Defining terrorism: philosophy of the bomb, propaganda by deed and change through fear and violence

Abstract

The idea that ‘one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter’ has led to the erroneous conclusion that defining terrorism is, in the final analysis, a subjective activity about assigning negative connotations to one’s opponents and positive connotations to one’s proponents. Terrorism, both as practiced and justified by terrorist themselves, is a tool used to achieve a specific outcome by using force or violence on one segment of society with the primary goal of causing fear in the larger society to make change in that society. This article will review the historical development of the use of terror and demonstrate that regardless of the actor, all terrorists share the common belief that terror is a tool of change. The desired change, the chosen target, and the justification of the use of terror can be specific to the society and the perpetrators. The goal of this paper will be to show the common strands of uniformity of the understanding of terror as a tool of change through history. Though there are differences between terrorists and waves of terror, the utility of terror is not different.