Dissidence

Martin Kelly writes:

The British media have taken to describing the assassin/barbarians of the Real/Continuity IRA as 'dissident republicans'.

Perhaps I'm showing my age, perhaps even feeling it; but I had always thought that being a dissident was a good and noble thing. Alexander Solzhenitsyn was a dissident; Lavrenti Beria was not. Andrei Sakharov was a dissident; Kim Philby was not. Tank Man was a dissident; the guy driving the tank was not.

If the Union were ever to be dissolved and Scotland to become 'independent', I fully believe that any future Scottish government containing any member of the Scottish National Party's current leadership would treat those who have opposed them as dissidents; perhaps even going as far as to harass and imprison them in the same way that Solzhenitsyn and Sakharov were harassed by the Soviet Union. As someone who has opposed the SNP, I would expect to share in this fate; indeed, would be disappointed not to.

To be a dissident is to lead a life dedicated to opposing an authoritarian government's political injustices at great cost to oneself. It does not include murder, and describing those who murder in order to advance a politics that nobody but them really wants any more is a gross abuse of language.

Ditch the 'dissident' tag, please, and call them murderers instead.