Jamal Awil

← A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962

Blind terrorism provokes equally blind repression that eradicates moderates. [causal]

It is necessary to turn political crisis into armed conflict by performing violent actions that will force those in power to transform the political situation of the country into a military situation. That will alienate the masses, who, from then on, will revolt against the army and the police and blame them for this state of things. … Marighela's essential philosophy was that a resort to blind terrorism would inevitably provoke the forces of law and order into an equally blind repression, which in turn would lead to a backlash by the hitherto uncommitted, polarise the situation into two extreme camps and make impossible any dialogue of compromise by eradicating the "soft centre".

QUESTION: Does the historical record bear out Marighela's prediction in the Algerian case? Worth verifying whether terror actually produced the two-camp polarisation he described.

Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Alge…, loc. 369