War against Terrorism: The Terrorists of Time

Terrorism is defined as an act of violence against civilians to achieve military or political objective or to create an emotional response from the victim in the furtherance of a political or social agenda.

Terrorism is an act which is intended to create fear or "terror", and perpetrated for an ideological goal (as opposed to a lone attack), and deliberately target or disregard the safety of non-combatants. Many definitions also include only acts of unlawful violence.

As a form of unconventional warfare, terrorism is sometimes used when attempting to force political change by convincing a government or population to agree to demands to avoid future harm or fear of harm, destabilizing an existing government, motivating a disgruntled population to join an uprising, escalating a conflict in the hopes of disrupting or expressing a grievance, or drawing attention to a cause.

The meaning of the word terrorism has changed with passage of time. The modern English term "terrorism" dates back to 1795 when it was used to describe the actions of a rebel in their rule of post-Revolutionary France, the so-called "Reign of Terror"(le Grande Terreur). While some consider modern tyrannies to be the legacy of the Reign of Terror, others argue that this view overlooks the French Revolution's influence in the ascendency of representative democracy and constitutionalism.

Take for instance the following:

• Before India achieved independence from British rule, some freedom fighters of India who did not subscribe to non-violence were labeled as terrorists by the British government. The same individuals have been lauded by Indians for the same activities and hailed as ‘patriots’. Thus two different labels have been given to the same people for the same set of actions. One is calling him a terrorist while the other is calling him a patriot. Those who believed that Britain had a right to rule over India called these people terrorists, while those who were of the view that Britain had no right to rule India called them patriots and freedom fighters.

• Nelson Mandela a former President of South Africa, the first to be elected in fully representative democratic elections. Before his presidency, Mandela was an anti-apartheid activist and leader of the African National Congress. He spent 27 years in prison, much of it in a cell on Robben Island, for spearheading the struggle against apartheid.

• Che Guevara joined Fidel Castro's revolutionary 26th of July Movement, which seized power from the regime of the dictator. After his death, Guevara became an icon of socialist revolutionary movements and a cultural icon worldwide

• Another very influential and more important leader of a terrorist group without whom the topic of terrorism is incomplete is Osama Bin Laden. He was indeed one of those people whom US itself had provided arms and ammunition and financial aid of $165million (according to Michael Moore in his film “Bowling for Columbine) during war with the soviets, when the Afghans were engaged in Jihad. After September 11 as we all know, the same man that the U.S.A had supported from driving out the Russians away changed the word terrorism into jihad, after thousands of innocent people died due to the destruction of the World Trade Center.

So we generally see that only people who are different in their perception, have different ideologies whether they are right or wrong are labeled by the world as terrorists