Bobby Sands
It was on this day 25 years ago that IRA hunger striker Bobby sands died a martyr’s death for his cause. Nine more of his colleagues were to follow him. While many in the British establishment viewed their governments capitulation to the demands of terrorists, and the election of Bobby Sands to their parliament, as a complete disaster, it did provide the first crucial step in paving the way for Sinn Fein/IRA’s transition from armed struggle to pursuing their aims in a more peaceful and democratic way.
I would see an interesting parallel with Hama’s’ election in Palestine this year where yet another group of terrorists have begun experimenting with the idea of using the democratic process to achieve their aims. Hamas have now been forced to put their money where their mouth is and face all the demands which an elected government has to deal with. If they can provide a viable alternative to the Palestinian people (other than just more terrorism), then in time, I believe their armed struggle will become obselete in favour of democracy.
This may ultimately be the more pragmatic option when dealing with an enemy which is proving increasingly difficult to defeat militarily, a point which I’m sure is not lost on some of the smarter people within the movement.
Update: a BBC detailing the background to the hunger strikes and the hugely antagonistic relationship between British Prime Minister at the time, Margaret Thatcher, and the Republican movement.
[…] By my estimate, about 250-300 attended the solidarity protests with about 2 dozen or so counter demonstrators. Most of the feedback from the people on the street was postive towards the Afghans, but there is a significant core of people who despise what they are doing and agree with the idea of sending them ‘back to where they came from’. Very ironic when you consider Irelands long history of immigration, it’s current rich status and the fact that last week was the 25th anniversary of our own hunger strikers. The media coverage of the events has been generally poor with either sparse covereage or else with a very pro-government / anti-immigrant bias. The media has also been reporting that one of the protesters is the nephew of a former cabinet minister in the Taliban government in Afghanistan. The minister split from the government when he spoke out against the destruction of the Buddist statues which the Taliban destroyed in 2001. Consequently, he faced death threats from his former colleagues. […]
Sirenian Shores » Blog Archive » Latest on the Afghan hunger strikers said this on May 21st, 2006 at 1:02 am