TERRORISM - A Definition

As I sit at my computer typing this, outside it is a pleasant, lazy, warm and sunny September afternoon. There are signs that autumn is approaching but, in practice, after a prolonged and unseasonable wet spell it seems that summer has indeed returned. Elsewhere on the planet it is the aftermath of the Beslan School Seige.

I am not going to re-recite all of the minutia of the horrors, the statistics, the terror, the pain and the anger that have been a part of, and consequent upon, this tragedy. The media coverage has saturated our newspapers and filled our television screens. Reading what has been written and listening to what is being said, particularly by those with some authority has, however, made one single solitary fact readily, and very clearly, available to anyone with the wit to see it. With rare individual exceptions we, as a ‘civilisation’ have learned, and indeed will learn, absolutely nothing from the experience. Why is this ? Put in very simple terms it is because we are far too selfish, far too self centred, far too idle and, indeed, far too stupid.

Before we can at all intelligently consider the reasons for, the horrors implicit in and the aftermath of the events at Beslan we are going to have to have a look at some history. Now, the teaching of History, along with that of Geography and English, has become a national disgrace (except in the eyes of the teachers concerned) both here and in America. How do I arrive at this conclusion? It’s very simple really, I just observe the almost total lack of knowledge of either of these subjects by the under 40’s – the ‘core’ of the population of both of these countries. Before we can proceed any further this almost total absence of any structured knowledge of history and, where necessary, geography is going to have to be at least partially rectified.

No, I am not going to resort to lessons. You didn’t listen when you were at school and there is no reason to suppose that you would be any more receptive now ! Terrorism is not new so we are going, in this series of articles, to consider the story of its past. Some of this story may well come as a surprise to many of you and the history and the geography that you lack will all be presented as a part of this story. What I have to decide now is just how far back into human history to go to find a starting point. However, before we do this it might be a good idea to define our terminology and that is the purpose of this article. What, exactly, according to current belief, is terrorism and what constitutes a terrorist ?

In circumstances where a definition is required a dictionary is often a good starting point. However, we must acknowledge before we even start that dictionaries are frequently at odds with common usage. There are many good reasons for this but they really need not detain us at this point. They are even more frequently at odds with political usage which is something to which we are going to have to direct our attention in due course. For the moment, however, just what does the Concise Oxford Dictionary have to say about Terrorism ? Not a lot as it turns out, merely referring us back to the word terror, and referring there to terrorism only as being a consequence of the activities of terrorists, but it does give us a working definition of the noun - terrorist. This reads as follows:-  ‘a person who uses or favours violent and intimidating methods of coercing a government or community’. There is no problem with the plural of this definition as applied to produce terrorists and, indeed, terrorism follows on logically as the application of the doctrine given above as being favoured by the terrorists.

The definition of a terrorist as given above is worth examining carefully. There are no opt outs and no excuses. It is quite precise and absolute. If you use, or even let it be known that you favour the use of, force in order to coerce a government or a community to an alternative way of thinking or course of action to that which would have been their choice had you not interfered – then you are, by definition, a terrorist. This interesting, and almost brutally logical, conclusion has far reaching consequences. The war in Iraq becomes, by definition, an act of terrorism and both George W. Bush and Tony Blair are, by definition, terrorists. There is no get out; there is no where to wriggle. The definition is precise, absolute and it fits.

This, however, is not all. Bush and Blair have been arguing since before the invasion of Iraq that such a course of action, in all of the prevailing circumstances, was fully justified. The inevitable corollary of this, since we have already shown such an invasion to be an act of terrorism, is that such acts of terror can, on occasion, be justified and that terrorists, in some circumstances, have right on their side. Now don’t look at me – it’s not my fault! Before you all get too wound up just remember that I have merely taken all of the available facts and followed them through to an inevitable conclusion. What is more to the point, and as we will see in due course, this is a conclusion that history will show has been widely accepted by, and acceptable to, the world wide public at large since time immemorial.

We are, now, really in a spot trouble. If some forms of terrorism can be justified then who does the justifying and what are the criteria ?  Is this an implicit function of our elected representatives; those same elected representatives who are unanimous in their public condemnation of such activities by anybody else; or am I missing something ? We, the people, are schooled to believe that all terrorism, as defined by government, is wrong; whilst government, on the other hand engages in terrorist activities as, when and where it sees fit. It really is quite a remarkable state of affairs. It is a state of affairs into which we are going have to enquire very closely if we are to stand any chance at all of making any sense of it. And it is no use you sitting there comfortably in your armchair and saying what a lot of old rubbish I am talking. If you are going to claim that my conclusions are wrong then you are going to have to say where and why. The arguments outlined above are so breath-takingly simple that an averagely intelligent child of ten could follow them and, I say again, there are no opt outs. The thing is, of course, the average ten year old has not yet had time to become equipped with all of your prejudices !

Having said this I am going to have to admit that we do, nonetheless, have a problem. This problem only arises when the English try to communicate with the Americans. Both parties are lulled into a false sense of security because they fondly imagine that they are speaking the same language. The trap is very cleverly set and we fall into every time. After all most of the words are the same as is most of the grammar. However, the same words all too frequently do not mean the same thing and the same grammar does not necessarily convey the same meaning. Our problem, quite simply, is this: Americans do not speak English ! I have yet to discover exactly what language it is that they do use because even to grace it with the name ‘American’ would be to attribute to it a formalism, a structure and a communicative certainty that just does not appear to exist in practice. Let’s begin, as we did before, by considering dictionary definitions. This time, however, we will use American dictionaries !!

In the Oxford Dictionary, you will remember, the word terrorism was not, in fact attributed a definition we were merely referred to the more general word terror. The definition of the word terrorist we have discussed at some length. In the two Amercan dictionaries consulted the situation was reversed -  Terrorists remained undefined and we were referred to terrorism as being the primary root.  In ‘The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000’. the word ‘terrorist’ is defined as:-...One that engages in acts or an act of terrorism. Of or relating to terrorism.  In the ‘Newbury House Dictionary’we find - Terrorist:-  a person who uses terrorism. It all seems very reasonable so far. However, when we look for a definition of terrorism we find that we are really in trouble. According, once again, to ‘ The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000. ‘ terrorism’ is:-...The unlawful use or threatened use of force or violence by a person or an organized group against people or property with the intention of intimidating or coercing.…And in the ‘Newbury House Dictionary’we find:- terrorism  n. the use of murder, arson, kidnapping, etc., to reach political objectives: Governments work together to stop terrorism. (The italics are theirs).

How delightfully vague, how delightfully imprecise and how delightfully subjective that all is. The first definition almost succeeds but ‘unlawful’ ?? Unlawful according to who, where and by what right ?  We are left to assume that American law is infallible, universally applicable and superior to any relevant international law that they, in any case, refuse to accept. The second definition is not really worth the title. It relies on emotion and the twin assumptions that terrorism is only ever used in pursuit of political objectives and that governments are always right. Neither assumption is correct.

Let us be very clear why I am harping on about this. Language, as I have said many times before, exists for one purpose and one purpose only – to enable and facilitate communication. It is a very little known fact, largely because the bulk of the population in both the UK and the USA is only semi-literate and really can’t be bothered to think about it, that if we do not all use a language according to the same set of rules then we will fail in this endeavour and, as happens all too often, we will not communicate successfully. The situation is bad enough when trying to translate between two languages, where there is some semblance of an excuse, but within the remit of a single language it is inexcusable. If you think that Blair and Bush, let alone Chirac, Schröder and Putin all have the same understanding of terrorists and terrorism then you are, I am sorry to say, really in need of a brain transplant.

There is perhaps just one exception to that claim. There is perhaps just one point at which there would be a meeting of all of those five minds. These five world leaders all desperately want, to the exclusion of almost everything else, to hang on to the jobs in which they currently hold power; anything at all which threatens that will, in their minds, potentially be an act of terrorism. And I exclude nothing.

The ‘terrorist’ involved in ‘terrorism’ is the current international
‘Whipping Boy’. When, as a ‘for instance’ President Chirac refers to a terrorist to an English speaking audience he will rely, deliberately, on ‘automatic translation’. He will be thinking, and speaking, in terms of his definition, in French, and you will be listening and thinking in terms of yours, in English, and never the twain shall meet. You may think that communication has been established where he, I suspect, knows better and doesn’t really care. The result is that you have been conned into thinking what a fine fellow he is and into believing that you are both on the same side and seeking the same ends. He, in common with virtually all politicians, is merely trying, often quite successfully, to produce the illusion that this is so. It is communication of a sort, but of effect rather than of fact.

As a fully paid up member – retired - of the KGB I can’t even begin to think what Mr. Putin would understand by the Russian version of the word terrorist. Looking at his record in Czechnia I would bet real money that it doesn’t correspond to a translation into Russian of the definition given in the Oxford English !

However, enough of this. I have, I hope successfully, made my point that the concepts of terrorism and of terrorists currently circulating are totally subjective. I hope that I have convinced you that as a result of this state of affairs any discussion of these topics can only usefully proceed if the participants rigorously define their parameters before discussion commences. I may well have convinced you that this will never happen in political circles as, with the removal of this fudge factor, the inevitable result will be no agreement on anything. You might also have caught up with the idea that governments in general are quite happy with the status quo as by and large it gives them a free hand to do just what they dammed well please - very much as usual.

So much for the lesson in semantics. Just for the record, we are going to abide by the definitions set out earlier which come from the Concise Oxford English Dictionary. I don’t really need to justify this, but I will. This article has been conceived and initially written in English. Therefore, logically, English grammar, English spelling and English definitions should apply. Of the various alternative definitions that I have investigated it would appear to me that those from the ‘Oxford’ are the least ambiguous, the least subjective and give the broadest coverage. You may have other ideas but this is my article so I get to decide !

Having defined our terminology we are now in a position to progress. We now know what constitutes terrorism and, much more to the point, how to identify a terrorist. Not personally, of course, but as a type. In this particular respect there are probably a lot of surprises to come, but there is another aspect to all of this which deserves serious consideration before we proceed further. This has to do with the fact that the terms terrorist and terrorism are very much a late 20th century phenomenon. Since, as Shakespeare so eloquently observed, ‘a Rose by any other name is still a Rose’ this is not to say that terrorists and terrorism did not exist in earlier times; it has more to do with the fact that since all the world and his wife were at it such terms, if used, could have proved rather embarrassing. Indeed, as we go back in time we find the powers that be being ever more selective in their application of these terms, until eventually they disappear altogether and alternative, usually more accurate descriptions are applied. You never heard anybody back in the mid 1940s, least of all the Americans (whose money was buying the guns), calling the Israelis terrorists when they were shooting up British soldiers in what was then Palestine. According to modern usage of the term that is exactly what they were and now that they are on the receiving end they don’t like it either. Once again we are being conned.

We have already seen that the terrorist terminology is potentially and,
 in some cases quite practically, emotive. Even before any facts are known there is the implication that ‘they’ are in the wrong and that the users of the terminology, usually a political or media source, are the good guys. If only it were that simple ! It is only since we have reached the position where there is precious little left in the world that can be grabbed and/or annexed without starting Armageddon that governments with their incumbent politicians have felt the need to become slightly more respectable.

The world is full of people who have been over run, stamped on, oppressed or chased out of their homes and off of their land. If they protest then if you are the government you will react according to the current rules of the game in your particular country. If you are in China, which is not an open society, and in this context has not yet applied for respectability, you shoot them first and if it leaks out tell everyone else to mind their own business. If you are in Russia and have got used to 70 years of shooting them first and arguing later, it is very difficult, even though your society is now almost open, to get out of the habit. This is particularly true when your leader is an ex-KGB man and more particularly true since you are trying to become respectable and the eyes of the world are on you. If you are in that part of the world where respectability matters (well, up to a point anyway) you have to tread a little more lightly unless you are president of the U.S.A. in which case, what the hell, you don’t give a damn anyway and obscenities like Guantanamo Bay are the result. It is worth noting that there are even more obscenities in the current American administration who are prepared to defend it !!

Will the real terrorists please stand up.