Terrorism is not a derogatory moral classification; rather, it is a mode of warfare. Terrorism is a tactic, yet it is a term used derogatorily to describe a certain group of people because of events in the recent past. Because of a sweeping generalizations about those that commit act of terrorism, terrorism has been turned into a “dirty” word to describe people, instead of the act that the word actually defines. Why do people decide to use terrorism as a derogatory moral classification? What causes them to, and how do historical events explain how this term became what it is today, an error of racial stereotyping, and why is it so important that people realize this mistake? Through the points in this paper, I hope to explain the historical part of terrorism and not only how that has molded terrorism today but why terrorism isn’t a derogatory moral classification. In this paper I will address three things about terrorism:
1. Terrorism and it’s definition and history.
2. The way it’s used.
3. Terrorism’s true meaning and use.
And hopefully through addressing these three things, I will be able to explain why Terrorism is not a derogatory moral classification; rather, it is a mode of warfare.
Terrorism—its definition and history
For a word that was first termed and popularized by those in the French Revolution, terrorism’s meaning has changed substantially over the years. This change has been facilitated by historical events and the changing times, and originally was a term used to describe the regime de la terruer, and was originally associated with higher moral ideals. “Ironically, perhaps, terrorism in its original context was also close...
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...ode of warfare which uses the calculated and organized use or threat of indiscriminate violence to attain political or idealogical objectives. As history continues to unfold, and as America continues to repeat its way of defining people by things that don’t necessarily define them or even make sense in defining them, we should remember that these photos define the same people, but one is a small radical part of a culture that is not accepted by all Muslims.
Being a Muslim doesn’t automatically make you a terrorist. Terrorism doesn’t describe Muslims, Muslims aren’t all radical terrorists, and most importantly they aren’t encompassed by the word terrorism. Terrorism is, regardless of how the world insists, is a mode of warfare and can not continue to be perpetuated as a negative moral classification if we are to be true to the facts and not ruled by our prejudices.
To support his claim, McPherson argues there is nothing morally relevant to make a distinction between terrorism and conventional war waged by states. In other words, from the moral angel, there is no difference between terrorism and conventional war. Both two types of political violence have some common natures related to morality like posing threat to civilian lives. McPherson argues that conventional war usually causes more casualties and produces fear widely among noncombatants. He focuses on defending the claim that terrorists sometimes do care about noncombatants and proportionality. This viewpoint infers that terrorists do not merely intent to do harm to civilians. As a matter of fact, they sometimes put civilian interests in the first place. Those terrorists caring the victims would not resor...
Initially popularized during the French Revolution, the term “terrorism,” at its inception, was a distinctly positive word; from the rubble of the first revolts in 1789, stemmed the regime de la terreur, an instrument of governance meant to further propel the success of the revolutionaries through the intimidation of those loyal to the dictatorial regime which governed France for much of the eighteenth century (Hoffman 3). Ironically, given the modern interpretation of terrorism, the revolutionaries who would ultimately constitute the regime de la terreur were advocating for virtue and democracy––in fact, one of the figureheads of the revolutionary movement Maximilien Robespierre was renowned for having said: “virtue, without which terror is
When we think of terrorist, we might think of radical Islamic individuals or groups who would take pride in killing anyone who is not Muslim. Even more, there are antagonistically people who want nothing more but to destroy the lives of innocence people because of their belief system. Take an individual like Theodore Kaczynski for instance; he was a former University of California at Berkeley math professor. Otherwise known as the “Unabomber,” he was indeed a terrorist because he used explosives that killed three people and wounded eighteen others in a span of almost two decades. Even more, his brother David Kaczynski was responsible for his capture.
Categorical terrorism, according to Jeff Goodwin, is defined as “the strategic use of violence and threats of violence, usually intended to influence several audiences, by oppositional political groups against civilian or noncombatants who belong to a specific entity, religious or national group, social class or some other collectivity, without regard to their individual identities or roles.” More so, in terms of definition, according to a study done by Jeffrey Record in 2003, there was a count of over 109 definitions of terrorism, covering 22 different categorical elements. During the 70s and 80s, the United Nations struggled to define the term, finally coming up with the following definition: “Criminal acts intended or calculated to provoke a state of terror in the general public, a group of persons or particular persons for political purposes are in any circumstance unjustifiable, whatever the considerations of a political, philosophical, ideological, racial, ethnic, religious or any other nature that may be invoked to justify them.”
Everyone is a terrorist but everyone can also be labeled as a freedom fighter. It is said that “The ends justify the means” and in order to achieve an important aim, it is acceptable to do something bad. In America we have done both good and bad. Although people for instance President Barak Obama elaborates that one person’s terrorist is also another person’s freedom fighter. A “terrorist” is a person who uses unlawful violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of a political aim. A “freedom fighter” on the other hand is a person who takes part of a violent struggle to achieve a political goal, especially in order to overthrow their government. In making this comment, the synonyms of the word terrorist urges to
Over the past century, terrorism has advanced from random killings to enormous plans for terrorist groups. To understand terrorism, you must first define it. Terrorism as we all know it is hard to define and understand, and has many different definitions as it is used widely. The word "terrorism" stems from the word "terror", which means to instill fear in. People become terrorists when they take the actions towards instilling fear and terror upon people to prove a certain point or agenda.
... There are those individuals that have a strong hatred for Islam, than we have people that feel sorry for Muslims in America and make them feel like they actually belong to society. However, it would be fantastic if people can start to actually separate terrorists from the Muslim community. Their religion was hijacked by the attack. Like I previously mentioned, we many not seem to stop and realize that our own religion might be part of terrorism. Religion should not matter when we look at a person because there are two kinds of people in the world, the good and bad. If we all had to look at the flaws in everyone’s beliefs and religious we would probably come to the conclusion that we aren’t all terrorists but some people with the same beliefs as us, might be. We tend to find the bad in something and associate it with everything else that is somehow connected to it.
Terrorism is used around the world to create fear and influence the public on political views (Siegel, 489). There are four views of terrorism including the psychological view, socialization view, ideological view, and the alienation view. A religious terrorist would most likely fit under the ideological view. In this view the terrorist feels the need to change a wrong opinion and believes that, because they are sacrificing themselves for something they believe so strongly in, it justifies the damage and harm done to innocent people (Siegel, 490). They use terror to create fear in anyone who opposes them and attract followers to their religion. In short, terrorism is widely used for political reasons but religion has been linked to the violence as well.
The threat of global terrorism continues to rise with the total number of deaths reaching 32,685 in 2015, which is an 80 percent increase from 2014 (Global Index). With this said, terrorism remains a growing, and violent phenomenon that has dominated global debates. However, ‘terrorism’ remains a highly contested term; there is no global agreement on exactly what constitutes a terror act. An even more contested concept is whether to broaden the scope of terrorism to include non-state and state actors.
The U.S. Department of State defines terrorism as, “The calculated use of unlawful violence or threat of unlawful violence to inculcate fear; intended to coerce or to intimidate governments or societies in the pursuit of goals that are generally political, religious, or ideological”. Whereas the Belgium Red Cross says that terrorism is committed “for the purpose of intimidating the population, forcing a third party to act or destablishing or destroying the fundamental structures of a country or of an international organization”.
In early 1974, the Secretary General of the United Nations, U Thant, invited the Palestinian Liberation Organization to attend the General Assembly gathering on November 13, 1974, and in doing so gave legitimacy to the Palestinian Liberation Organization as a governing body. In Yasser Arafat’s speech to the General Assembly, he thanked the United Nations for recognizing his organization and its legitimacy. When Arafat addressed the General Assembly, he made the argument that the actions taken by his government were not acts of terrorism, but these were acts of revolution and their purpose was to regain control of Palestine’s occupied original territory. The problem we confront is, there is no internationally agreed upon definition of terrorism and the international community should be able to come up with one. The major hurdle in defining is the states’ ideas of what terrorism is.
A lot of people believe that Muslims, Islam, and/or the Holy Quran encourages killing, fighting, and terrorism. Events such as the 9/11 attack in the United States, the Boston Marathon Bombing, and conflicts in the Middle East causes the media to label Muslims as terrorists. When a specific group of people cause violence to another group it is categorized as ‘hate crime’, but if a Muslim does the same act, the media immediately labels it as ‘terrorism’ (Frater, 2009). As a matter of fact, regarding to the attacks of the mosques in Israel, the media did not use the acts to victimize or stereotype Judaism. Moreover, some extremist groups use Islam as a tactic to gain followers even though a lot of their practices go against the teachings of the Quran. A person would not be considered a Muslim if they spread fear or terrorize others. The Quran clearly states, “You shall not take life, which God has made sacred, except by way of justice and law.” (Quran, 6:151). Islam is against any force or violence towards another person. Often the word ‘Jihad’ is taken out of context by violent militants; it means to strive or struggle for the sake of ones’ self improvement with respect to their spirituality. Religious and political groups use Jihad to justify ...
Terrorism is one of the most extensively discussed issues of our time and at the same time it is also one of the least understood. The term itself “terrorism” means many different things to different people, cultures, and races. As a result, trying to define or classify terrorism with one universal definition is nearly impossible. The definition of terrorism used in this research is a reflection of much of the Western and American way of defining it. The definition of terrorism is,
While widely accepted, this idea continues to remain un-true. Humanitarian and ISNA (Islamic Society of North America) council member Omar Alnatour discusses this in a Huffington Post article titled “Muslims Are Not Terrorists: A Factual Look at Terrorism and Islam”. Alnatour gives five examples of how Muslims are not terrorists. “1. Non-Muslims make up the majority of terrorists in the United States:” from 1980 to 2005, only six percent of all terror attacks committed in the United States have been by Muslims. This shows that it is nine times more likely that a terror attack would be committed by a non-Muslim. “2. Non-Muslims make up the majority of terrorists in Europe:” of the 1000+ terror attacks that have happened in Europe since 2011, only 2% were done by Muslims. “3. Even if all terrorist attacks were carried out by Muslims, you still could not associate terrorism with Islam:” going back from 1970 to present day, there have been around 140,000 terrorists worldwide. Since there are 1.6 billion Muslims, that number would only represent 0.00009 percent of them. “4. If all Muslims are terrorists, then all Muslims are peacemakers:” Out of the past 12 Nobel Peace Prize winners 5 have been Muslim (42 percent). Because some can claim all Muslims are terrorists due to a small percentage of attackers happening to be, one can also make the argument that all Muslims
In this world there are many different topics of controversy. With every controversial topic comes different views and arguments explaining why people believe what they do. There are problems that can be just within one country or throughout the entire world. Terrorism affects everyone in the world, specifically us as Americans, which is why it is one of the biggest controversial topics. Of course with a topic as big as terrorism, there are emic and etic perspectives involved. With past history, there are specific countries and religions that we think of when we hear the word terrorism, specifically Afghanistan, located in the Middle East and the Muslim religion in that general area. Being part of the American