Comparison of Terrorist and Freedom Fighters

Is One
Person’s Terrorist Another Person’s Freedom Fighter?
Terrorism: a widely discussed topic, with many having passionate views on the subject and the terrorists behind it. Freedom fighters: an example of the good in this world, people fighting for their rights under the oppression of dictators and corrupt and violent leaders. A stark contrast, surely? With today’s political climate and terrorist activity, are a terrorist and a freedom fighter the same thing?

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The Oxford
English Dictionary (OED) defines a ‘terrorist’ as ‘a person who uses unlawful
violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of
political aims’. A ‘freedom fighter’, according to the OED, is ‘a person who
takes part in a revolutionary struggle to achieve a political goal, especially
in order to overthrow their government’. There are certain phrases in both
these definitions that should be highlighted. For example, in the definition of
a terrorist, the OED says that terrorists use violence and intimidation in
‘pursuit of political aims’. The definition of the freedom fighter is also
based around achieving a ‘political goal’. This similarity in definitions
demonstrates that the line between terrorist and freedom fighter might not be
as clear cut as we would like to believe. However, I do not believe that we
should adhere to what the dictionary says, as the dictionary cannot account for
things such as context and social factors that we humans can when defining
terrorism as opposed to freedom fighting.
Take Nelson Mandela. A great man, fighting for the ending of the apartheid against the black population of South Africa by the minority white government. What started for him as a peaceful protest against the government slowly turned into more violent acts, with the 1960 Sharpville Massacre proving to be the final straw for Mandela’s attempts to achieve his goals through peaceful means. Many remember Mandela not only for his peaceful acts, but for his more sinister, violent acts too. He is famously quoted as saying ‘There is no easy walk to freedom anywhere, and many of us will have to pass through the valley of shadow again and again before we reach the mountain tops of our desires’. After the massacre, Mandela and some others founded ‘uMkhonto weSizwe’ (known otherwise as the MK), translating to the ‘Spear of the Nation’ – a group considered by the South African government at the time to be terrorist, and indeed they were using terror to fight back against the government. The MK conducted bombing attacks on various political and economic targets, even after Mandela’s arrest in 1961. This is an example of when freedom fighting transcends from more peaceful acts to more violent ones, in the hope of gaining what the freedom fighters want. Mandela, in this sense, can definitely be considered a terrorist, as what he was doing fits the OED definition of ‘terrorist’ very well. However, the important question to ask here is can these attacks be justified? Do the ends justify the means? Mandela chose to go down the path of violence after the peaceful protests made by the South Africans were met with violence and death. There was very little choice in Mandela’s mind, and many agree that if he hadn’t gone down the path of violence the apartheid in South Africa would’ve lasted for much longer than it did. This, I believe, is an example of justified violence in order to achieve equality between the coloured and the government in South Africa.
Ernesto
Guevara de la Serna, more commonly known as Che Guevara, was an Argentinian
freedom fighter who would fight alongside Fidel Castro in the guerrilla war he
was fighting against Fulgencio Batista, the Cuban dictator. Guevara would play
a key part in the war, leading troops against Batista’s forces and becoming a
military advisor to Castro. After Batista was overthrown by the revolution in
1959, Guevara was put in charge of the La Cabaña Fortress prison, where it is
estimated between 156 and 550 were executed on his orders. Later that year, he
was also put in charge of the Cuban national bank. Guevara left Cuba in 1965 to
try to start a revolution in Bolivia, however this didn’t succeed as, with only
a small force of guerrilla soldiers, he was captured and executed by the
Bolivian army. Guevara is seen by many around the world as an example of
radical left freedom fighting. Prior to meeting Castro, he had been travelling
widely around South and Central America, and as a result saw the widespread poverty,
oppression, hunger and disease. This, coupled with his interest in Marxism and
Communism, led to him believing that armed revolution was the only way to end
poverty and get rid of the dictator Batista. This is why he is seen by many as
a freedom fighter, as he worked to overthrow the dictatorship that was
currently in place in Cuba. However, he was also seen by many to be a terrorist
after his actions both against Batista and against his own troops. He was a
harsh disciplinarian, sometimes shooting defectors and deserters, who were
considered traitors. Guevara was much feared amongst those under him for his
brutality and ruthlessness. In this sense, he appears as a cruel, sadistic
terrorist, as there are examples of terrorist organisations, such as ISIS, who
treat deserters and defectors with the same level of contempt.
There are many
more examples of what we in the West, and indeed in other parts of the world,
consider to be freedom fighters. However, it is important to take into account
that different people, for varying reasons, will have different beliefs and
views on the world. That knowledge is key in answering this question. Both
Ghandi and Mandela were considered to be terrorists in their time, however
their work has changed the course of history, in my opinion, for the better. On
the other hand, there are men and women who left a much sourer note on world
history.
Osama bin
Laden, the man behind various terror attacks (most notably the 9/11 attacks),
is considered by most to be a terrorist, and it’s clear to see why. Starting
militant acts just after he left college in 1979, he would go on to form
al-Qaida, one of the most infamous terrorist groups in history. Very few people
would want to call him a freedom fighter. However, those very few people do exist,
namely the people left in al-Qaida after his death. His son called on the
‘oppressed Muslim masses’ to ‘rise in rebellion against oppression and tyranny’
and ‘revolt against the agents of the Americans’. These extreme Islamic jihads
view bin Laden as a freedom fighter as they believe that what the Americans do
in the Middle East go unreported and unjustified. This lead to bin Laden’s
first thought about attacking the World Trade Centres. He saw towers being
destroyed in the Lebanon War, with innocent civilian lives taken, and decided
that America should ‘taste some of what [the Lebanese civilians] are tasting’.
This harrowing quote from bin Laden, speaking in 2004, demonstrates perfectly
why in some groups he is thought of as a freedom fighter with the expulsion of
American troops from Middle Eastern soil at his heart. In this sense, if one
sees the Americans as being in the wrong, then it is possible to consider someone
who is typically seen by Westerners as a deplorable terrorist, as a freedom
fighter, fighting for his country and his beliefs.
Another very
recent group considered to be terrorists by those it affected is the Irish
Republican Army, or IRA. The IRA were first formed in 1917, and were comprised
of the Irish men who didn’t want to fight for the British. From that point
onwards the IRA would split into different branches, some more political and
some more violent than others. All of these groups would eventually lead up to
‘The Troubles’, the name given to the guerrilla war between the IRA and its various
branches against British rule of Ireland. This ‘war’ which started in 1968 is
deemed to have ended with the Good Friday Agreement in 1998.  However, splinter groups would continue to
operate indefinitely, such as the Real IRA, which still hasn’t officially
disbanded. The IRA were fighting the British as they believed that the British
didn’t have the authority to control Ireland. This drew many divisions in
Ireland, especially between Catholics who were mainly Republicans – wanting Ireland
to be a republic with no British influence, and Protestants who were mainly
Unionists – wanting Ireland to stay under British command as it had been. This
divide caused friction and conflict internally in Ireland and in Britain, with
the IRA conducting many bomb attacks in major cities in England, in an effort
to get Margaret Thatcher to remove British troops and command from Ireland.
These bombings were widely perceived, especially amongst the British and Irish
Unionists, as terrorist attacks, and it is clear why. The IRA were using what
could be argued to be ‘unlawful violence […] in the pursuit of political aims’
– the removal of British control from Ireland. However, there is also a view of
the IRA and these bombings as freedom fighters, bravely fighting the British in
order to remove them from their country and stop their command of Ireland. The
IRA’s actions fit the definition of a freedom fighter, however their use of
‘unlawful violence, especially against civilians’ also meets the criteria for
terrorism, as these bombing attacks were mainly against civilian targets. On
the other hand, the British military were also committing what the Republicans
considered to be terrorist acts, particularly Bloody Sunday – the killing of
thirteen unarmed male civilians at a proscribed anti-internment rally in 1972.
This is arguably very similar to Mandela’s response to the Sharpville Massacre
– the unjustified killing of unarmed civilians by the oppressive force, in this
case the British military, which caused violence to ensue from the oppressed.
However, the crucial difference in the case with the IRA is that prior to
Bloody Sunday, the IRA were using violence in the form of bomb attacks, whereas
Mandela wasn’t.
 In conclusion, there are many examples of what
we in the West would call freedom fighters or terrorists. We, with our Western
morals and standards (arguably largely based on Christian values), know what we
consider to be good and what consider to be bad and, albeit it differs slightly
from person to person, we can still very easily obtain a general consensus of
what constitutes bad versus good. Therefore, I think many would agree with me
if I stated that Mahatma Ghandi was a freedom fighter. He fought against the
British colonial control of India, and eventually achieved his goal of an
Indian controlled India. Mahatma Ghandi was, in my opinion, a great man, and is
a fine example of freedom fighting, as no matter what the British tried to do
to him, or whatever struggles and troubles he came across, he always advocated
one message above everything else: the use of nonviolence and peace. This, I
believe, is fundamental to freedom fighting: the use of peaceful protest
against an oppressive government or regime. Another good example of peaceful
freedom fighting is Martin Luther King Jr. A key figure in the Civil Rights
Movement, King lead the oppressed black people in America to fight for equal
rights. His example of always preaching nonviolence would be continued even
after his death in 1968. The constant nonviolence shown by these two men make
them, in my opinion, examples of men who cannot beyond any doubt be considered
terrorists, as their nonviolence sets them apart from many others who have been
considered freedom fighters. However, when considering freedom fighters, I
believe that it will always be possible to find a viewpoint that, within
reason, considers them as terrorists. I also believe that it will always be
possible to find a viewpoint, again within reason, that considers terrorists as
freedom fighters, as long as violence is a recurring theme. Whilst some may say
that violence shouldn’t be a defining factor if the ends justify the means, I
say that the idea of justification is merely different from person to person.
Where one person may see a freedom fighter’s actions as justified, another may
not. Therefore, as we cannot ascertain a definition of justification for
violence that everyone will agree on, people will continue to react to violent actions
differently, and so I think that yes, one man’s terrorist is definitely another
man’s freedom fighter.
Bibliography
https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/terrorism
https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/freedom_fighter
https://www.nelsonmandela.org/content/page/biography
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nelson_Mandela
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/guevara_che.shtml
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osama_bin_Laden
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/topics/troubles_paramilitaries
http://www.history.co.uk/biographies/mahatma-gandhi
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther_King_Jr.