1. INTRO TO TERRORISM WHAT IS TERRORISM?

2. LEARNING INTENTIONS  Be able to explain what terrorism means  Be able to show the difference between terrorism and war  Understand the difference between acts of terror and terrorism  Explain how terrorism has changed in the 21 st Century

3. WHAT IS TERRORISM?  Terrorism has its origins in the French Revolution of 1789. When the aristocrats and later just normal civilians were hunted down and killed by the revolutionary leaders using the guillotine, it was termed by the counter-revolutionaries as terrorisme.  Terrorising groups of people through the use of extreme violence is quite an old idea. When in the old days a city was invaded, the army would raze it to the ground, and kill everyone in it – not just for the larks, but more to frighten those living in other cities – part of a psychological war.  You will see this theme coming through consistently – terrorism is psychological

4. TERRORISM IS COMPLICATED TO DEFINE  Many sociologists find the term is not useful, because it is quite subjective – remember the argument “One person’s terrorist is another person’s freedom fighter”.  Also there is the problem of deciding whether a government (or state) can be terrorist? States do definitely carry out acts of terror, and states have been responsible for many, many, many millions more deaths than terrorist groups. However if we don’t restrict the definition of terrorism to groups that are acting outside government then the definition can become too close to that of war.

5. A WORKING DEFINITION OF TERROR  “Any action (by a non-state organisation) that is intended to cause death or serious bodily harm to civilians or non-combatants, where the purpose of such an act, by its nature or context, is to intimidate a population, or compel a government or international organisation to do or to abstain from doing any act”  See if you can break this down into the different criteria that make an act terrorist, and put it in easier to understand language, eg: 1) Something that a group does (Any action) 2) The group must not be a government (non-state organisation) 3) 4)

6. MASS COMMUNICATION  Terrorism depends on mass communication – the media, so that symbolic acts of terrorism can be projected at distance so that it is not just the local population that knows about them.  Think about recent terror attacks – starting with 9/11, the global reach was immediate.

7. SYMBOLISM  Symbolism is important in terrorist attacks – this is another psychological aspect, they attack the symbols of power and security in a society.  Again 9/11 provides a template here, the targets were the  World Trade Center (symbolising money, capitalism and business)  The Pentagon (symbolising the military might of the most powerful armed forces in the world  The White House (symbolising the political power of the USA and -Americans would argue - democracy)  All of these things are anathema to what Al Qaeda stands for - Islamism

9. OLD STYLEEE TERRORISM BACK IN THE DAY

10. OLD STYLE TERRORISM  20 th Century Terrorism is associated with the rise of nationalism and the establishment of nations as sovereign, territorially bounded entities.  What does that mean?  This is something that seems obvious to us – countries have borders. The government of a country is sovereign (in charge), but only within the borders of that country. So for example the government of Azerbaijan can’t come over here and tell us it is illegal to eat crisps – this is because they are only sovereign (in charge) in their own country (territorially bounded). They have a bit of space that is theirs.  Again this seems obvious to us, but the thing is lots of nations do not have their own bit of space with their own government in charge. Lots of nations are forced together into single countries, and sometimes the nations within the single countries find it difficult to get on, so sometimes they want their own little bit of space to be in charge of, they want to separate out from the country that they have been included in. This can be referred to as Nationalism, it can cause conflict – and this conflict can become violent and lead to terrorism or even civil war. This is old style terrorism – terrorism in the 20 th century was mostly nationalist.

11.  Map of Africa  Map of Middle East

12. EXAMPLES OF OLD STYLE – NATIONALIST - TERRORISM  The IRA in Northern Ireland  ETA in Spain  There’s about a million more.  The aim of old style terrorism is to establish states in areas where nations do not have control of the state apparatus (government stuff) – for example, it might have been the case that if Scotland’s demands for some control of its own affairs had not been recognised there may have been the growth of a nationalist terrorist movement – however the SNP has always kept its methods strictly within the electoral system.

13. LOCAL  Old Style Terror is generally characterised as being “local” – so confined to one country/area. This is because Old Style Terrorists are generally trying to carve out a new country for themselves in the area in which they live – it has local ambitions.  Old Style Terrorists might gain international supporters – especially in the sense of “My enemy’s enemy is my friend”. So for example in the 1980’s, Britain hated Libya. Libya hated Britain. The IRA hated Britain. Therefore the IRA loved Libya and Libya loved the IRA. Consequently Libya gave the IRA loads of bombs and guns. But the goals of the IRA always remained local. They always just wanted Northern Ireland back as part of Eire.

14. VIOLENCE  Another feature of old style terrorism is the limited use of violence. Although many people were killed in “the Troubles” in Northern Ireland, it is still far fewer than were killed in road accidents in that time. Violence within terrorism is generally about shock, and so it is targeted and focused. Terrorism has killed far fewer people than actual war.  The aims of old style terrorism are limited, and so is the violence

15. NEW STYLEEE TERRORISM 9/11 AND BEYOND

16. NEW TERRORISM  New terrorism has been made possible by new methods of communication.  Terrorist groups can use these new methods to communicate within their groups and coordinate attacks, to gain information on targets, to broadcast their attacks and maximise impact and to recruit new members.

17. AL QAEDA - ORGANISATION  The IRA had a very militaristic structure – with a clearly defined command and a 4 man cell structure. Almost like the SAS in the way it carried out attacks. This was highly effective and made it difficult to catch IRA members, as members generally only ever knew a maximum of 3 other members. The IRA was also able to control local areas and prevent people from informing on them. The IRA was very geographically limited to particular inner-city areas of Northern Ireland.  Al Qaeda differs from this in several respects – AQ is more a global network of networks. Within this structure local groups have a high degree of autonomy and independence, and often refer to themselves with different names – Al Shabab, Boko Haram, ISIS etc.  Al Qaeda is really more of a shared idea or ideology with similarly shared tactics and methods – the ideology of Islamism is core – we will look at this in the next couple of weeks.

18. ORGANISATION CONTINUED  The organisational structure of AQ is actually more similar to a global pressure group or NGO – there is a shared mission and commitment (vision and values) that allows a fairly loose organisation to flourish.  Extreme violence targeted at highly symbolic sites is a way of demonstrating that the West is weak – and it also encourages others to join – AQ uses symbolic violence to further its cause.

19. NEW TERRORISM  Unlike with old terrorism, AQ has global aims – it is not limited and local – it seeks to restructure the world.  AQ seeks to construct and Islamic state that stretches from India to Europe, and to recapture North Africa. AQ argues that the West expelled or ethnically cleansed Muslims from areas to which it had a legitimate claim, like Spain and the Balkans.  So this new terrorism has global ambitions.

20. VIOLENCE  AQ is more ruthless in the means that it is prepared to use against its enemies, in that terrorist acts should kill as many people as possible.  The founding statement of AQ in 1988 includes this passage…  “The ruling to kill the Americans and their allies – civilians and military- is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it, in order to liberate the al-Aqsa Mosque and the Holy Mosque from their grip, and in order for their armies to move out of all the lands of Islam, defeated and unable to threaten any Muslim”

21. SEIZING ATTENTION: SHOCK, HORROR, FEAR OR REVULSION  Essentially people need order and security. The reason why many of us consent to live by the laws of the state is that we recognise that the state protects us, our loved ones, and our stuff from other people who might seek to hurt us or rob us.  States (through governments) put in place laws to regulate violence, when these laws are broken, we feel shock.  The special quality of terrorism – to attack the defenceless- dramatically magnifies the anxiety about security which is never far from the surface of society.  If the attack is abnormal and enormous, then it will create excitement and fascination – it will seize the attention of the public

22. GETTING THE MESSAGE – WHAT DO TERRORISTS WANT?  In order for a terrorist attack to be successful, then it really should be clear what the group wants. This is something which many groups fail to carry off.  Not all terrorist groups rush to claim responsibility for attacks carried out. For example, the Lockerbie bombing – to this day no one is really sure what the purpose of it was.  Even 9/11, despite the fact that AQ made it quite clear that they were against the defilement of the Holy Land by American soldiers, many Americans were unwilling to accept that as the reason, and saw it as an attack on American freedom and democracy instead. Which helped to bring the public behind the war on terror.

23. FIGHT OR FLIGHT  Terrorist groups run the risk of having the opposite effect from that which they plan.  For a start it may not be clear that the people that they are putting pressure on actually have the power to change the actions of the government anyway - mostly the people who have the power to make decisions – politicians, civil servants, police etc., are all protected, they are not under threat from terrorist attacks.  Also terrorists attacks can cause the public to get angry and actually demand that the government does not give in. Like after the Birmingham pub bombings in 1974, and to some extent 9/11 and the 7/7 attacks – started off the “We are not afraid” meme.

24. TERRORISM  There are individual acts of terror carried out – which may be about revenge or seeking attention, but terrorism is a long terms goal, a strategy of using absolute violence to achieve a goal.  Johannes Most, and anarchist in the 19 th Century wrote a paper call “The philosophy of the Bomb” which captured well the process through which terrorism works…

25. JOHANNES MOST  1) Outrageous violence will seize the public imagination.  2) Its audience will be awakened to political issues  3) Violently is by its nature empowering – people feel powerful when they use violence  4) Systematic (continued) violence can threaten the government and cause it to react violently, or to restrict the human rights of citizens  5) Violence can destabilize the social order and threaten social breakdown (the spiral of terror and counter-terror)  6) Ultimately the people will reject the government and turn to the terrorists.

26. SO – WHAT IS TERRORISM?  It is not just the use of violence for political ends.  It is not just outrageous violence  It is not just violence by the armed against the unarmed.  It is conceived as a political strategy – it is an “ism”

27. HOW DOES IT DIFFER FROM WAR?  The operational logic is different (how it works)  War is ultimately coercive (forces people to act) whereas terrorism is persuasive.  War is physical, Terrorism is mental. Terrorism operates through subjective psychological power, war is about brute force.

28. ONE FINAL POINT TO MENTION  Most terrorists are disturbingly normal. Many people question how they can kill people in cold blood – yet we don’t ask the sae questions of soldiers?  In reality terrorists don’t see their targets as individuals, with individual lives and mortgages and candycrush high scores. They stereotype people and see them in terms of their group – their culture, religion or whatever. This is in actual fact what most humans do with people that they don’t know.  Disturbingly normal. I’ll leave that thought with you.