Terrorism (or “violent extremism”) continues to dominate the news — there was even a bomb scare in Toronto’s subway system yesterday morning — but it’s not all bad news: The promise of lasting peace seems to have taken hold in Northern Ireland. The Times reports here:
The Irish Republican Army declared an end on Thursday to a 36-year campaign of violence against Britain that was aimed at unifying Northern Ireland with the Irish Republic.
The long-awaited announcement was viewed in London and Dublin as a profound turning-point that could bring an end to a bloody and painful chapter, possibly shifting in Northern Ireland’s destiny away from the sectarian strife that accompanied the Republicans’ opposition to British rule and that claimed more than 3,500 lives on both sides.
“This may be the day on which, finally, after all these false dawns and dashed hopes, peace replaced war, politics replaces terror on the island of Ireland,” Prime Minister Tony Blair said in a televised statement in London.
The statement by the IRA said that its leadership had “formally ordered an end to the armed campaign,” as the organization calls its military activities, which are described by supporters as armed struggle and by adversaries as terrorism.
The shift followed growing revulsion among its Catholic supporters, both here and in the United States, at the I.R.A.’s involvement in organized crime and, since Sept. 11, at global terrorism.
The Post offers more:
In Northern Ireland, Protestant politicians who have led the fight to keep the province part of Britain were less enthusiastic, calling the statement inadequate and stressing that the IRA’s pledges were so far only words…
Gerry Adams, president of Sinn Fein, the IRA’s political wing, called the declaration a “courageous and confident initiative” and challenged his political opponents in the Protestant community “to decide if they want to put the past behind them and make peace with the rest of the people of this island.”
The Rev. Ian Paisley, leader of the Democratic Unionists, the province’s largest Protestant political party, said that “we will judge the IRA’s bona fides over the next months and years based on its behavior and activity.”
His son, Ian Paisley Jr., used stronger words. “It would be an act of unparalleled stupidity to accept the words of the Provisional IRA and the words alone,” he told the BBC. “We want to see peace, but we’re not going to be taken for a ride like some people. Other people may not have learnt from the IRA, but we have got the wounds and the injuries to learn from them.”
As a Brit myself (dual citizenship with Canada), I’ve long wrestled with what to do about Northern Ireland, and, honestly, I’ve never reached anything resembling a conclusion. Part of me wants Britain to stay and fight for the Protestants who want to remain in the U.K., part of me wants Britain to pull out and give up Northern Ireland entirely, and part of me — thankfully, the largest part — wants to see some kind of peaceful, democratic resolution to the decades of violence.
I hope that Blair’s right, but the question still comes down to sovereignty. The violence may end, but what will happen to Northern Ireland? What kind of peaceful, democratic resolution will there be? After all, either Northern Ireland remains withing the U.K. or it doesn’t. Or, perhaps, it’s split in two. But then what?
For now, I think it’s important to adopt a wait-and-see attitude. I have friends and family who have lived and worked in Northern Ireland, and I know British soldiers who served there at the height of the “Troubles”. Aside, perhaps, for the extremists, everyone wants peace. Everyone wants to believe that there could be a non-violent resolution to the question of Northern Ireland’s future.
Hope abounds, and rightly so, but we’ll have to see just how effectively peace and politics replace war and terror. For if a widely satisfactory political solution doesn’t emerge in the near future — and there may not be one that appeals to the extremists and reins them in — violence could return with a vengeance, sinking Northern Ireland back into bloodshed and hatred.
Does anyone have any thoughts on what could be done in Northern Ireland?