The word terror existed before the terms terrorist or terrorism were created. The Oxford dictionary describes terror as ‘a feeling of extreme fear.’ The Cambridge Smart Thesaurus explains it as violent action which causes extreme fear. The Cambridge Thesaurus goes on to explain that terror is synonymous with fear, panic, fright, horror and dread. The Collins English Dictionary describes terror as great fear, panic or dread inspired by a troublesome person. The definitions of terror cannot get any better than these three sources, or at least my Advanced Level English Literature teacher, Miss Mpeti would say so. I believed and do still believe her.
Using these definitions, it means that any person who commits acts or threatens to commit acts that instill fear, horror and panic in people is committing terror and is therefore a terrorist. So from:
Osama Bin Laden (considered to be the worst terrorist ever) who took out the twin towers and killed many in the USA;
Al Qaeda who burn whole villages in Afghanistan and Pakistan;
Joseph Kony who killed, raped and maimed civilians in Northern Uganda and continue doing so in parts of Southern Sudan and the DRC;
Omar Al Bashir who killed, displaced, and instigated the rape and are still killing, displacing and instigating the rape thousands in Darfur, South Kordofan and South Sudan;
George Bush responsible for wars that caused and still cause the death and maiming of thousands in Iraq and Afghanistan;
Benjamin Netanyau and his Israeli government who have caused great suffering on Palestinian civilians;
Retaliating Palestinian Liberation Organisation members who attack Israelis with suicide bombers;
Genociders in Germany in particular the Holocaust by Nazis, Rwanda 1994, Zimbabwe in the Gukurahundi 1987 and Operation Mavhoterapapi 2008, Cambodia mass killing by the Khmer Rouge, Indonesian slaughter of the East Timorese;
Al-Shabab attackers on Uganda in July 2010;
Individuals responsible for the numerous bomb blasts in Nigeria, India, Pakistan;
Umar Farouk, the Nigerian who attempted to detonate bombs in an aeroplane and;
Anders Behring Breivik the Norwegian man who killed more than 87 of his own people they are all terrorists.
