Waves Of Terrorism Analysis

The 21st century has seen the rise of an interconnected world, where exchanges of all sorts – whether commercial, financial, migratory or informational – have boomed. Alongside these major features of a globalising planet, terrorism has resurfaced as a crucially challenging threat to today’s societies. When thinking about terrorism, the recent shootings in Paris in January and November 2015, or the airport bombings in Brussels in March 2016 may sound relevant. First of all, the definition of terrorism is not universal nor has it been constant throughout time. The term “terrorism” was coined to refer to state terror during the French “Reign of Terror” between 1793 and 1794 (Zalman, 2016), although it was then used to point out anarchist …show more content…
To understand how the current wave of terrorism differs from its predecessors, one must look into the nature of the first three waves and in which ways they are interconnected. Rapport asserts that the Anarchist wave, also known as the “Golden Age of Assassination”, consisted of a series of assassinations of political leaders whose legitimacies were questioned. Ultimately resulting in World War I, which itself ended with the dissolution of many empires, the Anticolonial terrorist wave emerged in response to growing ethno-nationalist motivations, as seen in the cases of the National Liberal Front in Algeria. During this wave, the term “freedom fighter” emerged, as well as the claim of anti-imperialistic motivations. The “New Left Wing” wave started with the Vietnam War as the Soviet Union began supporting dissident terror groups with anti-capitalist motives, such as the Red Brigades in Italy (Rapport, 2005). The current, or Religious wave, took considerable importance in international politics with the events of September 2001 in New York, and overall reflects a clash between the West and certain factions of the Islamic world. This newest terrorist wave differs from the previous one mainly because it takes place in the Age of Information, where means of mass communication have significantly become more available. Whereas terrorists groups operating during the previous waves relied on print media and radio broadcasting to spread their propaganda, today’s terrorists mainly use television and the internet to convey their message. Indeed, both communication means allow a rapid, widespread and sometimes anonymous diffusion of audio-visual information with the aim of either terrorising or attracting