Historical Dictionary of Terrorism Third Edition

GUILT TRANSFER • 225Maurice A. J. Tugwell in Chapter 11 of the Morality of Terrorism,edited by David C. Rapoport and Yonah Alexander (New York:Pergamon, 1982).The Maze Prison hunger strikes in Northern Ireland during 1981provide an example of guilt transfer. Ten convicted Irish NationalLiberation Army terrorists starved themselves to death in protestover the British government’s refusal to grant them a specialstatus as political prisoners as opposed to being classified as commoncriminals. Once the leader of the protestors, Robert “Bobby”Sands, died of starvation on 5 May 1981, a storm of protest rosein both Great Britain and the Republic of Ireland over the Britishgovernment’s alleged mistreatment of these prisoners. Althoughthese prisoners had earlier decided to engage in a “dirty protest” ofrefusing to shave, bathe, or wear prison clothing, while also smearingthe walls and floors of their cells with their own urine and feces,these self-imposed conditions were also cited by critics of the Britishgovernment as evidence of mistreatment of the prisoners. Also,terrorist attacks by the Irish Republican Army and by other IrishRepublican groups intensified, including several murders of theguards of Maze Prison.The crisis of the American hostages held captive in Lebanon duringthe period 1983–1991 provides another illustration. During theearliest phase of these kidnappings, the U.S. public’s anger wasdirected against the shadowy kidnappers and their sponsors. Overtime, however, as the U.S. public finally acknowledged the intransigenceof the kidnappers and the inability of the United States to takemilitary steps to free the hostages, its perceptions of where the onusof responsibility lay shifted instead to the U.S. government, whichwas expected to “do something” even if this entailed some appeasementof the terrorists’ demands. In time, the families and friends ofthe hostages formed political pressure groups to force such action bythe U.S. government.In the case of the victims of terrorism, guilt transfer means that thevictims come to accept the terrorists’ claims that they themselves,rather than their tormentors, are responsible for their misfortune. Thisenables the terrorists to secure the collaboration of their victims inmaking political statements or revealing information and also makesthe demoralized victims less likely to resist the terrorists or attemptto escape. See also STOCKHOLM SYNDROME.