Not One More Dime for Violence in Northern Ireland
By Jack Healey
The Irish diaspora entered the new century with a belief that peace would come to Northern Ireland. Now it finds itself in deep sorrow that it will not be so.
Killings will start again, jobs will be unavailable to Catholics, soldiers will roam Northern Ireland, and innocent people of both faiths will fear one another again, with good reason. Children will carry guns and messages and become little-league pretenders of great intrigue. The battle will rage on.
Why this is so and who is responsible are now necessary questions. We must be brutal in our search. When peace is bypassed, we need to know the culprits and expose them for what they are.
For the first time in Northern Ireland, the British government, under Prime Minister Tony Blair, seeks a true peace. President Bill Clinton's leadership has been tenacious and caring. Prime Minister Bertie Ahern of Ireland has set a new high-water mark by letting a huge tract of Irish land go over to another jurisdiction. Governmental leadership under the patient former Senator George Mitchell could not have been better.
The Good Friday agreement was the expression of all the people of Northern Ireland and three governments. But it has gone wrong, and failure is in sight.
How could this have happened when there was so much backing and powerful involvement? The answer must be found and the truth be told. Who and what caused this historical moment to dissolve into a matter of "Who said and did what to whom"?
While I am a human rights activist and care only for a just world of all faiths and all people, I was raised in a Catholic family with a deep sense of grievance against the role of England in Ireland. This feeling has never left me, but Tony Blair has changed it.
Once he acted, I knew peace was possible.
The killings that occurred between the Hutus and Tutsis, between Serbs and Muslims, were clear signs to me that this kind of hatred must stop. They show what happens if the dogs of war are left to run.
Yet somehow, within some governments and nongovernmental bodies too, there is a still an abiding belief that the gunners, the dirty hands, are to be trusted and dealt with.
Rather than sending money for basic education of the people who believe in human rights and equality - the massive majority of Northern Ireland—these forces aid the gunners. Attention, meetings and media turn toward them. And the unfortunate truth is that the final decision is left with the violent instead of the nonviolent, whether in Haiti, Bosnia or Northern Ireland.
Entering the process of peace, true peace, means giving up the guns. Both sides. Same day. All of them. This must be done as a first step, not the last.
As a Catholic, I had hoped that the leadership of the guns would see the lessons of the last century, in which hundreds of millions were killed by government action, and would come to their senses about guns and militarism. I thought that in this new century giving up guns would be seen as winning, not losing, the conflict.
History needs such models of decency. There are few. The world should see gunners who willingly gave up their weapons as the heroes and real leaders.
We need to say: Not one more dime for violence. Money from the Irish must go only to the nonviolent. Give only to groups that honor the dead with respect; find a way for the decent to walk the Earth in peace.
The writer, executive director of the Human Rights Action Center, wrote this for The Washington Post.�
(This article was published in the International Herald Tribune, March 23, 2000)
The Irish diaspora entered the new century with a belief that peace would come to Northern Ireland. Now it finds itself in deep sorrow that it will not be so.
Killings will start again, jobs will be unavailable to Catholics, soldiers will roam Northern Ireland, and innocent people of both faiths will fear one another again, with good reason. Children will carry guns and messages and become little-league pretenders of great intrigue. The battle will rage on.
Why this is so and who is responsible are now necessary questions. We must be brutal in our search. When peace is bypassed, we need to know the culprits and expose them for what they are.
For the first time in Northern Ireland, the British government, under Prime Minister Tony Blair, seeks a true peace. President Bill Clinton's leadership has been tenacious and caring. Prime Minister Bertie Ahern of Ireland has set a new high-water mark by letting a huge tract of Irish land go over to another jurisdiction. Governmental leadership under the patient former Senator George Mitchell could not have been better.
The Good Friday agreement was the expression of all the people of Northern Ireland and three governments. But it has gone wrong, and failure is in sight.
How could this have happened when there was so much backing and powerful involvement? The answer must be found and the truth be told. Who and what caused this historical moment to dissolve into a matter of "Who said and did what to whom"?
While I am a human rights activist and care only for a just world of all faiths and all people, I was raised in a Catholic family with a deep sense of grievance against the role of England in Ireland. This feeling has never left me, but Tony Blair has changed it.
Once he acted, I knew peace was possible.
The killings that occurred between the Hutus and Tutsis, between Serbs and Muslims, were clear signs to me that this kind of hatred must stop. They show what happens if the dogs of war are left to run.
Yet somehow, within some governments and nongovernmental bodies too, there is a still an abiding belief that the gunners, the dirty hands, are to be trusted and dealt with.
Rather than sending money for basic education of the people who believe in human rights and equality - the massive majority of Northern Ireland—these forces aid the gunners. Attention, meetings and media turn toward them. And the unfortunate truth is that the final decision is left with the violent instead of the nonviolent, whether in Haiti, Bosnia or Northern Ireland.
Entering the process of peace, true peace, means giving up the guns. Both sides. Same day. All of them. This must be done as a first step, not the last.
As a Catholic, I had hoped that the leadership of the guns would see the lessons of the last century, in which hundreds of millions were killed by government action, and would come to their senses about guns and militarism. I thought that in this new century giving up guns would be seen as winning, not losing, the conflict.
History needs such models of decency. There are few. The world should see gunners who willingly gave up their weapons as the heroes and real leaders.
We need to say: Not one more dime for violence. Money from the Irish must go only to the nonviolent. Give only to groups that honor the dead with respect; find a way for the decent to walk the Earth in peace.
The writer, executive director of the Human Rights Action Center, wrote this for The Washington Post.�
(This article was published in the International Herald Tribune, March 23, 2000)
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