Can terrorism ever be justified?

Terrorism is the act of injuring or killing others, often innocents by armed people. They usually terrorize people to correct perceived wrongs against them. The terrorists usually carry out their deeds by claiming that they are at war with authorities and since they are too weak to take on the governments, they end up showing their frustration and wrath on the public. Thus the public who are not even involved in any of the terror activities are murdered for no reason.

Terrorism has been and is being practiced by groups of people fighting for various reasons. In the past, it was practiced by communist insurgents who wanted the fall of democracy and the implementation of communism in countries. Even in Singapore, terrorist activities were high in 1950 when the local Chinese formed communist groups fighting against the democratic system installed by the British. Thus in order to bring down democracy they tried to make the government look weak and incapable so that the people would resent the government and a communist system could take its place. The communist did this by placing mines at playgrounds, setting fires in villages, exploding bombs at crowded places and assassinating prominent figures all of which resulted in the death of hundreds of innocent people and children.

Despite the death they cause, most terrorist continue with their activities because they feel justified. They feel that they have a purpose for fighting and that over time the other people would also support them. For example, there is still on going terrorist attacks by Israelis on Palestinians and vice versa. The Palestinians who were driven out by the Israelis are convinced that every Palestinian, be it a woman, man children or elderly, is an enemy to them. They feel justified to kill them in order to get their homeland back.

Another well known terrorist group is the Sri Lankan Tamil Tigers. They believe that they should have their own state carved out of the existing Sri Lanka. In order to achieve this, they feel justified to go to war. They carry out their terror activities on innocent villagers who do not even know what is going on. The terrorist are convinced that they are the wronged party and they are justified in doing anything to obtain their wants. In their own and their supporters’ eyes, they appear as heroes fighting for the people but the world accepts otherwise.

It is easy for anyone to justify what he or she strongly believes. In the case of the terrorists, they are convinced they have the right to kill people. Thus, the path they take to get their demands across is often unacceptable because it results in a great loss of properties and lives. Moreover by doing so, the terrorist up in a loss most of the time as the governments most likely do not give in to their demands and also people would resist them for killing innocent lives.

In all, terrorism can never be justified because no one has the right to kill anyone for any reason. Moreover the terrorists usually do not fight against organized groups like soldiers since they know they are too weak to defeat them. Thus they show their toughness on helpless people which can never be justified under any circumstances.

Reference: General paper essays by REDSPOT publishing.