TALK'S CHEAP, BOMBS ARE EXPENSIVE
Reflections on the British Contribution to the London Blast
by
Andrew Bard Schmookler *

Condemning the IRA bomb that blasted London is appropriate, and very easy. Condemning the British policy of Prime Minister Major that helped trigger the blast is more difficult, but for that reason still more important. At issue here is our habitually superficial understanding about what building a peaceful world demands of us.

Violence in Ireland did not begin last week, did not begin in the late sixties when the Northern Ireland became known in our time for its random shootings and bombings, did not begin even with the famous Irish "troubles" of almost a century ago. The colonization of Ireland by England was accomplished many centuries ago, and the historical account of the grisly process --even that written by the English of the time-- fairly churns with a genocidal ferocity as brutal as any scene in our times from a Srebrinica in Bosnia, or from Rwanda. It is because of this history that those Northern Irish who are unhappy with the political arrangements of their country must talk with the Prime Minister of Great Britain if they want to make peace.

For a year and a half prior to this recent explosion, the people of Ireland --and of England-- have enjoyed a blessed cease fire. But a cease fire was not a settlement; to call it a settlement is to ratify the status quo, and if everyone were satisfied with the status quo, there wouldn't have been troubles in the first place. The cease fire was to lead the way to genuine negotiations among all the parties with a stake in the future of Northern Ireland: the Catholics and the Protestants of that tormented region, the Republic of Ireland to the South, and the government of Great Britain.

But this peace process hit a roadblock: the British government has insisted that, as a pre-condition of peace talks, its foe the IRA disarm itself. Gerry Adams and his Sinn Fein, the political arm of the IRA, had already publicly renounced violence and committed itself to a peaceful settlement, but Prime Minister Major insisted that the other side lay down its arms as well, before he would be willing to talk with them.

This position seems to me morally indefensible, and connected quite organically with the explosion that rocked London in early February. Why talk with the Irish Catholic partisans at all? Two possible reasons: either because their grievances deserve redress or because their ability to inflict pain requires appeasement. Either way, requiring the disarmament of the other side before talks can even begin shows bad faith.

If accommodating their needs is required by justice, what justice is there in not talking with them? A moral Prime Minister would not hesitate to begin talks to work toward a more just arrangement of power for a people long-abused. If the British were willing to negotiate a new arrangement only because of the IRA's ability to hurt its enemies with terrorist violence, why should the IRA lay down its arms while the status quo is still in place? If I am the IRA and I know my opponent does not recognize my goals as legitimate, I will certainly not be willing to forfeit the means of violence which, I must conclude, is the only reason he'll deal with me at all.

If one really seeks to make peace, what justification is there for making a big concession out of simply talking? It is often the case, in a good negotiation, that nothing is agreed until everything is agreed. So Major's determination that the IRA and its supporters get nothing until they lay down their arms is no reason to delay the peace process's going forward. That process itself can make the solution of old problems more possible than they seemed at the outset. But it often happens that the party favored by the status quo is more interested in posturing for the values of peace than in achieving peace: thus when such a party tries to claim the high moral ground by refusing to talk until its opponent renounces everything that has enabled them to challenge existing arrangements, it is really speaking from the lower moral ground of continued warfare. There was no talk of Great Britain laying down the weapons by which it defends the present arrangements in Ireland.

It would be good if there were no terrorism in this world, but unjust violence can take many forms. All over the globe, the present political arrangements embody some legacy of past terror and injustice. It is not only the terrorists for whom the power in their hands is tinged with the blood of innocents. How is humankind to unwind the twisted threads of our tormented history, but by sitting down and talking with our fellow human beings, whether it be in Northern Ireland, in the Middle East, in Chechnya, or wherever?

The world rightly but all-too-glibly condemns the violence of those who inflict terror. But how readily does the world move to redress the grievances of those victims of injustice who plead for justice but do not make others feel pain themselves? What recourse do we give the downtrodden --for whom outright warfare is an impossibility because of their weakness-- when we tell them terrorism is a crime? As Menachem Begin wrote well before he became Prime Minister of Israel, in a passage about the slaughter of innocent Jews in the concentration camps, and his own subsequent participation in a movement, condemned by the British as terrorist, to establish the Jewish state : "The world respects those who fight. For better or worse, that is the truth."

In the case of Northern Ireland, the complicity of Prime Minister Major's government in the shattering of the peace is suggested by the developments leading up to the recent terrorist bombing. With leadership from the U.S., it was agreed that the peace process would move forward, and that the impasse would be broken by having an international commission under former Senator George Mitchell come up with a solution to the disarmament issue. Mitchell's group proposed in January that talks begin first, and that disarmament proceed as the talks moved forward. Prime Minister Major was unwilling to proceed on the Mitchell commission's terms. That rejection was an act in the spirit of continued war as surely was the answering explosion that rocked London.

Shame.

*Andrew Bard Schmookler is the author of, among other books, Out of Weakness: Healing the Wounds that Drive Us to War.