Irish Republican Army, Oliver Cromwell, and Political Terrorism and Violence
"My guess is you are American... and vastly ill-informed about direct political action."
From: RED GUY (REDGUY@aol.com)
Date: Wed, 21 Jan 1998 08:36:46 EST
To: cybrgbl@deltanet.com
Subject: Political Terrorism
Organization: AOL (http://www.aol.com)My guess is you are American. Certainly a conservative and vastly ill-informed about direct political action. Do you think the Irish were happy to be forcefully converted to protestantism by Oliver Cromwell. A man you must despise as a political terrorist. Or King William of Oranges' attempt to slay them. A man you must admire. Or how about starving to death because the only crops you can eat are potatoes, grown on land you once owned but now rent from a foreign conqueror. While all the best food, Beef, tomatoes, chickens leave your country under armed guard for the British Aristocracy and Lords to eat.
Better still if you are a Yank, as I suspect (prove me wrong). Why do you not hand back our Colonies you stole from us with Political Terrorism in the 1770s. Also don't talk to us about John Locke as one of the fathers of your constitution as he advocated armed inserection to change Governments who break public trust.
When is your lovely Republic going to lift its sanctions on Cuba. Surely that is political Terrorism. But of course you do not interfere in other countries internal sovereign business. Such as Saudi Arabia who regularly publically beheads woman on the ground of infidelity. But of course you are against Female Circumcision.
Dear "Red Guy,"
Yes, I am an American, and for this I ask the forgiveness of no one. Your caustic comments have, on the other hand, the unpleasant odor of the extremist Irish Republican Army hanging around them, poignantly reminding me why my own ancestors left that emerald island over 100 years ago for the more propitious regions of North America. Thank you for the reminder as to exactly what my family gave up and gained in the exchange.
And, no, I don't look with much happiness upon the historical figure of Oliver Cromwell, harbinger of much war and misery in his time - a man whose chief skill was causing other men to die violent deaths in a context of 17th century English political instability. I do, however, take hope in the fact that Cromwell was the last "Lord Protector"-style absolute ruler to govern in England, as the Glorious ("Bloodless") Revolution of 1688 brought about a political system where the English king once and for all found himself ruling only within carefully prescribed limits set down by Parliament. I see as much more important to us today the legacy left to us by the poet John Milton, jurist William Blackstone, and philosopher John Locke - men who although they lived in the same period as Cromwell thought very differently from him. (From an idea conceived in Athens centuries ago, those thinkers helped extend the liberal tradition which respects the individual's right to life and property, freedom of speech and religion; and over time this developed into the constitutional liberalism we see today emphasizing checks on the power of each branch of government, equality under the law, impartial courts and tribunals, and separation of church and state.) It are not the prescient voices and messages of Cromwell or King William of Orange but those of Milton and Locke that reach down to us over the centuries and resonate as if alive, urging an ethic of discussion and tolerance instead of autocracy and oppression. I honor this tradition as it continues on through history in the statesmen Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Abraham Lincoln, Winston Churchill and Franklin Delanor Roosevelt, and philosophers the Baron de Montesquieu, Voltaire, Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill, Sirs Karl Popper and Isaiah Berlin - to answer your questions, in part.
None of these worthy thinkers would argue that violence and revolution are unwarranted or indefensible when all other paths for political change have been exhausted. The colonial Americans who came to populate General George Washington's citizen army, for example, originally coached their objections to the arbitrary taxes and governance of the King by claiming their rights as Englishmen as elucidated in the Revolution of 1688. But the great success of constitutional liberalism since that age are due in part to the fact that democracy can make violent change unnecessary, with government answerable to the people and the autonomy and dignity of the individual more and more protected against religious, political and cultural coercion. Democracy, as I see it, is about respecting certain "inalienable" rights and choosing the ballot box over the bullet, if at all possible. This liberal tradition in Great Britain and the United States has helped those two countries avoid falling into the barbarism of fascism and communism which have engulfed so much of the rest of the world this century.
Freedom in Cuba, Saudi Arabia, China? I completely agree with Paul Johnson when he asserted that "freedom is a good which any rational man knows how to value, whatever his social origins, occupation or economic prospects." I do not believe, as many do today, that persons in the Middle or Far East have been conditioned to be treated poorly because of their unique cultural circumstances and as such we should consider said treatment legitimate. And I would argue this wherever it would come up by use of arguments and persuasion, as I have done in many places (against my own government, as well as any other). I believe if you do not change the soul within than the world outside will never change; old corrupt and exploitative institutions will simply be replaced by new corrupt and exploitative ones. I believe it is the power of thought and ideas and not mere violence and physical duress that ultimately bring about real change; I agree completely with Ralph Waldo Emerson when he claimed that "spiritual are stronger than material forces; that thoughts rule the world." General Washington never was going to remove from the colonies a vastly superior English military on the field of battle, the victory at Yorktown and French support notwithstanding. Ghandi had not the wherewithal to drive out the British colonizers by physical force. Without Voltaire, the French Revolution would have been impossible. Martin Luther King, Jr. won his civil rights struggles in the hearts and minds of Americans not through a campaign of bluster, intimidation, and insurrection but through moral strength and personal example. Conversely, history - especially recent history! - is replete with mindless political violence which instead of ameliorating human misery and suffering has only increased it.
Buffeted by the calumnies of day-to-day political life, I have noticed that much of this noble rhetoric with respect to "rights" and "freedom" wears thin as human frailty and prejudice lead to political scandals, abuses of power, rank incompetence, etc. Instead of the princesses' glass slippers, democracy leaves us with the worn and frayed pair of comfortable walking shoes in the closet which have conferred workable service over many years. Yet I suspect we do not truly appreciate those old walking shoes until they are gone and we find ourselves walking the streets barefoot. How ironic that those who enjoy political freedom are often the ones who are least likely to appreciate it, knowing nothing else!
"Red Guy," you seem a contentious fellow - e-mailing me (a perfect stranger) so inhospitably from your America Online account. Perhaps a spell in Castro's Cuba might change your manners and political perspective. I suspect you probably would not get on well with the authorities there in the same way so many of the old Bolsheviks finally fell afoul of Stalin, the wolves eventually devouring one another.
Sincerely,
Richard Geib
P.S. The economic embargo against Cuba is political terrorism? I disagree; nobody is being car-bombed or shot dead in the streets of Cuba by agents of the American government today. The United States has simply decided not to trade with that country. Fidel Castro - the only political force in that country which matters - sided with the Soviet Union in the Cold War and his side lost. Now he (and, unfortunately, his suffering people) is paying the consequences; such is the bed he made for himself, let him lie in it.
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