by Mishra Planeswalker

Created on: November 21, 2008

Terrorism has long been used as an underhanded tactic by various organizations to achieve their goals, whether they be political, social, economical or environmental. However, as decent, ethical, and rational human beings, we must say no to terrorism, for it is never an acceptable way to instigate change. There are four major reasons for why this is true. The first is that terrorism is never the only choice, and methods like diplomacy can be just as effective. Terrorism can have the unwanted side effect of alienating societies to otherwise good ideas. Terrorism can in fact only cause retaliation in the form of more violence, and terrorism can not have a good effect on society, because of the massive loss of life involved.

In the era preceding the First World War, the British had begun an invasion of India, and this quickly drew violent responses from the people. In early April of 1919, shortly before the infamous Amritsar Massacre, a crowd of Indian people assaulted a British Missionary in the street. However, there was a voice of reason among the Indians, and his name, was Mohandas Gandhi.

Gandhi was developing the antithesis to terrorism, and this was the practice of civil disobedience. He spread the message the nonviolence is the humane way of fighting the British, and it caught on. Where violence had failed, Gandhi, and peaceful resistance had succeeded. We can learn from Gandhi's example that nonviolence is a more humane way of instigating change, and is on many occasions, more effective.

When a terrorist group commits terrorist acts, they are often seen as extremists for their cause. As time goes on, and more violent acts are committed, society begins to subconsciously develop an association between the cause, and terrorism. Let's go back into history and look at the Russian Revolution.

Russia was currently under rule by the tsar, and the peasants were being oppressed. After the revolution itself occurred, communism was rather haphazardly implemented, and to this day, the very thought of a communist system is looked upon by society as horrible and wretched. However, if one thinks about it, communism could very well be a viable system of government (in the absence of corruption). Society, though, will most likely never adapt such a system, because of the negative connotation placed upon it by terrorists that once fought for it.

A similar thing has happened more recently with the Islam faith. After the September 11th attacks, many people began discriminating

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