Toward a United States Policy on Terrorism: An Addendum on Northern Ireland

Toward a United States Policy on Terrorism: An Addendum on Northern IrelandAuthor(s): Jeanne N. KnutsonSource: Political Psychology, Vol. 5, No. 2 (Jun., 1984), pp. 295-298Published by: International Society of Political PsychologyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3791192 .

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Political Psychology, Vol. 5, No. 2, 1984

The Forum

Toward a United States Policy on Terrorism: An Addendum on Northern Ireland

Jeanne N. Knutson

This essay on terrorism and the one preceding were written in February 1981 by Jeanne N. Knutson. At that time, approximately 10 months before her death, Dr. Knutson was Executive Director of the International Society of Political Psychology. While slightly dated now in some of their empirical allusions, these recently unearthed essays contain potentially significant ideas. For this reason, and because of their personal interest to many members of the Society, the essays are being published in The Forum now. The editors have chosen not to try to rewrite them for current topicality, but to let them stand, with only slight editing, as Dr. Knutson wrote them. For approximately 3 years prior to writing these essays, and through the re- mainder of her life, Dr. Knutson carried out an extensive research project on the psychology of political terrorism. That project involved many social, political, and clinical interviews in prisons in various countries with individ- uals who had been convicted of crimes committed for political goals.

KEY WORDS: terrorism; violence; Northern Ireland; nationalist aspirations.

On February 26, 1981, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher arrived in the United States, with one of the objectives of her visit with President Reagan likely to be that of continuing to obtain support for the British position in Northern Ireland-including a resumption of arms supplies to the Royal Ulster Constabulary. The Irish Republican Army has announced that on March 1, 1981, an unspecified group of prisoners in Long Kesh and Armagh will resume a hunger strike, which ended December 18, 1981, due to British promises to ensure certain prison conditions - promises which the I.R.A. claims were made in bad faith and were never implemented. This time, the I.R.A. prisoners intend to fast unto death.

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296 Knutson

In a world in which so few values move men, so few causes are deemed worthy of sacrifice, army service is avoided and voter's responsibilities ig- nored, it is indeed remarkable that both the British and the Irish are willing to continue to lay down their lives for this cause. However, the situation in Northern Ireland is more than remarkable. It is deeply tragic that families on both sides continue to be diminished, that men and women on both sides continue to die, that young people feel pressured to become martyrs, that civil peace seems so unattainable.

To date, the United States generally has remained uninvolved in Northern Ireland - refusing to supply arms to the police service (R.U.C.) in the North and discouraging the collection of Irish-American monies to supply arms to the I.R.A. For Americans, this has meant that their own country has avoided becoming the scene of violence between opposing groups related to the conflict in Northern Ireland. In addition, American cities and police forces have been spared from pitting their lives against the bombs which have eradicated civility in so many Northern Irish cities and villages. For the people in Northern Ireland - both the citizens rooted there and the British soldiers who are posted there - one can but hope that the American policy of noninvolvement has reduced substantially the potential tyranny of violence.

Surely, as people of good will toward both the British and the Irish and as a nation whose historic roots have been fed richly by both cultures, we must deplore the agonized conflict in Northern Ireland and avoid sup- porting any aspect of the proclivities toward violence which are rampant there today. However, in view of the tragic resumption of the hunger strike, such a policy seems a niggardly contribution to be made by our nation whose many strengths have so greatly benefited from those two intertwined cultures and their peoples.

The United States is well able to do more than simply refuse to escalate the conflict in Northern Ireland by helping to limit the supply of arms. Indeed, our country is unusually qualified historically to help resolve this bitter conflict. The paradigm for civil peace has been clearly elucidated here: through affirmative action (that uniquely American, creative response to alleviate bitter social injustice), through a broadly based civil rights movement, through protecting a continual forum for the expression of grievances, the United States co-opted the leaders of our Black community into the mainstream of social concern and has moved slowly but steadfastly to eliminate the roots of Blacks' social discontent in a manner that is historically unparalleled. Instinctively, we as Americans know that to have relied upon our security forces and upon the eventual "good will among men" to erode our own historically based, bitterly felt conflict, not only would not have worked but also would have turned virulent social grievances into unmanageable social and political violence.



Addendum 297

Based on our own unique experience, the United States thus can offer without prejudice to protect the necessary forum for the expression of social grievances and for the exploration of means for their resolution. As a nation, we can offer as well our shared wisdom that civil violence is not a well-spring of social justice or an answer to historic grievances. Further, we have learned grudgingly that to answer citizens' violence with socially sanctioned government violence is counter-productive to the well-being of the society which socially sanctioned violence is intended to protect.

In the case of Northern Ireland, surely it would be presumptuous in the extreme to enter as an active ally of either side, and to imply thereby an unique ability to judge dispassionately tangled social conflicts. In view of the ease with which political violence can be transferred across borders today, an active role in Northern Ireland's conflict would be sheer political folly as well. The best reason for moving to a position of affirmative neu- trality, however, is that this is the only position which is congruent with both American interest and American values. Surely, we Americans can equally deplore the deaths of young British soldiers, of Lord Mountbatten and his family, and the deaths of so many militants in the I.R.A. and the U.D.A. and members of their families. Surely, our own sense of pain over the likely tragedies consequent to the new hunger strike must urge us now to support, with vigor and dedication, the peaceful resolution of such social agony among historic allies.

The United States, by historic example, has demonstrated two things: first, that violence against those who promote social unrest is, at base, not the answer. Second, we have demonstrated that both a willingness to really hear the expression of historic grievances and a willingness to undertake the painful social reconstruction to alleviate them alone really eradicate the roots of civil disorder. To actualize this lesson in the present case implies several specific steps. First, we must recognize that to supply in any way the means with which one side murders the other is anathema to our history and beliefs. Second, we must encourage every thoughtful attempt to move the conflict to discussion, and away from violence. For example, while U.D.A. and British spokesmen travel freely to the United States to exhort audiences to accept their various viewpoints, members of Sinn Fein are barred from legally entering the United States to urge acceptance of their views. Yet the encouragement of discussion, rather than violence, is surely in the best interest of all. Further, partiality toward the established regime over the in- surgent group frequently has become a fiasco for us as history abruptly turns tail, and we are forced to deal with those whose nascent powers we would have suppressed.

Finally, we must resolutely and continually deplore the use of violence against or by government as an efficacious means of either promoting social change or maintaining social stability. The real tragedy in Northern Ireland



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today is that a grievous and deeply rooted social problem has moved its focus to within prison walls and that young men and women will likely die over the now finely distilled symbolic distinctions separating the prisoners and their wardens. We must hold to the painfully won wisdom of America that while our Civil War produced economic stagnation, social injustice, and familial bitterness, our civil rights movement and affirmative action program have produced, at much less psychic, economic, and political cost, the basis for a firmer and more adequate civility.



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Toward a United States Policy on Terrorism: An Addendum on Northern Ireland