Some thoughts about the meaning of terrorism

Currently, my university teaching centres on terrorism, and seeing as it is a very topical issue at the moment, I thought it might be worth a few comments here. So far this semester, we’ve been thinking about what we mean by ‘terrorism’. There are several questions that are really interesting to discuss when we talk about what we mean when we say terrorism. For example:

Do we only use the word to refer to actions or actors we approve of?

Once an actor has achieved their objectives, are we then less likely to refer to them as terrorists (after all, it would probably feel wrong to refer to someone now leading a state as a terrorist)?

More controversially- does terrorism actually exist outside our labelling it as such (if terrorism is about the spread of fear through violent acts, calling it terrorism is spreading the fear and creating the ‘terror’)?

And if the word terrorism did not exist, would we need to invent it (we could refer to acts by referring to the specific crimes such as hijacking, suicide bombs etc instead)?

With my academic head on, I like these questions. I like to challenge our preconceptions of what terrorism is. It seems to me that even though terrorism is a highly controversial and important subject, we need to challenge the way we think about it.

But I am also aware that questions like this can all too easily move to a position where the impact of terrorism is diminished. Recent terrorist acts have had incredibly damaging, horrific impacts on real people, real families. We need to recognise this.

However, I do think that the questions above can point to the importance of using the word terrorism carefully. I would not want to be responsible for helping the terrorist aim of spreading fear, and over-using the word terrorism may do that. I would also not want to see the fear of terrorism being over-stated by labelling acts of civil war, or ‘ordinary’ criminal acts as terrorism, or the fear of terrorism being manipulated to justify counter-terrorism measures that damage our civil liberties.