For details contact Wayne Simmons 4 Geneva Gardens, Stranmillis, Belfast BT9 SFY falsealarmboy@hotmail.com Or register online at: www.tcpc.org/news/index.html. sof 55 September 2002 Discipline nd Courage On the Truths and Lies of Violence — by David Paterson Every year, on 11th November, we commemorate those "gallant lads, who laid down their lives so that we might be free". They fought bravely against the enemies of their country. Under the orders of our Government and their Commanding Officers, with the blessing of religious leaders, and after careful training, they went into battle to shoot and bomb, kill and destroy.
They had been taught to inflict the greatest damage, and disciplined to obey orders without question.
Violence and cruelty were required of them, as well as courage. The training had prepared them to behave in ways that are regarded as criminal in civilian life, but passes as discipline and courage of the highest order when you are fighting for a cause you believe to be right, a cause of freedom. That's the "truth", isn't it? Almost everyone in Britain during the 1914-1918 War believed that our cause was just. The young men who fought and died did it for us. They are heroes.
More recently, the understanding of that War has greatly changed. It looks far more like a tragic manipulation of human courage for highly questionable motives, and its consequence, far from being 'the war to end all wars’, was to usher in nearly a century of bloody conflicts still continuing today.
The 1939-1945 War still appears to most Britons as a ‘just war’, but I wonder whether that will stand the test of historical scrutiny? At any rate, its consequence has not been peace, but rather a new heightening of the amount of damage nations can use as threats against each other. But — is ‘terrorism’ different?
If we are not prepared even to question our own acts of terrorism, we have no right to condemn those of other people I'm not saying the destruction of New York was just. Neither am I saying that, even if the cause was just, that sort of violence was legitimate action to take. But if we are not prepared even to question our own acts of terrorism, we have no right to condemn those of other people. If we say we are opposed to terrorism while refusing to examine our own acts of violence, then we are lying.
Would you ever kill? Yes, I think you might. If you believed in a cause, if you were protecting your child, if your friend was in great danger from a violent enemy, and if you had enough courage, you might well kill. I hope I would. So why don't we understand Palestinian suicide bombers?
Isn't it clear that young Palestinian men (VERY young) and young Palestinian women have been _ taught by circumstances that their families are being __ persecuted, their friends are in danger an¢| that they __ have a just cause. They are prepared to die because they believe in that cause and because they have courage. Persecuting their families and friends will not stop the violence, only confirm their belief, and so recruit even more brave young people to give their lives in a cause, which appears more and more just.
So why are people like Cherie Blair made to retract and apologise for saying what is obvious?
Is the Palestinian cause just? That’s a complex question. Let's just say that neither the Israeli nor the Palestinian cause is totally just. Let's also say that the violence each side inflicts upon the other makes both causes less and less just, but the violence hardens the people on each side into believing that the people on the other side are evil, and therefore legitimate victims.
What appals me is the almost unimaginable blindness and hypocrisy. I On 11th September, men operating under the orders of their political leaders and commanders, and after careful training, went into battle to kill and destroy. They had been taught how to inflict the greatest damage, and disciplined to obey orders without question. Violence and cruelty were required of them as well as courage; the training had prepared them to behave in ways that are regarded as criminal in civilian life, but pass as discipline and courage of the highest order when you are fighting a cause you believe to be right. Why is that not true? What is the difference?
Do those who are shocked by ‘the atrocities’ of 11th September have very short memories of the atrocities committed in the name of war every day of every year in some part of the globe or other?
If those who flew the planes on that day in September were ‘mindless cowards' as some have said, why do we honour our young men who - under orders - bombed and killed in those other wars? realise that many people find the pacifist argument hard to reconcile with the human instinct to fight for what we believe in; but if that is so for us, we must see that it’s true for others too. The advocates of non-violent action believe that wars have never brought peace or justice, but only lead to the interchange of aggressor and victim, and create a seedbed for further injustice and revenge. Non-violence is a far more effective instrument. It demands very great courage and enormous discipline.
What seems all but unforgivable is to condemn other people’s violence out of hand without looking at what is causing them to behave like that, while at the same time advocating and supporting violence to oppose it, and then to try to muzzle the people who are brave enough to tell the truth.