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Terrorism: A Brief History

Contemporary Terrorism

Terrorism reappeared after World War I in various countries, such as Germany and the Balkan nations. Before coming to power, both Fascists and Communists believed in mass violence rather than individual terrorist acts—with some occasional exceptions, such as the assassination of the Italian Socialist leader Giacomo Matteoti.
There was little terrorism during World War II and during the two decades thereafter. This explains, perhaps, why the renewal of terrorist operations in the 1970s and, a fortiori, the appearance of Islamist terrorism were interpreted by many, oblivious of the long, earlier history of terrorism, as something wholly new and unprecedented. This was particularly striking with regard to suicide terrorism. As noted earlier, most terrorism up to the late 19th century had been suicide missions, simply because the only available weapons were daggers, short-range pistols, or highly unstable bombs likely to explode in the hands of the attackers.

It is true, however, that contemporary terrorism differs in some essential respects from that perpetrated in the 19th century and earlier on.
Traditional terrorism had its "code of honor": It targeted kings, military leaders, ministers, and other leading public figures, but if there were a danger that the wife or the children of the target would be killed in an attack, terrorists would refrain from striking, even if doing so endangered their own lives.

Today, indiscriminate terrorism has become the rule; very few leading politicians or generals have been killed, but very many wholly innocent people have. The term terrorism has, therefore, very negative connotations, and terrorists now insist on being called by another name. When Boris Savinkov, who headed the Russian Socialist Revolutionaries before World War I, published his autobiography, he had no hesitation in giving it the title Memoirs of a Terrorist.

Today this would be unthinkable—the modern terrorist wants to be known as a freedom fighter, a guerrilla, a militant, an insurgent, a rebel, a revolutionary—anything but a terrorist, a killer of random innocents.
If there is no agreement concerning a definition of terrorism, does it mean that total confusion and relativism prevail, that one view is as good as another? It is perfectly true that, as an often quoted saying goes, one person's terrorist is another's freedom fighter. But since even the greatest mass murderers in history had their admirers, from Hitler to Pol Pot, such wisdom does not take us very far. Most of those who have studied terrorism and are reasonably free from bias will agree much of the time in their judgment of an action, even if perfect definitions of terrorism do not exist. Someone has compared it with pornography or obscenity, which is also difficult to define, but an observer with some experience will know it when he sees it.

There are no shortcuts to explain why people choose to be terrorists, no magic formulas or laws similar to Newton's and Einstein's in the physical world. From time to time, new insights are offered that do not, however, usually survive critical examination.

Recently, for instance, it has been suggested that terrorism occurs only (or mainly) where there has been a foreign invasion of a country. This proposition is true in some cases, such as Napoleon's occupation of Spain or the presence of U.S. troops in Iraq. But a look at the geopolitical map of contemporary terrorism shows that, in most cases, from Sri Lanka to Bangladesh to Algeria to Europe, foreign invasion is not the decisive factor. And even in Iraq, the great majority of terrorist victims occur not among the occupying forces but as the result of attacks of Sunnis against Shiites, and vice versa.

A Generational Phenomenon

Does history offer any lessons?
Again, there are no clear-cut answers except in a very general way. Terrorism has seldom, if ever, occurred in effective dictatorships. In the modern world, it appears, ironically, that terrorists take advantage of the freedoms of thought, speech, religion, movement, and assembly offered by democracies. Terrorism is also a problem of failed states in which central power is weak or nonexistent. There was, for example, virtually no terrorism from the street in Franco's Spain, but as his dictatorship was dismantled, it appeared on the political scene. In the Middle East, even mildly authoritarian regimes have put down terrorism without great difficulty—Turkey and Syria in the 1980s, Algeria and Egypt in the decade thereafter.

Terrorism has sometimes succeeded but, at least equally and probably more often, has failed to attain its aims. And in some cases, it has resulted in the opposite of what its perpetrators wanted to achieve.
But terrorism is largely a generational phenomenon, and even if defeated, it may recur at a later date. There is no good reason to expect the disappearance of terrorism in our time. In an age in which large-scale wars have become too dangerous and expensive, terrorism is the prevailing form of violent conflict. As long as there are conflicts on Earth, there will be terrorism.


Read more: http://iipdigital.usembassy.gov/

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