24/03/2006

  • A charitable brother in the Lord asked me the following questions about Mr. Sands:


    "How many Brits did he blow up?  How many Protestants did he kill?  What did he die of/how did he die?  Who "forced" him to start a hunger strike?"


    1.  None


    2. None


    3.  He died of starvation in the Long Keash Prison hospital on 5/May/81.


    4.  He led and undertook the Hunger Strike (inspired by the peaceable Gahndi and an earlier 1920's Irish hunger protest) in an entirely voluntary manner and was directly coerced by noone.  The British prison wardens, in fact, increased his food rations greatly to try to get him to eat (food nearly falling off his plate according to his diary).  So, the British cannot be at direct fault for starving him.  However, that does not mean that the British were categorically innocent in the matter.




    Not all Republicans are Catholic for (1) there are Catholics on both sides and (2) there were and are Protestant Republicans (e.g, Theobald Wolftone).  Hence, the troubles are not entirely Catholic vs. Protestant.


    Although Mr. Sands was part of the IRA, he was an peaceable exception to the IRA.  He did keep 4 or 5 firearms for personal self-defense, and he was dedicated to practical society improvements (e.g, speed bumps for children-prevalent neighborhoods) rather than the militant offensives.  In 1976, he was in the area of a furniture company bombing.  He was not treated like a human in his interrogation.  The British judge ruled that there was insufficient evidence linking him to the bombing yet in late 1977, the judge gave him and several others each a 14-year prison sentence for possession of a firearm in their car during their arrest near the bombing site.  (I do know that firearms are currently illegal in Ireland, though I don't know if they were illegal or not at that time in Irish history.)  That was how he wound up in prison.  During the Hunger Strike, he was elected as an MP (Minister of Parliament) under political prisoner status to serve at Westminster in London. 


    The only 2 things I don't like about Mr. Sands are that he was a strong Socialist, a baby step away from being Communist and that he seemingly disregarded religion (a typical indicator of Socialists/Communists) whether his own (Catholicism) or another.


    BTW, this politcal prisoner stuff about the Hunger Strike is strongly linked with the Blanketmen of Long Keash.


    Currently, the IRA and Sinn Fein are under Cease-Fire and peaceable.  However, those small breakaway factions from the original IRA are still militant and active.  The primary breakaway factions are the CIRA and Republican Sinn Fein.  There are also their sister militant organizations such as the IVF and INLA.  On the British side, the primary militant organizations are the UDA and UVF.


    As mentioned before, I detest such militant organizations whether Republican or Loyalist and only want a peacable approach to Irish Re-unification.  Both sides are guilty of atrocities against the other.  The militant have the warped sense that the only solution is a military revolution or "the armed struggle" as they call it.  "Up the RA!" and "Up the (U)DA!" are the popular, vain Repulican and Loyalist cries, respectively.  The footage of the conflicts I've seen make me sad for both sides and cause me to wonder in amazement as such stupidity.  (Although my own sin manifests itself in different ways than them, the footage also reminds me that I am just as much a sinner and no less deserving of God's Wrath than they are.  Like them, I too need a Saviour, who is only Jesus Christ.)  There are woeful similarities between the miltant groups of Ireland (i.e, the Republic and British Northern Ireland) and the militant groups (especially the PLO) of the Middle East.  That approach of an armed struggle, regardless of world location is really a facade and mask of hate whereas Scripture commands charity even towards enemies.  I further believe that the poster painting Lady Thatcher as a murderer is a bit extreme.  She has done far more positive things for society and against Communism than negative.  I put that up only to give people a taste of the extremist propaganda circulated by the militant minority of the Republicans.