This week’s topic refers to an issue to which, growing up, I struggled to make my mind on. The “Sendero Luminoso” group was an extremist group who turned to violent tactics in order to foster change in the social and political scene in Peru. Regardless of whether I agree with violence “for the greater good” which I will get to, it would be ignorant not to recognize the impact of the group on the positive change that occurred in post-civil war Peru.

Before moving on to explain how I felt about violence for the sake of justice, I would like to elaborate a little bit more on this week.

This week taught me that Latin America was one of the unfortunate victims of the Cold War, especially after the Cuban revolution. The United States feared the “domino theory”, that communism would spread across South America and pose a huge threat to the United States. They therefore invested large sums of money into the backing of puppet regimes to suppress communism within Latin American states.

Thomas Jefferson once said that when injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty. According to this principle, and after this week’s content, its difficult for me to condemn the use of violence as a principle. I do not condone every action committed by Sendero Luminoso, however I do believe it is a human duty to resist any injustice. It goes without saying that violence should always be the last resort, but without a platform for dialogue or non-violent resistance, they were not left with an option