Teaching the Article
Day 1: What Is Terrorism?
The word “terrorism” appears with disturbing regularity in today’s news, but most casual observers are hard-pressed to offer a consistent and clear definition of the term. Social scientists and policy makers are also uncertain. Most agree that terrorism is a form of violent communication aimed at a broad public audience. As the documents below suggest, however, the scope and significance of such acts remain subject to debate. Partly for this reason, many historians have avoided the label “terrorism” to describe acts of political violence, concerned that the term is overly politicized and possibly anachronistic. At the same time, various actors throughout American history have actively engaged the term and debated the meaning of political violence. The following exercises explore the problem of defining terrorism by examining social-scientific, historical, and policy-oriented approaches to the concept.
Exercise 1
Before discussing the primary sources, students should write their own one-sentence definition of terrorism and then read these definitions aloud. Consider points of commonality and points of difference among definitions.
Questions
- Can the class develop its own definition of terrorism?
Exercise 2
Consider the chart compiled by the terrorism expert Alex Schmid in the 1980s, based on a survey of leading terrorism researchers. Schmid’s findings reflect the numerous characteristics researchers used to define “terrorism” in their work. Note the variety of those categories along the left side of the chart.
Questions
- Do you agree, as most experts seem to in the first two classifications, that terrorism usually involves “violence,” “force,” and a “political” motivation?
- Which elements seem to attract the greatest consensus among experts? Which ones seem to spur contention?
- Do any of the categories surprise you?
- Does the list of characteristics match the categories that the class developed?
Sources
- Alex Schmid, Political Terrorism (New Brunswick, 1984), 76–77.
Exercise 3
Examine these recent official definitions of terrorism offered by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the State Department. Both organizations are actively engaged in countering terrorism in the United States and around the world, yet their definitions of what constitutes terrorism are somewhat different.
Questions
- On what points do they differ?
- What might explain this divergence?
Sources
- Federal Bureau of Investigation, “Definitions,” Terrorism, 2002–2005 (Washington, 2006), iv–v.
http://www.fbi.gov/stats-services/publications/terrorism-2002-2005. - U.S. Department of State, Patterns of Global Terrorism (Washington, 2002), 12.
Exercise 4
The anarchist movement of the late nineteenth century encompassed many political variations, including pacifists who abhorred all violence and state oppression. It also contained a small group of self-proclaimed terrorists who advocated assassination and bombing on behalf of the working class. Historians of terrorism often consider these men and women some of the first major theorists of modern terrorism. The German-born anarchist Johann Most, for instance, argued strenuously for workers to arm themselves and engage in targeted violence against their capitalist “masters.” This 1884 column comes from Most’s German-language newspaper Die Freiheit, published out of his offices in New York.
Questions
- Why, according to Most, is violence necessary?
- Which targets are acceptable?
- What does he hope to achieve through the use of violence?
- What are his moral and political justifications?
- How does he define terrorism?
Sources
- Johann Most, “Attack Is the Best Form of Defense,” Die Freiheit, Sept. 13, 1884.
Exercise 5
Three decades after Most’s column, his disciple Emma Goldman offered a different meditation on the use of terrorism and assassination, explaining rather than advocating its use.
Questions
- What is Goldman’s vision of American society?
- How does she explain the turn to violence by political assassins?
- What, according to Goldman, is the relationship between individual actors and the broader society, or between the United States and the rest of the world?
Sources
- Emma Goldman, “The Psychology of Political Violence,” 1912, in Anarchism and Other Essays (New York, 1917).