ABSTRACT
In post-9/11 America it has been common for public officials, the media, and rank-and-file Americans to associate violence in public places carried out by Muslim attackers as acts of terrorism but the same types of violence by non-Muslims as crimes or hate crimes. The uneven usage of the term terrorism pre-dates the post-9/11 era. Public officials, the news media, and the public in England called acts of violence by the Irish Republican Army and by splinter groups thereof terrorism but avoided the controversial “T”-word when reporting on politically motivated violence abroad. However, the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, although occurring on another continent, were condemned as terrorism in these and other European countries in the days and weeks after 9/11. As one leading terrorism scholar observed, it is clear from surveying the literature of terrorism, as well as the public debate, that what one calls things matters.
