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The Trouble with Guns: Republican Strategy and the Provisional IRA by Malachi O'Doherty
by Gary Kent________________Dismissing the Provos as wicked psychopaths is politically disastrous. Some bone-crunchers are boneheads but it takes much more than muscle to transform a groupuscule in 1968 - "so small it could have paraded in a pub" - into the world's most successful terrorist organisation.
Malachi O'Doherty's invaluable book is a personal voyage through the Troubles for O'Doherty, a respected 47 year old political journalist who grew up with republican culture. As a kid, he devoured stories from war comics about plucky British squaddies, wondering why there was none about the IRA.
Through anecdote and analysis, he unpicks Provo motivations and myths, including notions that the IRA is defensive, a guerilla army engaged in war and supposed tensions between Sinn Féin politicos and Provo militarists. Take the myth that the IRA defends Catholics. But the Provos have killed more Catholics than others. IRA defiance, not defence, has escalated conflict, sectarianism and Catholic casualties. The "security forces, however compromised, have done most to protect both communities from the extremists of the others."
O'Doherty recalls the "thrilling radical potential" of the Civil Rights movement and the young SDLP and argues that while conciliation does not negate a united Ireland, an exclusive insistence on Irish unity rules out conciliation. He argues for uncoupling politics and ethnicity - through harmonising non-sectarianism. He explains the IRA's emergence from the brutal reaction to civil rights campaigning and the experience of internment and Bloody Sunday.
However, he believes that if the Provos had "simply emerged out of the coalescence of anger and humiliation" it would have been "more organic, more adaptable and more amenable" but instead it has sought to abort conciliation - "overthrow the apple cart entirely, not to help it run smoothly on balanced wheels." The Provos weren't trapped in history except for their own traditions and always made choices which have worsened the prospects of peace or Irish unity. But, what Gerry Adams calls "armed propaganda" was "driven by simple political absolutism" and as "a means of raising the ceiling on compromise." IRA actions have "successfully invalidated the prospects of power-sharing or any other internal settlement."
The Provos have also polarised opinion through, for instance, exploiting the parades issues to boost their image as protecting Catholics. He describes a closed meeting of a Sinn Féin dominated residents' group where many favoured a compromise with Protestant marchers, but the media is informed of the community's "single ardent opinion." Such "vociferous machine politics" ropes people into "a notion of a consistent community, beleaguered and at odds with the rest of the world, or it shuts them up." He also shows that the Catholic community contains diverse views, including sympathy with the Provos. He examines "punishment" beatings which affirm a legitimate policing role to the IRA - generating "an impression of a coherent republican community," It is no easy thing for a Catholic in West Belfast to reject such beatings as it implies support for the RUC which means "coming dangerously close to declaring yourself a potential informer."
It's a sophisticated, sceptical, richly incisive and highly readable canter through the key writings on the Provos and a gripping personal indictment. It's vital reading for those who should know their enemy, as well as friends who should know better. Required reading during the Referendum campaign.
Gary Kent is the Westminster Correspondent of the Belfast based Fortnight Magazine. This review was published in the Tribune during the week of May 10, 1998.