Although, by the time that Mandela was knocking about South Africa had already been ‘taken away by the locals.’ In fact, it had been taken away by that other group of locals, coincidentally also called terrorists, against whom the British fought two wars in the late 1800s.
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I think that it’s because that’s the word Vinnal used, i.e., a direct quote.
Well, that was my question - is it common usage to quote a single word when quoting somebody? More often when you see a single word quoted, these days, it’s scare quotes.
According to many of the generally accepted definitions of “terrorist”, they were. Often the main difference between “terrorist” and “freedom fighter” is which side you happen to support, rather than the actions they are actually performing.
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MartinPru didn’t use your dismissive phrasing of “just a bunch of terrorists” (unless he’s edited since.) While I would reserve “terrorist” for someone who attacks non-military targets, a problem here is confusing the strategy with the moral standing of its practitioners. It is possible to be a “terrorist” and a “good guy.”
Quite.
Hence the term “Conservative”. Keeping things just nicely as they are.
How comfy.
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“terrorist” eh?! nudge nudge?! eh! Wink!?! [picture] Eh?!? JFC, that’s straight from the BNP’s playbook.
eh? Wassat? Shiver me timbers, it’s the ghost of Alastair Campbell 1995!
Who’s to decide?
So the IRA were (or should that be still are) freedom fighters, given how the British chose to govern Northern Ireland?
In Ghandi’s words:
I do believe that, where there is only a choice between cowardice and violence, I would advise violence... I would rather have India resort to arms in order to defend her honour than that she should, in a cowardly manner, become or remain a helpless witness to her own dishonor.and
I want both the Hindus and Mussalmans to cultivate the cool courage to die without killing. But if one has not that courage, I want him to cultivate the art of killing and being killed rather than, in a cowardly manner, flee from danger. For the latter, in spite of his flight, does commit mental himsa. He flees because he has not the courage to be killed in the act of killing.and a great deal more in that vein: http://www.mkgandhi.org/nonviolence/phil8.htm
Of course, he always concludes that non-violence is better. I think that someone who is not in a position to understand how badly some people are oppressed in this world isn’t really in a position to tell somebody else that they should have the courage to die without fighting back if that’s what it takes.
Your example of abortion clinic bombers, undertaken on the behalf of victims who never asked for your help, strikes me as much more similar to the USA’s invasions of other countries to liberate them in recent years.
Nelson Mandela’s case is more comparable to the citizens in Mexico currently banding together to fight off the drug gangs that had practically enslaved them.
There are cases, like that in Mexico right now, and the situation of the hill tribes in Burma and the Tibetans in Tibet, where the forces oppressing them have so little human compassion that non-violence doesn’t work. The fact that the Afrikaners are European leads a lot of people to assume that’s not the case with them, but I don’t think a sober evaluation of the evidence bears that out.
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You’re agreeing with the point I was making, but you seem to think I was wrong. Did you read the original quote I was replying to? No matter, I suspect you just want to shout at someone, anyone…
Not even a little bit. & the quote you were replying to was in the post I replied to, Einstein.
And consider the history of Brittania in its colonial adventures.
Malaysia is all over the news, there’s a good place to start. Dividing into zones, shooting people, interrogations, spy networks … aaah … he who casts the first stone, eh?!
Oh the OUCA members back in the day used to be avid supporters of Northern Ireland terrorists. They just supported the protestant gangs who started the troubles by terrorizing the Catholic population rather than the IRA. It was quite common for OUCA members to wear pins supporting the UVF which killed an elderly Protestant widow in a petrol bombing back in 1966, long before the Provisional IRA was formed. They didn’t murder quite as many people as the IRA but they were terrorists by any definition.
The British troops were actually sent in to the province to protect the Catholics from the loyalist terrorists.
But the relevant institution here isn’t Oxford or public school (both of which I attended), its OUCA, an institution formed for the express purpose of perpetuating class war on the poor and underprivileged.
To understand OUCA you have to enter into a Nietzschean mindset in which the world is divided into the oppressors and the oppressed. One must side with the first or become the second. It is a world in which no change to the established social order can be comprehended. Anyone who proposes such must ipso facto be a naive unrealistic dreamer.
Those who are born on top will remain but that does not mean that advancement is denied to those unfortunate enough to come from the lower orders. They cannot of course expect to ever fully join the elite but they can rise above the members of the underclass.
For the OUCA member, George Orwell’s model is not exactly wrong, it is incomplete. The future is a boot stamping on a human face forever but there is the foot inside the boot and there is the voice that gives the order. For the parvenu, the social climber, OUCA’s message is this: We will give you the boot and tell you where to stomp.
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The comment itself was to stop a potential situation of directing hate towards all Oxford students, and the original commenter has apologised.
As for OUCA, there can only be an antagonistic relationship between us. They are conservatives, I am a former student at [Ruskin College][1] (An independent left wing college which is affiliated with Oxford University). There wasn’t any need to think of the likes of OUCA as anything other than the enemy that must be destroyed.
Thinking back, I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a lot of crossover of membership between OUCA and Oxford Law Society. When I went to the freshers fair they were the only society that made it clear they did not want me as a member.
[1]: Ruskin College - Wikipedia
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