Insurgent: use and meaning

March 24, 2006 9:48 AM

When did the word "insurgent" become main stream?

I'm curious to know when the word "insurgent" started being used in the the US media. I'd also like to know what words besides "insurgents" have been used during wars in the past and how "insurgent" differs from words like "guerilla" and "rebel".

posted by kechi to writing & language (20 comments total)

It's like "freedom fighter" except that that insurgents are not our allies. I am pretty sure this was a common word in the press during the Vietnam "conflict."
posted by caddis at 9:52 AM on March 24, 2006

Basically when the news people started feeling stupid calling them "terrorists". As I recall, this was about a month into the insurgency.
posted by Optamystic at 10:04 AM on March 24, 2006

Optamystic, I completely disagree. The "insurgents" are terrorists? I thought they were Iraqi citizens trying to get the U.S. to pull out by using violent methods. Sounds like a freedom fighter to me.

Tell me this...remember Red Dawn? In the 80's, if Russia had invaded the U.S. and occupied us (somehow), and you were trying to fight back. Would you be a terrorist? I think you'd be more of a freedom fighter.

Or maybe Neo and his buddies in The Matrix. Where they terrorists because they were fighting back?

Or the crew in V? Were they terrorists for fighting back against the lizard people?

IMHO, terrorists have not had one SINGLE thing to do with the whole Iraq mess.
posted by Chuck Cheeze at 10:26 AM on March 24, 2006

Chuck, I think that's the point the Optamystic was making.
posted by stopgap at 10:33 AM on March 24, 2006

At the risk of turning this AskMe into a political discussion...

The definition of "terrorism" does not have a single uniformly accepted definition. However it commonly is used to refer to violence against civilians by non-state actors for political, religious or ideological reasons. Using that definition some of the fighters in Iraq are terrorists (specifically the ones that specifically target civilians).

On-topic suggestion: Use the way back machine to find CNN or other mainstream press articles on the war and see when they made the switch.
posted by justkevin at 10:36 AM on March 24, 2006

Terrorist is a description of methodology. Not all insurgents use terrorism as their means of fighting.

An other term to use, though usually associated with WWII France, is "resistance."
posted by Pollomacho at 10:36 AM on March 24, 2006

I'm going to say the mainstream media started to use the term "insurgents" around October/November '03. I did an advanced Google search for "insurgent*" in the domain "cnn.com" with 100 results per page, then searched page for date references. The earliest were in November / December. I did the same for Boston.com and the earliest result there was late October.
posted by justkevin at 11:06 AM on March 24, 2006

I think the term became popular at the start of the war. If you may recall, the media used to use the term Muhajadeen all the time to refer to the groups. (Which is how they would probably refer to themselves. I think insurgents became more popular when people realized that Muhajadeen means Holy Warrior. Insurgent sounds worse.
posted by chunking express at 11:21 AM on March 24, 2006

It started at the same time the insurgency started. It wasn't the media who came up with the term either, it was Rumsfeld, I believe. The whole idea was to emphasize that these aren't Iraqis fighting the US, they are foreign parties. There was a short period of time I think where the media (particularly the Times) referred to them as "rebels."
posted by nixerman at 11:37 AM on March 24, 2006

The "insurgents" are terrorists? I thought they were Iraqi citizens trying to get the U.S. to pull out by using violent methods. Sounds like a freedom fighter to me.

Not all of them are terrorists, but according to this Wikipedia break-down, the insurgency is in part composed of "foreign Islamist volunteers including the often linked to al Qaeda and largely driven by the Sunni Wahabi doctrine" and "the indigenous armed followers of the Salafi movement, as well as any remnants of the Kurdish Ansar al-Islam". Al Qaeda and Ansar al-Islam (which has known connections to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi) are both terrorist groups. This Jamestown Foundation article claims there is "growing evidence that Iraq has begun to attract foreign Islamists and anti-American groups such as al-Qaeda and the Tawhid organization of the elusive and enigmatic Jordanian-Palestinian terrorist, Abu Mus‘ab al-Zarqawi, for whom Iraq is a new and easily accessible battlefield"; the article is a bit old, but is backed by this more recent article.
posted by gentle at 11:58 AM on March 24, 2006

In case you're interested in earlier use of the word, from the OED:

1765 FALCONER Demagogue 377 His sanction will dismay, And bid th' insurgents tremble and obey.
1801 WELLINGTON Mem. Seringapatam in Gurw. Desp. (1837) I. 348 In regard to the insurgents in Malabar, the war against them cannot be carried on at all without assistance.
1812 G. CHALMERS Dom. Econ. Gt. Brit. 164 [Why] it was, that the vast strength of Britain did not beat down the colonial insurgents, not in one campaign, but in three.
1851 GALLENGA Italy 133 He acceded to all the immediate demands of the insurgents.
posted by languagehat at 12:10 PM on March 24, 2006

I think it's about the least politically loaded term you could use. Terrorist: bad, rebel: romantic hero, Muhajadeen: too spesific
posted by delmoi at 12:32 PM on March 24, 2006

I think insurgents became more popular when people realized that Muhajadeen means Holy Warrior.

Actually, a nitpicky Arabic point on the transposition of consonants: Muhajedeen are people making the Hajj, and Mujahedeen are holy warriers.
posted by Emera Gratia at 1:19 PM on March 24, 2006

From Webster (1913):
Insurgent \In*sur"gent\, n. [Cf. F. insurgent.]
&nbsp&nbsp A person who rises in revolt against civil authority or an established government; one who openly and actively resists the execution of laws; a rebel.

The use of the term presumes a "civil authority" or "established government." I'd be curious to see if the use of the term coincided with with elections or the formation of a "civil authority."
posted by GarageWine at 1:19 PM on March 24, 2006

Thanks justkevin. I did the same thing for nyt and got results for "insurgent" back to 1851 (as early as the search engine could go). In the early 80's it looked like it was used with a frequency of about once every 2-3 days. In today's NYT there were 4 articles refering to insurgents. I haven't yet looked to see when the frequency was increased.

What I'm also curious to know, similar to what delmoi said, is if the term gained popularity in the administration/media to make it seem as though this is not a civil uprising against the iraqi government and the US's involvment in iraq but isolated groups of people. In other words, why don't the administration and media refer to the insurgents as rebels/militants/insurrectionist? Is it because these terms are politically loaded and insurgent was a word with less historical use? Did people actually sit around and decide on a word that they would use to describe the (for lack of a better term) iraqi insurgents or was it just a term Rumsfeld used once that caught on.
posted by kechi at 1:55 PM on March 24, 2006

Emera Gratia, thanks. You learn something new everyday.
posted by chunking express at 1:57 PM on March 24, 2006

The correct term between the invasion of Iraq and the establishment of an Iraqi government would have been "resistance" ("an underground organization engaged in a struggle for national liberation in a country under military or totalitarian occupation"). "Totalitarian" is loaded and unnecessary, though.

If you feel that the Iraqi government is legitimate, "insurgent" ("rising in revolt against established authority, especially a government") is probably the best word to use, although "insurrectionists" or "rebels" might work, too. "Militants" seems too broad and vague.

The whole idea was to emphasize that these aren't Iraqis fighting the US, they are foreign parties.

The US has been dramatically exaggerating the participation of foreign fighters since the beginning of the war, and this may have been Rumsfeld's motive for using the term, but it's not what the word means.
posted by kirkaracha at 2:25 PM on March 24, 2006

An other term to use, though usually associated with WWII France, is "resistance."

Which reminds me: Are the insurgents partisans?
posted by mendel at 2:41 PM on March 24, 2006

The US has also consistently exagerrated Zarqawi's influence, after they avoided attacking him before the invasion.

Are the insurgents partisans?

Could be: "A member of an organized body of fighters who attack or harass an enemy, especially within occupied territory; a guerrilla."
posted by kirkaracha at 4:04 PM on March 24, 2006

It might be of interest to look into the Philippine-American War (1899-1902). I'm not an expert on this area, but in a class back in '03 we read several U.S. gov. documents describing Filipinos who resisted the occupation as "insurgents".

This site (2nd to last paragraph) quotes this book:
What we call the Philippine Insurrection should be called the Philippine War. We had never conquered the Philippines, so you can't call it as a revolt. That's why in history books, Americans call the Philippine soldiers 'insurgents.' The dictionary defines 'insurgent' as 'a person who rises in forcible opposition to lawful authority, especially a person who engages in armed resistance to a government.'

I can't vouch for the book, but the original historical documents speak for themselves. The quote above was the first hit in a google search for "insurgents" and "philippine american war".
posted by ibeji at 4:54 PM on March 24, 2006