It might be hard to believe, but “terrorist” began as a term of pride: a label terrorists gave themselves to legitimise and explain their violence, to distinguish themselves from garden variety criminals and thugs.
The terrorists in question were Russian anarchists in the late 19th century, who most historians say set modern terrorism in motion when they killed Tsar Alexander II by bombing in 1881. By calling it terrorism, they wanted to convey that their violence was strategic and served a grand cause.
Terrorism is now evolving – perhaps even devolving – into something that is increasingly difficult to distinguish from ordinary crime.Credit: Illustration: Simon Letch
Political assassinations were not new, but this was different because the point wasn’t to kill Alexander personally. The aim wasn’t to replace a bad tsar with a better one. It was to abolish tsars altogether, to start a revolution. It was to use terror as a political tool by performing this violence for everyone to see. This was, in the anarchists’ famous phrase, “propaganda by deed”.
All this is worth remembering in this galling week, defined as it was by two stabbings that make you shudder. One in a shopping centre in Bondi Junction, and one in a church in the Sydney suburb of Wakeley. One causing mass fatalities, and one causing serious injuries. One police have designated an act of terrorism, and one not.
That differential treatment has caused much consternation in two main circles, each of which sees double standards at play. First, among domestic violence campaigners enraged that an attack of the Bondi Junction stabbings’ brutality, which police acknowledge was specifically targeting women, is not declared terrorism. And second, among some Muslim community groups who suspect that a Muslim perpetrator will be deemed a terrorist, and a non-Muslim one won’t even if they’re doing the same thing.
There’s good reason to raise such objections. At the same time, I think they are straightforwardly incorrect. That’s because they tend to work backwards. They don’t start with a definition of terrorism and then consider whether the facts of each case fit within it. They start with a sense of injustice, with a set of social and political criticisms and commitments, and use them to decide what should count as terrorism. Here, they reveal a certain truth: that terrorism has become such a loaded term in our culture that it inflames passions in a way other violence does not. But they do so by stretching the term beyond what is analytically convincing.
So, definitions. While there are endless varying definitions of terrorism – one academic effort managed to gather 260 – the anarchist example of 19th century Russia captures two main features on which there is broad scholarly agreement. First, that terrorism’s violence must be in the service of a political cause. Second, that it seeks to inspire fear beyond its immediate victims, and in an audience watching on. In this way, we can begin to see how terrorism is distinct from other violent crime, and even hate crime.
The Port Arthur massacre was an act of mass violence, but it was not terrorism because it lacked a political cause. A racist who comes across a black man in a park and proceeds to assault him is almost certainly guilty of a hate crime. But his crime is unlikely to be deemed terrorism if the violence isn’t intended for an audience. However, the Ku Klux Klan is a terrorist group because it launched violent campaigns of racial intimidation seeking particular political outcomes.
The problem isn’t the definition of terrorism, it’s that the label determines our response
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18.04.2024
It might be hard to believe, but “terrorist” began as a term of pride: a label terrorists gave themselves to legitimise and explain their violence, to distinguish themselves from garden variety criminals and thugs.
The terrorists in question were Russian anarchists in the late 19th century, who most historians say set modern terrorism in motion when they killed Tsar Alexander II by bombing in 1881. By calling it terrorism, they wanted to convey that their violence was strategic and served a grand cause.
Terrorism is now evolving – perhaps even devolving – into something that is increasingly difficult to distinguish from ordinary crime.Credit: Illustration: Simon Letch
Political assassinations were not new, but this was different because the point wasn’t to kill Alexander personally. The aim wasn’t to replace a bad tsar with a better one. It was to abolish tsars........
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