4.1 Outline of the terrorism case study
Terrorism has been a challenge for states and international organisations throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Academics have defined terrorism in various ways and the United Nations has struggled to reach a consensus on the definition of terrorism among its member states. As a result, there is no universal definition of terrorism, but it is broadly understood as the use of violence to achieve political, religious or ideological goals. For the purposes of this course, ‘terrorism’ will be understood in a colloquial sense, that is, where groups or incidents are widely referred to as ‘terrorists’ or ‘terrorism’, then that terminology will be followed.
The case of Nelson Mandela highlights some of the challenges in defining terrorism. Mandela was a leading member of the African National Congress (ANC), an organisation formed to fight for the rights of South Africa’s Black population, and a key figure in the movement against apartheid. He was labelled a terrorist by some because of his role in advocating violent resistance through uMkhonto weSizwe (‘Spear of the Nation’), the ANC’s armed wing. Mandela argued that violence was a necessary response to systemic oppression and white supremacy. This shift to violence shows how actions seen as justified and legitimate by some can be framed as terrorism by others. Mandela’s later recognition as a global statesman and champion of democracy shows how difficult it is to define terrorism.
Furthermore, one of the challenges with the term ‘terrorists’ is that it often implies a moral judgement – that terrorism is what the bad guys do. It is certainly the case that the liberation movement in South Africa, and uMkhonto weSizwe specifically, used violence to attain their political goals. This violence killed many, including civilians. Does their cause make them freedom fighters? Or do these acts of violence mean they are terrorists?
Activity 6
Terrorist or freedom fighter? Reflect on this question and make a note of your thoughts in the text box below.
One of the most significant events related to terrorism was the September 11 2001 attacks, when al-Qaeda (AQ), a militant organisation committed to a global Islamist revolution, hijacked planes to target the United States, killing nearly 3,000 people. Following this act of terrorism, states, airports and the aviation industry responded by implementing a new security regime. These attacks initiated the so-called ‘war on terror,’ including military interventions in Afghanistan, where the Taliban were accused of protecting AQ, and later Iraq, over controversial claims related to terrorism and weapons of mass destruction. These conflicts would have significant implications, and AQ, and subsequently Islamic State, would mobilise into global insurgencies, prompting an equally global counterterrorism and counterinsurgency response. Furthermore, following the 9/11 attacks, other terrorist incidents followed, including major attacks in Madrid (2004), London (2005), Paris (2015), Brussels (2016) and Manchester (2017), causing significant loss of life and creating ongoing challenges to international security. Consequently, the ‘war on terror’ has transformed daily life, increasing surveillance, security measures, and debates about civil liberties worldwide.
Activity 7
You’ll now watch a slideshow focused on terrorism, to gain a wider understanding of the different actors that have used ‘terrorism’ in the modern era and understand the effects that terrorism has had on international relations.
Transcript: Slideshow 2 Terrorism and international relations
[Text on screen: The changing faces of terrorism]
The terms ‘terrorist’ and ‘terrorism’ first emerged in the late eighteenth century during the French Revolution. Fearful that enemies of the Revolution were gaining in strength, the new French government undertook a reign of terror, identifying and executing enemies of the people. These violent acts against sections of the population were effectively state terrorism. Terror was seen as virtuous and a necessary defence of the democratic principles of the Revolution.
[Text on screen: Using terror to bring about change]
What’s known as modern terrorism started with the anarchist movement of the late nineteenth century, emerging mainly in Russia. Anarchists used targeted violence to raise awareness about the poor conditions under which citizens lived. Their ultimate aim was revolution. So they tried to make clear that their actions were not those of criminals, but were politically motivated.
For example, in 1878, Russian revolutionary Vera Zasulich attempted to assassinate the governor of Saint Petersburg. She shot him once with a revolver before dropping the gun. When asked why she didn’t flee, she said, ‘I am a terrorist, not a murderer’. This was the propaganda of the deed, a term widely used by anarchist revolutionaries.
As Mikhail Bakunin, a key anarchist theorist, put it, ‘We must spread our principles, not with words, but with deeds, for this is the most popular, the most potent and the most irresistible form of propaganda.’
Using new international transport and communications technologies, the anarchist movement became global in scale. It claimed many successful political assassinations, including the Russian tsar, a French president, one Russian and two Spanish prime ministers, and the kings of Italy, Portugal and Greece.
In 1902, after the assassination of US President William McKinley, his successor, Theodore Roosevelt, declared a global war on terror. Denouncing anarchy as a crime against the whole human race. He fostered international cooperation between states to facilitate deportations, tight immigration controls and the sharing of information.
[Text on screen: Using terrorism to preserve the status quo]
The Ku Klux Klan emerged from the ashes of the American Civil War. It aimed to overturn new constitutional rights guaranteed to former slaves and restore white social and economic supremacy. Using terrorist tactics such as violent beatings and hangings, it was instrumental in white democrats regaining electoral control in many southern states. The group was banned by President Grant’s federal government in 1871, but this was too little, too late, as segregation was already being introduced across the former slave states. The Klan would re-emerge in the early twentieth century, again using a range of violent tactics to continue the fight against racial equality.
[Text on screen: Terrorism and national liberation]
The end of the First World War brought with it the first stirrings of what would become a wave of national liberation movements. In their challenge to the legitimacy of European colonial power, violence was a key element of their struggles for independence. One of the early conflicts was the Irish War of Independence between 1919 and 1921. The often violent activities of the Irish Republican Army were central to the creation of a new Irish free state.
In the 1930s and 40s, the Zionist paramilitary group Irgun used bombings and other terror tactics in their fight for the creation of a Jewish state in British-controlled Mandate Palestine. And in Algeria, between 1954 and 1962, the Front de libération nationale led the fight for independence. The colonising countries generally viewed such violence as terrorist activity. Citizens of the colonised countries inevitably perceive this as a delegitimization of their struggle for liberation. This difference in perspective is one reason it’s hard to get an international consensus on what terrorism is, particularly for previously colonised countries in the Global South.
[Text on screen: The return of state terror]
In the 1930s, fascist street movements emerged in Germany, Italy, Spain and other countries across Europe. Groups of uniformed men would take to the streets to intimidate and violently suppress those they saw as enemies of the state. One of the best-known groups are the Brownshirts of Nazi Germany.
Here, what started as street violence morphed into a regime of state terror, leading to Kristallnacht, a pogrom against Jews throughout Nazi Germany and Austria that took place on the 9th and 10th of November 1938, and to the horrors of the Holocaust during the Second World War.
State terror wasn’t confined to fascist regimes. In the USSR, Stalin used the ever-present threat of state violence as part of his paranoid attempts to enforce political orthodoxy and control of the country. Fabricated trials of enemies of the state led to death sentences or forced labour in remote gulags.
In later decades, the focus of state terrorism shifted further west, to Latin America. A series of fascist regimes took power by force, and with the assistance and training of the US, enacted violent campaigns in which enemies of the state were routinely killed and disappeared.
[Text on screen: The rise of non-state actors]
In the 1970s and 80s, small groups of left-wing revolutionaries emerged who saw themselves as the Vanguard of an oppressed third world. Organisations like the Red Army Faction, also known as the Baader–Meinhof Group, used kidnappings and assassinations against industrialists, politicians and other symbols of the system they despised. At the other end of the political spectrum, extreme right-wing groups harked back to the years of fascism. They used bombings and other terror tactics to create havoc and destruction to destabilise the democratic order.
Around the same time, a new wave of radical nationalist movements emerged to take up the struggles for liberation in countries in Europe and beyond. Founded in 1964, the Palestine Liberation Organization used hijackings and other terror tactics in its fight for self-determination for the Palestinian nation.
In the UK, the Provisional IRA staged a series of devastating attacks in its campaign to end British rule in Northern Ireland. In 1984, the IRA attempted to kill British prime minister Margaret Thatcher, blowing up the hotel in Brighton where she was staying. In Spain, the Basque separatist movement ETA targeted police officers and senior politicians, including Prime Minister Luis Carrero Blanco, with bombings and shootings used as favoured tactics.
Members of the wider population often ended up in the firing line. Although they were working towards national aims, liberation movements such as these built networks of solidarity and support that linked the Global North with the Global South.
[Text on screen: Religion as a motivation for terror]
In recent times, terrorist attacks are often associated with religious fundamentalism. The 1990s saw a series of events in which radical religious zealots used terrorism, often indiscriminately, against civilians, aiming to inflict as many casualties as possible. Examples of what’s been called ‘new terrorism’ include the bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma by white power activist and Christian nationalist Timothy McVeigh, the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin by Jewish ultranationalist Yigal Amir, and the sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway by members of a doomsday cult, Aum Shinrikyo Supreme Truth.
But perhaps the most significant group to emerge was al-Qaeda, a militant Islamist group under the leadership of Osama bin Laden. Al-Qaeda’s deadly attack on the United States on September 11th 2001 shocked the world. US President George W Bush responded: ‘Our war on terror begins with al-Qaeda, but it does not end there. It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated.’
Then answer the following questions in the text boxes below
First, the slideshow introduced a variety of actors who have been described as ‘terrorists’ or as having used ‘terrorism’. Did any of these surprise you? Did any stand out to you? Why?
Reflect on these questions, writing down your thoughts in the text box below.
Second, the slideshow discussed some of the ways in which ‘terrorism’ has impacted on international relations. Which of these stood out to you? What do you think are the important effects that the issue of terrorism has had for international relations?
Reflect on these questions, writing down your thoughts in the text box below.
Discussion
There are lots of things that you could have identified or thought about when answering these prompts.
For many, it is interesting to learn about some of the groups that have been understood as ‘terrorists’ in the past, such as the anarchists of the late nineteenth century, or the liberation movements of the 1920s to 1960s.
Similarly, there are lots of ways you might have reflected on the international impacts of terrorism. You might have considered:
- the way in which terrorism has led to international cooperation between states in an effort to counter it
- the way in which some of the actors of national liberation movements have been considered terrorists, and the effects of decolonisation movements on the states that make up the international system
- the use of terrorism by state actors to suppress opposition.
You can now read the next sub-section and compare your answers.