Terrorism

Terrorism is the systematic use of terror or unpredictable violence against governments, publics, or individuals to attain a political ob­jective. Terrorism has been used by political organizations with both rightest and leftest objectives, by nationalistic and ethnic groups, by revolutionaries, and by the armies and secret police of the govern­ments themselves.

Terrorism has been practiced throughout history and throughout the world. The ancient Greek historian Xenophon (c. 431 – c. 350 BC) wrote of the effectiveness of psychological warfare against enemy populations. Roman emperors such as Tiberius (reigned AD 14 – 37) and Caligula (reigned AD 37 – 41) used banishment, expropriation of property, and execution as means to discourage opposition to their rule. The Spanish Inquisition used arbitrary arrest, torture, and exe­cution to punish what is viewed as religious heresy. The use of terror was openly advocated by Robespierre as a means of encouraging revo­lutionary virtue during the French Revolution, leading to the period of his political dominance called the Reign of Terror (1793 – 94). Af­ter the American Civil War (1861 – 65) defiant Southerners formed a terrorist organization called the Ku Klux Klan to intimidate support­ers of Reconstruction. In the latter half of the 19th century, terrorism was adopted by adherents of anarchism in Western Europe, Russia, and the United States. They believe that the best way to effect revo­lutionary political and social change is to assassinate persons in po­sitions of power. From 1865 to 1905 a number of kings, presidents, prime ministers, and other government officials were killed by anar­chists’ guns or bombs.

The 20th century witnessed great changes in the use and practice of terrorism. Terrorism became the hallmark of a number of political movements stretching from the extreme right to the extreme left of the political spectrum. Technological advances such as automatic weap­ons gave terrorists a new mobility and lethality.

Terrorism was adopted as virtually a state policy, though an unac­knowledged one, by such totalitarian regimes as those of Nazi Ger­many under Adolf Hitler and Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin. In these states arrest, imprisonment, torture, and execution were applied without legal guidance or restraints to create a climate of fear and to encourage adherence to the national ideology and the declared eco­nomic, social, and political goals of the state.

Terrorism has most commonly become identified, however, with individuals or groups attempting to destabilize or overthrow existing political institutions. Terrorism has been used by one or both sides in anticolonial conflicts (Ireland and the United Kingdom, Algeria and France, Vietnam and France/United States), in disputes between dif­ferent national groups- over possession of a contested homeland (Pal­estinians and Israel), in conflicts between different religious denomi­nations (Catholics and Protestants in the Northern Ireland), and in internal conflicts between revolutionary forces and established gov­ernments (Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Iran, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Argentina).

Terrorism’s public impact has been greatly magnified by the use of modern communications media. Any act of violence is certain to at­tract television coverage, which brings the event directly into millions of homes and exposes viewers to the terrorists' demands, grievances, or political goals. Modern terrorism differs from that of the past because its victims are frequently innocent civilians who are picked at random or who merely happen into terrorist situations. Many groups of terror­ists in Europe hark back to the anarchists of the 19th century in their isolation from the political mainstream and the unrealistic nature of their goals. Lacking a base of popular support, extremists substitute vio­lent acts for legitimate political activities. Such acts include kidnap­pings, assassinations, skyjackings, bombings, and hijackings.

The Baader-Meinhof gang of West Germany, the Japanese Red Army, Italy’s Red brigades, the Puerto Rican FALN, al-Fatah and other Palestinian organizations, the Shining Path of Peru, and France’s Direct Action were among the most prominent terrorist groups of the later 20th century.