The mentioned adage creates confusion only when the analyzer considers that the use of violence and terror is a right for some and not for others. If the analyzer subscribes to the notion that any use of violence that is not used in self defense is an act of terrorism, then the dilemma vanishes. Terror is not subjective and it can be performed by any agent of society: the state, religious groups, political parties, hidden societies, etc. The French Revolution considered as terrorists those dissidents that opposed to the power at be. In a sense, this initial notion of terrorism means that actions by organizations different than the State, and specifically oriented in an effort against the State, are terrorist by definition. However, the use of violence and terror is not exclusive of dissident groups, the State can be equally brutal and destructive.
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However, the State will certainly have the tendency to classify them all as terrorist, in order to gain the public support to fight the dissidence. The terrorist acts from the past and the ones of the present have changed but not in nature; technologically the situation has changed, the globalization process, the electronic technology, etc. However, the essence of terrorism is the use of terror and violence to achieve a political (ideological, religious, etc.) goal (Dingley, 2010). The destructive power has increased, in the times of the French Revolution it was impossible to destroy with the magnitude of the 9/11 attacks, which included airplanes, fuel and a concentrated population in a very narrow geographic area. In those days the destruction was relatively contained and limited, but its essence and the wounds inflicted in the innocents are the
However, the State will certainly have the tendency to classify them all as terrorist, in order to gain the public support to fight the dissidence. The terrorist acts from the past and the ones of the present have changed but not in nature; technologically the situation has changed, the globalization process, the electronic technology, etc. However, the essence of terrorism is the use of terror and violence to achieve a political (ideological, religious, etc.) goal (Dingley, 2010). The destructive power has increased, in the times of the French Revolution it was impossible to destroy with the magnitude of the 9/11 attacks, which included airplanes, fuel and a concentrated population in a very narrow geographic area. In those days the destruction was relatively contained and limited, but its essence and the wounds inflicted in the innocents are the