Saturday, October 20, 2012

GENESIS AND LEGACY: ARMED STRUGGLES

Most terrorist movements eventually wither away for they fail to replace an armed struggle with a political one

It is said that even though Irish Republican Army was no way in a position to defeat the British Army, yet the guerilla warfare it resorted to, made the British existence in Ireland inviable – not only politically, but also economically [a critical reason for the English to occupy territories even before World War II] – just as the Mujahideens did for Soviets in Afghanistan. Later on, the Provisional Irish Republican Army was formed in the 1960s for carrying on the protest against the two-Ireland policy and for ousting the British from Northern Ireland. But a war of attrition cannot be carried on without harming the common populace. Expectably falling prey to this paradigm, the subversive activities of IRA – which included bombings and assassinations – eventually made it lose much of the support it had in the Republic of Ireland and even in Northern Ireland. Eventually, after more than three decades of continuing a war of attrition against the British rule, in 2005, in the face of ever expanding domestic opposition, IRA finally agreed to lay down arms and carry on its struggle though democratic and political means; Sinn Féin became its widely accepted political front. If Sinn Féin [read its EU election campaign agenda and commitment to the ‘Peace Process’ to understand the gargantuan philosophical transformation] epitomised this intelligent change in IRA, the same gambit was chosen by the Maoists of Nepal, Fatah in Palestine and even say, Pervez Musharraf in Pakistan.

That said, the critical point to note is that the political ideological bent of an undermined group cannot [and we suspect, should not] start before a violent precession. That means that however much you might wish to peacefully get your own territory or claim your own rights, history has provided evidence that a purely non-violent struggle [one that has no genesis in violent uprisings] has almost always never succeeded. Nelson Mandela [and F.W. De Klerk] rode on the peace wave due to support of public that was sick and tired of the ongoing violence in South Africa. For those not in the know, Umkhonto we Sizwe [Spear of the Nation] was the name of the military wing of Mandela’s African National Congress.


Source : IIPM Editorial, 2012.

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