Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 5, No. 2, 2006, Page 38
Bosnians, the relationship between these elements was not one of direct control or total
manipulation. Rather, we have to assume a situation of mutual influence and interrelation.
However, there is some indication that the Black Hand attempted to force Austria into
measures against Serbia in order to drive both countries into war by assassinating the
Archduke and successor to the Austrian throne.[14] But, irrespective of the correctness of
this assumption, the events that led to the outbreak of World War I demonstrate how
immense the impact of this ―privatized‖ nationalist violence of terrorism can be at the
highest level of global politics.
After World War I, the Irish Republican Army (IRA) was founded in 1919 as a Catholic
underground organization, which was at the same time to represent the ―armed arm‖ of the
nationalist Irish Party Sinn Fein. Although a part of the IRA dissolved itself into the newly
founded state of Ireland in 1921, the militant wing fought on until 1923 in order to achieve
a total disconnection from Great Britain and the annexation of Northern Ireland. In the late
1920s, the IRA existed as a small armed group—forbidden in England as well as in Ireland—
before sinking into oblivion for many years, until the second half of the twentieth century,
when it gained new significance again. Ever since 1967, it has been involved in violent
clashes close to civil war. The forceful confrontation with London eventually resulted in a
split within the IRA. While the Marxist ―Officials‖ were striving for a political solution to the
Northern Ireland question, the Nationalist ―Provisionals‖ continued to resort to terrorism.
Subsequent to the declaration of a cease fire in 1993 among Sinn Féin, the moderate
Northern Ireland Catholics, and Great Britain, as well as subsequent to the launch of
another peace process, the IRA joined in a cease fire agreement in August of 1994.
Nevertheless, the year 1996 brought back new terrorist attacks and, in spite of another
peace agreement between London and Sinn Féin in 1998, terrorism by IRA extremists
remains an imminent threat.
“Werwolf”
Both terrorism and guerilla warfare joined hands during World War II. But it was not only to
fight the troops of the German Wehrmacht it was also the National Socialist leadership—
particularly in the phase of the collapse of the Reich—that considered terrorist actions to be
an appropriate means of fighting the war. Consequently, toward the end of the war, under
the codename Werwolf, it commenced underground activities against the allied forces that
can by all means, from today‘s view, be called terrorism. The codename itself might have
been taken from the novel by Hermann Löns titled Der Werwolf, published in 1910, which
portrayed the ―guerilla‖ war farmers and peasants from lower Saxony fought against regular
armies during the Thirty-Years War.
Terrorism for National Independence after 1945
In the late 1940s and 1950s, terrorism re-emerged in connection with violent insurgencies
against European Colonial powers. In fact, such different states as for example Algeria,
Israel or Kenya owe their independency, to a not insignificant degree, to nationalist political
movements using terrorism as a weapon against the colonial powers. Not to anyone‘s
surprise against this backdrop of violent de-colonization, the term terrorist was thrust aside
by the ―politically correct‖ term of ―freedom fighter.‖ The new terminology somehow
mirrored the recognition most of the liberation movements received by a large part of the
international community.[15] In the course of this development we find the founding in
1964 of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) under Egyptian influence as a loose
cover for several Palestine resistance groups. The goal was to establish an independent Arab
state on the soil of the former British Mandate of Palestine, while terminating the state of
Israel. It was the PLO president, Yassir Arafat, who expressed in a speech before the UN
Assembly in 1974, what distinguished, in his opinion, a freedom fighter from a revolutionary
or terrorist: ―The difference between a revolutionary and a terrorist … lies in the reason for

Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 5, No. 2, 2006, Page 39
which he is fighting. Because the one who fights for a just cause and for the freedom and
liberation of his own land in order to set it free from intruders and colonialists, can never be
called a terrorist….‖[16]
What strikes one‘s attention with this and similar positions of the past and present is the
exclusive fixation on the question ―Why.‖ In other words, what is significant is that the focus
is being laid upon the aim and goal of revolutionary violence. The complex sphere of what in
the broadest sense of the word can be understood as the ―jus in bello‖—i.e., the question
about what means and methods are permitted and prohibited when it comes to the
politically motivated use of violence—is neglected and entirely left out of the picture.
Left Wing Terrorism in the Twentieth Century
During the 1960s and 1970s, terrorism was almost exclusively represented by revolutionary
terrorist organizations ideologically motivated from the left side of the political spectrum. As
terrorist groups normally do, these groups tried to draw the world‘s attention to their
political goals. The Italian Red Brigades (Brigate Rosse) attempted to overthrow the existing
societal order by brutal acts of terror among which assaults and kidnapping were most
prominent. In the early seventies, it was the ―Rote Armee Fraktion‖ (RAF), as the Baader-
Meinhof-Gruppe called itself, which released a kind of mob-war against the then West
German political establishment. When the major proponents of the RAF were incarcerated
by 1972, several successor groups and sympathizing elements continued the fight by
committing further terror attacks. The links between the social-revolutionary left wing
terrorism and the Arab-nationalist terrorism were proven not least by the kidnapping of the
Lufthansa airplane by Arab terrorists in 1977. Subsequent to the spectacular liberation of
the hostages by the German Special Forces of ―GSG 9‖ in Mogadishu/Somalia, several
alleged RAF-terrorists committed suicide in the correction facility at Stammheim.
Religious Terrorism as a New Threat
In the 1990s a new generation of terrorists emerged, committing ever more dangerous
violent acts inspired by religious motives. Islamic extremists, ―bible-prone‖ right wingers,
and ―Judgment Day‖ sectarians pursue irrational goals through irrational means. The
Japanese Aum sect under its then leader Shoko Asahara used chemical weapons in its
assault on the Tokyo underground in 1995. This terrorist chemical attack resulted in twelve
deaths and five thousand-five-hundred injured people. The Aum sect dedicated itself to a
―theology of destruction,‖ aiming at the creation of a new ―race of superior man‖ (quite
naturally built by the members of this movement) who were to re-generate the remnants of
a post-apocalyptical world. The ―global reign‖ the Aum had in mind may serve as an
example for possible followers in the future.
The radical Islamic (Shiite) organization ―Hisbollah‖ (Party of God), on the other hand, fights
for the termination of the state of Israel, as well as for the foundation of an Islamic divine
state following the image of Iran. The terrorist organization ―Hamas‖ (Devotion), also wants
to demolish the state of Israel and erect the Islamic state of Palestine. What is common to
the internationally operating Islamic terrorist organizations is their shared goal of fighting
and bringing down the ―big Satan,‖ the United States.[17]
On the Mental Foundation and Psychic Manifestation of Terrorism
At the bottom of the various forms of terrorism—as it is the case with any political, social or
religious movement that stipulates a totalitarian claim—lies a physically as well as
psychically constructed struggle against plurality. It seems to be essential, however, to
distinguish a ―mental fundamentalism‖ from an ―operating fundamentalism.‖ In the
permanent mental dispute between culturally, religiously and politically motivated ideas and
values, we have to distinguish the one who is convinced by his attitudes, but who is