1/20/2015

Yes,terrorismcanbejustified|BrianBrivati|Commentisfree|TheGuardian

Yes, terrorism can be justied

Brian Brivati
Troops in Afghanistan won't mind Miliband's defence of the ANC unlike the Taliban, it sought to
destroy an obscene system
Wednesday 19 August 2009 03.00 EDT

he presumption of critics of David Miliband's view that terrorism can be justied is,
Natalie Hanman points out, that the state has a monopoly on violence, which therefore
legitimates the use of it, and that any other group using violence is illegitimate. If this
were true, then, when Nelson Mandela dies, he should be universally condemned as
nothing more than a terrorist and murderer something the Thatcher government liked to
call him. This is not a serious position to hold.
Alternatively, we might say that the violence employed by all states, at least if they are
western democracies, is illegitimate. Again, the many cases of the necessity of war
September 1939, for example invalidate this position. So, what we can say is that if we
agree with the aims of a group, then violence is an ethically acceptable extension of the
struggle; and if we disagree, it is not.
These judgments need not be merely subjective but can be weighed up in the same way
that any set of political actions are weighed up. While we may not reach an objective basis
for the support of the armed struggle in one context as against another, we can at least
suggest principles that are reasonable and then defend those principles. But more than this,
we are also therefore forced to accept that the use of violence against "soft targets" is
terrorism in whatever cause it is employed; the dierence is that we might support some
causes and not others because we see them as morally virtuous or vicious.
It was on this basis, belief in the cause, that Miliband was defending the anti-apartheid
activist Joe Slovo. The use of violence, whether by states or other groups, should be based
on the same argument as that used to justify a declaration of war "just war" theory.
But let us not pretend that the causes we believe in are not using terror to further their aims
just because we believe in them, or that the use of terror is not central to the possibility that
they will be successful. The choice of terms here is not between freedom ghter and
terrorist
butthe
between
murderer
and
terrorist
the
former
simply killing nihilistically
You're viewing
Guardian's
new website.
Wed
love to hear
what
you think.
because they are killing in a cause we do not believe in, and the latter using violence as part
of an achievable and just political project with which we agree.
Leave
feedback
Miliband's
critics say that his justication for the ANC's armed struggle is giving comfort to
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2009/aug/19/terrorismmilibandtalibananc

1/2

1/20/2015

Yes,terrorismcanbejustified|BrianBrivati|Commentisfree|TheGuardian

the enemy in Afghanistan. How does this t that case?

The Taliban are not merely a tribal group set on removing foreign invaders from their land;
they have run a murderous state that sponsored war against other states, and now they
make war on their own people to recreate that state with all the human rights violations
they previously employed. They have a political strategy, but it is not more realistic than
that of their allies in al-Qaida. I can understand how you could construct an argument that
makes their use of violence legitimate, but I reject it.
The ANC, though, was also a terrorist group (through its military wing, Umkonto we Sizwe).
So how can we decide between these groups? The dierence is that the ANC deployed
terror for the political purpose of destroying an obscene system that would not have been
defeated otherwise. The economic boycott was important, but would the world have
launched the boycott without the armed struggle? Would the people repressed under the
apartheid police state have kept faith with the ANC if there had not been a dimension of
armed resistance to the struggle? I doubt it very much.
In the case of the Taliban, the strategy is to regain and hold power through terror, and run a
state based on the suppression of human rights and the sponsorship of international
terrorist attacks against civilian targets. The means and the ends of the Taliban's cause
strike me as the opposite of just, and are entirely illegitimate. But each of these groups can
correctly be called terrorist and should be referred to as such but that is where the
analysis should begin, not end.
What were, or are, they each ghting for? Or against? How do they use terror? Who are their
targets? What is their political strategy? These are the questions that need to be asked. In
assessing a campaigner's life, as Miliband was doing, you have to look at the broad picture.
When the Maquis, for instance, were killing German troops and when the Warsaw Ghetto
rose up, they killed every enemy they could nd. They wanted to hurl some of the terror
that they had faced back in the faces of their oppressors. Were they terrorists in the sense
that they used terror to further their cause? Yes, they were. But their cause was just and
their violence justiable. When the Nazis who survived formed the Werwolf resistance
groups and attacked the occupying allied forces, were they terrorists? Yes, they were. But
the end they fought for was obscene and so they also deserved to be called murderers. It is
not the term itself that matters, but the cause for which the violence is used that should
concern us.
Will the troops in Afghanistan be demoralised by Miliband's defence of the armed struggle
against apartheid? I doubt it very much. Members of the British armed forces, in my
experience, have a lot more political sense than many of the politicians who choose to
speak for them.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2009/aug/19/terrorismmilibandtalibananc

2/2