Good Christians of Northern Ireland
Saturday March 14, 2009
Categories: Catholicism, Protestantism/Evangelicalism
How's this for some good news?: The Irish Republican Army dissidents who shocked Northern Ireland this week by killing two British soldiers and a policeman within a 48-hour period have made no secret of their ambition to ignite a new...
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About Crunchy Con
Rod Dreher is an editorial columnist for the Dallas Morning News, and author of "Crunchy Cons" (Crown Forum), a nonfiction book about conservatives, most of them religious, whose faith and political convictions sometimes put them at odds with mainstream conservatives. The views expressed in this blog are his own.
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I'm just old enough to remember how intractable and permanent this conflict seemed during the '80s, the roots of which extend back for centuries.
I also remember how controversial it was to start talking to Sinn Féin and the IRA (and to a lesser extent the UDF). We don't negotiate with terrorists, right?
One wonders if this experience has any lessons for the Israel-Fatah-Hamas-Hezbollah conflicts in the Middle East. The lesson I would draw from this experience is that peace often looks impossible right up to the moment that it happens.
Is worse: the squishies - pissants all - and their tiresome attacks on Rush Limbaugh
To Gerry and Richard---I have no idea what you are talking about. What do your comments have to do with Rod's article?
I for one am proud that those who tried to incite violence did not succeed and that Catholics & Protestants came together to mourn.
>One wonders if this experience has any lessons for the Israel-Fatah-Hamas-Hezbollah conflicts in the Middle East.
That your odds of peace are immeasurably better if your combatants are Christian rather than Mohammedan...
Blessed indeed be the peacemakers.
And the fact that thugs on both sides found running drugs, prostitution and extortion was a pretty fine cause, too.
Northern Ireland needs to continue to stay united against the return of "The Troubles". The gathering of "former enemies' for the funeral is a good start, and hopefully will discourage the IRA dissidents from trying yet again. Seeing that their wonton killing of the 2 soldiers didn't start an immediate fight again, should tell them something!
People have engaged in mass protest against IRA violence going back nearly a century. In each case the men with guns cared not a whit. The only thing that had made them malleable was violence. Loyalist violence, targeted by British intelligence, that grabbed Adams and McGuinness by the scruff of the neck. Violence by the government of Eire with men like O'Higgins, Cosgrave, de Valera and Lemass who weren't afraid to smash the IRA. Then people will be permitted to live in relative peace.
Geoff G, the Good Friday Agreement is actually serving as a model for other parts of the world seeking to bring disparate groups to the negotiation table. Martin McGuinness chaired meetings in Iraq that led to the Helsinki Agreement, an underreported event that brought together Sunni and Shia leaders (see BBC: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/northern_ireland/6977190.stm ).
McGuinness has also traveled to Sri Lanka at the request of the Initiative for Political and Conflict Transformation to facilitate peace negotiations between the government and the Tamil Tigers
(see The Independent, http://www.independent.ie/national-news/mcguinness-on-peace-mission-visit-to-sri-lanka-118162.html ), and Sinn Féin has made several visits to the Basque region pursuading the ETA to renounce violence and support the peace process, as the IRA has done.
And the one person who dosesn't get nearly enough credit for his hard work towards peace is Gerry Adams; he initiated talks between himself and John Hume in the 1980s, as well as back-channel ceasefire negotiations with the IRA. His priest, Fr. Alex Reid, helped Adams get the support from the Catholic hierarchy to develop some of his ideas for conflict resolution, which eventually led to meetings between the Catholic and Protestant clergy, as well as the paramilitary groups.
Gerry Adams deserves a Nobel Prize for his work, though they'll never give it to him. Adams wrote an article once, specifically addressing supporters' concerns about his being excluded from the Nobel Prize shared by John Hume and David Trimble, saying that we were the only ones upset by his being excluded, and that peace in Northern Ireland was reward enough for him.
If it were me, I'd be hopping mad that I did all that work for no recognition, but then again, I'm not on the same spiritual level as Gerry Adams. He's truly one of a kind.
Wow, you can be so upbeat about Ireland continuing to reject en masse the violence that festered there so long.
But you'll still deny that the people of Iraq are on their way to the same outcome. They have consistently rejected violence and religious extremism when they have the chance to guide their government. And you still call Iraq a failure and a 'stupid war', to paraphrase.
Iraq will be the first middle eastern state with a large Arab and Muslim population that has rejected the wild incendiaries of fundamentalist tyrannies around them. This is WORLD CHANGING, whether you acknowledge or not. While amazing and a triumph of peace overy violence, the defeat of violence in Ireland was not.
But you'll still deny that the people of Iraq are on their way to the same outcome. They have consistently rejected violence and religious extremism when they have the chance to guide their government. And you still call Iraq a failure and a 'stupid war', to paraphrase.
Nobody has gone broke betting against mans better nature. The odds are still that Iraq will devolve into feuding, quasi independent sub states with a healthy dose of fanatical religious hatred thrown in for good measure. The "Sunni Awakening" is merely biding time for us to leave(and they haven't made a secret of that...) as to get ready for the next phase of the war against the Shiite heretics.
To be continued ab absurdem.
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