Tarik Kafala, the head of BBC Arabic, prefers to avoid the word “terrorist”. He’s avoided it in coverage of the Charlie Hebdo attacks, saying it is a “loaded” term. Cue outrage: from Norman Tebbit, a victim of the Brighton bombing, and historian Anthony Glees, who said the executive “needs to consider his position”.

A value-laden term



What did Kafala actually say, again? He told the Independent that “we know what political violence is, we know what murder, bombings and shootings are and we describe them. That’s much more revealing, we believe, than using a word like terrorist which people will see as value-laden.”

Hardly the words of an apologist for jihadism, as his critics seem to be suggesting. And, in fact, very much in line with the BBC’s editorial guidelines, which say:



The word ‘terrorist’ itself can be a barrier rather than an aid to understanding. We should try to avoid the term, without attribution. We should let other people characterise while we report the facts as we know them.

Political intimidation

So “terrorist” is a characterisation. Its meaning depends on context and intention (something crystallised by the line – often quoted but never reliably attributed – “one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter”). Those contexts and intentions have been set out by various national international bodies. The EU, for example, defines terrorism as acts such as attempted murder, kidnapping, etc, where the aim is of



... seriously intimidating a population, or – unduly compelling a government or international organisation to perform or abstain from performing any act, or – seriously destabilising or destroying the fundamental political, constitutional, economic or social structures of a country or an international organisation

It’s what we say it is



The United Nations has struggled for years to come up with a widely accepted definition of terrorist activity. Writing for the Harvard International Review, Jori Duursma tells us that “though in the General Assembly no majority of member states agreed on a definition of terrorism, all member states agreed that terrorism was contrary to international peace and security”. Which is worryingly close to: we don’t know what it is, but we know that it’s bad.



The security council, made up of a handful of member states, has been a bit more decisive. In 2004, it landed on this formulation:

[Terrorism comprises] criminal acts, including against civilians, committed with the intent to cause death or serious bodily injury, or taking of hostages, with the purpose to provoke a state of terror in the general public or in a group of persons or particular persons, intimidate a population or compel a government or an international organization to do or to abstain from doing any act, and all other acts which constitute offences within the scope of and as defined in the international conventions and protocols relating to terrorism

That last bit is a tad circular: terrorism and terrorists are, at least partly, simply what we define them to be.



That’s what 21st-century institutions have to say about terrorism. Can we learn anything from the term’s origin and use over time?



The bloodthirsty French



As ever, we turn to the trusted Oxford English Dictionary (20-volume version), which tells us it’s a borrowing from French, and dates from 1794.



Beheading by guillotine was the favoured method of execution during the Jacobins’ ‘reign of terror’. Photograph: The Gallery Collection/Corbis

Back then the definition was: “an adherent or supporter of the Jacobins, who advocated and practised methods of partisan repression and bloodshed in the propagation of the principles of democracy and equality”. Similarly, terrorism:

Etymology: French terrorisme system of the ‘Terror’ during the French Revolution (1794), violent measures taken in order to come to political power or to maintain a government (1795), (in extended use) intolerant attitude of the partisans of certain ideologies < classical Latin terror terror n. + French -isme -ism suffix. Compare Spanish terrorismo (1799), Italian terrorismo (1794), German Terrorismus (1796), all originally after French. Compare slightly earlier terrorist n.

The meaning seems to have been extended through the 19th century to encompass “a person who uses violent and intimidating methods in the pursuit of political aims”, directed at the likes of Irish dissidents or anti-tsarist revolutionaries. A Google search of instances of “terrorist” and “terrorism” in English-language texts over the last 120 years or so shows an extraordinary spike in the early 1970s, and a high level of use since then.



Use of the words “terrorist” and “terrorism” in English language texts over time. Photograph: Google

A new kind of warfare



Let’s zoom in then on that period – the early 1970s – when violent acts carried out in the service of political causes grabbed attention across the world. They did so largely because small, relatively powerless groups had begun to attack civilian targets such as airliners. It got them huge publicity. According to one commentator at the time, David Fromkin, this effectively turned their attacks into messages, broadcast globally.



A member of the Palestinian militant group Black September during their attack on the Olympic village in Munich, 1972. 11 Israeli athletes were killed. Photograph: Kurt Strumpf/AP

Writing in July 1975, Fromkin provided a neat definition of what was then still a relatively new phenomenon. He traced the evolution of modern terrorism from anti-imperalist struggles – in which the success of otherwise weak organisations such as Algeria’s FLN or Irgun depended entirely on the colonial power’s reaction – in these cases France and Britain’s respectively. “[Their] ingenuity lay in using an opponent’s own strength against him. It was a sort of jujitsu.”

The latest batch of fighters, however, “have transformed terrorism into a form of mass communication”. They rely on reaction to get their messages across. The more disruption they cause, the more glorious their success.



Terrorism, as has been seen, is the weapon of those who are prepared to use violence but who believe that they would lose any contest of sheer strength. All too little understood, the uniqueness of the strategy lies in this: that it achieves its goal not through its acts but through the response to its acts.

Forty years later, Simon Jenkins was to echo this point in his reaction to the Charlie Hebdo massacre – “Terrorism is no ordinary crime. It depends on consequence.” Foreign correspondent Patrick Cockburn agreed: “To have an effective terrorist attack, you require the complicity of governments”.

Which means we end up with a dilemma. Fromkin describes a phenomenon that is different to ordinary criminal activity or warfare. Modern “terrorism” has the peculiar property that it relies on its enemies to grant it victory – and why not have a special word for that? Why not use it to describe the Charlie Hebdo attacks, which, in my view, fall into that category?



But the word itself casts a shadow of fear. Politicians deploy it to justify illiberal measures. The panic it evokes ramps up prejudice against minorities. It is even used to win support for wars. Wielded carefully, “terrorist” could still make sense, à la Fromkin. Used to frighten, cajole or slander, it’s one of the most toxic words of our times.

