ABSTRACT
This chapter explains the vast majority of studies on “terrorism” so biased that they are worthless to try to understand the emergence, persistence and end to the type of violence, leading to poor policy recommendations. Terrorism studies must adopt a neutral stance toward violence in order to understand it. Right now, most studies are polemical arguments flattering the state while demonizing so-called “terrorists.” So predictions of future violence by one party, like al-Qaeda or Islamic state, without taking into account the action of Western states are just non-sense. A dialectical analysis implies a degree of self-awareness of the unintended consequences of one’s actions. The abrogation of such civil rights and liberties is a recipe to continue the violence, if the non-state community is large enough not to be eradicated completely by the state. Other slogans, “one man’s terrorist is another freedom fighter” are very accurate and capture clearly the dialectical nature of the phenomenon of political violence.
