Terrorism or Not Terrorism? That is the Question

Like many people, when I first heard about the petrol bombs thrown at the Dover Migration Centre on Sunday (30th October 2022), I thought "that sounds like a terrorist act".
 
It wasn't being treated as such, and the investigation was being led by Kent Police. By Monday 31st, the commentary about why it wasn't being described as a terrorist attack was becoming louder. The feeling being that if it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, waddles like a duck, it probably is a duck. However, I didn't think politicians and the media should pronounce it as a terrorist attack, as it wasn't being investigated as such. However, I also thought politicians and the media had a duty to say "it looks like a terrorist attack". To go back to the metaphor, it would be presumptuous to declare "it is a duck", but reasonable to say "it probably is a duck".
 
This was the prevailing mood as we entered Tuesday 1st November - there was a need to avoid categorically proclaiming the petrol bombs thrown at the Dover Immigration Centre was an act of terror, but legitimate to describe it as looking like an act of terror.
 
And then, this all got rather muddled-up later in the day. Counter-terrorism Police were now taking the lead on the investigation. The implication being that we could now say it was being treated as an act of terrorism, which would mean that the need to caveat describing it as an act of terrorism would be gone. It might not have been definitively demonstrated to be terrorism, but for simplicity the "it is probably a duck" could be by "yeah, it is a duck". 
 
But, no we definitely could not do this because the Head of Counter-terrorism police said it was an act carried out: "by some form of hate-filled grievance, though this may not necessarily meet the threshold of terrorism".
 
Thus, Terrorism or Not Terrorism? That is the Question!
 
Clearly bewilderment was the natural response to that statement. My initial reaction was to feel ready to ditch the caveat, and say "yes, the petrol bombs thrown at the Dover Migration Centre on Sunday (30th October 2022) was a terrorist act".
 
So, why might it not be terrorism? I wanted to play Devil's Advocate, and try to work out what could be meant by "may not necessarily meet the threshold of terrorism".
 
The simplest and easiest way of thinking about this is through consulting existential philosophy (that is probably the first and last time you will read that the simplest and easiest way of doing something involves consulting existential philosophy). But, a quick consideration of Camus' The Myth of Sisyphus opens up an entirely new way of thinking about what happened at the Dover Immigration Centre. This hinges on a crucial detail I haven't mentioned yet: the attacker committed suicide immediately afterwards.
 
This is where existential philosophy provides the means of confronting the question: Terrorism or Not Terrorism? Camus proclaimed that the first and most fundamental question in philosophy was what made life worth living (or not) - the question of suicide. Essentially, there are two reasons why someone commits suicide: one is the life has become too much, and is not worth the trouble; and two, dying for ideas or illusions that give a reason for living, dying for a cause, martyrdom.
 
To determine whether something is an act of terrorism. If someone awful person decides that they can't be bothered living, and they are going to commit suicide, but they are going to try to take other people with them, such as going into a school and shooting a load of kids with the intention that once the rampage is over the shooter is going to shoot himself, that isn't necessarily an act of terrorism. This could be what happened on Sunday - a pathetic loser decided there was nothing worth living for, that carrying on living wasn't worth the hassle, but before he killed himself, he would "go out in a blaze of glory", and enact some deranged form of "revenge". Alternatively, someone may have a cause that they are prepared to die for, that may be the heroic and praiseworthy suck as "tank man" in Tiananmen Square in 1989 to the Suffragettes, or it may be the evil disturbed jihadis who seek martyrdom, believing they are completing God's wishes, such as the 9/11 attackers. On the other hand, a lone wolf attack legitimately raises the question: Terrorism or Not Terrorism? If a Lone Wolf drives a car at pedestrians and kills himself after the act; it is difficult to know whether the suicide was driven by a giving up on a non-worthwhile life, or dying for a cause in a quest for martyrdom.
 
The attack on the Dover Migration Centre on Sunday 30th October, Terrorism or Not Terrorism? That is the Question! And, we can probably never know. It could have been some nasty loser who had decided to commit suicide, had a grievance against asylum seekers, and decided to enact an entirely abhorrent act of violence prior to ending his own life. Or it could have been the act of someone motivated by a vile hate ideology that was prepared to die for his deranged cause.