Outlawing Terrorism

Abstract

One of the main driving forces of man is fear, and its very paralyzing effect has, in the solution of human conflicts, been sought as method for both attack and defence. No wonder then that Montesquieu recognized fear as the principle of the despotic type of government; while organized terror as practised nowadays on a wide scale has become an instrument for undermining the authority of established government.Its origin can be traced to Anarchism, that frightful episode in “the war between two divisions of society,… the world of privilege and the world of protest…, the last cry of individual man,… the last fist shaken against the encroaching State”. But organization in every form was so repellent to the 19th century anarchists that they were incapable of drawing together, even for the sake of concerted action.