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22 Oct 02 - 02:12 PM (#808677) Subject: BS: When political solutions fail... From: GUEST I brought this subject up in the Northern Ireland thread, but no one responded, so I thought I would try posting a separate thread. I am curious as to how people view these things from a moral perspective. We have seen the non-violent political solutions fail of late in Northern Ireland and the Palestinian territories, with the occupying states (ie Britain and Israel) reneging on the negotiated agreements/poltical settlements they insisted upon in order to allow the necessary changes to take place so a permanent peace could take hold. My question is this: when armed struggle has been used by those resisting the occupying force (as was the case in South Africa, the Palestinian territories, and Northern Ireland) forces the repressive police state to the negotiating table and an agreement is made, and the repressive state then fails to live up to it's part of the agreement, what can be done about it? Those who engaged in armed struggle don't want a return to it, yet what alternatives do they have when the international community isn't willing to enforce the changes negotiated in the political settlements between the warring parties? The UN and the international community are locked out of these negotiations for a reason: the reason is, the world community won't intervene in these circumstances where the world power (ie Britain or Israel) reneges on the deal. So, is a return to war reasonable in these circumstances, even when the only way the war can be waged by those resisting the repressive police state is what is now routinely labelled by the world powers and the corporate media as "terrorism"? And if we say that such armed resistance is "terrorism" and therefore unacceptable, what are we willing to allow to see the necessary social, political, and economic change take place, which will result in the world power in question (Britain and Israel in this case) to lose control over what they consider to be their territory? It is now obvious to the entire world that both the state of Israel and the state of Britain are not serious about ceding power and control over the Palestinian territories or Northern Ireland, and are willing to tolerate and live with a certain level of political violence in their societies in order to maintain the status quo. The political leaders don't reside in the police state areas of their national territories, where the majority of violence takes place, and even in the case of Israel, where the suicide bombers are taking a heavy toll, the political leaders don't have much to fear for their own lives and the lives of their families, because they have the best security in the world protecting them. But what about the desires for peace & justice for the rest of the population on both sides of the divides, who live day in and day out with the violence, lawlessness, and lack of civil liberties which comes from living in a perpetual police state? They are the ones who pay the price, who ultimately adopt the siege mentalite to cope, and live with it in order to remain part of the nation with which they view themselves to be a part of, even though the majority of the citizens of that nation definitely see them as being something apart from them? Any ideas? |