Conor Cruise O'Brien

Herod

Reflection on Political Violence

London 1978

Stron 236, format: 14x22 cm

Książka bez śladów używania

This collection of essays and - unusual in a work of this kind - three plays is confined to a theme which has pre¬occupied the author over the years. It is, arguably, the single most important theme confronting the world today - the use of violence for political ends.
Conor Cruise O'Brien has contemplated the problem both at close quarters and from a distance. He first came into public prominence when., as United Nations representative in the Congo, he implemented a Security Council resolution authorizing 'the use of force if necessary in the last resort'. In the late 19605 he was in New York when the debate about the war in Vietnam was being argued against a background of urban violence. In the 19705, back in his native Ireland, he has been in the middle of controversy about events in Northern Ireland, both as a Member of the Irish Parliament, as a Government Minister, and more recently as a member of the Senate.
One of the essays in this book and two of the plays were written in the late 19605. Otherwise they were all written in this decade. Throughout this unique collection, the author grapples with the problems of violence and of the legitimation of violence, often by those very people who most deplore it. 'It is not contended', he says in his penetrating introduction, 'that the legitimation of violence (force) is always wrong. It is contended that the legitimation of violence (force) is a profoundly serious matter which has to be capable of being established and defended on rational grounds ... if it is to have any moral force.'


Conor Cruise O'Brien has alternated through the years between the world of active participation in national and international politics and the world of writing and teaching. Seconded from the Irish Foreign Service to the United Nations, he emerged as L representative in the Congo -A hen Katanga tried to secede.
Later, he spent some years in academic life in Ghana and New York, before returning to his own country to take up active politics. As a member of the Dail and a Government Minister he made a profound impression with his efforts to bring about a modus vivendi in the North. Defeated in the last election. Dr O'Bnen was subsequently elected to the Senate and recently began yet another chapter in his varied career when he became Editor-in-Chief of The Observer in London.


Contents
Introduction The Legitimation of Violence 7
Part One Reflections on Political Violence
A Global Letter 17
Liberty and Terror 24
American Aid to Freedom-Fighters? 40
Theorists of Terror (One) 57
Theorists of Terror (Two) 71
Political Violence 76
State Terrorism: The Calculus of Pain, of Peace and of
Prestige 82
Northern Ireland Observed 92
The Catholic Church and the IRA 99
A Yankee at the Court of Queen Bernadette 104
Broadcasting and Terrorism no
Shades of Republicans 128
Nation Shall Speak Peace Unto Nation Among Other
Things 141
PartTivo Herodes Ludens
King Herod Explains 157
Salome and the Wild Man, or The Quiet Galilean 189
King Herod Advises 213