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I wanted to cover this topic because it's a controversial topic that many people see through a lens of emotion. Instead, I want to look at it through the lens of sociology. Looking through the sociology lens is like putting yourself in someone else's shoes. In the context of terrorism, one person or societies "terrorist" is another person's or societies' "freedom fighter" as Barken and Snowden eloquently said in "Collective Violence: Sec. Ed". Depending on the context of the culture, society, and individual, terrorism can be positive, negative, or even both. So keep that in mind while reading the rest of this post.
Terrorism falls under collective behavior (under the label of "collective violence") because terrorism is a form of violence that is done collectively (by a group, organization, or society) to create social change or hinder social change. Terrorism is different from some of the other collective violence behaviors because it uses unexpected violence as a way to coerce or threaten to promote change. There are many ways to do this, leading to many different forms of terrorism. Here's some a quick definition of some of the different forms:
Insurgent Terrorism is terrorism committed by citizens against their government to win political goals. While this is a great example of a revolution, we must remember that this would be a revolution with violence against the government to coerce and threaten for change.
State Terrorism is terrorism that is used by a government against it's citizens. Kind of like the government that is shown in the movie "V for Vendetta".
Transnational terrorism is terrorism committed by individuals living in one nation against another. 9/11 would fall under this category.
Vigilante Terrorism is terrorism committed by citizen's against other citizen's to express hatred for or to resist social change. The KKK is a good example of this form of terrorism.
Genocide also falls under the Terrorism umbrella. It is a systematic extermination of a while people based on their race, religion, ethnicity, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, or another basis for discrimination.
Also something that Barken and Snowden pointed out was terrorism against women. There are many types of violence around the world and in our own country that specifically (or mainly) target women seemingly because they are women. Women overwhelmingly make most of the targets of rape and domestic violence**. Domestic violence and rape our ways for someone to violently exert their power over another person and to gain control of them. Some sociology scholars see rape and domestic violence as a way for men to keep their control over women to continue the dominant supremacy of men. If we look at domestic violence and rape this way this would fall under the category of vigilante terrorism. While I think that rape and domestic violence are often used in this way and create inequality between men, women, transgendered, and other folks, these issues are very complex in themselves. While I don't have an answer to give you, what are you thoughts on this? I'm really curious to know!
As part of the CIB post requirements I must post a journal article. The journal article I found was abouty a study done to see whether people prefer "freedom fighters" over "terrorists" based on their social position (dominant culture vs. non-dom culture). The participants were given vignettes describing a situation for a "freedom fighter" and one for a "terrorist". The participants were then supposed to evalutate each. The findings showed that those in the non-dominant culture gave freedom fighters a more positive evaluation. The dominant culture gave terrorists a more positive evaluation than the freedom fighters! Take a look at the arcticle here and tell me what you think!
The two sites I found talk about counter-terrorism (actions taken to prevent terrorism) specifically relating to the U.S.
The first site is for the Department of Homeland Security . It gives the U.S. definition of counter-terrorism and has tons of links for more knowledge.
The second is a link to the Patriot Act. This act was created to help prevent terrorism by giving the government lenience to infringe on citizen privacy. We talked about this a lot in my Poli-Sci class seeing if this is ethical or unethical, effective or not. What do you think? What would our government do to us if we decided to perform insurgent terrorism?
And for my video:
"One man's freedom fighter is another man's terrorist"
Till next time,
Alex
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