Claudy

I cannot imagine how it must actually feel to know that the institutions you serve, or are served by have actually betrayed you. Were you of a mind to see conspiracies, would you be thrilled to know that you were conspired against? As a paranoid, would you thrill to the idea that they were actually after you? Right now, I do not imagine that anyone who lost family or friends in Claudy feels anything approaching positive.

That the government of the time, the police and the Catholic Church conspired to protect a single priest, who upon the evidence not only participated in the bombing but could well have directed the action is something normally left to fiction, a distorted and ghastly parable that serves the interest of the plot. No, this actually happened, and seeing as the men involved are dead, are beyond the reach of justice in this world(which is the only world we will ever know)

Not that it makes me feel any less disgusted. I grew up tangentially aware of the campaign on the UK mainland, only on the television news but still no wonder eighties' kids grew up so fucked, absorbing all that death and terror.

It wasn't until I served in the Navy and living in married quarters that I met someone who had actually been affected by the campaign. He had survived the bombing of a Royal Marine band school, and talked about having to pick up the body parts of his bandmates. and how he decided to marry his girlfriend, seeing as life was too short to worry about the indignation of his and her family. Terrorism is a tactic, but its one wielded by cunts. Whether its state or guerilla, Palestine, Tamil, Israel et al its a tactic and blah blah blah. Its the people left behind, whole or otherwise, the families' who see an empty bedroom and know that their lives will never be the same.

I find terrorism, as a tactic, abhorrent and yet expedient, ultimately it is ineffective and it is never actually carried out by those who direct it, be it Iman or Catholic Priest, Hamas or Tamil Tiger. All it does is scar peoples and societies, because there is no love or hope in the use of it. I can understand some of the causes and the provocations that lead people to revolt, but violence begets only violence.

I'm not honestly surprised, just disappointed and whether it is overlapping with my feelings on the Catholic Church, I am sad that the people concerned are dead, as I think that the people of Claudy deserve justice, even if it cannot replace those lost to the unambiguous judgement of an explosion. That Clegg will deliver the apology somehow makes it stick in my throat a little more than it otherwise would. Next time, remember this, when we get someone stand up and encourage us to stand tall against whoever the latest enemy is, that they probably have their price and that someone is willing to pay it.