Reading on Terrorism That I Can Give to Students

Lesson Plan

Part one

At that place is currently no definition of terrorism that is accepted internationally. Some acts -- like the attacks on the Globe Merchandise Heart -- are indisputably terrorism, but others cause enormous debate. How do we determine what elements make a certain human activity i of terrorism? What consequences does that decision take? For example, would you lot consider the assassinations of Anwar Sadat, John F. Kennedy, or Robert Kennedy acts of terrorism, political extremism, or insanity?

Information technology is important to understand the term terrorism and how this term can relate to religious militancy -- but these are not the same thing. Teachers might begin by asking students to give examples of acts of terrorism (non only 9/eleven) and to define the term. Or introduce the lesson past indicating that the term has been in the news a lot in recent months, and it's important to understand what it means.
Working individually or in minor groups, direct students to the following articles online, or print enough copies for each student or group. Explain that these provide different perspectives on the issues surrounding the definition of terrorism.

"In Mideast, I Weapon of Choice Is a Loaded Word"
"Terror and Tyranny: What Powerful States Call Terrorism May Exist an Inevitable Response to Injustice"
"What Is Terrorism?"

Have students mark or highlight on their copies of the articles the central issues in the definition of terrorism. Remind them that at this point they are not trying to come up with a final, perfect, administrative definition, only to raise questions and uncover areas of disagreement discussed past the writers.

Part 2

Bring the course together and make a checklist on the black- or whiteboard or flip chart of the disputed questions in the definition of terrorism. Discuss each outcome with the course. Problems might include the following:
Method/result
Most people would concord that terrorism includes violence. What about threats of violence? Kidnapping? Arson? Rape? What if no 1 is harmed -- is information technology still terrorism?

Perpetrator
Who carries out terrorism? Is terrorism always carried out by organized opposition groups? Tin states be terrorists? Tin individuals? Consider issues of inspiration, planning, provision of weapons, and military assistance. As an example, the Egyptian state has said attacks on tourist buses or assassinations of political leaders by
Islamist militants were acts of lone, deranged individuals, not terrorism, because they wanted to prevent further loss of tourism and preempt claims that the state wasn't doing enough to counter terrorism.
Target
Does terrorism target simply civilians? Could an assault on a armed forces target exist terrorism? How do you decide what a civilian is? What well-nigh off-duty military personnel? Colonial occupiers? What about the bump-off of a caput of state, one of whose roles is commander in chief? To authorize as terrorism, must perpetrators of an act of violence deliberately target civilians, or simply be reckless as to whether civilians as well equally armed services targets might be harmed? Are all attacks on civilians terrorism? Is the target of terrorism always human, or can acts of sabotage against holding also be considered terrorism?

Motive
Is the motive behind an act important in deciding whether it is terrorism, or should only the act itself exist considered? What is the objective of terrorism? Is terrorism "violence for an audience" -- an act committed to inspire fear in the public and therefore force policy changes? Or does a terrorist act have specific strategic objectives? Does it brand any difference if the perpetrators consider themselves martyrs for a religious or political cause?

Point of view
If a cause is considered legitimate, are whatever means to achieve its goals legitimate? How does one distinguish betwixt a terrorist and a freedom fighter? What is the difference betwixt terrorism and
guerrilla warfare? Is terrorism "the weapon of the weak"? Are illegitimate acts confronting an enemy in war terrorism, war crimes, or is in that location even a difference? Does history change the definition of terrorism? If a grouping achieves independence using tactics called "terrorist" by their previous occupier or sovereign, making their "rebellion" into a "state of war of independence," are they justified past their eventual success in condign a state?
Based on this discussion, have students make their own checklist derived from the listing created during the grade discussion. They should include questions they think need to exist answered to make up one's mind whether an act is terrorism or not. Students will apply this checklist to evaluate various scenarios.

Function 3

Read the following scenarios aloud. Don't immediately reveal the historical incidents on which each scenario is based. Students should fill up in the checklist, then attempt to answer the questions they have posed in each case to make up one's mind whether the incident would count equally terrorism.

A paramilitary group seeking independence blows up the armed forces headquarters of the occupying force. The grouping's warning that there will be a bombing is ignored, and many people, civilian too equally military, are killed. (Based on the Irgun'southward bombing of the King David Hotel.)
Rebels seeking to gear up upwards an contained country fire at occupying troops from concealed positions. (Based on the tactics of the American colonists at Concord, Massachusetts, during the Revolutionary War.)
Members of a particular indigenous or religious group are killed in club to frighten other members of their group into fleeing territory. (Ethnic cleansing, seen in Rwanda, Bosnia, and other contexts. Class might also discuss whether American acts against Native Americans would fall into this category.)
A radical group makes a list of opponents information technology believes should exist killed and distributes it to sympathizers, telling them that they will be rewarded in heaven for defending the innocent if they carry out these assassinations. (Radical antiabortion groups take published lists of doctors who perform abortions. Many people believe this is an encouragement to murder them.)
More than a dozen secret agents of the state are killed in ane 24-hour interval by a radical insubordinate group. (Michael Collins and the IRA killed 14 British clandestine agents in 1920 in Dublin.)
A government routinely "disappears," tortures, and murders civilians as well as political and war machine leaders whom it suspects of opposing the authorities. (Iraq is a prime number instance of this, but in that location are and have been many other examples, including Republic of chile under Gen. Pinochet.)
A militant religious grouping attacks, amongst others, women it feels are acting in an immodest fashion in public in order to pressure level other women to carry in a sure way. (The Armed Islamic Grouping in Algeria, the Lashkar-e Tayyiba in Islamic republic of pakistan, and other groups accept threatened women who do not clothing a veil or who otherwise breach the group's vision of modesty.)
Religious militants set on members of the authorities, including an assassination attempt on the president. The government responds by sending in troops and destroying an urban area where the religious militants are based, killing more than than 10,000 people in the procedure, including many civilians. (Syria's Hafez al-Asad attacked the city of Hama, a stronghold of the Muslim Brotherhood, in 1982.)

Discuss students' answers to each of the situations in a higher place, revealing the historic examples backside each ane. How many in the grade idea each case was an act of terrorism? What were the determining factors in their decisions?
Invite student groups to select different cases higher up and conduct boosted inquiry. Enquire students "What else practise nosotros demand to ask?" every bit a fashion of helping them see that they demand additional research to exist able to support their response to each instance as "terrorism or non."
Discuss the political touch on of the term terrorism. Why is it an effective political tool (or weapon, as Cameron Barr describes it) to accuse your opponent of existence a terrorist?
Being able to assuredly merits that your opponent is a terrorist grants enormous moral legitimacy to a political party in a conflict. Is it important -- or possible -- to have a single consistent definition of terrorism? Why? How could such a definition be crafted?

Cess

How well does the student understand and articulate various definitions of terrorism?
Can the pupil explain the consequences of defining a particular deed as terrorism, and what a party would proceeds by defining its opponents as terrorists?
Tin the student raise additional questions about specific cases that would help them make a amend determination near whether an deed is terrorism?
How well does the student understand the difficulty in achieving international consensus on a single definition?

Resource

Core Resources:

In Mideast, I Weapon of Choice is a Loaded Give-and-take
http://www.csmonitor.com/cgi-bin/getasciiarchive?script/2001/07/31/p1s3.txt
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is increasingly defined by "terrorism" -- both the act and the epithet.
Terror and Tyranny
http://world wide web.guardian.co.uk/annotate/story/0,3604,580360,00.html
For a war that "may never end," the enemy is proving embarrassingly hard to define.
What Is Terrorism?
http://www.crf-u.s..org/terror/What_Is_Terrorism_rev.htm
This article provides several definitions of terrorism, including those used by European countries, the U.Southward. Section of Defence, and an Iranian religious scholar.

Global Connections Essays:

Civilisation: A Rich Mosaic
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/globalconnections/mideast/themes/civilization/index.html
Culture, a shared ready of traditions, conventionalities systems, and behaviors, is shaped past history, religion, ethnic identity, language, and nationality, amidst other factors. The Middle Due east consists of approximately twenty countries, with many different religions and a variety of ethnic and linguistic groups.
Nation-States
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/globalconnections/mideast/questions/nations/alphabetize.html
How were the modernistic nation-states of the Eye East created?
Politics: From Royalty to Commonwealth
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/globalconnections/mideast/themes/politics/index.html
Politics in the Centre East, far from being solely an issue of Islamic resurgence as is often presented by Western media, actually reflects a complex mixture of issues that include nationalism, religion, social and economical concerns, anti-colonialist sentiments, tribal loyalties, and ethnic identities.
Religious Militancy
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/globalconnections/mideast/questions/militant/index.html
What is religious militancy and its relationship to terrorism?

Internet Resource:

Saudi Time Bomb?
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/saudi/
Frontline investigates the hidden undercurrents of Islamic extremism, its far-flung reach, and its threat to the kingdom of Kingdom of saudi arabia.

Reading on Terrorism That I Can Give to Students

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