Terrorism (1): Criminals, heroes, freedom fighters.

What is terrorism anyway? Many terrorists would never claim to be terrorists. They see themselves as resistance or freedom fighters. And often enough, terrorism also comes from the state and targets the population. ADDENDUM has investigated whether terrorism can even be universally defined.

When people talk about terrorism, they usually have images of attacks in mind. Images of destroyed Christmas huts in Berlin last winter or images of the Kouachi brothers who killed twelve people in the attack on the "Charlie Hebdo" editorial office in Paris. Others, older ones, might think of the RAF, the kidnapped employer president Hanns Martin Schleyer, or the "Bloody Friday" in 1972 when 22 bombs exploded in Belfast. Is terror really something different for everyone?

Originally, "terror" stood for state repression with the aim of maintaining power. The word first appeared in 1798 in the so-called supplement to the "Dictionnaire de l'Académie Française" as "systeme, regime de la terreur". The background was the reign of terror of the Jacobins during the French Revolution (1793–1794). The English politician and political theorist Edmund Burke was on site in 1795 and reported: "Thousands of these hellhounds, called terrorists, who they had imprisoned as satellites of tyranny during their last revolution, have been set loose on the people." So, the terror back then came from the state and was directed against the people.

When asking "terrorism experts" for a definition of the term, you get a variety of answers. Brian Jenkins, a US security expert and consultant for the US think tank RAND Corporation, has a relatively simple explanation. He sees terrorists simply as "the bad guys," and terrorism is "like pornography" to him; according to the motto: "You know it when you see it." Jenkins means: Basically, everything that looks like a terrorist, sounds like a terrorist, and behaves like a terrorist must be a terrorist - a definition that is considered too general from the perspective of scientists.

But even research has difficulty defining exactly what falls under terror or terrorism. This is because the same person or group can be seen as highly criminal from one perspective, but as fighters for noble goals from another. Or, as the Marxist colloquial expression would say: The standpoint determines the standpoint. This was also evident in the South Tyrol crisis.

Terrorism vs. Freedom Fight

Was Luis Amplatz, one of the leaders of the "South Tyrolean Bumser," a terrorist? Or was he a dutiful South Tyrolean freedom fighter?

In the 1960s and 1970s, numerous attacks on state targets were carried out in South Tyrol. The low point was the night of June 11-12, 1961, known as the "Feuernacht," in which 37 power poles were blown up. An uninvolved road worker died, and a total of 20 people died in the intense phase of the South Tyrolean "freedom fight."

Feuernacht 1961 in South Tyrol: power poles are blown up.

The New York Times reported on September 10, 1964 about the events in South Tyrol: "Austrian authorities announced the arrest today of Georg Klotz, a 45-year-old South Tyrolean terrorist leader. His arrest followed a dramatic Alpine escape from the Italian Tyrol through a ring of Italian carabinieri and the mysterious killing of Luis Amplatz, a fellow terrorist."

Even in the eyes of the Italian population, the members of the "Liberation Committee South Tyrol (BAS)" were considered terrorists. Many South Tyroleans and also many Austrians, however, saw it differently. They rejected the bombing actions, but sympathized with the view that South Tyrol should belong to Austria.

One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter - especially when it comes to legitimizing one's own political actions.

US President Ronald Reagan spoke of the fight for freedom when he tried to justify US involvement in Nicaragua - covert military and financial support for the nationalist Contra guerrillas against the Marxist "Sandinistas." The true motivation for American actions was geostrategic: combating communist spheres of influence. The principle was: "The enemy of my enemy is my friend." Realpolitik even accepted terrorism financing. That was right up Henry Kissinger's alley.

Hated, loved: Yassir Arafat embodied the PLO.

(2004 deceased) PLO chief Yasser Arafat once attempted to legitimize acts of violence by Palestinians against the State of Israel before the UN General Assembly. He argued that a concrete, lofty political motive was enough to justify one's own actions.

Supporting "freedom fighters" was also the predominant intention of the US in the 1980s in Afghanistan. In an episode transmitted from that time, it was illustrated: US Congressman Charlie Wilson, typically Texan, rode through the Afghan-Pakistani border region with Afghan Mujahideen, aptly titled "tribal resistance forces," carrying weapons (including FM-92 Stingers).

Why terrorists don't want to be terrorists

Being called a terrorist is not an desirable goal for terrorists. Most label themselves - as mentioned - rather as resistance or freedom fighters and intentionally seek to distance themselves from terrorism.

This was not always the case. For the Russian anarchists in the 19th century, being branded a terrorist was a confirmation of their work. Even "Lechi," a splinter group of the Zionist terrorist organization Irgun, which became known as the Stern Gang, classified itself as terrorist.

The American historian Walter Laqueur also sees this as the dividing line between old and new terrorism. Present-day terrorists may practice terrorism, but refuse the "terrorism" label for themselves.

Osama bin Laden, for example, vehemently rejected the label "terrorist," as he clarified in an Al-Jazeera interview after the September 11 attacks.

A term of contention for defaming opponents

Not every alleged "terrorist" is actually part of a terrorist network. People who resist dictatorial tendencies are also often lumped into the "terrorists" category. The political term of contention is thus used to defame and demonize dissenters.

An example of this is the so-called "Anti-Terror Policy" of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. The broad interpretation of the terrorism concept in Turkish legislation leads to journalists and artists being accused en masse of aiding and abetting, or even participating in, terrorist activities. Similarly, Syria's President Bashar al-Assad, referred to the entire opposition as terrorists - at a time when demonstrations were peaceful. In both cases, the ultimate goal is the same: solely to discredit, discipline, and deny political opponents their right to participate in society. Often, this leads opposition forces to further radicalize, as was seen in the case of Syria.

Terrorism - a terminology dilemma for science

Not only are the protagonists disagreeing on what falls under the term "terrorism." To this day, there is no universally accepted definition in scientific literature. This dilemma has led some experts to question whether a comprehensive definition is even necessary. The historian Walter Laqueur already called on his colleagues to refrain from defining terrorism, as early as 1977, as it appeared in so many forms and the experienced observer would know when a terrorist act had occurred. Later, he stated that there is not just one terrorism, but many terrorism's. Based on a comparative study of all terrorist organizations post-World War II, Laqueur noted significant differences in motivation, scope, and organization of these groups. Eventually, he came up with a minimal definition:

"Terrorism has been defined in many ways, but with certainty it can only be called the use of violence by a group for political or religious purposes usually against a government, occasionally against other ethnic groups, classes, religions, or political movements."

While some terrorism experts have come to terms with the lack of a uniform definition early on or questioned the necessity of one, especially the Israeli terrorism expert Boaz Ganor, head of the Institute for Counter-Terrorism at IDC Herzliya, advocates for a clear definition - in order to develop an effective counter-strategy. For Ganor, it is motivation and operational capabilities that define terrorism.

To this day, there is now a plethora of different definitions of terrorism in terrorism research. In the late 1980s, the attempt was made for the first time to precisely define the term in an empirical survey. 109 different definitions of terrorism remained, and from there, the 22 most recurring features (83.5 percent violence, 65 percent political goals, 51 percent spreading of fear and terror) emerged.

The science has not found a way out of the terminology dilemma. And what about the legal level?

The Legal Questions of Terrorism

In a legal sense, there is no overarching convention for combating terrorism. Instead, there is a dense network of treaties on the various forms or accompanying phenomena of terrorism: from airplane hijackings to terrorism financing.

Can Terror be Justified?

Even the first resolution of the UN General Assembly in 1972 shows how differently terrorism was perceived in different countries around the world: on the one hand, the resolution speaks of the dangers of terror to innocents and the threat to basic rights. On the other hand, it mentions the reasons that lead people to sacrifice their lives for radical change: misery, frustration, grief, and despair. For a long time, terrorism was accompanied by attempts to justify it: from the fight against colonial masters to apartheid in South Africa to the Middle East conflict.

It was not until 1994 that the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution expressly rejecting any (political, philosophical, ideological, ethnic, religious, or other) justification for terrorist acts.

Not one, but many terrorism agreements

The international community has long been trying to create a general terrorism convention. As early as 1937, the League of Nations (the precursor to the United Nations) held a conference on international terrorism that also adopted a convention. However, it never came into effect.

Since 1996, more than 20 years now, a United Nations working group has been working on a comprehensive terrorism convention. As it stands, its definition would also include attacks on civilian objects (without human casualties). However, the process is stalled, especially due to the question of whether actions by "national liberation movements" (such as the Palestinian PLO) and state armies (once again concerning Israel and the accusation of state terrorism) should also be covered. Agreement still seems out of reach.

However, this does not mean that there are no treaty provisions; on the contrary. In recent decades, numerous agreements on the various forms of terrorism have been adopted. Most of them include the obligation to prosecute terrorism as a specifically defined crime and to punish or extradite the perpetrators. Based on the contents of these treaties, the evolution of (international) terrorism is also evident. Initially, agreements on airplane hijackings were adopted, followed by a convention on the protection of diplomats (1973), to hostage-taking (1979), to nuclear material (1980), to attacks on ships and airports (1988), to bombings (1997), to terrorism financing (1999), and to the threat of nuclear terrorism (2005).