Terrorism as an instrument of liberation: a liberation ideology perspective

An ideology of liberation is a set of beliefs, value judgements and exhortations which provides a framework of justification of political action aiming at the liberation of an oppressed group from its oppressors. In order to control the oppressed, their oppressors use both random and targeted violence against them. In response to this violence, the oppressed are also justified in using violence in order to remove oppression. Within the liberation ideologies framework, terrorism against the oppressor group is thus primarily justified as an effective and ‘low cost’ instrument of the liberation of the oppressed. The paper explores the liberation ideologies’ normative justification of the use of terrorism and contrasts this type of justification with that of universal humanism which asserts that each human life is of equal and supreme value.