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When is a murder just a murder? [Terrorism discussion]

Esper

Esper

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    This was brought up in the other thread about the Russian ambassador, but I think it could use its own thread.

    Terrorism is a word that we hear all the time, but if you're like me it's sort of lost its meaning because of how much it is used. My own view is that we use the term too often (feel free to show me I'm wrong) and for too many actions that we might otherwise call something else.

    What is your own definition and/or mental image of what terrorism is? How could we define terrorism as a word or idea that we can agree on? When is it appropriate to call something terrorism and when isn't it?
     
    Terrorism: "the use of violence and intimidation in the pursuit of political aims."

    Murder: "the unlawful premeditated killing of one human being by another."

    Terrorism (assuming a death) is always murder. Murder is not always terrorism.

    I would wager that terrorism is more likely to include mass killings, killings of important figures like politicians, or leaders of political movements. Terrorism is conventionally politically sourced or religious in nature.

    To be labeled "terrorism," the killing should be proven to contain political aims or be preformed by a religious individual/group with the intent to kill based on religious texts, religious motivations, or otherwise.
     
    I see terrorism as causing fear in a populace in order to further an ideology, the fear typically achieved with violence or an act designed to cause panic amongst the people they are targeting.

    Murder becomes terrorism when the act was designed to fulfill the above description - it is a conscious decision, the fear elicited from the populace has to be part of the goal. The ideology has to be the driving force behind the act.

    Let's take Dylann Roof as an example. His mass murder is considered terrorism in my eyes and not simply murder because his act was conceived with the express idea of a) furthering racist beliefs and b) causing fear and panic within the black community. People died because he wanted to propagate his beliefs, he decided that his ideals needed to be spread through the conscious act of violence.
     
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    I mostly agree with BadSheep and Adri.

    Murder is personal it's killing a person or people for reasons unique to yourself with no intention of really achieving any particular goal other than personal satisfaction.

    Terrorism is political or religious and is using violence to destabilize communities and spread fear in order to perpetuate your ideology.
     
    Okay, I'm seeing a common idea here. Terrorism is done under some kind of ideology directing people to cause harm and/or fear in another group. But let me posit some scenarios.

    An assassination of a political leader. Let's use JFK. Oswald has a political view antithetical to the one of the president and the US in general (having defected to the Soviet Union), but his assassination of JFK feels more like an act of war or whatever you'd like to call the fighting between countries. There's of course fear involved during wars (and cold wars) but it doesn't feel like the kind of fear we talk about when we talk about terrorism of the kind that happened on 9/11 or in Paris or that goes on daily in many parts of the Middle East.

    The second one I can't think of a specific example off the top of my head, but it's a scenario where some person who feels like they've been slighted by a group (class, race, etc.) and tries to get revenge on that group. "Going postal" or road rage or whatnot where someone targets no one in particular (it's not a personal thing against the victims so much as what they represent). The attacker doesn't necessarily have any political group or ideology that they're following so much as a lot of anger. They also don't necessarily have any mental issues beyond what a normal person has. The result of something like, an attack like this, this might be widespread fear and panic and look a lot like a terrorist attack.
     
    Esper said:
    Okay, I'm seeing a common idea here. Terrorism is done under some kind of ideology directing people to cause harm and/or fear in another group. But let me posit some scenarios.

    An assassination of a political leader. Let's use JFK. Oswald has a political view antithetical to the one of the president and the US in general (having defected to the Soviet Union), but his assassination of JFK feels more like an act of war or whatever you'd like to call the fighting between countries. There's of course fear involved during wars (and cold wars) but it doesn't feel like the kind of fear we talk about when we talk about terrorism of the kind that happened on 9/11 or in Paris or that goes on daily in many parts of the Middle East.

    The second one I can't think of a specific example off the top of my head, but it's a scenario where some person who feels like they've been slighted by a group (class, race, etc.) and tries to get revenge on that group. "Going postal" or road rage or whatnot where someone targets no one in particular (it's not a personal thing against the victims so much as what they represent). The attacker doesn't necessarily have any political group or ideology that they're following so much as a lot of anger. They also don't necessarily have any mental issues beyond what a normal person has. The result of something like, an attack like this, this might be widespread fear and panic and look a lot like a terrorist attack.
    Click to expand...

    I really do not believe Oswald was alone or even the actual killer, but that's for another time. However, killing the head of a country is absolutely akin to terrorism as it destabilizes the entire nation.

    Of course, terrorism is simply a buzzword now here in Britain. We only really use it for brown people. When a white person does something akin to our definition of terrorism our media and state officials call them "lone wolfs" "deranged" or "loner". Occasionally they'll use the phrase "extremist". It's a word we've been using to create political boogeymen since the 60s/70s with the IRA and the penalization of the Irish by the same media who do it to Muslims today. Tomorrow's terrorists could be anyone, the word will remain even when our state selected enemies do not.
     
    Esper said:
    An assassination of a political leader. Let's use JFK. Oswald has a political view antithetical to the one of the president and the US in general (having defected to the Soviet Union), but his assassination of JFK feels more like an act of war or whatever you'd like to call the fighting between countries. There's of course fear involved during wars (and cold wars) but it doesn't feel like the kind of fear we talk about when we talk about terrorism of the kind that happened on 9/11 or in Paris or that goes on daily in many parts of the Middle East.
    Click to expand...

    I'd say assassinating a political leader could certainly be construed as a form of terrorism. It spreads fear among the populace and destabalises the nation and i certainly motivated by politics. That fits all the criteria I gave earlier, doesn't it?

    The second one I can't think of a specific example off the top of my head, but it's a scenario where some person who feels like they've been slighted by a group (class, race, etc.) and tries to get revenge on that group. "Going postal" or road rage or whatnot where someone targets no one in particular (it's not a personal thing against the victims so much as what they represent). The attacker doesn't necessarily have any political group or ideology that they're following so much as a lot of anger. They also don't necessarily have any mental issues beyond what a normal person has. The result of something like, an attack like this, this might be widespread fear and panic and look a lot like a terrorist attack.
    Click to expand...

    This is an act of personal vengeance so I wouldn't call it terrorism in most cases.
     
    Murder is the act of taking one's own life due to a lot of hatred building up on the inside of you. Even religous beliefs *ISIS* can play a role in the hate/fear cycle.
     
    gimmepie said:
    If this is the case though, what is it changing to become?
    Click to expand...
    To what it is now is what I meant.

    When you look at the word itself, terrorism simply just means "acts designed to create fear". That's probably all the word meant originally. Nowadays it's evolved into something a little different, and more specific, which is what's been said already in this thread: "politically/religiously/socially motivated death and destruction". While these sorts of things can cause fear, it's not necessarily always the primary aim for the act.

    It sort of doesn't seem right in a way though to use it like that, as the base word, terror, has a pretty set/inflexible definition, and so using it to mean anything else at all can seem like using the word improperly. But like I said, word meaning can change, and so the more important thing is that everyone understands what the word means now.

    The bigger problem is probably more like what Hands has been saying, that it's not always used in situations it should be and is used more to demonize groups/countries/people that the group/country/people using the word don't like--that's where the real improper usage is. Two countries assassinate the leader of the other country. Under the current definition, both assassinations would be considered terrorism. But is either country going to call their assassination operation terrorism? Of course not. Not when the word has always had such negative connotations.

    or something like that
     
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