18 September 2006

Terrorism hasn't always been about hijacking airplanes and ploughing them into skyscrapers for religious glory.

Dr Alex Bellamy, a University of Queensland Peace and Conflict Studies Senior Lecturer, is exploring the motivations behind terrorism, a term which was first used more than 200 years ago during the French Revolution.

Dr Bellamy is a winner of a UQ Research Excellence Award and will use his $75,000 grant to research and write a book about the ethics of terrorism for Oxford University Press.

Back then, he said terrorism was the deliberate killing of non-combatants mostly used by states to maintain order, punish insurgents and police the colonies.

During the Cold War, terrorism was often the weapon of choice for those seeking to right political wrongs, liberate a country or free oppressed people.

But since the Cold War, terrorism has been widely condemned and usually only justified by divine intervention or religious fanaticism.

He said there was much less terrorism around today than at any time because of the increased revulsion towards the killing of civilians.

"Until very recently, the most deadly terrorists were states," Dr Bellamy said.

"Since 1789 we count the number of victims of state terror in the millions.

"Terrorism came to be seen as illegal and illegitimate after the Geneva Conventions, although the great powers retained the right and ability to resort to it in emergencies in the form of nuclear deterrence."

The 31-year-old from Mitchelton said states used terrorism to suppress internal dissent (Turkey's massacres in Greece), eliminate ethnic or religious groups (Holocaust), impose ideology (Stalin's terror) as reprisal for insurgency warfare (Germany in the first world war or France in the Spanish Peninsular War), to maintain order in the colonies (Britain in Kenya) and in times of war.

"Terrorists today either deny that they are deliberately killing non-combatants, usually by arguing that the enemy has collective guilt or by appealing to divine instruction."

Dr Bellamy said the research award would allow him and his research assistant to gather valuable terrorism data from English and American libraries and archives.

The University of Queensland's outstanding research achievements are being celebrated during Research Week 2006 from September 18 to 22.

The event is designed to raise awareness of current UQ research among the university community, the general public, industry, government and the media.

For details of this year's program visit http://www.uq.edu.au/research-week/

Media inquiries: Dr Alex Bellamy (3365 3301) or Miguel Holland at UQ Communications (3365 2619).