Definition of Terrorism - Essay Example

Definition of Terrorism al affiliation Definition of Terrorism The paper explains the actual meaning of terrorism the people who play the biggest part in terrorism and the impact of terrorism. The paper also gives the various classes of terrorism. Terrorism is an act which is of a criminal nature that has an intention of provoking a state of political, ideological, ethnic, religious and political justification according to the study work of Combs (2012). Terrorism involves the use of threats to cause violence and use of actual violence for no justifiable reason, symbolism is also an aspect in terrorism.

The main classes of terrorism are suicide terrorism, secular terrorism and religious terrorism. In the three types, the individuals differ in their reservation utilities and their attitudes towards taking the risk. Religious terrorism involves an individual who involves in terrorist activities in the bid to defend their religion so as to get the title of martyrs. The history of terrorism goes back to the Roman Empire where Christian would die for their faith to be called Christian martyrs. This aspect of terrorism started in the Maccabean revolt against the kingdom of Seleucid and the revolts against the Roman overlords in Judea.

Use of violence to defend their religion amounted to what today- according to Dyson (2012) - is terrorism. Secular terrorism, in relation to Combs (2012), arose at the start of the Second World War; this is where the anarchists staged political assassinations and terrorist activities by attacking the United States, Russia and Europe. These areas were the targets because their terrorist acts ranged from operations that involved a lot of risks and there was no escape because the activities involved suicide bombings.

This terrorism activity arose as the anarchists were trying to oppose the authority ranging from the government to the police. Suicide terrorism began its toll during the Second World War, at this period most developed nations had access to weapons of mass destruction. For these weapons to work, someone had to operate them. People have a conviction that they were doing so to protect the countries from the looming dangers posed by other powerful nations. Having been convinced they sacrificed to ride in the jets so as to bomb the enemy countries.

Terrorism is mostly in Arab countries including Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran. This is mostly due to the presence of Muslim extremists. Dyson (2012) indicates that the countries practice the security first concept where there are misconceptions regarding the Islamic world, the aims of lawful Islamists, ignorance and lack of clarity regarding democracy among the Muslim community. In the study work, of Combs (2012) terrorism occurs due to misleading discussions regarding Islam as misleading and superficial.

This is because many terrorists take the conviction that the world has a universal division between violent adherents and the nonviolent counterparts in the Christian religion. Lack of Co-existence between Muslims and Christians, leads to Takfiri violence where the Muslims who are willing to live with Christians become converts, this makes the Muslims turn away from embracing the Christian community. This ideology causes lack of co-existence between the western countries and the Arabic countries leading to increase in terrorism on the bases that they are defending their religion.

From the definition of terrorism, it poses a momentous challenge to the peace of the world. Terrorists are criminals because they deny citizenship of the policy and do not consider the jurisdiction of the court system thus denying them legitimacy. In the war against terrorism, the challenges have been from members of the radical ecological movements and the religious fundamentalists. In regard to the study work by Dyson (2012), the regions where terrorism has also taken root include the Western Europe and the Latin America.

The developed nations of the world have had participation in shaping up the terrorism situation in the world today. This has been through the development of modern weapons which the terrorist acquire through illegal methods and use them to attack other countries. Developed countries have undertaken in the training of terrorist directly and indirectly. According to Combs (2012) most leaders of the terrorist groups including al-Qaeda and the Taliban groups have some experience working for the military.

This has facilitated their effectiveness in attacking the countries. Some few efforts are underway to reduce terrorism including tough laws set by the various governments in regard to terrorism. Western country’s governments in collaboration with the united nation have been rooting the terrorist activities from the countries of origin. This has helped in suppressing the activity. Signing of arms treaties by the government has been an effort to reduce the level of terrorism in the world. In conclusion, terrorism has been a menace all over the world due to its ruthlessness and criminal activities, though something is underway to counteract the vice, there still remains a gap to eradicate terrorism entirely.

References Combs, C. C. (2012). Terrorism in the twenty-first century. Boston: Pearson. Dyson, W. E. (2012). Terrorism: An investigator's handbook. Amsterdam: Elsevier.