Evaluating One Person’s Terrorist is Another Person’s Freedom Fighter

in the name of your freedom, how can it possibly be terrorism? Things can always be looked at from two perspectives.For example, smoking and littering on transits are considered being socially unacceptable behaviours rather than fundamental evil. In other words, these acts are illegal because society has declared them to be wrong; they may not be immoral. There are lots of similar situation happening over and over throughout the history of mankind.

Nation and individuals have gone to war with the belief that their causes were just and their enemies’ cause unjust. During these wars, hundreds and thousands of innocents are injured, and even lost their lives.Based on this fact, both sides can call each other as terrorist, yet both sides could defend themselves as freedom fighter. There are lots of similar examples in our daily lives; in school, there will be bullies or gangs; for the ones outside the group, they viewed the gangs as “terrorists”, “dangerous people”, but if you are a part of the gang, there must be a reason that makes you stay in it. The reason might be you have something that worth fighting for or the gang leader can protect you from harm. If so, the gang becomes your “fighter”.

People all have different actions due to their perspectives, it is just “where you stand depends on where you sit. ” There are many points of view toward “terrorism”, yet, as the author, Henry R. West in “The Blackwell guide to Mill’s Utilitarianism” stated that “for an act to be an act of terrorism, the agent not only has to intend to injure or kill civilian, but her act has

to be intended to serve a political agenda. ” During the past fifty years, many terrorist attacks have gained international media attention. Some political scientists have long been saying that the media have a major impact towards terrorists’ activities.This is reaffirmed by the unprecedented international news media coverage over the September 11 incident.

On September 11, the suicide attacks took away more than 3,000 lives by destroying the two primary and the most symbolic targets, the Pentagon and the World Trade Center. In the book “Terrorism and the press: an uneasy relationship”, the authors wrote about the September 11 in the context of media: “The story dominated every aspect of American media. Polls showed that the American public was paying attention. Essentially, all Americans followed the news from all kinds of media.

Since the media coverage has drawn huge attentions, the terrorists see it as the best opportunity for them to use violence, to achieve their political goals. This is reflected from the saying that “One observer’s terrorism may be another’s legitimate act of resistance to oppression”. From the “terrorists” point of view, the only way to peace is through justice, in other words, “there can be no peace without justice. ” A freedom fighter would be a terrorist when he or she tries to inflict injury and death on civilian as a way to gain the freedom that they want.In the Muslim world, assassination existed as a kind of terrorism since shortly after the death of the prophet Muhammad. The word “assassin” was originated from a group founded by Hasan Ibn al-Sabbah, whose spread terror throughout the Muslim world until they were eliminated two

centuries later.

The Assassins from that period of time were said to be the world’s first terrorists. The Assassins did not just simply murder to change rulers but they wanted to change the whole social system from Sunni to Shiite. From their erspectives, the Sunni was corruptive and the Shiite was their perfect, ideal social system. Moreover, during the fight of future identity of Islamic societies, “Terrorism” took the part as a powerful weapon in these ideological struggles; James Q. Wilson had said that “In the fight of future identity of Islamic societies, fundamentalists are violently and vehemently trying to push Muslims back into an imagined glorious past and a variety of reformers are struggling to push these societies towards different hoped-for futures.This fight of ideology clearly illustrates the phrase “One person’s terrorist is another person’s freedom fighter.

” There another train of thought that terrorists are simply murderers. In the past, religion was the excuses for terrorism. However, over the history there are losses of hundreds, thousands, or even millions innocent lives through the name of terrorism; could those terrorists still call themselves as freedom fighter? There was once a terrorism expert found that “suicide attacks kill four times as many people per incident as do other forms of terrorism. Thus, are terrorists just using religion as an excuse to kill? Nowadays, people would join terrorist organizations, such as Fatah without any religious reasons. Terrorists have come to dominate the suicide acts of terrorism with no religious impulse.

Such terrorists will not be considered freedom fighter. To conclude, the understanding and the application of the phrase “One person’s terrorist is another person’s freedom fighter”

depend on the user’s perspective and the circumstances that the user is referring to. Basically a terrorist is not necessarily a freedom fighter.A freedom fighter can be a terrorist.Reference 1. Brooke Barnett, Amy Reynolds, Terrorism and the press: an uneasy relationship, Peter Lang,2009 2.

Fathali M. Moghaddam, From the terrorists’ point of view, Greenwood Publishing Group,2006 3. Gus Martin, Understanding Terrorism: Challenges, Perspectives, and Issues,SAGE,2009 4. Henry R. West, The Blackwell guide to Mill’s Utilitarianism, Wiley-Blackwell,2006 5.

James Q. Wilson, What Makes a Terrorist? Retrieved November 16, 2010, from http://www. city-journal. org/html/14_1_what_makes_a_terrorist. html