It would be nice if the men who escaped from that appalling regime in Colombia were given a civic reception in our towns, but that is too much to expect.
But after all, they did escape from a regime which is noted for its abuse of human rights and has been for a very long time. And they escaped after being subjected to an abuse of justice which might leave one gasping with astonishment if one did not live in Ireland or Britain.
We can hope, however, that the rising tide of political fundamentalism which is flowing round us in Ireland – and in Europe generally – will be met with a stout barrier of people's refusal to allow any more erosion of what we have struggled to win over so many painful years.
The return of the men from Colombia has given us a startling revelation of the fierceness which lies under the surface of our communities. We thought we had secured decent trial by decent jury for all time, but we have not.
Governments have taken the opportunity to erode it and in many cases have succeeded in destroying it. You can be condemned on the word of a policeman, something which totalitarian states did and we condemned them for it. We realise now that many of the violations of human rights which were condemned in the past were condemned not because our governments thought they were wrong but because the wrong people got doing them.
Those who condemned what the communists were doing were able and willing to do the same themselves when it suited them.
And it's all happening now.
One of the media which did us a favour was RTÉ – by revealing the depths of rage and resentment and thirst for vengeance that lies at the depths of some of our souls. People actually demanded that the men be "hunted down" – that is John Wayneism at its heaviest – or that they be extradited, or put in prison. One remembers with difficulty that over the years Irish people have treated endless British films of escape as something joyful to give their children, have indulged in war games and at the same time prayed for peace.
The favour RTÉ did us was revealing people to each other and making us all realise how far many of us have to go before we recognise each other's right to fairness and our duty to protect each other from injustice.
Colombia has a bad record on human rights. But then so has Britain. And so has Ireland. Irish governments created the heavy gangs who beat prisoners. Irish governments created the travesties of Green Street court. Irish governments accused the northern regime and its courts of being unjust and yet when anybody escaped from those unjust courts they were captured in the South, tried and given prison sentences for escaping – and then when they had served those sentences they were handcuffed and sent back North to serve the rest of the sentence from which they had escaped.
Those who watched all that with dismay and disappointment realised that cynicism is not the sole preserve of one government or another. So, unhappily, it would be just too natural for an Irish or British government to send people back to Colombia – too, too natural. They are, in so many ways, birds of a feather and you expect them to flock together.
If that sounds angry, well so it is. European governments at present, as well as the USA government, are getting rid of as many of our hard-won rights as they can – or rather, they are getting rid of their recognition of our rights. Governments do not give us rights, we have rights already and governments are bound to recognise them. The hysteria aroused in Britain has given rise to suggestions that they should revive the treason laws, laws which were among the most deadly, vicious and irrational the world has ever seen. What really was surprising, then, on the occasion of the escape of those three men from Colombia, was the fierceness with which some people demanded vengeance. Vengeance for what?
We expect governments to act for their own profit and the profit of those who promote them into office – but to hear our people crying out for vengeance is a frightening experience. At a time when nearly all amusement, the most of television, a lot of literature, much of the basic religious documents we have are violent, at a time when violence roams the streets and factory foods are giving young people more instant energy than they know what to do with, the willingness of governments to encourage violence rather than damp it down could be frightening.
Vengeance is not what we should be on about. Returning men and women to unjust systems is not either – our governments did too much of that during the past 40 years. And destroying the safeguards good people have built up to protect us against the irrationally and selfishly powerful of this world, that is a recipe for disaster, such a disaster that one often wonders if disaster is what people think they will enjoy.
