South Africa's COIN war in SWA/Namibia/Angola

[ganulv]

[…] and other claiming he was more akin to a terrorist (Begin in the Stern Gang) than insurgent (Washington in the American Revolution).

‘Terrorist’ is such a subjective term IMHO it tells you a lot more about the person applying it than it does about the person it is applied to. There seems to be some semantic slippage around ‘insurgent,’ too. Your usage above suggests (to someone who went to elementary school in the United States, at least) that an insurgent is a revolutionary undertaking justified violence. Recent use of the term in relation to the adversaries of the United States in Iraq and the narco side of the drug–related violence in Mexico doesn’t really suggest that connotation, though.

If you have ever been to or ever go through central New York you’ll see a number of plaques and monuments singing the praises of the Sullivan–Clinton Expedition against the Iroquois. Contemporary Haudenosaunee, on the other hand, are not unlikely to relate to you that their ancestors gave Washington the sobriquet ‘Town Burner’ because of his role in ordering the punitive expedition (despite the existence of evidence that the name predates the Revolutionary War) and will often portray the expedition as tantamount to a crime against humanity. In my eyes both of these portrayals of the past are politicized oversimplifications.

So back to your question: Was/Is Mandela a terrorist or an insurgent? Yes. No. Maybe. False dichotomy. Both. All of the above. None of the above.