Very busy today - Real Life intrudes once more. Apologies in advance for scrappy writing in today’s ramblings (whaddya mean, you can’t tell the difference?)
The IRA, who murdered our people for decades, wring more concessions from the British government. They promise - it seems - not to kill or maim us so we (because we are, after all, dealing with nice, decent terrorists people) accept the quid pro quo implied in the IRA’s generous offer and dismantle some of our defences.
The Army has begun dismantling a number of security posts and bases in south Armagh following the IRA’s statement saying it had ended its armed campaign.
I’ll plead a certain amount of ignorance in the Northern Ireland business (I usually try to hide my ignorance but it might not be possible here) but I always assumed that when a society was being held to ransom by a violent minority the one thing that society could not afford to do - for practical reasons as well as reasons of principal - is lower itself to such an extent that it felt it could deal with the terrorists as if they were qualitatively the same as us.
While I am not oblivious to the fact that, by now, dozens of innocent lives have not been lost due to the ‘peace process’ - and that is wholly a good thing - I feel we have supped with the devil to achieve it and that however much we crave the ends the means have left us as being less than we were before.
Of course, led - if that’s the right word - by a government who long ago jettisoned any meaningful concept of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ (it’s ‘right’ if it secures votes, ‘wrong’ if it doesn’t is possibly their best definition) I guess all sorts of peculiar thinking is possible. Quoting from the BBC article, Sinn Fein’s Newry and Armagh MP Conor Murphy:
“The demilitarisation of communities is an important element in consolidating the progress already made and ensuring that we build a new future free from conflict and division.”
I find myself experiencing one of those moments when words really do fail me. There was peace before the IRA (Sinn Fein’s armed department) started killing in earnest and there’s (relative - but not actual) peace now. The ‘militarisation’ of Northern Ireland was a necessary consequence of IRA terror. Yet this quote suggests the terror was a response to the ‘militarisation’ and that the terror has achieved the ‘demilitarisation’ he speaks of. What curdles the blood is that this interpretation of events will go unchallenged by large sections of the liberal news media and our politicians.
In fact, accepting some responsibility for IRA terror (or, if not explicitly accepting it then passively allowing the accusations to go unchallenged - a de facto acceptance) creates the very environment the government needs to capitulate to IRA demands. When the IRA ‘gives’ a little (ie offers to stop creating widows or orphans) the government can release some of its widow-makers as if this is a fair deal.
I’ll leave the last words to Unionists:
The DUP’s Arlene Foster said it was “criminally irresponsible”.
“It’s startling that when the IRA give a statement saying they will stop what they should never have been doing, that the government acts so soon,” she said.
The UUP’s Danny Kennedy said it was outrageous that the government had “foolishly decided to act on IRA words alone”.
Indeed. The indecent haste with which the government rushes to offer those nice chaps in the IRA a reward for being so jolly nice means that, in fact, it’s we who are dancing to the IRA’s tune rather than the other way round. They keep their weapons until they no longer wish to keep their weapons. And when they give up the weapons they no longer want, hey presto, they get a reward.
The world is an upside down place.
