Three grey cloth patches pinned to a board, each edged with different colored thread: gold, red and green.

Original artwork, not a still

Contact  ·  1985

Carl Sagan

If we like them, they're freedom fighters, she thought. If we don't like them, they're terrorists. In the unlikely case we can't make up our minds, they're temporarily only guerrillas.

Behind the line

What it means

Our interpretation.

A cynical observation about labels. The speaker notes that whether armed groups are called freedom fighters or terrorists depends on whether we like them, with guerrillas as the fallback when we're undecided. It's a pointed remark on how loaded language follows sympathy.

Context reviewed

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