Edward I was nearly killed by an Assassin during Lord Edward’s Crusade, most likely sent by the Mamluk Sultan Baibars, in order to remove his opposition to a 10-year truce with the Christian states at Jerusalem. He narrowly survived poisoning from the blade of the Assassin. – Gustave Doré, 19th Century

I’ve noticed an unsettling trend recently in democratic societies around the world. People who are unable to convince the majority to support them are turning to disruption to make their point. Tipping out milk in supermarkets to object to the farming of animals for food. Stopping traffic during the rush hour to make a case for trains, or the removal of mask mandates, or preferential treatment for a particular occupation, or any of a dozen causes.

In a tyranny, when free speech is suppressed and people cannot assemble to make their case, such reactions may be the route to social change. In a democracy, where peaceful protest is permitted and those of like mind can organise to convince others, there are more productive ways to change society. And if your efforts are not succeeding, perhaps it is because the majority do not agree with you. That’s democracy, too.

Protest marches and the like often cause some disruption as a byproduct. But those I’ve detailed above seem to have been organised and intended to cause maximum inconvenience. The fact that so many organisers are clear that they’re going to repeat their actions over and over until they get what they want borders on standover tactics and blackmail. They have three fundamental things in common with terrorism. First, they want to bring about change by coersion or intimidation. Second, they seek to achieve this by inconveniencing (in the case of activism) or attacking (in case of terrorism) the wider public–ordinary people who are merely going about their business. Third, they claim that their actions are required to protect or advance a moral principle, whether religious or secular.

Let’s define terrorism as the systematic threat or use of violence against innocent people to intimidate a political group into accepting the demands of the terrorist. Pouring milk on a supermarket floor is a long way from bombing a kindergarten. But it feels to me as if it is on the continuum.

Historian trace terrorism back a long way, to the terrorist campaigns of the Zealots against the Romans in Judea, and to those of the Shi-ite Muslim sect, the hashashin, against Sunni Muslims and medieval Christendom. More recently the Reign of Terror was an example of the use of terror to achieve governmental ends–Robespierre and his colleagues used it after revolutionaries seized power in the French Revolution to maintain power and supress political rivals.

And so we come to more modern times, when terrorism is practiced by authoritarian governments against their citizens and against the citizens of territories they invade, as well as by pressure groups who want to force political, social, religious and economic change.

Alexander Ulyanov, who tried assassinate Czar Alexander III in the 1880s, summed it up as: “is the only form of defense to which a minority, strong only in terms
of its spiritual strength and in its knowledge of the rightness of its beliefs, can resort against the physical strength of the majority.” Admittedly, that wasn’t a democracy by any means. But taking the words at their face value, they are plain wrong. In a democracy, where everyone has a right to a voice and a vote, a minority who do not agree with the beliefs of the majority has no place trying to intimidate the government into giving the minority beliefs preference over those of the majority.