The unabridged Oxford English Dictionary says this:
"Terrorist (a. F. terroriste, f. L. 'terror')
1. As a political term: (a) Applied to the Jacobins and their agents
and partisans in the French Revolution, esp. to those connected with
the Revolutionary tribunals during the Reign of Terror."
From a highly opinionated essay about terrorism and how we perceive it:
"Originally, in the 18th century, the term primarily characterized
brutal actions of the state. For example, during the 'reign of terror'
that followed the French Revolution, terrorism described the
widespread guillotining of the aristocracy and other citizens. Only
during the 19th century did the definition of terrorism expand to
include violence from below, such as the hostile acts of anarchists
and the indiscriminate killing of landlords and their agents during
Irish agrarian conflicts. Another meaning of the word terrorist that
gained prominence during the period was an alarmist or a scare-monger.
Although that particular usage is now obsolete, it could be applied to
much current writing on the subject of terrorism; however, the revival
of earlier meanings would only compound the definitional confusion
that exists today. Today, the term terrorism mainly denotes the
activities of small groups engaged in campaigns of clandestine
political violence."
Harvard International Review: Wars of Fear
Coming to Grips with Terrorism
http://hir.harvard.edu/articles/?id=306&page=2
Here's an excerpt from an interesting article that discusses the word's history:
"In 1792, the Jacobins came to power in France and initiated what we
call the Reign of Terror and what the French call simply La Terreur.
The Jacobin leader, Maximilien F.M.I. de Robespierre, known to history
by his surname, called terror 'an emanation of virtue.' In 1793, he
said, 'Terror is nothing but justice, prompt, severe and inflexible.'
In the months that followed, the severe and inflexible justice of the
guillotine severed 12,000 heads, including Robespierre's.
Of course, not everyone shared Robespierre's enthusiasm for the
purifying effects of terror. One of the first writers to use the word
'terrorist' in English was Edmund Burke, that implacable enemy of the
French Revolution, who wrote in 1795 of 'those hell-hounds called
terrorists [who] are let loose on the people.'
For the next 150 years, the word 'terrorism' led a double life -- a
justifiable political strategy to some, an abomination to others. The
Russian revolutionaries who assassinated Czar Alexander II in 1881
used the word proudly. And in 1905, Jack London described terrorism as
a powerful weapon in the hands of labor, though he warned against
harming innocent people.
But for the press and most of the public, the word 'terrorist'
connoted bomb-throwing madmen. Politicians weren't above using the
word as a brush to tar socialists and radicals of all stripes,
whatever their views of violence. When President William McKinley was
assassinated by an anarchist in 1901, Congress promptly passed
legislation that barred known anarchists from entering the United
States.
By the mid-20th century, terrorism was becoming associated more with
movements of national liberation than with radical groups, and the
word was starting to acquire its universal stigma."
San Francisco Chronicle: It All Started with Robespierre
"Terrorism": The history of a very frightening word
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2001/10/28/IN159328.DTL
Google search strategy:
Google Web Search: "the word terrorist" history
://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22the+word+terrorist%22+history
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pinkfreud |
