I believe he was wondering if this was an American student as he used an American law to try and take down the post. I don’t think it is because of a belief that folks from the U.S. have a monopoly on racism. Unfortunately that seems rather universal among some folks.
To call someone a terrorist is a political act. It’s a matter of opinion. Terrorism is basically violence by people we don’t like. Terrorists are people we don’t like. We, being the powers that be.
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Historical perspectives don’t actually change history, they only bend it a little. He was a freedom fighter in every sense. Even people that don’t like brown people would have to disavow any & all violence as a means to any end in order to non-hypocritically say otherwise, but I don’t know many bigots that would permanently disavow violence, do you?
Calling everything terrorist is cheap, incorrect & it is allowing someone to own you in a very subtle yet important way.
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That doesn’t really explain why one would put quotes around the word terrorist, to describe what Vinall called Mandela. He called him a terrorist, not a “terrorist”.
Oh - because Vinall’s a cunt.
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Lookit this fool, just equated Apartheid to income inequality in order to diminish them both.
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Terrorism is when political violence is applied indiscriminately to innocent people rather than state forces and active defenders of state forces.
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In fact it has no legal definition.
But your definition fails in many ways, not the least of which in that it tars all governments in history, all armed forces on all sides, all resistance forces, all acts of violence where there is an aggressor be it nation or individual.
That is why it is so convenient a term for ideological slagging. It’s recent overuse put every use into question.
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It wasn’t a legal definition I was offering, and I fail to see how It tars anything but the perpetrator of indiscriminate violence.
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Because indiscriminate violence rarely is.
Where a government engaged in murderous oppression from a far superior tactical position is involved, is the target the building as a contrary statement of the establishments projected invulnerability, or the people in or around the building? It could also be both.
Fact is, when you decide that something like resistance to oppression needs to follow what amounts to chivalrous conduct in violence you are doing history a great disservice.
William Wallace, the terrorist. Has a nice ring to it doesn’t it. He also was tried & convicted as a terrorist for non-chivalrous behaviour in armed conflict.
No one said violence was good, nice, pleasant, justified or otherwise.
Hmmm. Nope. Still not getting you. But you do seem to read a lot into my simple concept of don’t hurt the innocent.
Okay, if you have a simple concept of these sorts of matters I think we found your sticking point.
Here’s a fill in the blank. The XXXXX of XXXXX was an act of indiscriminate violence, thus XXXXX is a terrorist.
Keep it to pre-1985.
corrected, thanks! & I’m afk too 
Needs correction.
By your logic, the French Resistance against the Nazis were also terrorists.
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So your definition is aspirational more than lexical…
Probably.
But I’m not going to try and re-thread this thread, so I’ll leave it to others to bring it back on topic.
Was the Occupy movement tortured and killed with impunity all the while kept economically poor and in inhumane living conditions?
Your argument is incomplete.
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Yes, but consistent definitions would put strategic nuclear forces at the top of the list, and other military forces high up on the list, and the prison system pretty high up, while protesters wouldn’t even be on that list. What good is a consistent definition to the politicians who fund these military institutions, and push repressive laws in the name of ‘fighting’ terrorism? What good is a consistent definition to a prosecutor hoping to railroad protesters on terrorism charges? What good is a consistent definition to a lobbyist?
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Just doing a test…
The sinking of The Belgrano was an act of indiscriminate violence, thus Margaret Thatcher is a terrorist.
Seems to work at this end.
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Obviously the Tory toad doesn’t think that Mandela is a terrorist or he wouldn’t have tried to suppress reporting of his own comments.
This has to be seen in the light of other OUCA activities. Back in the day they used to spend their time cheering Pinochet, Marcos and the Nicaraguan Contras. Support for right-wing terrorism is pretty much the norm among OUCA members.
Every couple of decades or so, Central office gets fed up with the young hooligans and bans the college youth movement completely. The old Federation of Conservative Students was liquidated after they started running a Stasi-esque ‘enemies list’ which was sold to employers and accused former Prime Minister Macmillan of being a war criminal.
Oh and I think I remember that they hold committee elections every term so that as many members as possible can get ‘OUCA chairman’ on their CV which makes it fairly easy to get selected as an MP but I might be mistaken there.
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