Peace Say no to terrorism ( Subject: English, Humanities)

Literatures on terrorism are far from consensus on any specific definition of terrorism. Cooper (1978) and Dempsay (2006) very legitimately opined that the problem in defining terrorism is borne out of the difficulty in defining the problems which characterizes terrorism. Terrorism is a social problem. But the nature of the problem and analysis of the problem within the frameworks of sociological theories do not find much place in the international discourse on terrorism.  Jenkins (1983) states that over-simplified definitions of terrorism are abound in literature on terrorism, and these definitions are used by governments, scholars, and other actors to advance their political philosophy. According to Laqueur (1987) most of the definitions are theoretical and remain ineffective in the face of variations in violence which are combined under the umbrella term terrorism in the context of popular global dialogue on terrorism and political resistance.

             According to Hoffman (2002) most of the definitions have political connotations and are amply used by big actors to score points against their opponents, and alternative definitional perspectives with greater reasoning than the simplistic definitions do exist.  These alternative definitions rightly identify another branch of terrorism sponsored by the state and are highly critical of the simple definitions for their pro-labelling aspects. However, many of the alternative definitions lack applicability as they are more critique than definition.  Both the groups of definitions lack credibility due to lack of insight and for their selectivity about what are the relevant issues and questions that are worth studying. The more acceptable and credible definition is contained in Title 22 of the United States Code, Section 2656f (d), which defines terrorism as “The term ‘terrorism’ means premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against non-combatant targets by sub-national groups or clandestine agents, usually intended to influence an audience. The term ‘international terrorism’ means terrorism involving citizens or the territory of more than one country. The term "terrorist group" means any group practicing, or that has significant subgroups that practice, international terrorism” (Dempsey 2006).

            The lack of any all-accepted definition of terrorism has made understanding domestic terrorism more difficult. In domestic context the term terrorism has wider dimensions where terrorism is used by political and religious leaders to pressurize the government and the public at large to fully accept and adapt their ideology. Hoffman defines domestic terrorism as acts of terrorism perpetrated by domestic players with the objective of achieving domestic goals, whereas international terrorism relates to terrorist acts perpetrated by people of foreign origin in support of any extraterritorial demand.

MEDIA’S PERCEPTION OF ISLAMIC TERRORISM     

Islam phobia, a recently coined phrase, like any other phobia has no reality (Sudan 2015). The phobia has intensified since the bombing of the WTC in USA (Hawthorne, 2012). Proliferation of terrorism began during the late 19^th century roughly at the same time democracy and mass media began to spread (Burke, 2016). Past extremist acts have molded the media to see correlation between terrorism and Islam, especially after the 9/11.

Reasons

Global media has been constantly streaming out very disputed image of Islam and has transformed Islam as synonymous with terrorism (Kenes, 2015). Media’s view of Islamic terrorism has made the term so central to Muslim that thinking of any white terrorist is in contradiction to political culture of America and Israel (Dabashi, 2015).

Yusof, Fauziah, Hassan, & Osman, (2013) state that there is an international effort by international media to associate Islam with terrorism. (Norton, 2015) states that thousand of terrorist attacks happen in the world, but only those perpetrated by Islamic terrorists get media attention through headlines and catchy words. 

In addition to that Dabashi (2015) states that since 1980s USA has invaded more than a dozen Muslim countries with massive collateral damage in terms of death of women, children, and innocents, but those acts are never termed as terrorism despite overwhelming evidence.