The recent events in Norway are shocking and my thoughts are with the families of the victims. The perpetrator appears to be a supporter of Christian conservatism and seems to have been making some form of political statement. His actions were clearly misguided and will be rightly condemned by politicians on all sides and indeed by all civilized people, but it does raise a serious question – when is direct action justified in support of political causes?
The establishment line of course, is that we live in a society governed by laws which should not be broken no matter how passionately you may feel. But what do you do to publicise a cause if you believe that your voice is simply not being heard ?
Just to be absolutely clear – I am not suggesting that the events in Norway could be justified in any form – violent attacks on innocent people have no place under any circumstances. But there are plenty of cases where reliance on the ballot box alone will not deliver, and direct action in some form may be required.
Here in Wales we have had Cymdeithas yr Iaith’s civil disobedience campaign and Gwynfor Evan’s threatened hunger strike as examples of non-violent action as well as Meibion Glyndwr’s arson campaign and sporadic bomb attacks by MAC/FWA as examples of more extreme actions but which were directed against property not people. These tactics were deemed necessary as the conventional political processes were not delivering, and each was successful (to a greater or lesser degree) in raising public awareness and forcing the establishment politicians to take action.
I am not entirely clear what point the Norwegian attacker was trying to make, but I firmly believe that he has done his cause a great disservice by resorting to such extreme tactics.
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As long as people are prepared to use peaceful, sometimes direct action, they have a right to be heard regardless of the message.
ReplyDeleteI think the line's drawn at the use of violence of any kind including actions that would endanger life even if that's not the intention.
If conventional means aren't delivering their message to the extent that an individual or a group has to turn to terrorism or violence to "be heard", their message isn't worth listening too.
I would say that that doesn't extend to war/conflict zones which come under agreed international conventions. I'm talking about "stable" countries.