Terrorism is a Political Term

'States like these, and their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil...'

President G. W. Bush, 29th January 2002 State of the Union Address

Abstract:

As can be seen from the above quote, ‘terrorism’ is a political, derogatory term with no real, inherently meaningful definition and, with the war being waged against it in its tenth year, one that has divided the world. One reason for the division stems not from the nature of its ambiguity or any fundamental change in its manifestation, but in the West’s difficulty in conceptualizing the motivations behind its many faces. ‘Terrorism’ does not define the motives behind an act of terror. It characterizes them, and this is what has led to its increasing use as a political term, particularly since 9/11. The reasons go beyond mere semantics however and, in the context of the Global War on Terror, have fueled not just the conflict but the surge in recruitment and sympathy that has taken place for terrorist causes across the world. It needs to be recognized that the use of terrorism as a political term has actually had more of a negative impact on the world than any terrorist attack to date.

Introduction:

Since the coinage of the term ‘terrorism’, its characteristics have always been synonymous with organized violence and a political end-goal. Until recently, however, its employment had been more of a vernacular convenience than a political expression. Over the last decade though, the social impact of terrorism has been out of all proportion to anything hitherto seen and this has led to its increasing application in advancing not just political objectives but political strategies. Indeed, since the 2001 attacks on New York, it has evolved from what was essentially a relatively subjective epithet (with no intrinsic meaning), to a highly charged, political synonym, for the enemy ; a synonym that has put paid to any rational negotiation and one that has effectively been employed to both legitimize acts of terror and terrorize acts of legitimacy. The first section of this essay explores the definitive nature of terrorism and discusses why, despite the fact that terrorism itself has undergone no fundamental changes, this has happened in the West. Section two looks at the phenomenon of the term’s politicization, including the culturally ascribed characteristics associated with terrorism in the aftermath of 9/11 (namely that it is an Islamic singularity with which the West is at war) and argues that the increased politicization of the term has occurred by default as opposed to design. The consequences of this phenomenon in the years that followed the demise of the Soviet Union are then discussed in section three. Finally, in order to show the impact that this has had on the world, the fourth section addresses the politicization of the term’s affinity with the English language.

1. Politicizing a Cause – The Global War on Terrorism

Although the characteristics of terrorism are static, how they are perceived and applied is dynamic and the definition of its nature is therefore fluid and dependent on contemporary events. An example of this phenomenon is the heavy politicization of the term that took place after the attacks of September 11th 2001 and the subsequent misconception that ‘terrorism’ had actually undergone a series of fundamental changes, namely that it had manifested its ‘true self’ and declared ‘war’ on the United States. As the cause for the war intensified, so too did the concept of terrorism across the political spectrum. In fact, over the last decade, there has been such a shift in the definition of terrorism academically, that there are now over a hundred schools of thought on what it actually means. Some say that it has de-centralized and de-politicized, others that it has moved on from preaching violence (as a means to a political end) to the phenomenon of using violence as a tactical end in itself. Several concur that it has moved from the shadows to open-combat on the field and to have rooted its agendas in theology, as opposed to any known ideology. One concurrent theme, however, is that the drama of traditional terrorism has become but a dated irrelevance and superseded by a modern, 9/11 type of warfare. Unfortunately, the definitions vary to such an extent that, ironically, the further terrorism appears to re-invent itself, the more it is being perceived as a tangible threat and the more politicized the term and the response to its manifestation is actually becoming. What is certain though is that, politically, the application of the word today has become so discriminate that it bears little resemblance to the promiscuity that it courted merely a decade ago, and everything to do with a single axis of dissent that one is either party to or against. Unfortunately, the attempts to box the changing agendas of terrorism into a politically acceptable rhetoric have resulted in not just confusion, but wholesale changes in policy and, sadly, it is the conclusions drawn from these policy changes that is the tragedy and not the actual changes themselves. This is because, despite the rhetoric, terrorism has actually undergone no essential change in its nature or fundamental shift in its make-up. Furthermore, (despite examples of individual terrorists having operated on purely religious grounds or organizations with such popular support that their ideology often supersedes their politics) it remains rooted in responses to contemporary social problems as opposed to ideological or religious convictions that transcend politics. Another example is profiling, which suggests that terrorists remain as typically different from one another today as they were pre-9/11 and, more importantly (although the opposite is often perceived to be the case), that terrorism has continued to be a largely reactive phenomenon as opposed to a proactive one. What led to the perceived change was a combination of 9/11, the relative comfort of the last fifty years militarily and, perhaps more than anything, not the inability to define it but the ability to comprehend it in today’s secularized, politicized world. This is not to say however that terrorism should be trivialized, but that a more balanced approach to the actual threat be taken; that its politicalness be re-evaluated, that the propaganda be countered and its vernacular usage and tactical value reviewed. In short, the increasing politicization of the term as a consequence of the reaction to 9/11 has been out of all proportion to the actual threat posed by terrorism itself and is, if anything, an understatement.

2. The Phenomenon of Politicization

9/11, however, was far from the beginning of the politicization of the term. Terrorism’s journey as a political term by default began a decade earlier and can be traced with ease to the implosion of the Soviet Empire and the subsequent collapse of law and order that gave rise to the myriad of hitherto contained causes. The political differences in opinion as to what terrorism actually defined in the context of post Cold-War conflicts had suddenly become the debate in the West as these causes began to bubble over their borders. Indeed, from the early 90s on, an example of its use as a political term can be seen in the huge resources that were pooled into the identification of what the post-Soviet threat would be and how best to prepare for it. The approach that was taken was not only compounded, but justified by an historic decade of successfully publicized terrorist attacks and offensives against Western interests across the world, the growing perception of a united terrorist front and, more importantly, the failure by the West (as an alliance) to adhere to a single, all-encompassing policy with which to openly combat terrorism. The cliché of terrorism’s enigmatic nature had, simply put, facilitated its ability to thrive under the openness of Western democracies. What it took to put an end to this paradox and an end to the West’s reluctance to shelve its civil liberties and retaliate for the losses, was not the actual nature of the attack on September 11th 2001, but the scale. From this point on, terrorism’s value as a partisan term had become too costly and politically hazardous a notion to maintain, too synonymous with a defeatist agenda, seditious and politically subversive. Hence, terrorism did not become a political term through design post 9/11, but by default over a period of no less than twenty years. Indeed, all it took to tip the scales and declare a global war against it was the result of little other than an emotional, family-like response by a redundant alliance to a shared tragedy. In the eyes and language of the English speaking world, terrorism had finally manifested itself into a tangible and definitive enemy.

3. Terrorism’s Renaissance and the Consequences

The main irony of the politicization of the term has been the increasing success of terrorism. As a result of the rise in post-Soviet nationalism, the last decade’s intransigence toward the post Cold-War threats of the 90s, the end of the proxy wars and the peace and stability enjoyed since the demise of the empires, a precedent was set, not just what was to come in September 2001, but for the wholesale legitimization of terrorist causes across the political spectrum. An analogy would be the contrast of Cuba and its failure to successfully export terrorism at the height of the Cold-War, against what became known as the ‘Dark Decade’ in 1990s Algeria and the arrival of the Mujahedeen in Bosnia during the Clinton administration. Even in Ireland, it enabled a victory for the terrorists from ‘internment without trial’ in the 70s to the ‘cross-table talks’ of the 90s. That the success of terrorism went hand in hand with the growing politicization of the term was no coincidence. Its gradual endorsement through low-cost proxy wars across the globe and the sheer convenience of it compared to the massive economic implications involved in either the maintenance or deployment of standing armies had, to all intents and purposes, legitimized its status. At the same time, the radicalization of the growing young male populations across the Middle East and Africa, the 1990s revolution in technology, the networked dissemination of information and the revival of nationalism all coincided to boost its agenda beyond any real proportion and transform it from the obsolete, relatively insignificant ideals of the far away, broken societies from which it had come, into an international phenomenon. However, without the commonality of the Cold War, the subsequent attempts to demonize it resulted in little other than bringing to light the gulfs of entrenched differences between hitherto solid allies. Further failures were initiated by the writing off of the fundamental differences that terrorism has with legitimate uprisings (including, ironically, those between 1775 and 1783) and attempting to re-classify it through the dismissing of guerrilla groups such as FARC. This renaissance period for the terrorists, therefore, was the result not just of the world’s tolerance of it, but its politicization of it. In fact, the demonization and classification of terrorists has since undermined not just the West’s future positions in any mediatory roles or future peacekeeping capacity, but their hitherto, unquestioned, sense of righteousness.

4. The Impact

'... the present political chaos is connected with the decay of language, and that one can probably bring about some improvement by starting at the verbal end.'

George Orwell, 1950, Shooting an Elephant

Finally, whilst most societies with democratic histories view semantic changes with strong undertones, this is not so with the English speaking world. Indeed, their language is notorious for its susceptibility to change and this is exemplified by the hitherto unheard of speed with which the term terrorism was politicized. For an amelioration of vocabulary to occur in most societies, it is necessary for the majority of the populace to share a certain experience at first hand. Within barely days however, across the English speaking world, ‘terrorism’ went from a generalized term to a specified one - before settling as an all encompassing political term to denote any ‘enemy combatant’ in a new Global War On Terrorism (from the pirates off the coast of Aden, to the radicalized students of British university campuses). That it had, in fact, become so politically charged with theatrical connotations, rendered pejorative, highly subjective and, unavoidably, redundant as a definitive term to contextualize and interpret, was irrelevant. Terrorism had become as synonymous with ‘The Axis of Evil’ as ‘Thatcherism’ had with ‘Privatization’. The use of metaphors and euphemisms however, whilst effective from a political and social perspective, have a relatively short shelf-life in the vernacular and hence, whilst currently a highly politicized term, it is unlikely to remain so. The reason for this is that language is a living phenomenon and the metaphorical uses of its application in the war against terrorism can already be seen to have begun to blur, not just the nature of the term terrorism but the actual war being waged against it. Unfortunately, the semantics will take time to change and it is unlikely to happen before the terrorists succeed in forcing their way onto more negotiating tables and the West to take on the risks entailed in definitively addressing their existence and methods from a legal perspective. Unlike any other political term, terrorism has been classified beyond recognition and boxed and twisted to the degree that the West’s response is no longer to violence and intimidation, but to theatre and hysteria. Indeed by politicizing the term, in a sense, the West has en-fleshed its irrational fear of the ‘Bogeyman’ and there are three lessons to learn from this: the terrorists’, the victims’, and the general public’s. The first is a lesson in legitimacy, the second, a lesson in innocence and the third, a lesson in culpability and the antithetical nature of terrorism that has, unequivocally, led to this state of affairs.

Conclusion: Politicized beyond Recognition

To conclude, what determined its transformation into a politicized term was the end of its affiliation with the proxy wars of convenience, an about turn on the hand that fed it and the consequent surge in its nationalist affinities. This coincided and was compounded over the last two decades by the massive population explosion in the Middle East and the sheer scale of the 9/11 attacks. Furthermore, by declaring war against terrorism and politicizing the term beyond recognition, the West legitimized and breathed life into a hundred hitherto waning causes across the world. Moreover, by default, its politicization condemned the West to the role of being perceived as just another participant in a global power struggle and, whilst perhaps only a temporary phenomenon, the consequences have as yet to be fully realized. That the ‘dirty wars’ of the 1970s and 1980s were a stepping stone (if not a precedent) to the situation we are now facing is a possibility but, what is an absolute, is the impact that the politicization of the word has had on the language and that this has had on the world. Unfortunately though, and only now being put into perspective, is the damage that the politicization has caused, namely the consequence of it now framing, not just the public’s perception of what war is, but of how it should be waged.

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