Its text has been mined for controversy, for dogma, to justify oppression and to fight against it.

In Malaysia, Anwar Ibrahim, who is Deputy Prime Minister and heir apparent to the top job, has openly and eloquently criticized leaders who justify oppression in the name of order.

The dominant group unconsciously uses dominant social values to justify and rationalize social oppression, while often lacking awareness or understanding of the ways in which they are privileged on the basis of their social identities.

Marxists worried that Ehrlich's work could be used to justify genocide and imperial control, as well as oppression of minorities and disadvantaged groups or even a return to eugenics.

And race difference is, among all the differences which have been used to justify oppression, probably the most trivial.

"What has happened is the result of sec-ular fanatics who have appropriated obscure religious writings in an attempt to justify brutal oppression and bloody conquest The so-called War of the Prophets is a war of politics--not religion."

To the Editor: Michael P. Steinberg thinks that the inscription "Dem Deutschen Volke" ("To the German People") should be expunged from the facade of the Reichstag building because the concept of "das Volk" is a racist anachronism that tends to justify oppression (letter, April 4).

Just to clarify the obvious: this remark was not intended to justify oppression of or discrimination against anyone - least of all myself.

They say that such research has a discredited history of justifying violence and oppression.

He slowly began to realize "what the white man did with Christianity, and how he used the good name of Jesus, the black revolutionary Messiah," he said in the TV interview, "to justify slavery and oppression, and to justify conquering the world."