Histoire du terrorisme de l'antiquité à Al Qaida (The History of Terrorism from Antiquity to al‐Qaeda)

Citation

Richardson, J. (2005), "Histoire du terrorisme de l'antiquité à Al Qaida (The History of Terrorism from Antiquity to al‐Qaeda)", Foresight, Vol. 7 No. 1, pp. 88-88. https://doi.org/10.1108/14636680510581349

Terrorism, stress these editors and their contributors, cannot be separated from terror. Terror itself is a technique used to contest power, seize power, and then to stay in power. The word “terrorism” was invented during France's great revolutionary terror of 1793‐1794 but today the term connotes the applications of asymmetric force: the relating of the powers of the weak to those of the strong. In fact, add the contributors, the terror of which small, non‐state groups are capable and state terrorism are simply first cousins.

While methods may differ, the objective of both the weak and the totalitarian strong remains the same, to terrorize individuals and entire societies in a power struggle without mercy. One needs only, according to this thesis, look at Russia's revolution of 1917 to perceive that terrorism “from below” can quickly become state terrorism aimed at subjugating an entire country through a vast campaign of terror from the top. The heathen Mongol conquerors and the Tartar Tamerlane were also masters of the mode. Today the pretext may be religion, but the ultimate motive is the brutal seizure of power.

The six contributors to this volume and its two editors (all political analysts) are careful to avoid branding terrorists as unworthy, even cowards. They prefer to emphasize that terrorism is, in effect, the extreme form of psychological warfare: those who possess the least in material means tend to resort systematically to the terror technique against those more impressively endowed. As a consequence, and paradoxically, the antiterrorist fight is all the more difficult because of the terrorists’ simplicity of means; and the vulnerability of an ordered and stable target. And, of course, the terrorist is inevitably the Other – never one's own side.

Editors Chaliand and Blin have studied and taught in America. While they do not propose solutions, their volume should be on the bookshelf of every planner and manager concerned with the future of terrorism in the twenty‐first century, and how he or she might begin to understand and cope with this acute problem of the new century.