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What is Terrorism and What is Not?
By Azzam Tamimi
Senior Lecturer, Markfield Institute of Higher Education
26/10/2001
Those who claim to be experts on terrorism are simply liars and/or fortune hunters.
It is not true that you can study terrorism or observe it. You simply cannot talk academically about a rather subjective concept that is usually employed to camouflage complex phenomena the study of which does not, at the given time and location, seem to interest the users of the term "terrorism".
A straightforward definition of terrorism has been: "the use of force [or violence] to advocate a political cause". However, it is not as straightforward job defining who a terrorist is. For the use of force to achieve political ends may also be adopted as a definition for concepts such as "legitimate armed struggle" or "freedom fighting" or "jihad". Even the most closely allied powers of the day, Great Britain and the United States, have so far disagreed on defining the Irish struggle for independence from British rule, and for re-joining the rest of the motherland and be part of The Republic of Ireland. While the British considered the IRA, and continue to consider the new Real IRA, to be a terrorist organization, the U.S. provided moral, as well as covert material, support to the Irish "freedom fighters". Many British nationals and U.S. citizens would agree that out of self-interest their countries have been embroiled in, or have supported, terrorism on numerous occasions.
The Israelis, and their allies in the U.S. and Europe, consider the Lebanese Hezbollah's struggle to liberate the south of Lebanon from Israeli occupation an act of terrorism. But Hezbollah's struggle was vindicated when the Israelis could not take any more beatings and decided to withdraw unconditionally, admitting in other words, that their occupation of south Lebanon had been illegitimate and illegal.
In addition, Israel and its allies continue to regard the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas's military wing, Islamic Jihad and the military wings of Fatah and other PLO factions, as terrorists. At least one third of the global human population regards them as freedom fighters and considers their armed struggle legitimate and in full accord with U.N. standards and those of international law.
On the other hand, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, militant secular Palestinian factions, the majority of Arabs and Muslims around the world and a sizable segment of the world's non-Muslim population, including many in the U.S. and Western Europe, agree that Israel is a terrorist state that is imposing an apartheid regime on the Palestinians, whose lands and homes have been looted and occupied by European, American and African Jewish immigrants.
Elsewhere in the Middle East, the besieged and tormented Iraqi people may consider both the U.S. and the U.K., who maintain sanctions against Iraq and bomb it from the air on a regular basis, terrorist states responsible in less than ten years for the murder of no less than half a million Iraqi children.
In addition, India regards the insurgency in Kashmir as an act of terrorism. Few countries in the world agree with them, simply because, according to the United Nations, Kashmiris have the right to self-determination, something India has all along denied them. To Muslims, the Kashmiri struggle is a legitimate struggle and an act of self-defense that deserves support.
Similarly, the Russians have been telling the world that the Chechens, whose homes have been destroyed and their people killed or made homeless, are terrorists. The Chechens, whose struggle for freedom has been going on for more than a century, regard the Russians as oppressors, and in this, they enjoy the support of not only of Muslims but of many more throughout the globe.
So what is the point of talking about terrorism and terrorists? Why don't governments or nations use straightforward, unambiguous and absolute terms in describing their enemies? If language were used correctly, many so-called terrorists would emerge as freedom fighters and defenders of noble causes. These would include at the very least the Palestinians, Kashmiris and Chechens, but would not include those who killed more than six thousand civilians in the attack on the World Trade Center.
Nevertheless, those who carried out the attack in New York should be called anything but terrorists. For it serves no purpose to call them so. Some terrorists may come to be recognized as world heroes. A case in point is that of Nelson Mandela, who was once described by former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher as a terrorist who would not be allowed to set foot on British soil.
The attackers of the World Trade Center committed an evil crime. No ethical person or community would call them heroes or martyrs. Therefore, a relative term such as "terrorist" does not serve the purpose of telling the world what they are or why they committed such an atrocity.
Furthermore, terrorizing others is not always evil or bad. If innocents are terrorized, terrorizing is bad. But what if those terrorized are thieves, burglars or some kind of aggressors whom one should seek to punish or deter? Terrorizing such criminals is not only permissible but is commendable. That is why the Qur'an uses the term "terrorize" in the context of exhorting the community to be prepared in case war is waged against it. "And prepare for them [that is the aggressors] as much force as you can so as to 'terrorize' the enemy of God and your enemy".
With reference to the attack on the U.S., instead of terms such as "terrorism" and "aggression", the terms "terrorist" and "aggressor" should be used. Since the concept, or value, of justice is a universal one, and since justice is what we are all supposed to be in pursuit of, and injustice is what we should all be united against, anyone, anywhere in the world will recognize what terrorist and aggressor means, whereas "terrorism" and "aggression" will continue to be subjective and relative.
It is only by utilizing this distinction that Israeli politicians can be halted in exploiting the suffering of Palestinians in order to blur the picture and label the victims of Zionism as terrorists. Similarly, Indian politicians cannot succeed in doing the same to their Kashmiri victims, or the Russians to their Chechen victims.
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