Structural violence leads to overt violence – Northern Ireland civil rights campaign proves

A Lead Into Collective Violence Structural violence, or systematic subjugation, can lead to a greater chance of overt violence. A civil rights campaign arose in Northern Ireland, UK, in the mid‐1960s with grievances calling for an end to job, housing, and voting discrimination, as well as an end to gerrymandering that reduced voting power, a reduction in police brutality and the allowance for police to search without a warrant, arrest, and imprison people without charge or trial—which favored Loyalists (supporters of continued English involvement) over Republicans (opponents of English involvement who desire unification of Northern Ireland with the Irish Republic). The move-ment was largely nonviolent at the start, but the emergence of armed paramilitary organiza-tions led to warfare over the next three decades. The Irish Republican Army (IRA) is any of several armed movements in Ireland dedicated to Irish Republicanism, or the belief that all of Ireland should be an independent republic. It is also characterized by the belief that political violence is necessary to achieve that goal. The conflict in Northern Ireland between Loyalists and Republicans has claimed many lives throughout the years of violence. The conflict in Northern Ireland between Loyalists and Republicans is also a division between Protestants and Catholics, and the violence in many cases is as much about brutal sectarianism as about political goals. The Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA) develops in 1969, splitting from the rest of the Republican movement due to differences in political and military strategy. Violent conflict over British involvement in Ireland has an extensive history even as the political landscape shifts. The British withdrew from the majority of the Irish island in 1921, the part that became the independent Republic of Ireland in 1948, and the island was geographically partitioned to form Northern Ireland, a part of the waning British Empire. The PIRA operates as an insurgent terrorist organization, carrying out operations in Northern Ireland, in the Irish Republic, on the British mainland, and in other areas, including continental Europe and the United States. Their goal is to force a British withdrawal from Ireland and to establish a Democratic Socialist Republic based on the Easter Proclamation of 1916. As it pursues these goals, the group seeks to maintain the allegiance of the Catholic population in Northern Ireland and the Republic, its primary support community. The PIRA also draws on Republican traditions that call for brutal force as the means by which to achieve the goal of Irish unification. Included in the IRA’s violence is directed political assassinations. Lord Mountbatten is a leg-endary British statesman and a naval officer, as well as an uncle of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, and cousin to Elizabeth II. Despite security advice and warnings, in August 1979, Mountbatten goes fishing in his wooden boat, which IRA member Thomas McMahon had slipped into the previous night and attached a radio‐controlled bomb. When Mountbatten is a few hundred yards from the shore, the bomb detonates. The IRA claims responsibility for the death of Lord Mountbatten. They say that the operation is one of the ways they can bring the continuing occupation of their country to the attention of the English people. The many trib-utes to Mountbatten, they note, will sharply contrast with the indifference of the British gov-ernment and the English people to the deaths of Irish men, women, and children, as well as Irish soldiers at the hands of the British forces. Gerry Adams, one of the leaders of the IRA, says that what the IRA did to Lord Mountbatten is what Mountbatten has been doing all his life to other people. With his war record, Adams argues, Lord Mountbatten could not object to dying in what is clearly a war situation (Jackson, Baker, & Cragin, 2005).