Is one person's terrorist another's freedom fighter? Western and Islamic approaches to ‘just war’ compared

Abstract

The fight against terrorism frequently is plagued by the old adage: one person's terrorist is simply another's freedom fighter. In view of ever present terrorist violence in the Middle East and in the wake of the thesis advanced by Samuel Huntington that ‘the great divisions among humankind and the dominating source of conflict will be cultural’ ‐ a ‘Clash of Civilizations’ of differing norms and values, a major question arises. Are there shared norms that transcend religion, culture, even civilizations that can and should provide a guide for distinguishing between terrorism and other acts of war or conflict? This article addresses one aspect of the overall question of shared norms. Its purpose is to examine the norms established in both western Christian and secular and Islamic ‘just war’ traditions and their modern derivatives in terms of their utility as a guide for differentiating between terrorism and what might otherwise simply be called irregular warfare. The article concludes that, despite the existence of ‘fundamentalist’ interpretations on all sides, generally shared norms indeed do exist among western Christian and secular and Islamic ‘just war’ traditions. The article, however, also concludes that a number of factors contribute to differences of perspective between and among Muslims and members of many western societies. Among these factors are (1) a revival of jus ad bellum thinking that operates to the detriment of jus in bello, (2) United Nations restrictions on the use of force are not universally accepted, and (3) the impact of national liberation movements and national liberation theology. Such factors have contributed to an absence of a clear consensus on the definition of terrorism, which has been complicated further by the tendency among many western nations to adopt definitions that are overly inclusive.