There’s a frequent complaint that you run into anytime something violent happens anymore, and it revolves around when and why we designate something as “terrorism.” Words are often imprecise things, and their meanings can evolve over time, so a lot of times people will throw terms like “terrorism” around because it feels like they apply to a particular situation, without stopping to consider if that feeling is accurate.
One reason why “terrorism” is a particularly difficult word to nail down is that its standard definition, which differs from place to place but is usually something like “the use of violence and the threat of violence to try to achieve political aims,” doesn’t really help clarify anything because the term “political aims” is itself ambiguous. So you get all sorts of debates around the word “terrorism” and its related vocabulary. Is a mass shooting “terrorism”? What about a mass shooting whose perpetrator appears to have political motivations behind his actions (very few people seem to call this one a “terrorist” act)? What about a shooting that targets members of a particular race or religious group? What about a mass shooting whose perpetrator appears to have political motivations behind his actions and is a Muslim (lots of people call this one a “terrorist” act)? It can be difficult to parse these things, and reasonable people can reach different conclusions. Heck, some people even question whether ISIS is a “terrorist group,” since, while terrorist acts are certainly part of its toolkit, its aims (taking and holding territory, usually via conventional military tactics) are more like an army’s than a terror group’s (and, you know, these people kind of have a point).
Since 9/11, the colloquial definition of “terrorism” for Americans seems to be “violent acts that we don’t like that are committed by Muslims.” But that’s absurd; Muslims historically have no monopoly on the use of terrorism, and in America’s history in particular there have been far more acts that could be called “terrorism” perpetrated by non-Muslims than by Muslims.
And so, it seems to me, that when a white man who likes to clothe himself in the flags of apartheid South Africa and the white supremacist Republic of Rhodesia
and likes to put this kind of license plate on his car
slaughters 9 black people inside a historic black church around the anniversary of a failed slave revolt led by one of the founders of that church, and when that white man (allegedly) tells the victims that he’s killing them because “you rape our women and you’re taking over our country. And you have to go,” and when it’s long past time that we here in America reckon with 150 years of similar acts of terror targeted at the black community…
Well, I think it’s very legitimate to ask why so few people seem willing to apply the label “terrorism” to what Dylann Storm Roof did at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church last night.
Please, if you can, consider donating to Emanuel AME Church, via their homepage.
The Foreign Exchanges Companion 