One of the difficulties in discussing terrorism is defining what it is. One man’s terrorist may be another man’s freedom fighter. I believe it is possible to pin-point the essentials by considering what I call the terrorist triangle:

In every case I can think of, there is some form of authority which is perceived as being oppressive or unreasonable by the group of people who eventually become to be known as terrorists. This group initially feels unable, or is unwilling, to hit back at authority directly. Instead it finds a set of innocent people to pressurise or terrorise in the hope of in turn driving them to exert their influence on authority. Thereby the terrorists hope to achieve their goals. The key element of this triangle is not that one vertex is labelled "terrorist", but that one vertex is labelled "innocents". They are the ones who really suffer. If those who felt aggrieved attacked authority directly that would not be terrorism. That would be war.

The IRA, for example, is a terrorist group, striking regularly at innocent members of the public, or the police, or at soldiers on or off legitimate duty. Occasionally they do try to attack an authority figure directly. The bomb targeted at the former Prime Minister, now Lady Thatcher, at the Brighton conference could be classed a more direct attack. It was clear that there was little regard for innocents in the vicinity, such as hotel staff or conference delegates, but if it had been more precisely directed it could have been described as a personal attack against a "higher authority", of which more later.

This triangular notion I am using is not arbitrary, nor original. It is a practical example of the rotating triangle of human relationships which is recognised by some schools of psychiatry:

To begin the cycle, authority is the persecutor of some set of people who regard themselves as victims. Their situation usually elicits some sympathy from the general public, who become the potential rescuer. The sympathy may be enough to sustain the victims’ belief in their cause, but not enough to persuade authority to act. So the "switch" occurs.

The triangle rotates. The victim becomes a persecutor, the rescuer becomes a victim, and the persecutor becomes a rescuer. The terrorist attacks the innocents, and authority tries to protect the latter. The hope of the terrorist is to activate a further switch by arousing the innocents to persecute authority so that the terrorist can rescue authority by coming to some accommodation with them, i.e. agreeing to resolve the original grievance. Occasionally the former terrorists actually become the new authority, replacing the original. When this occurs the whole cycle may begin again with a new set of players. The creation and subsequent history of the State of Israel is a good example of this extreme.

The full sequence thus appears:

Not all situations are so simplistic, but this underlying pattern is usually there. Some do not get beyond stage 2. In Northern Ireland it would appear that for many years it was UK government policy to keep the situation locked in stage two.

I suggest that it is often the lack of mutual respect, and the lack of appreciation of the depth of feeling at stage one which are at the crux of the matter. Unless the authority and the aggrieved are prepared to resolve their differences, real or perceived, with mutual respect then stage two seems inevitable. This is human "non-nature". Whereas inhuman nature, as nature, is amoral, this aspect of humanity, which vividly exemplifies the attitude "I’m OK, they’re not OK", is not only immoral, it is criminal.

In such cases, one solution could be that an even higher authority has to step in and insist that an agreement be reached on a basis of mutual respect. This would involve setting up a meeting of all the leaders of the various factions, or appointees empowered to take binding decisions. Such delegates should be made to attend, by force if necessary. The meeting would last until agreement were reached. This may take days, weeks, even months, but no one would be allowed to walk out of the meeting until agreement were forthcoming. This may sound draconian, but seeing what harm decades of terrorism invariably causes, even a year of confinement for the principal disputants would be a negligible price to pay. It would also save many innocent lives.

The above applies primarily to violent terrorists. There are others. The right to strike, for example, is a much vaunted civil liberty, but strikes can degenerate into a form of terrorism. A strike of public servants, or employees of a monopolistic company, does not directly affect the authority with whom the dispute exists. It hits the innocent public, or the shareholders of the company, or employees of other companies not involved. It often hits hardest those least able to lessen the blow.

Long ago, when Trade Unions were first formed, it may have been necessary to strike for fundamental respect and a decent wage. With small private companies, however, local strikes hit directly at the pockets of the owners. Other companies would continue to serve the public during the dispute. Nowadays with large government departments, international corporations, and national Trade Unions, authority hardly suffers at all. It is the elderly, the school children, the sick, the commuters, the holidaymakers: the innocent general public.

I would much rather hear of, and sympathise with, a group of discontented frustrated workers letting down the tyres of the few cars belonging to a recalcitrant board of directors, than of their closing down a power station, affecting millions. Yet the former is illegal, the latter is legal!

Strikes rarely do the striking workers much good. Even when the result is a so-called victory, any pay rise so achieved may well never compensate for the loss of earnings suffered during the strike. In fact sometimes the only reason employers can make their "final reluctant increased offer" is because of the wages they have not paid out during the strike.

Again I suggest that higher authority should step in. Instead of government wringing its hands and passing by on the other side, it should call a compulsory meeting of the disputants and insist an agreement is reached. I am not suggesting arbitration, which makes all parties losers. I mean an agreement, when everybody wins. A few days confinement for both the Union leaders and the Boards of Directors would concentrate their minds wonderfully. Of course a different fundamental approach to industrial relations would avoid this form of terrorism altogether. There would then be no need for such draconian counter-measures in our aptious society.

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