The Irish Republican Army: Terrorist or Not Terrorist?

The Irish Republican Army: Terrorist or not Terrorist?

            While many people believe that the dictionary definition for terrorism is exactly what terrorism is, it must be noted that many definitions are in fact inadequate.  According to the Random House dictionary, terrorism is “the use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce, esp. for political purposes.”  This definition is inadequate because it does not take into account the people that the said terrorists target with their violence.  In order to fully grasp the idea of terrorism, we must first come up with a full definition of the term.  Terrorism is an act of violence committed by a revolutionary group characterized by the want to incite fear, often by targeting certain individuals or a large mass of people in order to make a political statement.  Based on this definition, it can be explained that the Irish Republican Army (IRA) is a terrorist group.

Before one can understand how the Irish Republican Army is a terrorist group, the different parts of the definition of terrorism must be explained.  The first part of a terrorist group is that the group must be a revolutionary group.  One example of this is the Nazi party in the book Night.  The Nazis were a revolutionary group in that they took over the government because they believed that they could help the nation recover from the devastation of the First World War.  They did help the country, to an extent.  Many of the initial programs by the Nazis did help the country, but then they started getting out of control.  An example of a group that is not revolutionary but could possibly be considered terrorist is the Africans who fought back against the British in Things Fall Apart.  These Africans are not revolutionaries because they were not trying to put in new ideas, but trying to maintain old ones.  The British were taking over their lands, and the Africans were trying to hold off the British to preserve their society.  The Africans are different from the Nazis because they were the victims, not the victimizers.  The Nazis were in control of all other people, but the Africans were being controlled and they just wanted to regain possession of their own land.