Quotations on Terrorism

Book excerpt: The year 2000 showed that terrorism continues to pose a clear and present danger to the international community. Terrorism is becoming a strategy that has a long history, but one that took on a particularly deadly caste beginning in the 21th century. The leaders of some of the most dangerous terrorist groups to emerge in the past decade have headquarters or major offices in Afghanistan, and their associates threaten stability in many real and potential trouble spots around the globe - from Indonesia to the Balkans, Central Asia to the Persian Gulf, Western China to Somalia, and Western Europe to South Asia. Terrorists attempt not only to sow panic but also to undermine confidence in the government and political leadership of their target country. Terrorism is therefore designed to have psychological effects that reach far beyond its impact on the immediate victims or object of an attack. Terrorists mean to frighten and thereby intimidate a wider audience, such as a rival ethnic or religious group, an entire country and its political leadership, or the international community as a whole. All terrorist acts involve violence or "equally important" the threat of violence. These violent acts are committed by nongovernmental groups or individuals that is, by those who are neither part of nor officially serving in the military forces, law enforcement agencies, intelligence services, or other governmental agencies of an established nation-state. Terrorism has occurred throughout history for a variety of reasons. It causes can be historical, cultural, political, social, psychological, economic, or religious, or any combination of these. Some countries have proven to be particularly susceptible to terrorism at certain times, as Italy and West Germany were during the 1970s. Terrorist violence escalated precipitously in those two countries for a decade before declining equally dramatically. Other countries, such as Canada and The Netherlands, have proven to be more resistant, and have experienced only a few isolated terrorist incidents. In general, democratic countries have provided more fertile ground for terrorism because of the open nature of their societies. In such societies citizens have fundamental rights, civil liberties are legally protected, and government control and constant surveillance of its citizens and their activities is absent. By the same token, repressive societies, in which the government closely monitors citizens and restricts their speech and movement, have often provided more difficult environments for terrorists. But even police states have not been immune to terrorism, despite limiting civil liberties and forbidding free speech and rights of assembly. Examples include Russia under tsarist rule and the Communist-ruled Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, as well as the People's Republic of China, Myanmar, and Laos. The author expressed it all through quotations which was compiled from public figures, authors, poets, scholars, experts, professionals, statements, and the common people, and collected from books, newspapers, news-weeklies, poems, speeches, oral conversations, etc from all part of the world in connecting with the content of this book since 1980.