I’ve been reading so much the last few days about terrorists and terrorism I decided to see what exactly the definition of it is. Turns out no one can agree on any one definition. Most definitions include something about using violence or intimidation to advance a political agenda. Seems simple enough. But then I came across some articles about environmental groups who claim a “non violent” approach of destroying property to get their point across. Do they fall into the same category? They aren’t killing people after all. But couldn’t destruction be considered a method of intimidation to advance a political agenda? And what’s considered a political agenda these days? I doubt the true agendas are ever as simple as what is reported on the news.
There is one thing that seems to be a constant in every scenario that fits the description, hate. People aren’t born terrorists. What happens to a person to turn them into someone who is willing to indiscriminately murder thousands, millions, for their cause, die for their cause? How much hate must you have? What does that kind of hate do to a person?
I get it, people are afraid. But do the attacks in Paris really mean all Syrians are terrorists now? And that means we shouldn’t help them? We shouldn’t help human beings in need? Families whose lives are so terrible that they are willing to give up everything and risk their lives at a chance to escape? Because we’re afraid?
So now we hate Syrians. We hate Muslims. We hate. What if that’s the real agenda? What if the real agenda of terrorism is to turn us all against each other with fear and hate. Because terrorists just don’t live in a country across the ocean. They live here too. And Timothy McVeigh wasn’t born a terrorist either. But he had enough hate in him to fit the bill.