The history of terrorism as the history of man

The history of terrorism is the history of man. It began, according to an ancient myth, outside the Garden of Eden, when Cain, the first born of man, probably crushed his brother Abel's skull in a fit of jealously, and discovered that man has the capacity to kill his own kind. This capacity, murder, assault, the ability to hurt or maim another must be threatened in order for it to arouse terror is another. The terror aroused is expected to provide sufficient motivation to force individuals or communities to comply with the terrorist's demands.

The ends of terrorist threats in the history of terrorism are as varied as objects the man may covet. For some, it may be as simple as the control of another. To others, it may be to take from another what is not theirs, land, resources, women and children. In other cases, the terrorist goal is to enslave another, or cause another to act against their own will. The objects may be on a high scale or a low scale. A rapist or a strong arm robber may both be considered terrorists, since they use terrifying threats to obtain what they want. A bellicose nation poising its armies on the borders of another state is attacking in a terrorist's way. If fact, all crimes, civil or international, that involve the threat of violence may be considered terrorist acts.

If we like, we may find the first chapters of the history of terrorism in a human, primate-like society in which social order and control were shaped and executed by the mightiest man among the group, one who had showed his destructive power in combat with another human, probably by killing or irreparably injuring that opponent, thereby impressing the others, causing terror in the others to the degree that the others would rather relent to the will of the terrorist then face the same or similar fact.

The history of terrorism is intricately tied to the first political organization in which dominance was established, not by wisdom, knowledge, age, by prowess in the hunt, or some special, spiritual power, but by pure, physical force. The first social terrorist was probably a bully. That worked for a time until men realized the strength of the bully was no match to the strength of a gang. The gang retained a leader, but the sole terrorist was quickly outmoded by the group of bullies and their leader, advancing the history of terrorism to a new scale. These groups were the first political parties. At first they were tyrants, interest in their own pleasures, but through the civilizing influence of the demos, these bullies were transformed into the law enforcement entities of towns and villages, permitted to use force and the threat of force to control its citizens towards the ends they set. Their use of force, with such acts as decapitation, torture, crucifixion, served to terrify the other citizens into submission and obedience to the ruler's commands. If the rationality of obeying the law was not convincingly, the rationality of avoiding the terrifying punishment for disobedience was.

The terror of force worked just as well between societies in conflict, with war and its horror effectively controlling enemies that would consider attack. The threat of the terrors of war was discovered to effectively subdue other tribes and nations and to bring them into submission and slavery without firing a shot. In the modern world, the terror of a nuclear war hangs over the heads of nations that would consider attacking a nation with a nuclear arsenal. Murder and the threat of murder, terrorism, war, is the history of terrorism and the history of nations. They mean more or less the same thing.