British must admit its history of reprisal based violence; says the Irish President

During the centenary of violent reprisal of Irish War of Independence Irish President Michael D. Higgins, said that British must admit its history of reprisal based violence.

He described in detail the Sack of Balbriggan on the eve of September 20 and thee morning of September 21, 1920. These were the days when the British forces swept over a whole street and demolished factories.

The IRA murder of RIC District Inspector Peter Burke and the attack against his brother Sergeant William Burked triggered these violent actions of the British forces.

The Black and Tans ravaged whole 49 houses and four pubs and burned down the Deeds and Templar hosiery factory. The factory has employed almost 400 employees and with its destruction the whole town of Balbriggan was torn down.

He said that the Black and Tans brutal attack was part of a policy of “strategic violence” against the Irish rebellion. From 1920 onwards British forces tried to oppress the rebellion by attacking factories and co-operative creameries.

About 40 creameries were destroyed and 35 were made unfit to work before it came to a halt with the truce between IRA and the Crown forces. Almost 800 farmers were thrown out of job.

The President said that reprisal-based violence was a key strategy during the War of Independence.

He pointed to the use of similar tactics in India and Cyprus during similar uprisings in the mid-20th century. Higgins said that the strategy was rooted in the British psyche that they were superior to other races. 

“Their use is rooted in ideological assumptions, of superiority and inferiority in terms of race, culture or capacity, in the notion of the collective as a disloyal, hopeless or threatening version of the ‘Other'”. 

Higgins also  noted that intellectual tradition in Britain perceived Irish people as inferior. He also mentioned about the History of England written by the Scottish Philosopher David Hume and pointed out how he portrayed Irish as people buried in barbarianism ignorance and not tamed by education and laws.

The President additionally quoted Winston Churchill, who also viewed the Irish as a less intelligent race. “Indeed, a century later, Winston Churchill would write, “We have always found the Irish to be a bit odd. They refuse to be English”. The ‘othering’ of Irish people and their culture was undeniably ingrained at all levels of British society.”

Higgins said  that the British have to recognize their past relationship with Ireland and how they viewed them as inferior to heal from the wounded past. He said that the tumults created by Black and Tans in Balbriggan in 1920 would be viewed illegally by today’s standards of war and conflict. 

“Indeed, collective punishments and reprisals are now considered violations of the laws of war and the Geneva Conventions, the standards of international law for humanitarian treatment in war.”

He also reminded that Irish must not harbour bitterness since it  would intensify conflict, rather than resolve it and he quoted the late John Hume, who once said: “An eye for an eye leaves us both blind.” 

However, he claimed that British recognition of the atrocities committed during the War of Independence was essential to avoid bitterness. 

“It is only through such forms of ethical remembering that we can avoid retreating to the blinding categories of censure or denunciation, or indeed revenge and bitterness, that blighted this island for so long.

“Let us all continue with, indeed embrace, the new beginning that the Belfast (Good Friday) Agreement represented as we continue to carve out our peaceful co-existence on the island of Ireland.”