English (2011) ‘The Interplay of Non-violent and Violent Action in Northern Ireland, 1967-72.’
Citation: English, Richard (2011) ‘The Interplay of Non-violent and Violent Action in Northern Ireland, 1967-72,’ in Adam Roberts and Timothy Garton Ash (eds.) Civil Resistance & Power Politics: The Experience of Non-violent Action from Gandhi to the Present, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 75-90.
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English (2011): Notes that the violent IRA emerged from the 1960s civil rights movement that relied on civil resistance.
English (2011:76): Northern Irish civil rights movement formally emerged in 1967 as the Northern Irelan Civil Rights Association, which called for universal electoral franchise (as it was, based on rates and company); new electoral boundaries; an end to local government employment discrimination; equal distribution of public housing; repeal of the Special Powers Act; and the disbanding of the Protestant police service.
English (2011:77): Clashes in 1969 included a provocative march by radical People’s Democracy group from Belfast to Derry, which was attacked by loyalists at Burntollet Bridge and led to a hardening of Catholic opposition to the northern state and moderate reform. Followed by 1970 Falls Curfew, 1971 internment, and 1972 Bloody Sunday.
English (2011:79): “The problem faced by advocates of civil resistance here was essentially twofold: first, the division between the two communities in Northern Ireland was deep, pervasive, and long-rooted, so any effort to erode it would necessarily be difficult and challenging; second, the civil rights initiative focused on issues (Catholic disadvantage and experience of discrimination) which reinforced rather than dissolved people’s sense of communal division, rivalry, hostility, grievance, and tension.”
English (2011:79): The ‘success’ of the civil rights movement depends on the measure. On the one hand, it clearly failed to advance socialist or liberal agendas; on the other hand, it was highly effective in undermining the authorities’ power and legitimacy and drawing attention to an unjust situation. [Goals: destructive or constructive].
English (2011:82): Sees no evident link between civil resistance and liberal outcomes. Instead, the latter depends on “the depth of experience and inculcation of liberal-democratic norms, institutions, attitudes, and practices” in society and “the outcome of the power relationship reached by civil and non-civil struggle alike.”
English (2011:82): “Very few people reject absolutely the morality of violence.”
English (2011:83-84): “We always have with us a minority of people who consider violence to be justified in order to achieve desirable political gain. States can do little about that. The room for affecting outcomes lies with our ability to prevent, or allow, or encourage, such minority zealotry to gain a purchase on the wider imagination within the relevant community or constituency.”
English (2011:85): Notes republican traditionalists were consistent in calling for violence to advance their cause, but in the early 50s, 60s and 2000s these ideas failed to gain traction, whereas in the 70s they did.
English (2011:85): Sees a “depressingly familiar” pattern to escalation 1967-72: divisions and tensions between communities; unrealistic hopes for, and exaggerated fears of, change; overreaction to minor clashes because of a lack of understanding; ensuing exacerbation of divisions; violence and counter-violence. This vindicated “previously marginal and simplistic arguments in favour of aggressive violence.”
English (2011:85): “Not only, therefore, were you prepared to use violence to hit back at the people who had hit your own community first; you also had an ideological framework providing you with justification, explanation, and a seeming hope of victory.”