John Brown is a Terrorist by Andrew Gillis

When examining the legacy of John Brown, it becomes difficult to categorize him because of what he stood for. As we know, John Brown was a key abolitionist and because of his actions people often portrait him as a hero (which he is). In light of this, I believe that John Brown was a terrorist and committed terrorism. Now I want to stress that I am not comparing him to modern day ISIS and I still believe that he is a hero, however his actions are one of a terrorist.

If you examine the actions of John Brown, and then put them into modern context it becomes quiet clear that his actions are terrorism. For example, John Brown specifically targeted and attacked property that belonged to slaver owners and pro-slavery individuals. He was not targeting people as much as their property to get his point across. This is used as a tactic today by many groups such as environmentalists and pro-choice extremists. Rather than attacking individuals of their opposing view, they attack offices or public locations so their actions can publicly be seen. John Brown also specifically chose his targets for psychological reasons. He wouldn't attack someone or something that people did not care about, but rather he would target known individuals or landmarks to psychologically affect his victims. We have seen this recently with the case of 9/11, when they chose the World Trade Center because they knew the psychological impact it would have on the US (among other reasons).

Should John Brown be Considered as a Terrorist or Freedom Fighter?

February 26, 2017

Post by Chirusha de Mel 

Should John Brown be Considered as a Terrorist or Freedom Fighter?

John Brown is a radical abolitionist who has caused violence in Kansas, in order to free slaves from the south. Analysts of the conflict have viewed John Brown as a terrorist. However, even though Brown and his group went on a rampage and killed many innocent civilians, it does not mean that this was an act of terrorism. I believe that John Brown was a freedom fighter because he fought for basic human rights, by trying to put an end to slavery for a virtues cause. In the article, John Brown, Terrorist? By Nicole Etchenson. Etchenson argues that John Brown flourished as a guerrilla leader in the 1860s by attempting to put an end to slavery, however some scholars may argue that John Brown should be considered as a terrorist due to the attacks on innocent civilians.

The term terrorism was not defined until the1960s. John Brown is a freedom fighter, he fought for the rights of African Americans, and while fighting he never instilled fear among those he had attacked.  In addition, terrorism is partly defined as instilling fear among individuals, and as time progresses the term terrorism becomes more ambiguous. According to Lutz and Lutz,

“terrorism is a term that has come to have an extremely negative connotation that makes it difficult to be connected to a good cause. The association of terrorism with evil began in the 1960s and clearly became more connected in the aftermath of the Oklahoma City bombings, the 9/11 attacks, the school takeover in Beslan in Russia, and other major attacks that have killed large numbers of people. It is worth noting, however, that terrorism did not always have such a negative connotation.”[1]

The attacks at Pottawatomie Creek was vicious, making John Brown’s actions unjustified in many eyes, however this does not detract from his constructive acts to end slavery.  It is important to note that only after the 1960s individuals began to consider John Brown as a terrorist. At that time period John Brown was fighting to gain freedom for the African Americans, and did not aim to harm innocent civilians. This portrays John Brown as an abolitionist fighting for the rights of African Americans.

            According to Etchenson, while guerrillas predominantly attack the military, terrorists engage in spectacular acts of violence intended to impress public opinion and whose targets are either “indiscriminate” – disregarding the possibility of civilian deaths – or are expressly civilians. [2] This states that John Brown appears as a guerrilla intent on overthrowing the oppression of slavery. The Harpers Ferry was a model of guerrilla warfare rather than terrorism. Harpers Ferry was a secret conspiracy that failed, and the attack on Harpers Ferry was directed at a federal arsenal. Furthermore, it is important to denote that John Brown, did not have a concrete political strategy while causing violence. 
         Lastly, his only intentions were to free the slaves. If John Brown did not fight for the rights of African Americans someone else would have. If John Brown never occurred, MLK would have been different, and may have not been as effective if he was peaceful.  In addition, John Brown should not be considered as a terrorist but as a freedom fighter, and tactic was needed during that specific time period.

---

[1] Lutz, Lutz. John Brown as guerilla terrorist. 2014

[2] Etchenson. John Brown, Terrorist? 2009.

John Brown is Not a Terrorist by Stephen Agnatovech

Stephen Agnatovech

Global Politics of Terrorism

Professor Shirk

February 25, 2017

John Brown is not a Terrorist

A recent class discussion that I had found interesting was talking about the legacy of John Brown and how his actions had been recently portrayed as terrorism. This is important because until recently John Brown was remembered as an American hero, and now he is not. I do not necessarily agree with these attacks on John Brown for a numerous amount of reasons. I think the time period plays an important role in this discussion as well as looking at what John Brown was fighting against which were basic human rights. I also agree with Etcheson in her article that John Brown’s attacks resembled guerrilla warfare rather than terrorism.

        The time period is a significant part in this argument for me. It wasn’t until after 9/11 that John Brown started to get examined under the lens of a terrorist. Brown’s attacks were considered guerrilla strikes against slavery and not terrorism. Brown never openly embraced violence, or intended to instill fear in anyone he came across. Brown’s reasons behind what he did were to gain justice and human rights for the African American. Therefore I don’t agree at all that John Brown should be considered a terrorist. Guerrilla warfare is defined by irregular forces fighting small-scale, limited actions, generally in conjunction with a larger political-military strategy, against orthodox military forces (Etcheson 31). In John Brown’s case the fight against slavery was his motive that had a larger goal then just immediate attacks. It was John Brown’s actions that led up to the civil war. Any act of violence can’t be considered terrorism because violence can be what it takes to make a change especially in John Brown’s situation. John Brown was well aware of slavery in the past, and knew that nothing was going to get accomplished in the right direction if it weren’t for violence. Violence is justified in this particular case because of guerrilla warfare consisting of raids, extortion, destruction, and massacre all acts committed by John Brown and his followers.

        In class we had talked about how some of the acts John Brown did were classified as terrorism such as the attack at Harper's Ferry or the Pottawatomie massacre because of the fear it struck into the settlers. Again I feel these acts weren’t intended to strike fear into the settlers, John Brown had specifically targeted men that were pro-slavery. His acts also had mostly consisted of freeing slaves rather than causing fear. Brown had never specifically targeted regular civilians without justification. In class we had also discussed that violence shouldn’t have been the solution to abolishing slavery when in fact it did cause a war. John Brown was essentially doing the same thing which was to fight against slavery. Lincoln had said that violence had to be committed in order to end the war to abolish slavery and he wasn’t accused of terrorism. If John Brown had done guerrilla warfare while the war was happening his acts wouldn’t have been considered terrorism at all. It is important to let the past stay in the past. If before 9/11 his acts weren’t considered terrorism then it should remain that way. Yes, some of the events that took place were controversial, but it is important to realize the time that those events took place. We live in a time now that we can look back on history and question certain events, but to John Brown he was concerned about his human rights and the freedom of African Americans at the time. Lutz argued that Brown’s tactics were unconstitutional and unconventional, but so was the concept of slavery.

Is John Brown Considered a Terrorist ? Divine Mugunga

Divine Mugunga

Global Terrorism

Prof. Shirk

February 20, 2017

Is John Brown Considered a Terrorist?

Although John Brown might have been fighting for a good cause, the strategies he used to achieve his goal of freeing slaves made him a terrorist. John Brown’s strategies involved carefully choosing a target, which included individuals that upheld slavery even if they alone did not own slaves. His targets might have appeared random because during this time, many people supported slavery but the randomness was actually the best way to instill fear in the population. Many definition of terrorism include random acts of violence as a distinction from other forms of crimes, but Lutz argues that indiscriminate violence is rare and a misreading of what the technique is designed to accomplish. He goes on to explain that victims can be somewhat randomly chosen from within the target audience, but not the population at large. The immediate victims are a means of sending a message to the audience and that the more random the violence appears with in the targeted group the greater the effect. John Brown’s targets sent a message to the audience that anyone one who supports slavery can be a victim of his violent acts.

Terrorism in today’s society carries a negative connotation, but like some scholars point out, this wasn’t always the case. We recently just looked at anarchist, who believed that all men are created equal, so they were against any form of hierarchy and that having a government. In order to make working class conditions better, get rid of government and all forms of hierarchy; anarchist, Average citizens, instilled fear with in the population by setting off bombs at local café and so on. Although anarchist, John Brown and many more had a noble cause for their terrorist acts, it doesn’t make them any less of a terrorist. It is difficult for people to label someone who wants to free slaves a terrorist, but what makes an individual a terrorist is more about the tactics they use and less about their cause and reasons. For example a decade after John Brown, the Ku Klux Klan, white extremist who wanted to restore white supremacy in the south, used the same methods as John Brown used in Kansas, assaults, murder, robbery, arson, and other forms of intimidation to bring this change about. People were quick to label the KKK as a terrorist group not because their tactics instilled fear in people, but because their cause was merely evil.

Therefore terrorism is a technique of using terror as a strategy, it can be used by anyone to achieve a variety of political goals. The negative connotation is what led individuals to call favored groups, such as anarchists and John Brown freedom fighters rather than terrorist and enemy groups, such as Al-Qaeda, terrorist instead of freedom fighters (Lutz and Lutz). For example airline hijackings were not unusual in the 1950 and 60s, caused by American trying to defeat the Cubans or vise versa. These attacks were not generally called terrorism, and those who committed them were not considered terrorist. Instead they were referred to as bandits, rebels, guerillas, insurgents, or revolutionaries (Stampnizky 3). Stampnizky argues that it wasn’t until the mid 1970s that these acts were considered a new urgent problem of terrorism.

Sources
Brenda J. Lutz & James M. Lutz (2014) John Brown as guerrilla terrorist, Small Wars & Insurgencies, 25:5-6, 1039-1054, DOI: 10.1080/09592318.2014.945678 

Blog post on piracy by Christopher Bouchard

Christopher Bouchard

Professor shirk

POL:357B

2/22/2017

Piracy

            Piracy is undeniably terrorism.  The word terrorism may not have been used to describe these pirates back then but if these acts were to occur today then we would most definitely classify them as terrorists.  These pirates were mostly non-state actors but also acted in the name of states sometimes.  They largely targeted non-combatant based ships to maximize their potential for taking over the ship.  And there ends goal was to use their terror that they spread to make those fear them and to reach their end goal which was economic gain and freedom from the rule of others. 

            Pirates or buccaneers as they were called back then, largely acted in one of two ways.  Either they were acting in the name of a state such as England or France for example and they were given letters of marque by their “states” in which they were acting in their name and these letters allowed them to participate in piracy in the name of the state that was there by forgiving them in advance of their acts if their acts proved helpful to that state.  Today we can relate this too rebel groups or insurgency groups as they know as that are sponsored by other countries to inadvertently help them.  An example of this would-be America during the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan.  America backed the Mujahidin to halt the growth of the Soviet Union across the globe.  The acts they committed were considered terroristic but we gave them money, weapons, and training to commit those acts.  In a sense this was what was happening during the 17^th century with pirates and trading ships.  This is not to say that they didn’t act outside of those letters of marque at all.  There were plenty of cases of when pirates acted outside of their letters of marque in which they did what they wanted to and then that state condemned them and their acts.  Also, sometimes these pirates just didn’t have any letters of marque at all meaning they were just free lancing pirates after they were no longer being contracted by states.  Now there is also a great example of this happening today.  The Taliban which grew out of the Mujahidin which America, along with several other countries, supported.  The Taliban then turned around and attacked America just as these pirates did when they were no longer being contracted by these states or simply whenever they felt that they wanted to.  Now both of these groups goals were different.  The Pirates were simply just after economic means such as gold and silver whereas the Mujahidin and Taliban were after taking back their country and then later the Taliban was after political means with their religion.  But I think that these two groups are a great example of terrorism from today’s world and form history.  These pirates may not have been referred to as terrorist but they acted in the ways in which we now classify terrorism today.  Which I think is a great example of how terrorism is not just a new topic of discussion that was created a little while ago it has always gone on but the word terrorist and terrorism itself is new and groups that we classify as terrorists have existed throughout history.