Terror (politics)
Terror(fromFrenchterreur,fromLatinterror"great fear",terrere"to frighten"[1][2]) is a policy ofpolitical repressionandviolenceintended to subdue political opposition. The term first appears in theReign of Terror,arevolutionary violenceduring theFrench Revolution,[2][3]which also gave rise to the termterrorism.[4]
Before the late twentieth century,the term "terrorism" in the English languagewas often used interchangeably with "terror". The term "terrorism" frequently refers to acts by groups with a limited political base or parties on the weaker side inasymmetric warfare,while "terror" refers to acts by governments.
Terror and terrorism
[edit]Charles Tilly defines "terror" as a political strategy defined as "asymmetrical deployment of threats and violence against enemies using means that fall outside the forms of political struggle routinely operating within some current regime", and therefore ranges from "(1) intermittent actions by members of groups that are engaged in wider political struggles to (2) one segment in the modus operandi of durably organized specialists in coercion, including government-employed and government-backed specialists in coercion to (3) the dominant rationale for distinct, committed groups and networks of activists".[5]According to Tilly, the term "terror" spans a wide range of human cruelties, from Stalin's use of executions to clandestine attacks by groups like the Basque separatists and theIrish Republican Armyand even ethnic cleansing and genocide.[5]
State terrorism
[edit]State terrorism is a particular concept for a type of political terror that is charcterized as terror perpetrated by governments, complementing the general understanding of terrorism.
Revolutionary and counter-revolutionary terror
[edit]Revolutionary terror,also known as "Red Terror",was often used by revolutionary governments to suppresscounterrevolutionaries.The first example was theReign of Terrorduring theFrench Revolutionin 1794.[6]Other notable examples include theRed TerrorinSoviet Russiain 1918–1922, as well as simultaneous campaignsin the Hungarian Soviet Republicandin Finland.In China,Red Terrorin 1966 and 1967 started theCultural revolution.
Counter-revolutionary terror is usually referred to as "White Terror".Notable examples are the terror campaignsin France(1794–1795),in Russia(1917–20),in Hungary(1919–1921) andin Spain.Modern examples of counter-revolutionary terror includeOperation Condorin South America.
See also
[edit]References
[edit]- ^Harper, Douglas."terror".Online Etymology Dictionary.
- ^abWilliam Safire(23 September 2001)."The Way We Live Now: 9-23-01: On Language; Infamy".New York Times Magazine.Retrieved14 January2019.
Finally, the wordterrorist.It is rooted in the Latinterrere,"to frighten," and the-istwas coined in France to castigate the perpetrators of theReign of Terror.
- ^Geoffrey Nunberg (28 October 2001)."Head Games / It All Started with Robespierre /" Terrorism ": The history of a very frightening word".San Francisco Chronicle.Retrieved11 January2010.
- ^Terrorism,Encyclopedia Britannica
- ^abCharles Tilly (March 2004)."Terror, Terrorism, Terrorists"(PDF).Sociological Theory.22(1): 5–13.CiteSeerX10.1.1.183.7706.doi:10.1111/j.1467-9558.2004.00200.x.S2CID143553555.
- ^Barrington Moore (1993)."Social Consequences of Revolutionary Terror".Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy.Beacon Press. p. 101.ISBN0-8070-5073-3– via Google Books.
-Chandni Navalkha (28 April 2008)."French revolutionary terror was a gross exaggeration, say Lafayette experts".Cornell Chronicle.Cornell University. Archived fromthe originalon 11 May 2008.Retrieved8 March2023.