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Thursday, March 26, 2009
Against the Odds
At seventeen I learned the truth – Janice Ian
On Tuesday a 17 year old appeared in court charged with killing PSNI member Stephen Carroll in Craigavon earlier this month. That the killing had political motivation leaves it no more excusable than one stripped of all political context. The main problem associated with violence lies in its use and not in the distinction that is often made between different types of violence. Political motivation is a description not a licence. There is no need to go off on some ethical odyssey to find cause to oppose its application. There are manifold practical reasons that would militate against uncorking its bottle.
Taking a stand against political violence should by no means lead to the injustice of endorsing every move that is claimed to be necessary for ensuring that it does not occur. That would put people opposed to political violence in the same camp as the singing bigot Willie McCrea. His stance is almost as simple as himself: ‘it is for the police to say what resources they need and it is for elected politicians to battle to get those resources for them.’ That brings us right to the precipice of a police state, one step removed from the police demanding that democratic scrutiny of their actions be abolished and politicians having to facilitate it; where the politicians and the political system become instruments in the hands of the police rather than the police deferring to the democratic political system.
There is absolutely no reason why people opposed to political violence cannot also be opposed to political policing. The opposite may well be true. Given the contribution political policing in the North of Ireland has made to political violence, opposition to such violence unavoidably involves taking a stand against political policing.
This is why I found it so uplifting to read of the attitude adopted by the 17 year old referred to above while in the custody of British police officers. He was detained in an interrogation centre for longer than any other single person throughout the entire Northern conflict and not as much as uttered a word. When I read of his epic human resistance, images of Martin Lynch’s The Interrogation of Ambrose Fogarty and Martin Meehan’s Castlereagh flooded my mind; plays that captured the bad old days but which need updated to address the worse new days. Like so many before him who were hauled into those foreboding places he defied its oppressive culture. He stared at walls and floors, anything but talk to cops intent on using draconian British legislation against him. At a time when others would dismiss him as a suspect ‘traitor’ who deserves to be interrogated by British police officers investigating ‘treason’, and who stand shoulder to shoulder with his interrogators against him, urging others to inform on him, it was impossible for me not to admire his stamina and resolve in the face of overwhelming odds.
For me, what he stands accused of is not the issue. For now it is an accusation, nothing more. What is absolutely certain, not a mere accusation, is the length of time he was detained. That is the issue. Were he to have been a unionist being interrogated by Garda in similar circumstances my attitude would be no different. Through his actions in that interrogation centre this youngster made an ethical stand against draconian police powers. Whatever his motives or intent, it is indisputable that through his defiance of his British police interrogators he has made a powerful statement in defence of civil liberties.
Having been through numerous interrogations at the hands of the British – although for nothing remotely approaching the length of time endured by this kid - I instinctively, emotionally and intellectually stood shoulder to shoulder with him not his interrogators. What was he doing in the midst of his loneliness, deprivation and isolation but offering passive and ethical resistance? Or is that also to be scorned and denigrated as the activity of traitors? Even if he is misguided, even if he does believe – and I do not even know his name or anything about him – that physical force republicanism is the only way to go, what republican or human rights activist could possibly turn their back on him in his act of passive resistance against draconian powers?
I would have no problem in saying hello to a member of the PSNI or shaking their hand. I think John O’Dowd of Sinn Fein set a better example in shaking the hand of a senior PSNI officer at the funeral of Stephen Carroll than the members of the Continuity IRA who ended the life of Stephen Carroll. But in a detention centre I would behave exactly as the 17 year old; my silence, a declaration of dissent from the most abusive powers of police detention in any of the world’s democracies. The table separating interrogator and interrogated, an unbridgeable chasm over which no hand should reach nor voice be heard. On one side the police assault on civil liberties, on the other an assertion of those liberties.
The withdrawal of consent from the abusive 28 day procedure is an absolutely justifiable measure. It is a necessary safeguard against the abuse inherent in the detention process developing into an even worse abuse – a serious miscarriage of justice of which there have been many. Sad that the resistance to it had to be led by one of such tender years.
The Pensive Quill: Against the Odds
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Originally Posted by Mr Crowley
