There is another problem. The English branded William Wallace a terrorist. To us, he was a freedom fighter. Those who fought for American independence were demonised as terrorists by the British Crown. All citizens of British colonies who fought for independence were branded terrorists. Mahatma Gandhi was vilified for advocating passive resistance to the British Raj and jailed as a terrorist, though he was a pacifist.
People denied the right to change society through the ballot box have a moral right to use force as a means of bringing about change. People who have the right to change things through the ballot box have no moral right to seek change through violence. When the gerrymandered electoral system in Northern Ireland denied Catholics and Nationalists a vote of equal value with Protestants and Unionists, then the IRA’s armed struggle for a United Ireland had some moral justification. When gerrymandering was ended and the principle of one person one vote was established, the IRA had no moral right to continue the armed struggle.
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