Has Terrorism Ever Succeeded in Changing Political Reality - Essay Example

Has terrorism ever succeeded in changing political reality? The origins of the word “terrorist” are rather ironic. It seem as though it stems from the French Revolution, when the bloody group of individuals who were members of the Jacobin Club coined the word “terrorist” to describe the kind of person needed for the Reign Of Terror. The violence was seen as an unfortunate but necessary evil that needed to be used to advance a greater political good. It is unlikely that many modern terrorists would describe their own actions any differently. To call someone a terrorist, or as often occurred with the Jacobins, to call oneself a terrorist was a mark of honor. To those subjected to that terror under the blade of the guillotine or through other, slower methods of torture, that was a rather dubious honor. The paradox remains today in any attempt to discover whether or not terrorism has achieved its political ends. Webster’s dictionary defines “terrorism” as “the use of terror and intimidation to gain one’s political objectives” (Websters, 1995). This is a fairly rational and non-judgmental definition of the word, and perhaps because of the objectivity of the statement, virtually every country in the world could be said to have used “terrorism” as a tactic many times. Every war uses terrorism on a massive scale according to this definition. Those people that are defined as “terrorists” today just happen to be rather ineffective in their killing methods (compared to sovereign countries) and have a purer political ideology than most of them. Al Quaeda killed around 3000 people on 9/11/2001, the Madrid bombers killed 192 people on 3/11/2004 and the London bombers killed 52 on 7/7/2005 (White, 2005). These figures would have been laughably small for any of the countries that deliberately bombed one another’s civilian populations in WWII. The German, American, Japanese and British authorities would have had severe questions for any bombing mission that came back with these paltry numbers. By way of comparison, more than the total 9/11 deaths die every month on American roads. So neither the method of killing, nor the numbers seem to suggest that “terrorist” is an easily definable word. This situation is complicated by the fact that all terrorist crimes would be crimes whether one precedes the word with terrorist or not. Killing another human being without justification is a criminal offence in Britain (Homicide Act, 1977), and so is attempting to kill them or to cause injury to them. The question that needs to be asked when dealing with legislating against terrorism is whether any new laws are really required. Should terrorists be prosecuted as common criminals? This question will be dealt with in detail later. It seems as though the words “terrorist” and “terrorism” are not objective descriptions of a person or a series of activities, but rather as a pejorative word used by one side of a conflict against another. Take for example the French Resistance during World War II. Was it a terrorist organization? According to the Nazi government of the country (which had won the country through the ‘legitimate’ use of military force) they were. According to much of the rest of the world, and probably 99% of today’s historians, they were not. The question is, why? The French Resistance blew up bridges, soldiers drinking in bars, executed “collaborators” summarily, assassinated leading military figures and generally conducted themselves as a terrorist group would today. They did not wear uniforms, performed “asymmetrical warfare” because they did not stand a chance taking on Germany conventionally and, to use the parlance so often adopted by governments today “hid behind civilians” in a rather cowardly way. The reason that the French Resistance is not defined as a terrorist group is that its aims are now seen as utterly legitimate. They are the positive side of the equation within the now old truism that “one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.” The Resistance were freedom fighters, with all the romantic and positive connotations that go along with them. The word “terrorism” thus has an indelibly moral and ethical tinge to it. The terrorists kill people “for the wrong reasons” and it is the falsity or “evil” of those reasons that make the killings so terrible, not the actual deaths. Yet as they used all the tactics of terrorists today, the French Resistance can be regarded as one terrorist campaign that clearly did achieve its objectives. They severely hampered German operations during the time of their Occupation, and played a vital role in various military operations in the run up to D-Day, on the days itself and in the aftermath (Sageman, 2004). Another case of a terrorist campaign that appears to have succeeded at least in part was that waged by the Irish Republican Army for three decades after 1969. In 1969 the Provisional IRA (which had split from the Official IRA because of ideological differences) embarked on a new campaign of violence. Over the next 28 years over 1,700 people were killed. Under the Northern Ireland (Emergency Provisions) Act of 1973, “the government had available those very powers of preventive detention, summary arrest and search without warrant with which it was subsequently empowered by the Prevention of Terrorism Act.” (Lal, 1994). With the EPA designed for Northern Ireland and the PTA designed for mainland Britain, the British government had a full gamut of legislative powers with which to tackle terrorism. But the increased sophistication and planning of the IRA, with many deadly attacks upon British soldiers, RUC men and even coming within a hair’s breadth of successfully assassinating Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, seems to suggest that this was a campaign that succeeded in bringing terror into the most British minds. Yet by the mid-1980’s, Gerry Adams (the leader of the political wing of the IRA called Sinn Fein) stated that IRA tactics soon moved from all out war (which was not working) to “violent propaganda”, and subsequently to a realization that any violence was counter-productive. The question of how and why the IRA suddenly decided to give up the armed struggle, together with the degree to which this presents a hopeful situation for the final settlement of the “Irish question” has been explored by a number of scholars. Fiona (2000) et al. have suggested that there are indeed good reasons to hope that the violence has ended permanently. The fact that the IRA chose to stop the armed conflict at a time when it was not under particular military pressure to do so suggests, according to these scholars, a genuine change in attitude, at least on the part of the Provisionals. Fiona adds a note of caution through mentioning the fact that the more extreme elements of the IRA have joined splinter groups such as the “Real IRA”, who disavow any end to violence. It seems that in an ideal world most Protestants are Unionists who would want to be a full part of Britain, and in a similar perfect condition, most Catholics are Nationalists who would want to be part of a fully unified Ireland. However, as the vote on the Good Friday Accord shows, a great majority of both sides prefer a peaceful compromise to a war of absolutes. Such a spirit of complex compromise, in which the society becomes increasingly diverse with immigrants from places that do not divide themselves between two implacable causes is likely to increase in the years ahead. IRA bombings, UDF killings and the general spirit of despair that existed for so long are now just part of a history book. The next generation will grow up within a situation in which violence is not an everyday part of life. Yet the reason that their parents’ generation was prepared to come to compromise was the unremitting violence that the IRA indulged in. The IRA had won, and thus no longer needed to carry on killing and fighting. The fact that Ireland is now largely unified, with little direct control from London, illustrates that their long campaign, which for so long the English claimed would never change policy, in fact did just that. A fully unified Ireland may exist within the lifetimes of babies being born now. To conclude, as the examples of the French Resistance and the IRA illustrate, “terrorist” campaigns are indeed often successful. There are a number of conditions for this success however. First, the group must have the support of at least a sizable minority, if not majority of the population. This is the only way they can work against much stronger military forces. Second, they must have a rational and thus feasible political goal in mind. For the Resistance it was the liberation of France, for the IRA it was the unification of Ireland. Both these ends were realistic and logical in an historical sense. Third, the group against which the terrorists are fighting (whether it be occupying country, imperial power etc.) must not lose very much through giving in to the terrorist demands. This was the case with the IRA, but the case with the French Resistance, who essentially metamorphosed into part of a traditional army with the invasion of Europe on D-Day. It must also be remembered that all armed conflict is in fact a type of “terror” – the fact that nation states choose not to call it such does not make it any less so. ___________________________________________ Works Cited Fiona, Stephen. Et al (eds). A Farewell to Arms?: From ‘Long War’ to Long Peace in Northern Ireland. Manchester UP, Manchester: 2000 Kelley, Kevin. The Longest War. Zed Books, London: 1990. Lal , Vinay. “Normalization of Anti-terrorist legislation in Democracies: Comparative Notes on India, Northern Ireland and Sri Lanka”. Lokoaya Bulletin 11, no. 1, July-August 1994, 5-24. Sageman, Marc. Understanding Terror Networks. University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia: 2004. The Homicide Act, 1977. Websters Dictionary Penguin, London,:1995. White, Jonathan. Terrorism and Homeland Security. Wadsworth, New York: 2005. Read More