Terrorism and Muslims Today - Part two

Difficulties and complexities surrounding definition of terrorism:

- We need to see who uses these terminologies and it what context these terms and terminologies are used. When our president Mahinda Rajapaksa uses this term he may point his finger at Prabaharan and his cohorts. At the same time when prabaharan and his cohort use this term they may point their finger at Mahinda Rajapaksa and successive Srilankan governments.

by Dr Sulaiman Rifai writes from London

(December 26, London, Sri Lanka Guardian) Defining the notion of terrorism has been a daunting and painstaking task for the social scientists and academics for the last few decades: Even international organisations such as United Nations, European unions, and other international Organisations have not yet unanimously agreed upon on defining the notion of terrorisms in any precise and decisively way: No nation or country has yet provided with any concise definition to the notion of terrorism.

According to recent studies on terrorism there are more than one hundred definitions articulated by different social scientists, organisations and countries from various perspectives: In fact, terms such as terrorists, extremists, fanatics and fundamentalists are very much ambiguous and vague terms in that they could imply different connotations and meanings in the context of their usage: These terms can be used in opposite meanings some times. One particular group can be depicted by two different labels with contrasting meanings. I will allude to some of insurgent groups to explain this more explicitly: Consider for instance Tamil Tigers who fight for an independent Elam in Srilanka: According to Tamil community who believe in Tigers doctrine of so called Elam, these rebels can be depicted as freedom fighters: (Although most of Tamils in Srilanka do not subscribe to this notion anymore and majority of them live in the South with Muslims and Singhalese) but these Tigers are labelled as callous and ruthless terrorists by the Singhalese in the South according to their perception:

Thus, same one word could give two contrasting meanings in its contextual usage. To clarify this more, we could provide with some more examples. In the late 1930s & 1940s people in the subcontinent fought against British empire to gain independence and freedom from British colonisation and dominance: Those days these freedom fighters were regarded as terrorists by British authorities then but these same people are regarded as freedom fighters and patriotic by the people of these countries: In the same way, Yasisr Arafat and his party members were regarded as terrorists by Israel and its allies in the west. Nevertheless, Arafat was regarded as a leader of Palestinian freedom movement by Palestinian People. On the other hand, Barbaric acts and brutality of Israel army on innocent Palestinian people are never regard as terrorism by American and its agents in the west. The entire world knows that Zionists terrorists have been killing and butchering innocent children, women, elderly people and youths of Palestinian people without discriminating since 1948 unto now for the last 60 years: In deed, this is a historical terrorism and genocide against humanity yet America and its allies never classified Zionists acts as terrorism. However, any defensive acts of Palestinian freedom fighters deem to be an act of terrorism. Why is this dualism in the perception of terrorism? What a miscarriage of justice? Who pervert the real course of justice here? Is it not of hypocritical politics of American Imperialism? Yet Muslims of Palestinians branded as terrorists.

One more vivid example is that genocide and ethnic cleansing perpetrated by Milosevic in yearly 1990 in the former Yugoslavia during his ruling was done in the name of terrorism: Milosevic claimed that he was trying to eliminate and eradicate terrorism. In fact, his barbaric acts of terrorism were recorded and accepted by international community as genocide and ethnic cleansing. What more is that International court of justice did try to bring him to justice before he met his natural death? Why this does not apply the perpetrators of genocide in Palestine?

In this way, definitions and meanings change in accordance with the contextual usage of this term: This same comparison can be applied to local and international groups in two contrasting meanings and connotations: We need to see who uses these terminologies and it what context these terms and terminologies are used. When our president Mahinda Rajapaksa uses this term he may point his finger at Prabaharan and his cohorts. At the same time when prabaharan and his cohort use this term they may point their finger at Mahinda Rajapaksa and successive Srilankan governments. Likewise, When G.Bush and his cohorts consider Bin Laden and his followers as ruthless terrorists but Bin Laden and his followers consider G.Bush and his cohorts as imperialist and callous terrorists who killed millions of innocent people for no crimes they have done. Thus, each group uses this term to support their side of arguments. Now people are confused to draw line between these two contrasting perceptions. Thus, no one has so far provided solid definitions for these two vague terms of terrorism and terrorists. There is no consensus and unanimity among countries and world organisations on the definitions of these terms. Even United Nation not yet provided a solid and unbiased definition for terrorism: Therefore, meanings and definitions of terrorism differ nation to nation, group to group and people to people.

In the pursuit of Bin Laden and his cohorts American and Nato forces killed thousands of Afghanis and Pakistani people for no crime they committed in this world and in hunting Sadam Hussein and his Bath party members American and British forces have already killed millions of innocent Iraqi people for no crime they have committed in this world. Killing these innocent people by American and British forces is perceived and described as ruthless and callous acts of terrorism by the people in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq: This is even regarded as a genocide against humanity by some people. Likewise, in targeting American forces and the western interests and its agents in the world, Bin Laden and his cohorts have killed thousands of innocent people for no crime they have committed in this world. This is perceived and regarded as callous acts of terrorism by the politicians in the west and by the people as well. There can not be dichotomy in understanding and perception of terrorism. Terrorism is terrorism whoever carries it out. Whether it is carried out by Bin and his cohorts in a clandestine way or it is done officially by American forces in public with support of some western nations. Because, the end result of these barbaric acts are same. Innocent people are victimised and killed for no reasons: These innocent people may be American public or western nationals or otherwise Iraqi or Afghani or any other nationals . Whoever they may be, killing of innocent people can not be justified at all whatever reason may be for such killings. Both side may provide justification for their actions for killing innocent people. However such justifications will not be unanimously accepted by the international community at all:
Therefore, one could argue that there is no any objective and unbiased definitions for new phenomenon of terrorism yet. Even among academics, military analysts, politicians and legal professionals do not have yet a clear cut definition for this modern terrorism: It is very difficult to examine and study this new phenomenon objectively. The perpetrators and their supporters may gauge such acts of violence as acts of heroism while the victims and their relatives will see the same acts as acts of terrorism and violence. Hoffman rightly highlights this complexity when he says “If one identifies with the victim of the violence, for example, then the act is terrorism. If, however, one identifies with the perpetrator, the violent act is regarded in a more sympathetic ….. is not terrorism” ( Bruce Hoffman, 1998, p.31). It is up to who perceive it and how some one pervasive it and from what perspective one see it. We may relate it to the perpetrators or the victims of terrorism.

Let us now read some of remarkable definitions of terrorism and examine and evaluate them in this section.

1) U.N security council defines terrorism as “criminal acts, including against civilians, committed with the intent to cause death or serious bodily injury, or taking of hostages, with the purpose to provoke a state of terror in the general public or in a group of persons or particular persons, intimidate a population or compel a government or an international organization to do or to abstain from doing any act.” — UN Security Council Resolution 1566

2) United States Department of Defense: defines the terrorism the "calculated use of unlawful violence to inculcate fear; intended to coerce or intimidate governments or societies in pursuit of goals that are generally political, religious, or ideological."

3) Laqueur identifies difficulties in defining terrorism. “ terrorism has been defined in many different ways and little can be said about it with certainty except that it is the use of violence by a group for political ends, usually directed against a government, but at times also against another ethnic group, class, race, religion or political movement. Any attempt to be more specific is bound to fail, for the simple reason that there is not one but many different terrorisms” (Laqueur, 1999, p.46).

4) Cunningham attempts to provide all inclusive and systematic definition to terrorism
“Terrorism is defined as the illegitimate use or threat of violence further political objectives. It is illegitimate in that it targets civilians and/or non-combatants and it is perpetrated by clandestine agents of state and non state actors in contravention of the laws of war and criminal statutes. It is symbolic and premeditated violence whose purpose is to communicate a message to a wider population than the immediate victims of violence. It is designed to affect this audience by creating psychological states of fear in order to influence decision-makers to change policies, practices or systems that are related to the perpetrators’ political objectives. These objectives can be either systemic or sub-systemic and may be motivated by complex social forces including, but not limited to, ideology, ethno nationalism or religious extremism” (William G.Cunningham, 2003.p23.)

5 ) Hoffman defines nature and objectives of terrorism as follows “We may therefore now attempt to define terrorism as the deliberate creation and exploitation of fear through violence or the threat of violence in the pursuit of political change. All terrorist acts involve violence or the threat of violence. Terrorism is specifically designed to have far-reaching psychological effects beyond the immediate victim(s) or object of terrorist attack. It is meant to instil fear within and thereby intimidate, a wider target audience’ that might include a rival ethnic or religious group, an entire country, a national government or political party or public opinion in general. Terrorism is designed to create power where there is none or to consolidate power where there is very little. Through the publicity generated by their violence, terrorists seek to obtain the leverage, influence and power they otherwise lack to effect political change on either a local or an international scale” (Hoffman, 1998, pp. 43-44).

I have selected only five definitions of terrorism among hundreds of definitions and I notice that almost all definitions share some similarities in content, meaning and theme yet some of them are more comprehensive and more inclusive some are a mere descriptive. A common features of these definitions can be outlined as fellow

a) Terrorism is an illegitimate acts of violence, thereat and intimidation.

b)Terrorism is usually directed at political establishment in expectation that governments will heed to terrorists demand.

c) It aims at generating panic and fear in the minds and hearts of public.

d)Terrorism contravenes all laws of war in that terrorists use all clandestine methods and ways to unleash terrorist attacks against all international laws:

e) The root causes or motivating factors of terrorism may be ideological, political, religious or ethical of nationalistic or other socio-psychological factors.

f) More importantly these definitions are provided by Western academics and social scientists and by international organisations with greater influence of western nations in that sense these definitions are somewhat subjective definitions.

g) These definitions do not cover all state sponsored terrorism perpetuated by western governments.


When legitimate governments such as the U.K and USA attack innocent people in rural villages of Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan it is not regarded as terrorism according to these definitions. Because, these act of violence is done by legitimate governments in the pursuit of terrorists and hence in the course of such pursuit victimization of innocent people is inevitable and hence such terrifying killing is not a terrorism according to western governments. However, people in these countries American aggression against innocent people as an act of terrorism. That is why it is very difficult to examine and evaluate notion of terrorism objectively in this context: Different people could perceive it from different perspective: Bin Laden and his cohorts also argue that they fight against American imperialism, aggression and invasion and they justify their side of arguments based on U.S foreign policy that undermines Muslim aspiration and interests: The latest modified edition of Wikipedia summaries the reasons for controversies surrounding definitions of terrorism in following ways:

“The modern definition of terrorism is inherently controversial. The use of violence for the achievement of political ends is common to state and non-state groups. The difficulty is in agreeing on a basis for determining when the use of violence (directed at whom, by whom, for what ends) is legitimate. The majority of definitions in use have been written by agencies directly associated with a government, and are systematically biased to exclude governments from the definition. Some such definitions are so broad, like the
Terrorism Act 2000, as to include the disruption of a computer system wherein no violence is intended or results.

The contemporary label of "terrorist" is highly pejorative; it is a badge which denotes a lack of legitimacy and morality. The application "terrorist" is therefore always deliberately disputed. Attempts at defining the concept invariably arouse debate because rival definitions may be employed with a view to including the actions of certain parties, and excluding others. Thus, each party might still subjectively claim a legitimate basis for employing violence in pursuit of their own political cause or aim..” Thus, maintaining objectivity in defining terrorism is very demanding task and it can be defined from state sponsored perspective to justify state sponsored atrocities and injustice against innocent people as we have seen in recent years or it can be defined from the perspectives of Non-State groups to justify their atrocities and attack on state targets and not state targets.

Hence, we could very convincingly say that so far there is no unanimous agreement between academics and politicians on definitions of terrorism for the reasons we have explained in this part of our article: It is more disputable than Mr Bush and his cohorts claim and It is more demanding than Mr Bin Laden and his cohorts think. Nevertheless, we unanimously agree that killing innocent people have no any justification whether such atrocities are done by Americans and their cohorts or Bin landed and his cohorts: Therefore, we conclude this part saying that finding a comprehensive and unbiased definitions for the notion of terrorism will be a daunting academic task of future scholars and social scientists: Moreover, such intellectual pursuit of defining terrorism should be based on humanism, justice, and equality without discrimination between developed nations and the third world nations: The stability and peace in the world can be secured if only every one is created equally with fairness and justice. - Sri Lanka Guardian