So, how should we define terrorism?
Well, the CIA says:
How do you define terrorism?
The Intelligence Community is guided by the definition of terrorism contained in Title 22 of the US Code, Section 2656f(d):
—The term “terrorism” means premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents, usually intended to influence an audience.
Given that, I think this story from the San Francisco Chronicle qualifies (story link found thanks to the Austin Klein’s Agnosticism/Atheism Blog):
Jerusalem — Violence marred the annual gay pride parade for the first time Thursday when an ultra-Orthodox man broke through heavy security and stabbed three of the participants, leaving them with light to moderate wounds.
Other protesters, most of them religious Jews, lined the mile-long route of the “Love Without Borders” march through central Jerusalem. Some held placards that read “You are corrupting our children” while others shouted insults. One placard read “Jerusalem is not San Francisco.”
Thirteen protesters were arrested, including one man who threw a soiled diaper at the marchers then attacked a photographer trying to record the scene.
proffered for flowers or flames from Liberal Street Fighter
Let’s see, premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups — CHECK.
Wait, you might say, this was just a religious nut. How can you say it was political? Well:
Outside the Great Synagogue, where about 100 protesters shouted anti-gay slogans behind a thick police cordon, two members of the Knesset (parliament) tried to stop the march by sitting in the middle of King George V Street, the city’s main thoroughfare. They were eventually dragged away by police.
The violence — in stark contrast to the peaceful events of previous years — came after attempts by the ultra-Orthodox mayor of Jerusalem, Uri Lupolianski, to ban the march.
The Washington Blade describes the incident in more detail:
Opponents tried to stop the march by throwing a stink bomb at the starting point, but several thousand marchers paraded through the center of Jerusalem anyway, braving shouts and insults from protesters, mostly young ultra-Orthodox Jews. “Homo sex is immoral,” read a sign carried by one protester. The march proceeded despite the violence. “It took many years for Jerusalem to have the Gay Pride parade,” said one participant, 39-year-old Moshik Toledano, “but once it happens, it makes no difference if the ultra-Orthodox come here and try to stop it.” Organizers called off an international gay festival set for late summer because of Israel’s planned pullout from the Gaza Strip and part of the West Bank around the same time. But they decided to go ahead with the annual local march, despite opposition from Orthodox Jews, who have a strong presence in the city. (photo above courtesy of the same article)
The way words like “terrorism” are used by politicians and the media are utterly corrupted by the political spin placed on them by dominant groups. Brian Whitaker of the Guardian detailed the problem a few years ago after the US State Department released one of its meaningless Terror Reports, in May, 2001:
Denying that states can commit terrorism is generally useful, because it gets the US and its allies off the hook in a variety of situations. The disadvantage is that it might also get hostile states off the hook – which is why there has to be a list of states that are said to “sponsor” terrorism while not actually committing it themselves.
Interestingly, the American definition of terrorism is a reversal of the word’s original meaning, given in the Oxford English Dictionary as “government by intimidation”. Today it usually refers to intimidation of governments.
The first recorded use of “terrorism” and “terrorist” was in 1795, relating to the Reign of Terror instituted by the French government. Of course, the Jacobins, who led the government at the time, were also revolutionaries and gradually “terrorism” came to be applied to violent revolutionary activity in general. But the use of “terrorist” in an anti-government sense is not recorded until 1866 (referring to Ireland) and 1883 (referring to Russia).
Plainly, the word has become all-but meaningless due to its corruption over the years. How DO we define terrorism? Why is a truck bomb targeting off-duty American Soldiers terrorism, but carpet-bombing civilian areas not? Why is the murder of Theo van Gogh considered terrorism by many, but the attack on the gay marchers above, a violent attack plainly intended to intimidate a targeted group of civilians for political effect, not?
What do YOU think?