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Terrorism being unnecessary
Oct. 2nd, 2016 03:43 amI had previously suggested that in the real world one must sometimes resort to violence to solve problems. It has also been noted that
It is not hard to think of difficult struggles among peoples. ( past and present examples abound ) Unfortunately it is difficult to keep general discussion of such sufficiently abstract to avoid confusion due to exceptional specific circumstances.
One question is, if a population is ongoingly being oppressed, and they have limited conventional military means of their own, then how should they resist and try to reclaim their human rights? Was Gandhi correct? Even these monks setting themselves on fire in Tibet don't seem to make China flinch (though it still surprises me that they don't annex themselves some of Bhutan). I wonder if it is the case that the international community, those who might be able to help, typically only start to take sufficient notice and act with any real consequence only when people resist violently and at scale? The Friends' pacifism has romantic appeal to me but I do wonder if it's a recipe for getting one's population increasingly marginalized and exterminated.
Then, if violence is justified, in being necessary for sufficient attention to be drawn to one's plight, that raises the question of legitimate targets. With very limited means and opportunity, is it ever appropriate to target civilians? Even countries with powerful military means do not at all manage to prevent
My suspicion is that violence against oppressors is often necessary but that carte blanche hardly follows morally: that even given great asymmetry there is often some way to more carefully choose one's targets. If so then my principal question becomes that of what it takes to have the international community help out: if continuing to fight an unequal war suffices or if it takes true terrorism to keep one's people's plight sufficiently on others' radar, acts sufficiently morally outrageous to get high billing on our news bulletins in the West. ( Does our news work like that? ) I am however painfully aware of ( being an ignorant outsider )
I should of course note that I am heartily skeptical of means justifying ends. In particular, many conflicts in the world have demonstrated how violence engenders violence: it is difficult to achieve an eventual peace when one has painful memories of the group across the table having wrought such harm upon oneself and one's family and friends, especially if their crime was simply that of being of the
terroristis something of an irregular noun, cf.
rebel,
freedom fighter. I hope to find it clarifying to explore the ideas here.
It is not hard to think of difficult struggles among peoples. ( past and present examples abound ) Unfortunately it is difficult to keep general discussion of such sufficiently abstract to avoid confusion due to exceptional specific circumstances.
One question is, if a population is ongoingly being oppressed, and they have limited conventional military means of their own, then how should they resist and try to reclaim their human rights? Was Gandhi correct? Even these monks setting themselves on fire in Tibet don't seem to make China flinch (though it still surprises me that they don't annex themselves some of Bhutan). I wonder if it is the case that the international community, those who might be able to help, typically only start to take sufficient notice and act with any real consequence only when people resist violently and at scale? The Friends' pacifism has romantic appeal to me but I do wonder if it's a recipe for getting one's population increasingly marginalized and exterminated.
Then, if violence is justified, in being necessary for sufficient attention to be drawn to one's plight, that raises the question of legitimate targets. With very limited means and opportunity, is it ever appropriate to target civilians? Even countries with powerful military means do not at all manage to prevent
collateral damage: what thus should be expected of populations who have even less ability to target precisely? Here I am rather less persuaded that there isn't usually some alternative: I think the tougher issue is that of culpability. ( Who is behind the oppression? )
My suspicion is that violence against oppressors is often necessary but that carte blanche hardly follows morally: that even given great asymmetry there is often some way to more carefully choose one's targets. If so then my principal question becomes that of what it takes to have the international community help out: if continuing to fight an unequal war suffices or if it takes true terrorism to keep one's people's plight sufficiently on others' radar, acts sufficiently morally outrageous to get high billing on our news bulletins in the West. ( Does our news work like that? ) I am however painfully aware of ( being an ignorant outsider )
I should of course note that I am heartily skeptical of means justifying ends. In particular, many conflicts in the world have demonstrated how violence engenders violence: it is difficult to achieve an eventual peace when one has painful memories of the group across the table having wrought such harm upon oneself and one's family and friends, especially if their crime was simply that of being of the
wrongethnic group. On the one hand I hope that those of us outside such conflicts can be good enough at taking enough notice before they get to the stage of atrocities against civilians that terrorism is obviously unjustifiable even as an act of desperation. Maybe it is difficult for us to tread that path without becoming overly interventionist.
