Critical Perspectives on Terrorism

Running head: CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON TERRORISM
Critical Perspectives on Terrorism
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1CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON TERRORISM
Introduction:
Terrorism is the unlawful act of violence and intimidation focused against the
civilians. The aim of terrorism is to create fear and terror among the public, in order to
achieve financial, religious, ideological or political objectives (Martin 2017). Terrorism can
be of different types, based on the extent of its effects, its repercussions, type of action
involved and the medium of the action used. However, this is only a very simplified view of
terrorism, and a comprehensive definition of terrorism is hard to define or conceptualize
(Combs 2017). It has been pointed by authors that terrorism appears in various forms and
under a wide range of circumstances, due to which it is not possible to develop a
comprehensive definition of the term (Laqueur 2017). Instead, understanding of terrorism
would depend upon the observer, and how he/she interprets the actions and its circumstances.
This makes the concept of terrorism hard to conceptualize and define in its entirety
(Blanchard 2016). There are different aspects, which makes this conceptualization so
challenging, which will be discussed in this essay followed by how the discourse on terrorism
is affected by the different opinions of experts and scholars regarding this concept, in order to
reach a more complete and balanced understanding. The objective is to compare various
ideas, and identify useful aspects to explain the concept of terrorism.
Discussion:
Problems in defining and conceptualizing terrorism:
It has been proposed by many authors that ‘terrorism’ has widely been used for
creating a political effect (Jongman 2017). This can be understood by considering the rebel
groups who are involved in spreading violence, discord and terror bur label themselves as
‘freedom fighters’, thereby spreading a political propaganda, and attracting support to their
causes. Also, several ‘freedom fighters’ who were trying to fight the government to end

2CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON TERRORISM
oppression and ensure freedom of its people were also labelled as terrorists by their
governments, in the attempt to discredit their actions (Saha and Yap 2014). This phenomenon
has been known as a propaganda advantage, where propaganda is used to leverage a political
or ideological advantage to a certain group of people or discredit certain people (Emma 2015;
Cohen et al. 2018). Moreover, the term terrorism usually is associated with a negative
context. Anyone labelled as terrorist is considered a miscreant or disruptor of the society,
creating negative mind-sets against the label. Because of this, individuals or organizations
who were labelled as terrorists often retort to such accusations by stating that their accusers
are the real terrorists (Jackson et al., 2011). Such accusations, counteraccusations and the war
of words further increases the ambiguity in the concepts of terrorism, and raises the question
as to who really are terrorists, and what range of actions can be considered as terrorism
(Jackson et al. 2011). Examples of such ambiguity can be found in cases of state propagated
or state sponsored terrorism. In these cases, the state machinery is actively involved in
spreading fear, maintaining subjugation and undermining the rights of its people as compared
to the actions of rebel groups trying to undo such atrocities and subjugations. For instance the
fight that rages between the Assad’s regime in Syria and the Free Syrian Army, in which
Assad has been convicted of using lethal force on civilians and the rebel faction labelled as
terrorist trying to fight the government oppression (Obey 2013; Spyer 2012). The flipside of
such an ambiguous situation would be in cases of terrorist organizations trying to get support
towards their cause, labelling any nation or organization fighting them as the real terrorists.
One such instance is how terrorist organizations such as Al Quieda or ISIS or Palestine
Liberation Organization labelled western nations as the actual terrorists, and labelling
themselves as fighting for a noble cause (Morell 2015; Stern and Berger 2015). These
scenarios examples where rebel groups fighting for the rights of the citizen are labelled as
terrorists, while the rebel groups themselves would consider the state to be the real terrorists.

3CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON TERRORISM
The opposite phenomenon is seen when terrorists fighting to achieve some self-defined noble
purpose considers anyone trying to stop them as terrorists, and themselves are noble warriors
(Mahood and Rane 2017). This shows that what can be termed as terrorism and who can be
termed as terrorists largely depends upon the point of view or the perspective of who is
making the definition. The confusion and ambiguity is also caused by a confusion between
the ends and means of an action and whether the outcome of the action is deliberate or
unintended, as harm caused unintentionally is not considered as terrorism, while the act of
deliberately harming others can be a terrorist move (Ramsay 2015; Jackson and Sinclair
2013).
Another aspect that causes ambiguity in the conceptualization of terrorism is based on
confusions regarding the ‘memberships’ and ‘borders’ of the entities involved in terrorist
acts. For example, the considerations on how to differentiate terrorism from political violence
or guerrilla warfare can often blur the lines on what can be considered as a terrorist act and
what can be considered as guerrilla warfare or political violence (Eubank and Weinberg
2001; Jackson et al. 2011). Actions such as assassination, air piracy, abductions and hostage
keeping can be labelled as terrorist actions by some while it can be also considered as acts of
‘freedom fighting’ by other, depending upon the context of the action, the motivation of the
perpetrators or even the viewpoint of the victims of such acts (Duyvesteyn 2006; Shultz
1986).
Other authors have also suggested that the distance (physical or social) between the
acts with the observer as a way to conceptualize terrorism. For example, if the act of violence
occurs at a significant distance from the observer, it is generally not termed as terrorism and
is generally given a neutral name, while if the act of violence occurs closer to home; it may
be termed as terrorism. Similarly, terms such as ‘cyber-terrorism’ or ‘narco-terrorism’ can
refer to the distance and flexibility in the conceptualization of terrorism, as such acts hardly