Is OnePerson’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? The OxfordEnglish Dictionary (OED) defines a ‘terrorist’ as ‘a person who uses unlawfulviolence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit ofpolitical aims’. A ‘freedom fighter’, according to the OED, is ‘a person whotakes part in a revolutionary struggle to achieve a political goal, especiallyin order to overthrow their government’. There are certain phrases in boththese definitions that should be highlighted. For example, in the definition ofa terrorist, the OED says that terrorists use violence and intimidation in‘pursuit of political aims’. The definition of the freedom fighter is alsobased around achieving a ‘political goal’. This similarity in definitionsdemonstrates that the line between terrorist and freedom fighter might not beas clear cut as we would like to believe. However, I do not believe that weshould adhere to what the dictionary says, as the dictionary cannot account forthings such as context and social factors that we humans can when definingterrorism 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.ErnestoGuevara de la Serna, more commonly known as Che Guevara, was an Argentinianfreedom fighter who would fight alongside Fidel Castro in the guerrilla war hewas fighting against Fulgencio Batista, the Cuban dictator. Guevara would playa key part in the war, leading troops against Batista’s forces and becoming amilitary advisor to Castro. After Batista was overthrown by the revolution in1959, Guevara was put in charge of the La Cabaña Fortress prison, where it isestimated between 156 and 550 were executed on his orders. Later that year, hewas also put in charge of the Cuban national bank. Guevara left Cuba in 1965 totry to start a revolution in Bolivia, however this didn’t succeed as, with onlya small force of guerrilla soldiers, he was captured and executed by theBolivian army. Guevara is seen by many around the world as an example ofradical left freedom fighting. Prior to meeting Castro, he had been travellingwidely around South and Central America, and as a result saw the widespread poverty,oppression, hunger and disease. This, coupled with his interest in Marxism andCommunism, led to him believing that armed revolution was the only way to endpoverty and get rid of the dictator Batista. This is why he is seen by many asa freedom fighter, as he worked to overthrow the dictatorship that wascurrently in place in Cuba. However, he was also seen by many to be a terroristafter his actions both against Batista and against his own troops. He was aharsh disciplinarian, sometimes shooting defectors and deserters, who wereconsidered traitors. Guevara was much feared amongst those under him for hisbrutality and ruthlessness. In this sense, he appears as a cruel, sadisticterrorist, as there are examples of terrorist organisations, such as ISIS, whotreat deserters and defectors with the same level of contempt.There are manymore 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 accountthat different people, for varying reasons, will have different beliefs andviews on the world. That knowledge is key in answering this question. BothGhandi and Mandela were considered to be terrorists in their time, howevertheir work has changed the course of history, in my opinion, for the better. Onthe other hand, there are men and women who left a much sourer note on worldhistory.Osama binLaden, 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. Startingmilitant acts just after he left college in 1979, he would go on to formal-Qaida, one of the most infamous terrorist groups in history. Very few peoplewould 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 jihadsview bin Laden as a freedom fighter as they believe that what the Americans doin the Middle East go unreported and unjustified. This lead to bin Laden’sfirst thought about attacking the World Trade Centres. He saw towers beingdestroyed in the Lebanon War, with innocent civilian lives taken, and decidedthat America should ‘taste some of what [the Lebanese civilians] are tasting’.This harrowing quote from bin Laden, speaking in 2004, demonstrates perfectlywhy in some groups he is thought of as a freedom fighter with the expulsion ofAmerican troops from Middle Eastern soil at his heart. In this sense, if onesees the Americans as being in the wrong, then it is possible to consider someonewho is typically seen by Westerners as a deplorable terrorist, as a freedomfighter, fighting for his country and his beliefs.Another veryrecent group considered to be terrorists by those it affected is the IrishRepublican Army, or IRA. The IRA were first formed in 1917, and were comprisedof the Irish men who didn’t want to fight for the British. From that pointonwards the IRA would split into different branches, some more political andsome 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 variousbranches against British rule of Ireland. This ‘war’ which started in 1968 isdeemed to have ended with the Good Friday Agreement in 1998.  However, splinter groups would continue tooperate indefinitely, such as the Real IRA, which still hasn’t officiallydisbanded. The IRA were fighting the British as they believed that the Britishdidn’t have the authority to control Ireland. This drew many divisions inIreland, especially between Catholics who were mainly Republicans – wanting Irelandto be a republic with no British influence, and Protestants who were mainlyUnionists – wanting Ireland to stay under British command as it had been. Thisdivide caused friction and conflict internally in Ireland and in Britain, withthe IRA conducting many bomb attacks in major cities in England, in an effortto get Margaret Thatcher to remove British troops and command from Ireland.These bombings were widely perceived, especially amongst the British and IrishUnionists, as terrorist attacks, and it is clear why. The IRA were using whatcould 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 ofthe IRA and these bombings as freedom fighters, bravely fighting the British inorder to remove them from their country and stop their command of Ireland. TheIRA’s actions fit the definition of a freedom fighter, however their use of‘unlawful violence, especially against civilians’ also meets the criteria forterrorism, as these bombing attacks were mainly against civilian targets. Onthe other hand, the British military were also committing what the Republicansconsidered to be terrorist acts, particularly Bloody Sunday – the killing ofthirteen 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 thiscase the British military, which caused violence to ensue from the oppressed.However, the crucial difference in the case with the IRA is that prior toBloody Sunday, the IRA were using violence in the form of bomb attacks, whereasMandela wasn’t.  In conclusion, there are many examples of whatwe in the West would call freedom fighters or terrorists. We, with our Westernmorals and standards (arguably largely based on Christian values), know what weconsider to be good and what consider to be bad and, albeit it differs slightlyfrom person to person, we can still very easily obtain a general consensus ofwhat constitutes bad versus good. Therefore, I think many would agree with meif I stated that Mahatma Ghandi was a freedom fighter. He fought against theBritish colonial control of India, and eventually achieved his goal of anIndian controlled India. Mahatma Ghandi was, in my opinion, a great man, and isa fine example of freedom fighting, as no matter what the British tried to doto him, or whatever struggles and troubles he came across, he always advocatedone message above everything else: the use of nonviolence and peace. This, Ibelieve, is fundamental to freedom fighting: the use of peaceful protestagainst an oppressive government or regime. Another good example of peacefulfreedom fighting is Martin Luther King Jr. A key figure in the Civil RightsMovement, King lead the oppressed black people in America to fight for equalrights. His example of always preaching nonviolence would be continued evenafter his death in 1968. The constant nonviolence shown by these two men makethem, in my opinion, examples of men who cannot beyond any doubt be consideredterrorists, as their nonviolence sets them apart from many others who have beenconsidered freedom fighters. However, when considering freedom fighters, Ibelieve that it will always be possible to find a viewpoint that, withinreason, considers them as terrorists. I also believe that it will always bepossible to find a viewpoint, again within reason, that considers terrorists asfreedom fighters, as long as violence is a recurring theme. Whilst some may saythat violence shouldn’t be a defining factor if the ends justify the means, Isay 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 maynot. Therefore, as we cannot ascertain a definition of justification forviolence that everyone will agree on, people will continue to react to violent actionsdifferently, and so I think that yes, one man’s terrorist is definitely anotherman’s freedom fighter.Bibliographyhttps://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/terrorismhttps://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/freedom_fighterhttps://www.nelsonmandela.org/content/page/biographyhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nelson_Mandelahttp://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/guevara_che.shtmlhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osama_bin_Ladenhttp://www.bbc.co.uk/history/topics/troubles_paramilitarieshttp://www.history.co.uk/biographies/mahatma-gandhihttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther_King_Jr.Get Help With Your EssayIf you need assistance with writing your essay, our professional essay writing service is here to help!Find out more