Terrorism As A Politically Motivated Violence

Understanding Terrorism and Violence

Discuss about the Terrorism as a Politically motivated Violence.

The essay contains the aspects of terrorism and the violence. The terrorism includes both factors that are terror as well as violence. The aim of the essay is to analyze the ways different aspects that are related to terrorism. The essay includes the reason of the influence of politics in terrorism. The political scenario is undergoing a massive change in the present day and this is the reason it is important to study the changes made in the politics. It has undoubtedly played a heavy role on the violence that has been remained an influencing factor for the violence that is created in the present world. Terrorism is the outcome of unaware hatred towards the person who is the victim of the hatred. The reason of terrorism is ultimate hatred and in maximum times it is because of the desire of the attainment of the political powers. The use of force in an illegal manner or the execution of force against the individuals or any kinds of property in order to intimidate a government in furtherance of the political objectives is the actual reason of terrorism (Reid Meloy and Yakeley 2014).

According to Schuurman and Horgan (2016), Terrorism is the use of the intentional indiscriminate violence as a means of creating terror or fear in order to achieve certain goal which is political in many cases. The terms like `Terror` and `Terrorism` originated during the French Revolution during the late 18^th century. In the last years there has been no specific definition of terrorism. This is roughly defined as an activity that is morally wrong. Terrorism is sometimes defined by many people as a religion. It is believed by many people that terrorism is spread by those people who believe in a particular religion. This is a wrong concept that is believed by many people. Terrorism itself is a wrong belief. Terrorism is practiced by those people who belief in violence. The terrorists who created by the terrorists and they believe in spreading violence. The creation of the violence is sometimes the politically motivated. In most of the times it is politically motivated. In maximum times it has been noticed that the political attack is the result of certain political issues. It is the attainment of the powers related to the rule of the government in any region. In many cases it has been observed that the terrorist acts has been occurred due to the desire of conquering an entire region. According to a renowned political philosopher Michael Walzer, terrorism has been described as the purposeful assassination of the innocent people randomly in order to spread serious threat across the entire population. It included forcing alliances with the political leaders. Many critics argued that terrorism is an act that intends to cause death and it ends up in serious bodily harm to civilians. The concept has lead to controversial definitions and meanings (Sidanius et al. 2016). The term has political and emotional aspects related to it. Though it has been sometimes argued that terrorist and criminals are the same concept. This has been refuted by many critics. Terrorism is thought to be ineluctably political in arms and motives. It is usually violent and it includes threatening. It includes the far-reaching psychological repercussions which are beyond the interest of the victim. It has been found that it is conducted by many organizations with an identifiable chain of the authoritative command. It is sometimes the result of the conspiration. The terrorist’s attacks are the outcome of the conspiracy of the conspirators (Pauwels and Schils 2016.).

Terrorism as a Political Violence

However there are varied views of the concept of terrorism. The above discussions are some aspects of terrorism but there are other concept as well that explores the idea of terrorism. It is different angles. It has various viewpoints in different regions. The concept of terrorism is viewed as political violence by many critics. Terrorism has certain purpose. The major intention of terrorism is to enslave the medium in order to achieve maximum attainable publicity which is a powerful in order to justify their action and convince the audiences. The major reason of spreading the terrorism is to affect larger number of people. The main objective of terrorism is to affect the political purpose. The picture of political influence comes into the scenario when the terrorism is related to religion. It has found that in case of certain official governmental definitions of terrorism uses the criteria of illegitimate and unlawful act. It has been mentioned by the U.S president Barack Obama, commented that the bomb blasts which are the activity of a terrorist attack intends to drop bombs in the place where the innocent civilians are targeted. The bombs are used to target the innocent people. This is where the concept of international terrorism creeps in. It implies the violent acts and dangerous acts. It appeared to be intends towards the coercion of the civilian population. The actions include the influence of any particular government by the destruction of the mass which includes the assassination of the innocent people and sometimes kidnapping of the mass people which is put into action by hijacking a plane and similar actions. The act of terrorism occurs usually outside the territorial jurisdiction of any region (Pauwels and De Waele 2014).

The above views are critical and they are judged from the point of view of the normal individuals. On the contrary the terrorists have different view point and their actions are justified according to them. The terrorist argue that they express their wants through the terrorist acts. The terrorist does not think their want is unjustified. There are specific reasons for which the terrorists claim that their actions are the outcome of the unjust they received. The government is seen in many cases to join hands with the terrorists secretly applying the policy of give and take (Valentino 2014). The claims of the terrorists are in maximum times motivated by the political aspects. The political terrorism includes the harsh and violent criminal acts that includes primarily of generating the fear in the community for certain political purpose. The apolitical terrorism implies, it is not aimed at the political purpose rather it certainly exhibits the intended structure to continue to a huge degree of fear for the forceful purposes. In spite of that in the end there is the gain and interest of every individual or collective profit rather than the achievement of the political purpose (Nacos 2016).

The Influence of Politics on Terrorism

There have been many instances of such terrorist attacks where the influence of the politics has been huge. Politics had remained a great reason for many terrorist attacks. The best example of this was the September 11^th Attacks on the United States in the year 2001. This resulted in the destruction of the World Trade Centre in the city of New York. In such cases terrorism was used to achieve the political goals. This was executed by the use of terror and violence. The target of the terrorist in this case was the government officials, the identified group of individuals and specific groups and some innocent bystanders. In most cases it has been identified that terrorists aims at seeking and overthrowing an established and existing political regime. This view can be contracted as well as in many cases it has been found that the dictatorial governments sometimes use the method of terror in order to maintain their own power (Nacos 2016).

According to Pain (2014), there has been another instance like the Oklahoma City Bombing incident. He argued that poverty played a major role in the spread of terrorism. In the year 1997, the murder and the trial of Trimothy J.Mc. Veigh were found ended in the death sentence. In the incident the 29-year-old former Army sergeant was found guilty of dropping bomb at the Federal building in Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995. The incident took away the lives of 168 people. It has been documented as the worst terrorist act that ever happened in the soil of US. The attack of September 11, 2011 is the most severe act that has been recorded in the past years. This was definitely not the first terrorist attack that occurred in US. Despite this fact it was one of the most disastrous events that were witnessed by the United States. The attack took place in the World Trade Centre. The dropping of the bomb left a deep crater of 200 by 1000 feet wide and five stories deep. The attacks included the damage of the government facilities. This is basically termed as the domestic terrorism. There was political motif behind this (Mills, Freilich and Chermak 2017). The motif includes the damage of the government in order to get their rights and fulfill their demands. The attack of September 11 the attacks have been found to be the continuation process of a series of events of the deadly terrorist activities that had occurred in many places. It was considered as an effective medium of the political groups in many continents like Asia, Middle East and Europe. The international terrorism gradually experienced a growth which included the act of kidnapping, Hijack of many airplanes, bombing of the airplanes and the attacks with the arms on the facilities of public by the government. The main leader and the responsible person behind the attack was Bin Laden and he revealed a religious edict that was known as fatwah and he therefore called for the attacks on the troops of U.S and the U.S civilians. The U.S government has shown certain response to the international terrorist organizations and the nations that had lend their support to the terrorist act (Martin 2017). The other countries supported them by lending them the military support and the government supported them entirely. Even during the attacks and revolutions during the French and the industrial revolution the government of certain countries did lend support to the other countries. This was the reason terrorism gained motivation from the political affairs. The political system was in many cases corrupt and they were the real reason behind the spread of the terrorism (Marsden 2017).

The Different Reason for Terrorism

In the case of the use of the right of power of the resistance and the political offence in case of the purpose of the clarification of the moral, political justification over certain violent acts, terrorism is usually defined with the contradictory effect, known as the mark of disgrace through any process which can provide any kind of clarification for a certain violent denial of act (Lupu and Peisakhin 2017). It is in favor of appearance that while terrorism is defined by the requirement of the concurrent existence of few factors that includes in it any reservation that is related to the right of the resistance or the crimes that are political in nature. The legitimizing functions are inclusive of the notions that would in any situation not extend the ability to the violent acts that meet all the circumstances (Juergensmeyer 2017).  

The effects of the terrorism had a social and a political impact. The political impact of terrorism included the political effect of the same. The social pattern and the social order, the governance power of the society and the politics of a region completely rely on good communication. The act of terrorism has a dramatic influence in the entire world. It was evident in the attacks of the September, 11 attack of the year 2001 (Jongman 2017). The concept of terrorism is predicted to cause harm to the communication and the responsive behavior to the issues as well as to have the consequences for the society and the politics (Jasko, LaFree and Kruglanski 2017). The reason for stating terrorism as a universal act is it can be performed in any region and in any country. The command of the leaders and the control of the terrorist groups, the recruitment, the training, and the active operations and the target victims can be located in many other different countries. The political and the governmental organization need to define and justify the ways definition of terrorism (Spalek 2016). It is used for the reason of public relation or spin in order to influence their elective to proof the fact that they are taking effective initiative to counter terrorism and gain acceptance of laws or measures which are harder to accept for any other purpose. President Bush categorized terrorists as a conventional military enemy and it legitimizes the conventional military action rather than the measures of the counter-terrorist which is able to interpret by the US electorate as being extremely soft. The administration of Obama has shifted from the military to counter-terrorism and since then has actually been accused of being extremely soft (Heger 2015).

Terrorism and Politics – The Close Relationship

The most important political effect is the opportunity that the government has while introducing the laws that are harsher than it is usually the case. The laws are usually intended towards the act of terrorism instead of that it frequently acts as sufficient extensive or intrusive in order to increase the government power in general. The aim of the terrorist act is to provoke the inappropriate reaction of the governments. However it is important that the politicians come up with the truthful definitions and meanings of terrorism (Freilich and LaFree 2015.). It would help the public to receive education and reassurance in order to preserve their civil rights. It can sometimes be seen that the government and the politicians define the act of terrorism as the act of repression, victimization, as the act of demonizing their opponents, civilians and the act of act of repression of their political bodies and religions. The authoritarian states witnesses this much than the democratic ones. The term has been misused by many politicians and many governmental organizations. The misuse of the meaning and definition of the terrorism sometimes have far reaching after effects of social and political aspects. The person who is found guilty of the same is found to be guilt of performing terrorism is found to lose all civil rights (Ferguson, Burgess and Hollywood 2015.).

It has been argued by Eager (2016), that the terrorists has different concept of the activity of terrorism. Their views are different from those of the view of the society. They believe that they are freedom fighters, revolutionary figures and insurgents. The terrorists termed the act of terrorism as the good and the bad terrorism. Terrifying an innocent person is an injustice act. The act of unjustly terrorizing people is not an ethical thing. On the other hand terrorizing the oppressors and the criminals is of extreme importance for the safety and the security of the people and it includes the protection of their property. The terrorizing and the punishing process of the criminals are necessary steps to straighten the facts and to make them correct. After this there is a continuation of the process of social and political impacts. It is however a matter of fact that terrorism will remain to continue in order to define the acts of the terrorism to justify themselves. The act of terrorism will definitely exist; the major reason behind this is that there will always be individuals and groups that get the assurance and motivation from this type of self-justification (Cottam et al. 2015).

Examples of Terrorism Driven by Politics

Media has a large role to play in this. The acts of terrorism are brought out to the entire world through the coverage of the media. Media has a different concept for the concept of terrorism. For media it is the concept that would influence the audience to read the newspapers and the news articles. Media targets the audience to watch more news channels and to watch more television programs. The terrorism is used by them as a word to capture the attention of the audience. The audience receives the education of terrorism through media. Media therefore plays a major role in this. The wrong interpretation of the term could end up in delivering wrong meaning of the term (Combs 2015). The term should be used and interpreted by the media rightfully. More than the term the events needs to be portrayed in an authentic manner. In many cases it has been seen that the terrorist’s events has been portrayed in a wrongful manner. In many cases it has been seen that the telecast of the events has been done in an exaggerated manner. This gave a wrong message to the audience. This gave a wrong message to the audience. However there is a wrong concept of national crime and terrorist attacks. The national crime includes the crime committed by any individual but for his own purpose and it does not have any international appeal. It does not have any political influence. The act of terrorism includes the suffering of the innocent people and that which has a universal appeal. It has political goals (Antonello 2017).

Therefore, while concluding this can be mentioned that the terrorism is a crime that can be termed as a crime under international law. Terrorism is basically a psychological act that can be communicated through the violence and sometimes there has been a threat to violence. There have been a lot of motivations of terrorism which includes separatism, ethnocentrisms, revolution and nationalism. The ideological categories have been created by the political, religious and the social purpose. The ideologies are basically framed by the political purpose. The indigenous terrorists are grown in the home country itself. They are naturalized citizen of the nation. In such cases the political background plays a major role in motivating the terrorists. The international terrorists include the group of individuals that can be visualized as operating primarily between two nations and in other geographic regions. The terrorism is becoming violent than before and even in the present ages. The international group of terrorists operates in multiple places. Terrorism has remained a politically as well as a socially motivated activity. It can be stopped only by imparting proper education to the individuals and to make efforts to eradicate poverty which serves as a major factor of terrorism. Terrorism leads to the destruction of not only a place but an entire community. It is the ultimate spread of extreme violence. The political factors add as a fuel to the fire in this case.

Conclusion

References

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