‘terrorists’ is clearly somewhat subjective. However, one could argue
that where no peaceful routes to political change are permitted, the
cause is legitimate, and the targets are strategic ones, a guerrilla
struggle is justifiable. Thus French Resistance struggles against the
Nazis or ANC violence against apartheid South Africa may be
distinguished from ‘terrorism’. Paradoxically some contemporary US
writers adopt definitions of terrorism that would condemn their own
revolutionary ancestors to the category.
Terrorist groups have very different and sometimes conflicting
objectives. Thus ETA (Basque Fatherland and Liberty) and the ‘Real’
Irish Republican Army are probably primarily nationalist organ-
isations. Some like the former German Red Army Faction (or Baader-
Meinhoff gang) and Senderoso Luminoso (Shining Path) in Peru are
more concerned with Marxist revolution. Others like PAGAD
(People Against Gangsterism And Drugs) in South Africa may
apparently be the product of very particular local problems. The best
known modern organisations like Al Qaeda and Hamas (in Palestine)
are Islamic factions which may differ on questions of strategy,
theology and their relations to nationalism.
The requirements of security in a violent and conspiratorial
organisation mean that terrorists often adopt a similar type of organ-
isation in which small ‘cells’ of activists operate in isolation from each
other. Frequent sources of recruitment are educational institutions
and the families of those already committed to the cause. In such
cases it may be difficult for outsiders to penetrate the core activities of
the group.
A key factor for success and survival is the relationship between
terrorists and the ‘host’ population within which they operate. The
terrorist group will flourish when the mass of the population support
them but can survive on passive indifference or the fear of retribution
if intelligence is passed to the government. A propaganda struggle for
the hearts and minds of the relatively non-political mass of the
population may therefore be crucial.
Schultz (1980) suggests there are three main kinds of contem-
porary terrorism: revolutionary, sub-revolutionary and establish-
ment. Revolutionary terrorism involves the attempted overthrow of
the state; sub-revolutionary terrorism uses political violence to
change existing systems. Examples include Animal Liberation Front
attacks on laboratories experimenting on animals and bomb attacks122 PROCESSES