Free Essay. Foreign Democracy With a History of Human Rights Violations

Terrorism, a common challenge in many parts of the world, does not have a specific definition, because of the many facts that are associated with it. For instance, after the 9/11 attack in 2001, terrorism was defined as the motive that guides terrorists to undertake an attack. Politics and religion are some of the major factors that guide the ideology of terrorists. Acts of terrorism are also intended to cause fear, terror, and intimidation. They could also be aimed at pushing for some political motivation, psychological coercion, and brainwashing. From the above analysis, terrorism could be defined as the strategic and indiscriminate harm of members of a target group to drive a certain agenda (Shanahan 110). Therefore, when there is an attack to a certain target group by their opponents and to propel an agenda, then it is an act of terrorism.

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In the scenario in this example, whereby a Muslim attacked people in a church and killed two of them, the attacker is from an antagonistic group concerning religious beliefs. The details of this action show that the attacker could have aimed to spread fear and terror to the Christians to discourage their religious practices. For many years, the war between the two religious groups has attracted a lot of enmities and the need to kill each other. From the definition of terrorism above, this act qualifies to be termed as a terrorist attack because it was meant to cause fear and to propel a different ideology about the religions.

The additional information that would strengthen my conclusion is the history of religious fights in the country and the motives that terrorists have in these attacks. The other information would be the ideologies that Muslims have against the Christians and also the personal analysis of the terrorists. The historical information would help determine if the attack was based on the past fights and the ideology of the Muslims would guide on what the terrorist wanted to achieve. In many terrorist attacks where trucks plow into pedestrians, bombings, and mass shootings, terrorists shout "Allahu Akbar" which means "God is the Greatest" and this means they do it to please God (Danforth 77). Such religious beliefs that killing can earn one God's favor can inform if this attack was based on such an ideology. If details emerge that the attacker had a mental disorder or a personal grudge with the people killed in the shooting, then the conclusion would change. The motive of the attack would shift from religion-related terrorism to revenge-related attack, whereby personal differences motivated the attacker to kill the others. A hypothetical act of violence whereby people attack others to settle their grudges are not terrorist attacks. For example, when a man attacks his former lover and her new lover. When an ideology guides the attacks, for example, when religious leaders recruit youths and provide resources for them to attack a different religious group, then this can be understood as an act of terrorism.

Works Cited

Danforth, John. "Mobilizing Religion against Terrorism." Brown J. World Aff. 24 (2017): 77.

Shanahan, Timothy. "The Definition of Terrorism." Routledge Handbook of Critical Terrorism Studies. London and New York: Routledge (2016): 103-113.