Battle for Rights

The following is a paper written for my Sociology 111 class in response to the film Battle of Algiers. It is an excellent film, and I suggest it highly. Be warned, however, it is in french, so subtitles will be necessary.

Benjamin

11/11/08 Battle of Algiers

The film Battle of Algiers dramatizes the actions of a group of freedom fighters/terrorists in Algiers, and the acts of the French government to stop them. The actions of the freedom fighters, and their stated goals are very telling. They state that they wish to establish a new government with Islamic ideals, but maintaining rights for all regardless of religion.

The acts of the French government to prevent these goals from being realized demand that we consider means and ends. We cannot allow a good end to justify horrible means, and vice versa. The goal of equality and freedom for all is a good one, when it is considered a two way street, as the FLN did in this movie. The acts they committed were terrible, but as one of the leaders said, “You can have our women’s hand baskets when we can have your bombers.” The potential for terrible acts by the government in power is orders of magnitude greater than the potential of the freedom fighters.

Equality and tolerance are two way streets. When we consider the acts of today’s freedom fighters and terrorists and civil liberties groups, we must consider what their ends are. Is it equality for them, but not for others? Or is it equality for all? If it is the second, the policy of the United States government to “not negotiate with terrorists” is futile and stupid. If it is the first, however, this policy makes perfect sense. This past week in California, groups of LGBT rights activists clearly demonstrated their ends as they vandalized the LDS temple in LA with bitter hate-filled remarks. Equality is a fine goal, but it should not and cannot be achieved by limiting the rights of other minorities. If the LGBT community wants equal rights, they should grant the same to other minorities, such as the LDS church. The actions of these protestors have clearly limited the 1^st amendment rights of many LDS faithful in the area to worship as they choose. We must consider the acts of terrorist organizations such as Al-qaeda in the same manner. They want rights. Do they want them at the expense of other groups? Listening to their leaders, the answer is a resounding yes. They want to rule the world, with disregard for all international law, sovereignty and other peoples. They clearly fall into the second group, and therefore must be prevented from achieving their goals. However, we must be sure that we do not act as the French government did in the Battle of Algiers, and let preventing acts of terrorism destroy our ethics.

Tell me what you think. I'm turning it in in a couple of hours.