(From Last Class, Monday October 8Th)What We Think We Know About Terrorism

(From last Class, Monday October 8th)What we think we know about Terrorism:

Acts are committed for political and/or religious purposes Often committed by extremists The attacks are unexpected but extremely organized Bombings, suicide bombings, hijacking, shooting, and gas attacks are common terrorist tactics Terrorism affects the way we think about people, safety, activities, government, religion etc. Terrorism can cause PTSD even if you are not directly involved with the attack Some attacks that we know about: Bali Bombings, 9/11, Munich Olympics, Nazi Germany, Japan Gassing etc. Places that are attacked often weaken the country once they are attacked: for example The World Trade Centre. Terrorism creates fear, that is the goal. Any country can fall victim to acts of Terrorism.

Thursday October 11th

What is terrorism? Terrorism is most commonly defined as using the systematic use of a terror as a means of cohersion. This means, using fear to make people do things.

While this definition of terrorism seemingly fits for all cases of terrorism, there is no true definition of terrorism only common features.

Terrorism received its name from the Reign of terror, occurring during the French Revolution in 1798, it was a period marked by mass executions of “enemies of the revolution”. So many executions occurred that the guillotine became the preferred method of execution due to its quick process, allowing multiple executions per day.

There are many different types of terrorism including:

Civil Disorder: Collective violence that can disrupt the peace and security of a community. (For example: G20 in Toronto or the Vancouver Riots)

Political Terrorism: Violent behaviour that generates fear for a political purpose (For example: The IRA, Munich Olympics etc) Non Political Terrorism: violence to generate fear but for personal gain instead of political purposes Quasi-Terrorism: Terrorist acts that share the same actions but not the same purpose of a true terrorist act (For example: taking hostages to get away from the police) Limited political terrorism: Acts of terrorism for political purposes that do not aim to overthrow the state State terrorism: Nations that rule upon fear Structural terrorism: Terrorist acts that are carried out by governments as part of their foreign policy

Questions we aim to answer through each lesson: How is terrorism defined? What primary and secondary sources would be valuable for research? What are the casual factors? What was the role of the individual/ group involved? At the time, what were the major effects of this phenomenon on human wellbeing, social, political and economic structures, and environments? Who benefited from this historical phenomenon, in both the short and the long term? Who was disadvantaged? To what extent did the phenomenon produce deep-seated changes to ideas and beliefs (such as the ways people thought about the meaning of human existence, or about preferred forms of social, economic and political organisation, or about preferred forms of relationship between people, and between people and environments)? What are the possible and probable effects in the future?

Reliable and Unreliable sources: What makes a source reliable? > The credentials of the author, the year it was published, the topic

Why are reliable sources important?

Where can you find reliable sources? Google Scholar, Library, Google

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