To begin any history of terrorism (however brief) without first defining what the term means might appear to be putting the cart before the horse. Despite this, no such definition shall be proffered here. Partly, this is for reasons of brevity, but mainly because any effort to first define terrorism would mean restricting any ensuing narrative to this definition. As such, this is not so much a brief history of terrorism as much as a brief history of examples of that which has been (or arguably could be) generally accepted to constitute terrorism. Not everyone will agree that all these examples do so, and there are other instances that could be so construed that are not mentioned at all.
One point is less debatable: terrorism is not new. Indeed, in some respects, that what is today known as terrorism predates by millennia the modern term used to describe it. This is not to say that the act of terrorism has remained static. Rather, as the difficulties involved in defining it reflect, terrorism has evolved considerably over the years, even if retaining some of the same characteristics that have historically typified it.
While it is impossible to definitively ascertain when it was first used, that which we today call terrorism traces its roots back at least some 2,000 years. Moreover, today's terrorism has, in some respects come full circle, with many of its contemporary practitioners motivated by religious convictions – something which drove many of their earliest predecessors. It has also, in the generally accepted usage of the word, often possessed a political dimension. This has colored much of the discourse surrounding terrorism ‑ a phenomenon which is, according to Paul R. Pillar, 'a challenge to be managed, not solved.'[ii]
Religious Roots[iii]
Among the earliest such examples were the Sicari and the Zealots, Jewish groups active during the Roman occupation of the first century Middle East. The favored weapon of the Sicari was the sica (the short dagger which gave them their name, which literally means 'dagger men'), which they used these to murder those (mainly Jews) they deemed apostate and thus selected for execution. The Zealots, who generally targeted Romans and Greeks, give us the modern term Zealot, one translation of which is "a fanatical partisan."[iv] Such killings usually took place in daylight and in front of witnesses, with the perpetrators using such acts to send a message to the Roman authorities and those Jews who collaborated with them – a tactic that would also be used by subsequent generations of what would become known as terrorists.
Adherents of other religions also resorted to methods which might today be termed terrorism, such as the Assassins – an 11th century offshoot of a Shia Muslim sect known as the Ismailis. Like the Zealots-Sicari, the Assassins were also given to stabbing their victims (generally politicians or clerics who refused to adopt the purified version of Islam they were forcibly spreading) in broad daylight.[v] The Assassins ‑ whose name gave us the modern term but literally meant 'hashish-eater' ‑ a reference to the ritualistic drug-taking they were (perhaps falsely) rumored to indulge in prior to undertaking missions – also used their actions to send a message.[vi] Often, the Assassins' deeds were carried out at religious sites on holy days – a tactic intended to publicize their cause and incite others to it. Like many religiously inspired terrorists today, they also viewed their deaths on such operations as sacrificial and a guarantor that they would enter paradise.
Sacrifice was also a central element of the killings carried out by the Thugees (who bequeathed us the word 'thug') – an Indian religious cult who ritually strangled their victims (usually travelers chosen at random) as an offering to the Hindu goddess of terror and destruction, Kali. In this case, the intent was to terrify the victim (a vital consideration in the Thugee ritual) rather than influence any external audience.
Active from the seventh until the mid-19th centuries, the Thugees are reputed to be responsible for as many as 1 million murders. They were perhaps the last example of religiously-inspired terrorism until the phenomenon reemerged a little over 20 years ago. As David Rapport puts it: "Before the 19th century, religion provided the only acceptable justifications for terror."[vii] More secularized motivations for such actions did not emerge until the French Revolution, as did the first usage of the term now used to describe them.
Nationalists and Anarchists
The English word 'terrorism' comes from the regime de la terreur that prevailed in France from 1793-1794. Originally an instrument of the state, the regime was designed to consolidate the power of the newly-installed revolutionary government, protecting it from elements considered 'subversive.' Always value-laden, terrorism was, initially, a positive term. The French revolutionary leader, Maximilien Robespierre, viewed it as vital if the new French Republic was to survive its infancy, proclaiming in 1794 that: "Terror is nothing other than justice, prompt, severe, inflexible; it is therefore an emanation of virtue; it is not so much a special principle as it is a consequence of the general principle of democracy applied to our country's most urgent needs."[viii]
Under such justification, some 40,000 people were executed by guillotine ‑ a fate Robespierre and his top lieutenants would themselves suffer when later that same year, his announcement of a new list of subversives led to a counter-inquisition by some in the Revolutionary government who feared their names might be on the latest roll of 'traitors.' Before long, the Revolution devoured itself in an orgy of paranoiac bloodletting. Meanwhile, terrorism itself began taking on the negative connotations it carries today (terrorists do not generally tend to describe themselves thus), helped initially by the writings of those like the British political philosopher Edmund Burke, who popularized the term 'terrorism' in English while demonizing its French revolutionary practitioners.
The newly defined notions of nationalism and citizenship, which both caused and were a result of the French Revolution, also saw the emergence of a new predominantly secular terrorism. The appearance of political ideologies such as Marxism also created a fertile sense of unrest at the existing order, with terrorism offering a means for change. The Italian revolutionary Carlo Pisacane's theory of the 'propaganda of the deed' – which recognized the utility of terrorism to deliver a message to an audience other than the target and draw attention and support to a cause – typified this new form of terrorism.[ix]
Pisacane's thesis – which was not in itself new and would probably have been recognizable to the Zealots-Sicari and the Assassins ‑ was first put into practice by the Narodnaya Volya (NV). A Russian Populist group (whose name translates as the People's Will) formed in 1878 to oppose the Tsarist regime. The group's most famous deed, the assassination of Alexander II on March 1, 1881, also effectively sealed their fate by incurring the full wrath of the Tsarist regime. Unlike most other terrorist groups, the NV went to great lengths to avoid 'innocent' deaths, carefully choosing their targets – usually state officials who symbolized the regime – and often compromising operations rather than causing what would today be termed 'collateral damage.'
The NV's actions inspired radicals elsewhere. Anarchist terrorist groups were particularly enamored of the example set by the Russian Populists (although not, it must be noted, their keenness to avoid casualties among bystanders). Nationalist groups such as those in Ireland and the Balkans adopted terrorism as a means towards their desired ends. As the 19th century gave way to the 20th, terrorists attacks were carried out as far a field as India, Japan, and the Ottoman empire, with two U.S. presidents and a succession of other world leaders victims of assassination by various anarchists and other malcontents ‑ often affiliated to groups but operating without their explicit knowledge or support.[x]
As with Europe, terrorism arrived on America's shores before the 20th century. Not only were Anarchists active in America throughout the 1880s, but the country's recent Civil War had seen acts deserving of the name committed on both sides as well as the formation of the Ku Klux Klan to fight the Reconstruction effort which followed.[xi]
Terrorism and the State
Long before the outbreak of Word War I in Europe in 1914, what would later be termed state-sponsored terrorism had already started to manifest itself. For instance, many officials in the Serbian government and military were involved (albeit unofficially) in supporting, training and arming the various Balkan groups which were active prior to the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand on June 28, 1914 in Sarajevo – an act carried out by an activist from one such group, the 'Young Bosnians' and credited with setting in progress the chain of events which led to the war itself.[xii] Similarly, the IMRO (Macedonian Revolutionary Organization) survived largely "because [as Walter Laqueur reminds us] it became for all intents and purposes a tool of the Bulgarian government, and was used mainly against Yugoslavia and well as against domestic enemies." As such examples illustrate, state-sponsored terrorism is not a new phenomenon.
One point is less debatable: terrorism is not new. Indeed, in some respects, that what is today known as terrorism predates by millennia the modern term used to describe it. This is not to say that the act of terrorism has remained static. Rather, as the difficulties involved in defining it reflect, terrorism has evolved considerably over the years, even if retaining some of the same characteristics that have historically typified it.
While it is impossible to definitively ascertain when it was first used, that which we today call terrorism traces its roots back at least some 2,000 years. Moreover, today's terrorism has, in some respects come full circle, with many of its contemporary practitioners motivated by religious convictions – something which drove many of their earliest predecessors. It has also, in the generally accepted usage of the word, often possessed a political dimension. This has colored much of the discourse surrounding terrorism ‑ a phenomenon which is, according to Paul R. Pillar, 'a challenge to be managed, not solved.'[ii]
Religious Roots[iii]
Among the earliest such examples were the Sicari and the Zealots, Jewish groups active during the Roman occupation of the first century Middle East. The favored weapon of the Sicari was the sica (the short dagger which gave them their name, which literally means 'dagger men'), which they used these to murder those (mainly Jews) they deemed apostate and thus selected for execution. The Zealots, who generally targeted Romans and Greeks, give us the modern term Zealot, one translation of which is "a fanatical partisan."[iv] Such killings usually took place in daylight and in front of witnesses, with the perpetrators using such acts to send a message to the Roman authorities and those Jews who collaborated with them – a tactic that would also be used by subsequent generations of what would become known as terrorists.
Adherents of other religions also resorted to methods which might today be termed terrorism, such as the Assassins – an 11th century offshoot of a Shia Muslim sect known as the Ismailis. Like the Zealots-Sicari, the Assassins were also given to stabbing their victims (generally politicians or clerics who refused to adopt the purified version of Islam they were forcibly spreading) in broad daylight.[v] The Assassins ‑ whose name gave us the modern term but literally meant 'hashish-eater' ‑ a reference to the ritualistic drug-taking they were (perhaps falsely) rumored to indulge in prior to undertaking missions – also used their actions to send a message.[vi] Often, the Assassins' deeds were carried out at religious sites on holy days – a tactic intended to publicize their cause and incite others to it. Like many religiously inspired terrorists today, they also viewed their deaths on such operations as sacrificial and a guarantor that they would enter paradise.
Sacrifice was also a central element of the killings carried out by the Thugees (who bequeathed us the word 'thug') – an Indian religious cult who ritually strangled their victims (usually travelers chosen at random) as an offering to the Hindu goddess of terror and destruction, Kali. In this case, the intent was to terrify the victim (a vital consideration in the Thugee ritual) rather than influence any external audience.
Active from the seventh until the mid-19th centuries, the Thugees are reputed to be responsible for as many as 1 million murders. They were perhaps the last example of religiously-inspired terrorism until the phenomenon reemerged a little over 20 years ago. As David Rapport puts it: "Before the 19th century, religion provided the only acceptable justifications for terror."[vii] More secularized motivations for such actions did not emerge until the French Revolution, as did the first usage of the term now used to describe them.
Nationalists and Anarchists
The English word 'terrorism' comes from the regime de la terreur that prevailed in France from 1793-1794. Originally an instrument of the state, the regime was designed to consolidate the power of the newly-installed revolutionary government, protecting it from elements considered 'subversive.' Always value-laden, terrorism was, initially, a positive term. The French revolutionary leader, Maximilien Robespierre, viewed it as vital if the new French Republic was to survive its infancy, proclaiming in 1794 that: "Terror is nothing other than justice, prompt, severe, inflexible; it is therefore an emanation of virtue; it is not so much a special principle as it is a consequence of the general principle of democracy applied to our country's most urgent needs."[viii]
Under such justification, some 40,000 people were executed by guillotine ‑ a fate Robespierre and his top lieutenants would themselves suffer when later that same year, his announcement of a new list of subversives led to a counter-inquisition by some in the Revolutionary government who feared their names might be on the latest roll of 'traitors.' Before long, the Revolution devoured itself in an orgy of paranoiac bloodletting. Meanwhile, terrorism itself began taking on the negative connotations it carries today (terrorists do not generally tend to describe themselves thus), helped initially by the writings of those like the British political philosopher Edmund Burke, who popularized the term 'terrorism' in English while demonizing its French revolutionary practitioners.
The newly defined notions of nationalism and citizenship, which both caused and were a result of the French Revolution, also saw the emergence of a new predominantly secular terrorism. The appearance of political ideologies such as Marxism also created a fertile sense of unrest at the existing order, with terrorism offering a means for change. The Italian revolutionary Carlo Pisacane's theory of the 'propaganda of the deed' – which recognized the utility of terrorism to deliver a message to an audience other than the target and draw attention and support to a cause – typified this new form of terrorism.[ix]
Pisacane's thesis – which was not in itself new and would probably have been recognizable to the Zealots-Sicari and the Assassins ‑ was first put into practice by the Narodnaya Volya (NV). A Russian Populist group (whose name translates as the People's Will) formed in 1878 to oppose the Tsarist regime. The group's most famous deed, the assassination of Alexander II on March 1, 1881, also effectively sealed their fate by incurring the full wrath of the Tsarist regime. Unlike most other terrorist groups, the NV went to great lengths to avoid 'innocent' deaths, carefully choosing their targets – usually state officials who symbolized the regime – and often compromising operations rather than causing what would today be termed 'collateral damage.'
The NV's actions inspired radicals elsewhere. Anarchist terrorist groups were particularly enamored of the example set by the Russian Populists (although not, it must be noted, their keenness to avoid casualties among bystanders). Nationalist groups such as those in Ireland and the Balkans adopted terrorism as a means towards their desired ends. As the 19th century gave way to the 20th, terrorists attacks were carried out as far a field as India, Japan, and the Ottoman empire, with two U.S. presidents and a succession of other world leaders victims of assassination by various anarchists and other malcontents ‑ often affiliated to groups but operating without their explicit knowledge or support.[x]
As with Europe, terrorism arrived on America's shores before the 20th century. Not only were Anarchists active in America throughout the 1880s, but the country's recent Civil War had seen acts deserving of the name committed on both sides as well as the formation of the Ku Klux Klan to fight the Reconstruction effort which followed.[xi]
Terrorism and the State
Long before the outbreak of Word War I in Europe in 1914, what would later be termed state-sponsored terrorism had already started to manifest itself. For instance, many officials in the Serbian government and military were involved (albeit unofficially) in supporting, training and arming the various Balkan groups which were active prior to the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand on June 28, 1914 in Sarajevo – an act carried out by an activist from one such group, the 'Young Bosnians' and credited with setting in progress the chain of events which led to the war itself.[xii] Similarly, the IMRO (Macedonian Revolutionary Organization) survived largely "because [as Walter Laqueur reminds us] it became for all intents and purposes a tool of the Bulgarian government, and was used mainly against Yugoslavia and well as against domestic enemies." As such examples illustrate, state-sponsored terrorism is not a new phenomenon.
