Understanding the Changing Context for Terrorism

Abstract

This chapter presents an analysis of the construct of terrorism as a phenomenon with historical roots with many contestations, explanations, and understandings. Since the advent of terrorism, the term's use shifted from the regime de la terreurs during the French revolution, to anarchist and socio-revolutionary bombers in the nineteenth century, to the Red terror, to anti-colonial struggle, then to the Palestinian struggles in the 1960s, and finally to religious fundamentalism since the 1990s, to date. These episodes and differential motives for terror activities also beckon the question around its justification. Also, the evolution of the term has brought about problems in understanding its causality and conceptualization and by implication in articulating an approach to finding a panacea for wherever and whenever it is witnessed. This chapter argues that the prism through which terrorism can be understood is highly subjective and open to different interpretations for different times and eras.