‘Terrorism’ is a maligned term assigned to non-State actors with a real or imagined political, social or religious grievances against their own State and/or citizens, and resort to violent means of publishing that grievance with or without the possibility of resolving it. It is important to ‘unpack’ that definition to understand what it says, and equally importantly, what it does not say. This latter factor is important for whether or not terrorism impedes ‘development’.

‘Maligned’ term because one person’s terrorist might be another person’s freedom fighter. The global tendency is to ostracise ‘terrorists’: but what happens if they become the bona fide government of a territory. Recent history abounds with such examples, from Castro’s late 1950s Cuban revolution to the many African liberation movements (1950s-1970s), to Palestine’s PLO, and most recently, Taliban in Kabul. ‘Terrorist’ likely over-focuses on “unlawful” while ignoring an arguably legitimate end. Nonetheless, there are terrorists, like Boko Haram, criminals without a legitimate cause who turn against the very civilians they purport to fight for.

Development is primarily about human beings, and only secondarily about the contexts they live in – useful investments in bright city lights, sky scrapers, fast trains, etc. For the UNDP’s Human Development Index (HDI), ‘development’ emphasises whether better health is drives longer, satisfying lives; whether literacy enlightens for health securing lifestyles; and incomes and livelihoods expand opportunities to enlightenment and health.

So, can, and does the activist, violent phase of terrorism deter development? Yes, it can and does; but it is impudence to blame Africa’s widespread low HDIs – lack of development - on terrorism. While many African countries currently host some civil unrest, few have a full-fledged terrorist conflicts. But many African countries’ political and economic classes perpetually terrorise their citizens, leeching them through extortionist taxes, while denying them the basics that foster improved health, literacy and incomes. Instead of using State resources to address the grievances undermining development and fostering unrest, some of the rich actually sponsor the violence as a camouflage for looting and raping of citizens and the economy.

So who is the terrorist?