Today is my favorite day of the semester, because it's the first discussion section meeting for the course on terrorism that I TA, and we get to talk about definitions!
Definitions sound very boring, true, and as such a poor way to get students excited about the class. But the definition of terrorism is a different matter.
I start by showing them Title 22 of the U.S. Code, which is the official legal definition of terrorism in the U.S. It's pretty boilerplate. Then I show them the DoD definition...which is different.
Then I show them the State Department addendum to the Title 22 definition. Then I show them the FEMA definition. Then I show them the UN definition, which is a convoluted paragraph of nothing. They're all different.
By this point, they're confused. They already know "terrorism" is a contested term, but they often don't realize how much disagreement exists within their own government, not to mention IOs and other governing bodies.
So we talk about axes of disagreement. Who is the perpetrator? Can states perpetrate terrorism? Who is the target? How do we know who's a civilian vs. a combatant? And we talk about ways governments make those determinations.
That discussion is often very unsatisfying b/c noting that in some contexts all adult males are assumed to be combatants is unsettling (as it should be). And the way some gov't agencies treat military targets often doesn't sit well with my ROTC students.
But the point is not to make my students uncomfortable. The point is to illustrate what's at stake in the language we use and how our interests and biases shape how we see the world.
And in doing so, we start a semester-long practice of interrogating what we mean—and inevitably, students who have never written a research paper before, when we get to that part, say, "I guess I should start by defining my terms, right?"
And if I can make them think critically about how the language we use shapes the world, regardless of how they end up thinking about "terrorism", well, my work here is done.
