We Irish are a forgiving lot. Whether it’s in our genes or something we’ve learnt, we allow the most ridiculous and sometimes obscene things to be done to us, and we say “That’s OK – let’s move on.” When a morsel gets flicked from the top table to the floor, we seize on it with cries of joy and gratitude.
I know I’m repeating myself, but I was in the Guildhall Square in Derry when David Cameron made his famous apology for Bloody Sunday:`’What happened on Bloody Sunday was both unjustified and unjustifiable. It was wrong.” There was a big screen set up beside the Guildhall, and when Cameron said those words, the crowd cheered and clapped. The press tells us the relatives of those killed did the same.
Levels of forgiveness like that I can’t understand, let alone emulate. Maybe it’s that word “wrong”. The forces of the British state gun down, in broad daylight, fourteen citizens – people who, like you and me, pay the wages of those forces. The British state then repeatedly lies about what happened, insisting for thirty-eight years that the British paratroopers were first fired on, that the victims were carrying nail-bombs and other weapons. Finally, after nearly four decades and enormous expense, the British prime minister says “Sorry. That was wrong.” And the Irish people cheer. And the relatives of the victims are grateful.
Yesterday we had more of the same. The families of those whose loved ones had been gunned down in Ballymurphy in 1971 – that’s forty-six years ago – emerged from Belfast’s High Court smiling and punching the air. A date – 11 September 2018 (no, that’s not a misprint) had been declared for an inquest into the killing of their loved ones. The families, the Belfast Telegraph tells us, “could barely contain their emotions at the news.” Relatives declared the setting of a date “a fantastic result”, “amazing” and hailed their legal team for having extracted an inquest date.
I can only stare in wonder. If I had a loved one gunned down by state forces whose salaries I help pay, was then faced with a mountain of lies and prevarication over several decades, was finally told that what happened was “wrong”, or that I’d be allowed an inquest in a year and a half – this after waiting forty-six years – I don’t think I would feel gratitude. I would want a full investigation, nothing withheld, and the full rigour of the law applied. I wouldn’t feel gratitude for the crumbs of an apology or an inquest date. I’d feel rage that the original obscenity had been allowed happen and fury at those who had lied again and again in a desperate attempt to wash clean the scene of the crime.
Our capacity for forgiveness is higher than the highest mountain, deeper than the deepest sea.
“I’d feel rage that the original obscenity had been allowed happen..”
That is how I feel about about the rotten state of N. Ireland and the sectarian bigots who founded it and imposed their evil governance on the Catholic minority…!!
Absolutely spot on Jude,but I’d rather stand with those who have suffered at the hands of these murdering liars…and cheer,than spend my whole life fooling myself(and the world)that what was done was justified,feeling no remorse at all.My willingness to forgive is,in my honest opinion what helps me move on…….but not without anger…..ps….no religious sentiments included.
my belief is that Irish people are still in awe of the British and rather than “forgiveness” it is sycophancy that we excel at……………………yes, crumbs from the table sums it up and it is even worse in the south……………..