| Terrorist is an ideological word, therefore it doesn’t always represent everyone’s views of a certain group. Terrorist groups born as a reaction to heavy injustice. Hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqi civilians motivate a lot of members of the most popular terrorist groups today. This has always been like this, we don’t live in a cartoon where the bad guy is 2 dimensional. To try to understand these groups’ motivations is easy when you are immune to their actions. However, this behaviour is pretty off putting for the other side of the discussion, in this case Turkish people. I think we need to draw a line somewhere. I don’t know where but this doesn’t feel right for me. When you start the justification game, you need to do it for other groups too. Otherwise it would come off as hypocritical and dishonest. I don’t know you personally, maybe you do say this for all the “terrorist” groups. But I witness this behaviour online a lot when it comes to the groups that hurt Turkish civilians and I wanted to point it out, maybe this comment can give a bit of perspective to some people. Also a separate note for the audience, not related with your comment, this is not an Erdogan specific issue as the people from the anglo-sphere tend to claim in this thread. It started before Erdogan, it will continue after Erdogan. If Obama could be the next Turkish president, the situation would still be the same. |
> This has always been like this, we don’t live in a cartoon where the bad guy is 2 dimensional.
I completely agree and this was more or less the point of my comment. I'm not attempting to justify the actions of any group in particular, and I certainly don't endorse the use of indiscriminate violence against civilians for any reason.
I'm often bothered by the use of the word "terrorist" because I think it is often used as a means of putting us into this 2 dimensional world and creating a shortcut out of meaningful discussions. I will be the first to admit that my own government is guilty of terrorism under most definitions that people in my part of the world use.
I appreciate your comment, and apologize if mine came off as callous towards people who are suffering as a result of this conflict.