National Liberation Movements [NLM]

Nelson Mandela led one of the twentieth century’s best-known national liberation movements, and for years his own organisation, the African National Congress, was treated by some governments as an outlawed insurgency rather than a legitimate political actor. That gap — between how a movement sees itself and how the international system chooses to classify it — is exactly what this topic is about. A national liberation movement is a non-state actor with one specific, often contested goal: an independent state of its own.

In two minutes

A national liberation movement (NLM) is a socio-political group seeking an independent state within internationally recognised borders, formed to end foreign occupation, colonial rule or internal authoritarian control, using tactics that range from peaceful protest to armed insurgency.

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