) seizure of aircraft, ships or other means of public or goods transport;

(f) manufacture, possession, acquisition, transport, supply or use of weapons, explosives or of nuclear, biological or chemical weapons, as well as research into, and development of, biological and chemical weapons;

(g) release of dangerous substances, or causing fires, floods or explosions the effect of which is to endanger human life;

(h) interfering with or disrupting the supply of water, power or any other fundamental natural resource the effect of which is to endanger human life;

(i) threatening to commit any of the acts listed in (a) to (h).

The United States Federal Criminal Code, Title 18, Part 1, Chapter 113B, Section 2331 defines terrorism and crimes associated with terrorism.

(1) the term “international terrorism” means activities that—

(A) involve violent acts or acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any State, or that would be a criminal violation if committed within the jurisdiction of the United States or of any State;

(B) appear to be intended—

i. to intimidate or coerce a civilian population;
ii. to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or
iii. to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping; and

(C) occur primarily outside the territorial jurisdiction of the United States, or transcend national boundaries in terms of the means by which they are accomplished, the persons they appear intended to intimidate or coerce, or the locale in which their perpetrators operate or seek asylum;

and;

(5) the term “domestic terrorism” means activities that—

(D) involve violent acts or acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any State;

(E) appear to be intended—

i. to intimidate or coerce a civilian population;
ii. to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or
iii. to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping; and

(F) occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States.

The United Kingdom defined terrorism in the Terrorism Act 2000.

Section 1. -
(1) In this Act "terrorism" means the use or threat of action where-

a) the action falls within subsection (2),
b) the use or threat is designed to influence the government or to intimidate the public or a section of the public, and
c) the use or threat is made for the purpose of advancing a political, religious or ideological cause.
d) Action falls within this subsection if it-
e) involves serious violence against a person,
f) involves serious damage to property,
g) endangers a person's life, other than that of the person committing the action,
h) creates a serious risk to the health or safety of the public or a section of the public, or
i) is designed seriously to interfere with or seriously to disrupt an electronic system.

(2) The use or threat of action falling within subsection (2) which involves the use of firearms or explosives is terrorism whether or not subsection (1)(b) is satisfied.

Section 1 (1) b) was amended by the Terrorism Act 2006 to include ‘international governmental organisations’ in addition to ‘government’.

Oxford English Dictionary.

(a) Policy intended to strike with terror those against whom it is adopted;
(b) the employment of methods of intimidation;
(c) the fact of terrorizing or condition of being terrorized.

The American Heritage Dictionary.

The unlawful use or threatened use of force or violence by a person or an organized group against people or property with the intention of intimidating or coercing societies or governments, often for ideological or political reasons.

Merriam Webster’s Dictionary.

[T]he systematic use of terror especially as a means of coercion.

The first recorded use of the term ‘terrorism’ dates back to 1795 during the French Revolution. It referred specifically to the Reign of Terror (la Terreur), which was instituted by the Jacobin-led French government to defend the nation from what Louis de Saint-Just called the ‘enemies of liberty’.

In his article, Bush’s Dangerous Liaisons, Francois Furstenberg draws some disturbing parallels between 19th century Jacobism and 21st century neoconservatism.

Among the Jacobins’ greatest triumphs was their ability to appropriate the rhetoric of patriotism… and to promote their political program through a tightly coordinated network of newspapers, political hacks, pamphleteers and political clubs.

Even the Jacobins’ dress distinguished “true patriots”: those who wore badges of patriotism like the liberty cap on their heads, or the cocarde tricolore (a red, white and blue rosette) on their hats or even on their lapels.

Insisting that their partisan views were identical to the national will, believing that only they could save France from apocalyptic destruction, Jacobins could not conceive of legitimate dissent. Political opponents were treasonous, stabbing France and the Revolution in the back.

To defend the nation from its enemies, Jacobins expanded the government’s police powers at the expense of civil liberties, endowing the state with the power to detain, interrogate and imprison suspects without due process. Policies like the mass warrantless searches undertaken in 1792 — “domicilary visits,” they were called — were justified, according to Georges Danton, the Jacobin leader, “when the homeland is in danger.”

Robespierre — now firmly committed to the most militant brand of Jacobinism — condemned the “treacherous insinuations” cast by those who questioned “the excessive severity of measures prescribed by the public interest.” He warned his political opponents, “This severity is alarming only for the conspirators, only for the enemies of liberty.” Such measures, then as now, were undertaken to protect the nation — indeed, to protect liberty itself.

‘When you point your finger ‘cos your plan fell through, you got three more fingers pointing back at you.’ - Mark Knopfler, Solid Rock

Furstenberg’s article is as much an allegory of post-9/11 America as it is an historical account of Revolutionary France. But as Edward Peck, former White House Terrorism Task Force Director under President Reagan, admits, suggestions of US involvement in state-sponsored terrorism stretch back well beyond 9/11.

In a 2006 interview with Amy Goodman of Democracy Now, Peck acknowledged that, when his task force was asked ‘to come up with a definition of terrorism that could be used throughout the government’, its work-product was rejected ‘because careful reading would indicate that [the US] had been involved in some of those activities’.

After the task force concluded its work, Congress got into it, and you can google into U.S. Code Title 18, Section 2331, and read the U.S. definition of terrorism. And one of them in here says -- one of the terms, “international terrorism,” means “activities that,” I quote, “appear to be intended to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination or kidnapping.”

Yes, well, certainly, you can think of a number of countries that have been involved in such activities. Ours is one of them. Israel is another. And so, the terrorist, of course, is in the eye of the beholder. And I think it’s useful for people who discuss that phrase to remember that Israel was founded by terrorist organizations and terrorist leaders, Menachem Begin, who became statesmen and went on to win the Nobel Peace Prize. And [Hassan] Nasrallah [the leader of Hezbollah, whom Peck had met a few months prior to the interview] may not be the same kind of guy, but his intentions are the same. He wants to free his country from domination by another.

Thus the debate over what is and what isn‘t ‘terrorism’ looks set to continue, not only because the US rejects calls to recognise the rights of those pursuing self-deterministic or nationalistic goals, but also because it would never countenance the adoption of a definition that identified it as a terrorist state.

'[Doublethink is] the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them…' - George Orwell - Nineteen Eighty-Four

According to George Orwell, ‘He who controls the present, controls the past. He who controls the past, controls the future.’ There can be little doubt that the US, and by extension, its allies, control the present. Unless and until things change, therefore, illegal unprovoked invasions of sovereign states, mass-murders of civillians and occupations of hydrocarbon-rich lands shall be called ‘liberations’; and that those who try to defend against such atrocities shall be called ‘terrorists’.

Orwell called this self-deception ‘doublethink’, where ‘the lie is always one leap ahead of the truth’.