Vol. James Sheridan Cumann
UU Jordanstown
This article is about Jim Allister’s favourite word. It’s not ‘hope’ or ‘change’. The most used word in the former DUP mans political vocabulary is of course ‘terrorist’. The word ‘terrorist’ is derived from the twelve month period during the 1789 French Revolution called the ‘the terror’ or as the French call it. It has grown to become a political buzzword with negative connotations and is almost a phrase in itself.
In the centre of Washington D.C. stands the huge stone monument dedicated to the live of George Washington, the first President of the United States of America and also a man who took part in a revolution to remove the British from his country. Washington is considered an influential historical figure. The British who once labeled Nelson Mandela with the infamous word have a statue of the great one in Parliament Square. This of course dedicated to another revolutionary. Yet how can they reconcile labeling such monuments legitimate and yet label the volunteers of Óglaigh na hÉireann, who lost their lives fighting with the same motive of freedom in mind, terrorists?
DUP MLA Willie McCrea often talks of the ‘Republican murderers’ taking the lives of innocent people, even though during one air raid during World War Two on the German city of Hamburg the RAF killed 40,000 people in one night. But of course this would be viewed as legitimate. Would it be as legitimate as the manner in which volunteers Mairead Farrell, Dan McCann and Sean Savage were killed by the SAS?, members of the apparently ‘elite’ SAS shooting unarmed people in the back?
The old maxim ‘one persons terrorist is another person’s freedom fighter’ hits the nail on the head. The word terrorist is subjective and all a matter of perception. To an Israeli who has had a relative or friend killed by a Palestinian suicide bomber he or she may feel justified in naming the person responsible a ‘terrorist’. However if the suicide bomber has had his town or neighborhood flattened by Israeli bulldozers or blown up by Israeli rocket attacks their actions may also be viewed as justified.
This article is about Jim Allister’s favourite word. It’s not ‘hope’ or ‘change’. The most used word in the former DUP mans political vocabulary is of course ‘terrorist’. The word ‘terrorist’ is derived from the twelve month period during the 1789 French Revolution called the ‘the terror’ or as the French call it. It has grown to become a political buzzword with negative connotations and is almost a phrase in itself.In the centre of Washington D.C. stands the huge stone monument dedicated to the live of George Washington, the first President of the United States of America and also a man who took part in a revolution to remove the British from his country. Washington is considered an influential historical figure. The British who once labeled Nelson Mandela with the infamous word have a statue of the great one in Parliament Square. This of course dedicated to another revolutionary. Yet how can they reconcile labeling such monuments legitimate and yet label the volunteers of Óglaigh na hÉireann, who lost their lives fighting with the same motive of freedom in mind, terrorists?
DUP MLA Willie McCrea often talks of the ‘Republican murderers’ taking the lives of innocent people, even though during one air raid during World War Two on the German city of Hamburg the RAF killed 40,000 people in one night. But of course this would be viewed as legitimate. Would it be as legitimate as the manner in which volunteers Mairead Farrell, Dan McCann and Sean Savage were killed by the SAS?, members of the apparently ‘elite’ SAS shooting unarmed people in the back?
The old maxim ‘one persons terrorist is another person’s freedom fighter’ hits the nail on the head. The word terrorist is subjective and all a matter of perception. To an Israeli who has had a relative or friend killed by a Palestinian suicide bomber he or she may feel justified in naming the person responsible a ‘terrorist’. However if the suicide bomber has had his town or neighborhood flattened by Israeli bulldozers or blown up by Israeli rocket attacks their actions may also be viewed as justified.
The real issue is not how governments should stop the effects of terrorism. Stringent measures like internment or diplock courts and the restriction on civil liberties in the form of the US Patriot Act or US Military Commissions Act which means detainees in Guantanamo Bay are tried in US military courts without full and free legal representation as well as the British governments attempts to extend detention without trial from 28 days to 90 are counter productive. They just add fuel to the fire.The real issue is why there are people in the world who feel the need to take up arms for their cause. Politically motivated violence shows that somewhere something has gone wrong. Governments should invest more time in investigating why people feel the need to go to such extreme measures, which in the case of Óglaigh na hÉireann is the inequality and injustice that exists as a result of the partition of Ireland. When that partition of Ireland is a thing of the past maybe, just maybe, the word ‘terrorist’ and the need for politically motivated violence will be gone for good.
2 comments:
Really liked the article lee.
People too easily label people terroist.They don't examine why people do it.. the focus shouldn't be on labelling people who fight for freedom but what causes people to act certain ways.
But then the state would have to take blame for their actions.
so the word terrosits is a word used by the very people who committ terror themselves!
enjoyed the article a chara.
Also agree with the above comment
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