If it came down to it would you commit an act of political violence and when would that act be justified? By ‘came down to it’ I mean if you felt there was no choice, that you must act to defend some right or liberty or oppose some decision made by your government? Whether you were an oppressed minority trying to protect yourself or a member of the so-called ‘silent majority’ opposing some decision by a government you felt represented a minority or different view? Or fighting to protect your home and family from some form of governmental oppression? Or can the concept of political violence be extended to include the use of a nation or government’s armed forces as an extension of the politician’s or occasionally even the people’s will?

Would you kill for your beliefs? Would you kill for a principal? Would you ask, pay or demand that someone else kill for you? When would putting a kilo of Semtex in a public place be a justificable act? Or bombing an apartment building to kill a sniper? Would your targets be uniformed (or non-uniformed) officials of that government or organisation? Or are its civilian members legitimate targets too? Children? Is targeting children justifiable? Or using so-called unorthodox tactics – rape, maiming, mutilation? Is the lose of innocent life an unfortunate byproduct of political violence? Is anyone an innocent bystander? Can you justify killing the guilty by association? Even if that association is purely geographical?

Recently I ask myself that question everyday. I know what my answer is. A categorical rejection of the use of violence for political ends. A categorical rejection of the use of violence for any ends. But too many times recently people I know have justified some new act of violence and bloodshed in the name of freedom and democracy, to protect us and our way of life, to stop terrorists or simply in self-defense. It is a slippery slope. Each justification takes us a little further from pretending we even have the veneer of civilisation left. We are slowly cutting slices off the fig leaf that covers our high moral ground. We are becoming the monsters we have demonised and we are breeding more monsters of our own. Both on our side and theirs. It’s a zero sum game. As Neitzsche’s aphorism states: “When you look long into an abyss, the abyss looks into you”.