These days when you mention the word "terrorism", most people draw hasty conclusions to equate it to Islam, Muslims, Arabs and/or Middle East. That might be partly true but not absolute truth. Because throughout history different groups have risen up to express their unaddressed grievances through acts of terror.


So what is terrorism, really?

Authors Bolden, Raymer, & Whamond in their book "Domestic Terrorism and Incident Management," defined terrorism as an act of violence either from 'above' or 'below' to terrorize a given population to achieve a political goal; when such violence is motivated by political, social, economic, religious or ideological grievances that might be emotionally driven by fear, hate, and intolerance; and when the action has the anticipated or unanticipated consequence of terror and is not is continued once such terror is discovered.

This is because most groups operating from above or below feel their cause is legitimate and moral, which is unrealistic in the sense that we can objectively distinguish what is a terrorist act from what is not an act of terror. Hence, we cannot come to clear terms if some acts of terror are excused while others are condemned. Thus it becomes imperative to broadly define all acts of political violence with the intentions to terrorize.

In addition the victims' status have to be recognized when defining terrorism because in most cases the victims are not responsible for the grievances that motivate an act of terror. Hence, any violence or threat based on political goal that results in terrorizing a victim, that act must be deemed an act of terror.

Lastly, such a definition must include emotional ingredients like hate, fear, and intolerance are catalysts that facilitate an act of terror. Because those without legitimate access to power of resources are often filled with hatred that eventually leads to formation of vigilante groups whose intention is to terrorize or eliminate those who were different. Examples of hate groups includes some aspects of white supremacy groups against people of color and the Jews, and gender-related terrorism in the middle east and other parts of the world.