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I think you're right that the BBC is being irresponsible in putting "my mum was a 17-year-old free spirit" in the headline -- even though it's a quote, it does imply a level of BBC editorial agreement with the characterization. It makes her sound like she was just an innocent hippie or something.
On the other hand, this wasn't vandalism for vandalism's sake. It was political protest against a dictatorship. It's not like she was engaging in criminal acts for the fun of it or for personal gain, so the snippet you choose is similarly misleading without the context of why.
And of course it's armed conflict. But the point is that it's armed conflict against a fascist dictatorship killing over 100,000 civilians by most estimates -- which is what makes it considered legitimate violent protest by many people.
How do you think Franco got in power? By peacefully using his free speech rights and persuasive speeches? How do you think he stayed in power for all those decades? Do you think some people's free speech rights and avenues of protest might have been a teensy tiny bit curtailed?
What do you believe the purpose of this article is? Do you think it is advancing a policy agenda, in which case which policies is it advocating for? Or is it perhaps just documenting what happened and the impressions of those effected by what happened?
1. Indicates this a human interest story
2. Is by definition of an accurate representation of the words of the person they are quoting
3. Is a reasonable overview of a complex story, given we understand that "free-spirited" is subjective and that, again, this is a human interest story and conveying the feelings of the people involved is part of the point.
If you would, that is probably the heart of our disagreement. If not, I guess it comes down to an agree to disagree on whether the subjective window of the personality trait 'free-spirited' can include 'active participant in violent resistance against a dictatorship'.
No? That’s a very good headline for an article about someone who believes that they were abducted by a Sasquatch. It would be a missed opportunity for a newspaper to NOT do.
Can't say I'd have done the same choice, but it makes it more understandable.
Don’t those new violent dictators also tend to be more aligned with the people revolting?
Anyway, it kinda makes sense to me that the people advocating for change through violent means don’t suddenly stop being violent when they get to power.
Empirically, no.
"Popular dictator" is an oxymoron. The dictator is always focused on their own survival. They are never able to completely wipe out their opposition, and end up collaborating with the powerful, and repressing the weak, in order to retain power.
80% illiteracy. I think revolutions almost always go well because you usually have to be really terrible to cause one to happen.
Under the czar successful farming resulted in high taxes.
Under the communists, successful farming made you a kulak, you died / starved to death, and then everyone else did too.
With the revolution Russia became much closer to a normal country.
I don't think reforms of orthography were what mattered. What mattered was actually forcing people people to learn to read and also sending people out to teach them.
I don't see pre-1918 Cryllic as much more complicated that post 1918 Cryllic, but then I am of course literate and a Swede, so the only thing I find unusual is the symbol of softness, which is probably much less of a problem if you actually speak Russian.
When you have nothing to add, say nothing:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_transition_to_democrac...
Or have the courtesy to do the reading.
The general principle is more than adequate as a counter to the comment I replied to. You should not assume that is what you would do if you lived in a dictatorship.
| You should not assume that is what you would do if you lived in a dictatorship.
No, one cannot. That said, there are people here that have made those decisions, and that are making them right now. It's strange that you have assumed of me that this could not be true. I will only say that I've made my decisions and my conscience is clear.
What you can decide right now what your principles are. One of mine is that resistance against a violent authoratarian state, including violent resistance, is morally justified.
Whether it is most effective or not is a matter for organizers, historians, and arm-chair quarterbacks like yourself.
Have you read the comment I replied to? it was saying that violence was definitely the right thing to do.
> One of mine is that resistance against a violent authoratarian state, including violent resistance, is morally justified.
Without even considering the consequences? I believe that one of the criteria for morally justifying violence has to be that the consequences or using violence as better than any available non-violent alternative. I think that is a fundamental different of values.
> and arm-chair quarterbacks like yourself.
I have lived in a country where 1) multiple groups of people were using violence to do what they considered to be fighting oppression, 2) I have come pretty close to bombs they planted, and 3) the end results not only included huge numbers of deaths, but also let the government get away with things such as disappearing journalists who opposed them. I am a lot less of an arm-chair observer than I guess you are.
Fallacious assumption. They don't need an excuse. They will invent one if they feel it is required.
"Look what you made me do" is the logic of abusers, large and small.
No amount of conspicuous rule-following will stop them from calling you a genetically violent degenerate, unworthy of compassion when it suits their ends. Nothing will stop them from revoking your right to exist at a moment's notice.
This isn't to say that we shouldn't do what it takes to survive, but harm-reduction and resistance are different things altogether.
Solidarity and primarily non-violent resistance are my preferences, and I believe they are also the preference of most people, until circumstances drastically deteriorate.
However, I'm not going to second-guess a molotov thrown by a teenager's friend 50 years ago in Franco's Spain. Especially when the response to that incident was 3 years of psychological and medical torture. The scales are not balanced, and our focus should be on the people that actually wielded power for great evil, rather than ahistorical hypotheticals.
| [I]t was saying that violence was definitely the right thing to do.
| I believe that one of the criteria for morally justifying violence has to be that the consequences or using violence as better than any available non-violent alternative. I think that is a fundamental different of values.
You are demanding that individuals who are being harmed by ongoing state violence see all possible futures and choose the optimal one for most people (themselves excluded). In so doing, you hold individuals living under unceasingly violent regimes to a much higher standard than the regime itself, which is free to act in arbitrary ways. This is an utterly unbalanced position that demands passivity or flight.
| I am a lot less of an arm-chair observer than I guess you are.
I will not discuss my situation online, probably not for a decade. That said, I am sorry you had to live through what you did, and I am glad you made it out. I still weep for those who we've lost, even as I write this. We all deserve a better, kinder world.
As a point of reconciliation, and without pulling directly from current conflicts. I think that if every British agent in Sri Lanka perpetrating the ‘Divide and Rule’ Strategy had been exiled or killed in 1815 (with violence and malice aforethought), the history that you had to endure would have been orders of magnitude less bloody, do you disagree?
The ‘throw molotov cocktails’ are mentioned in the same sentence as ‘hand out leaflets’, which makes me feel the surrounding people were generally not panicking about the fire. Hard to say without reading the book though.
throwing molotov cocktails is in NO way "normal"
it's so sad that the allies killed so many Axis soldiers in WW2 right? wasn't very nice :(
> and when the police turned up, scatter in every direction.
Whoever they set out to burn alive was very likely defenseless.
Any other insights you'd like to add?
B) She was imprisoned, and tortured, as the article discusses.
C) What POV would you prefer?
D) This was Franco's Spain, what do you imagine yourself doing at a time like that?
The generalissimo used forced labor not unlike the DPRK, made widespread use of concentration camps, and was quite fond of executing dissidents. All religions other than Catholicism were outlawed and all political parties were outlawed.
Why would opposition to a murderous dictator be a bad thing? It isn’t as though the protestors/rioters/rebels were the ones escalating the situation. The government was already killing people. This could easily be viewed as justified violent opposition in the pursuit of stopping more murder.