3.2.15

What is a Terrorist?

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What is a Terrorist?

Terrorists engage in a form of violent action to try to bring about religious or political change.

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What is a terrorist?

  • Some people have used violent action because they lived in a time and place where there was no democracy.
    • Without democracy, violence was the only way to bring about change.
  • More recently, violent action has been used by people who do not believe in democratic change.
    • This may be because they want to impose something they know the majority of people would never vote for.
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Terrorism

  • The word terror means 'great fear'.
  • On that basis, we could say that a terrorist is one who wants to create a state of fear in people.
  • We know that terrorists use extreme violence.
  • But most terrorists understand that they are not strong enough to overcome national armies.
  • Because of this, they are not engaged in a traditional form of war.
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Violence

  • Terrorists' violence is often indiscriminate and unpredictable, often targeted at people going about their day to day business.
    • In this was terrorists hope to create a continuous state of war.
  • This way terrorists hope that people will put pressure on their governments to give in to the terrorists' demands.

Jump to other topics

1Year 7

1.1Origins of Abrahamic Faith

1.2Judaism

1.3Christianity

1.4Buddhism

1.5Disciplinary Knowledge

2Year 8

3Year 9

3.1Life & Death

3.2Extremism

3.3Equality

4Additional Concepts

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