Revolutionary terror designed to discredit the state often backfires into sympathy for the state.
Evidence
Sergent reckoned that “our only chance to swing in our favour a significant section of metropolitan opinion is to create a situation obliging the regime to react violently and discredit itself”. It was the traditional formula of the modern revolutionary terrorist, whether Tupamaros or Baader-Meinhof, and — as so often happens — it was to produce quite the opposite results from those desired by Sergent. Over the six months, culminating in February, that the main O.A.S. offensive in France lasted, it was to do as much as anything else to tilt French sympathies towards de Gaulle’s acceptance of a precipitate withdrawal from Algeria. — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 1523
Categorization
- XREF: Connects to the standard provocation-vs-overreaction mechanism of terrorism literature and to my notes on how violence tilts public sympathy. — connects to: Terrorism aims to provoke state repression that radicalizes the population.; Provoking state repression is the core mechanism of modern revolutionary terrorism — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 368; States manufacture paranoia so the public welcomes the very power that created the anxiety (+5 more)
- QUESTION: Why did the same OAS tactics that terrorized Algeria fail to swing metropolitan Paris opinion — was it the victims being French children?
Related
- Terrorism aims to provoke state repression that radicalizes the population. (similarity 0.90)
- Provocation terrorism backfires by accelerating the settlement it aims to prevent (similarity 0.84)
- Provoking state repression is the core mechanism of modern revolutionary terrorism (similarity 0.83)
- Random mass terror produces passive apathy rather than resistance in its victims. (similarity 0.82)
- Terror is defined by independence from opposition, not suppression (similarity 0.81)
- Blind terrorism provokes blind repression, polarizing and hardening a conflict (similarity 0.79)
- Brutal French reprisals backfired by deepening Algerian hatred of France (similarity 0.79)
- F.L.N. terror backfired against France, not the F.L.N., abroad (similarity 0.78)
Broader Connections
- Provoking state repression is the core mechanism of modern revolutionary terrorism
#corroborates(0.85) — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 368 - States manufacture paranoia so the public welcomes the very power that created the anxiety
#corroborates(0.75) - Attacks on out-groups divert attention from real crises and expand state power
#corroborates(0.60) — Carl W. Ernst, Islamophobia in America_ The Anatomy of…, 43 - A government can manufacture crisis to construct its own people as enemy
#corroborates(0.60) — , The Braided Reading EPUB, 111