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TERRORISM Let's get to the point.
There is no reason why someone's terrorist is someone else's freedom fighter.
The following conditions for
an act to be a terrorist act might not be to everyone's liking, but they will
do for now: 1) there is an alternative and peaceful way to
bring about one's political cause; 2) the cause is unreasonable and/or unjustified; 3) the terrorist is not
a legitimate representative of the people. Of course, philosophers are
very lucky; their raw material, aka concepts, can be so vague and imprecise that makes it all
worth while getting up in the morning. So let's see what we can do with all
this luck. By definition terrorists
usually, but not necessarily, use violence against the civil
population to achieve their objectives. Sometimes they target assets,
sometimes government employees and sometimes the military. However, by
definition, using violence against people is not something one can justify
very easily. And when it is justified it is usually done with a whole legal
or moral system to support it or regulate it. Self defence and justified war come to mind. It is easy to claim that one
does not have an alternative but to use violence. Of course, the ability to use
violence gives one a certain degree of power, but that is not a
justification. Not unless, that is, if we accept the slogan ‘might is right.’
At least in today's world,
we are fast discovering that economic power or strategic
alliances have a better leverage than semtex. Terrorism is first and
foremost associated with territorial claims. Anyway, there are enough
historical precedents that should put territorial claims on top of the
list. Ideology, in
the form of political convictions or religious beliefs, are also quite high on the list. So, what
justifies a cause or makes it reasonable? Since it is the business of the
courts to tell us what is reasonable, we need not concern ourselves with this
question here. Deciding what is a justifiable cause is more difficult. We
first have to ask the question justifiable for whom? Followed by, what is
being justified? I suspect that matters of
justification depend on whether the above three conditions are to be taken as
necessary and sufficient together. Or whether each of the above conditions are to be treated as separate conditions. Who do the terrorists
represent? And how do they become representatives? In a way the cause has a
lot to do in determining this question. Fighting an occupying force is surely
a different matter from fighting to establish an oppressive regime. It is
true that in some cases so called terrorists have wide support from the
population, but there are occasions when the legitimacy of this support is
not clear. Using coercion is not exactly the idea of representation we have
in mind anyway. A subject like terrorism
will always come with some loose concepts attached to it. Two of these
concepts are 'state sponsored terrorism' and freedom fighter. I don't know about you, but
for me 'state sponsored terrorism' is an oxymoron,
especially if that terrorism is directed at an other
state. It’s an oxymoron because if a state supports or directly uses
terrorists or terrorism against another state that would be an act of war by
whatever language or other system one wishes to stretch the semantics. States
commit act of wars; individuals commit acts of terrorism. At
a superficial level the term 'freedom fighter' is also vague. What does the
freedom fighter want to achieve? Does the freedom fighter want to get rid of
an occupying force or replace an occupying force with their
own ideological system? How important is it distinguish
between the terrorist who specifically targets the civil population and the
freedom fighter who targets the occupying force? Finally,
it is sometimes said that when terrorists bring about a change in the
political scene they operate in it is because things were due to
change anyway. In other words, the terrorists, at best, hastened the inevitable. The
questions then follows: what causal implications does terrorism have? What exactly
do terrorists achieve? And how does terrorism affect the population,
governments and other institutions? However, the most pressing issue
moralists and philosophers have to address themselves to is
this: do we have a duty to protect the rights of terrorist? Take
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