EDITORIAL: Public opinion matters

Some 4 000 miles away from these shores an event took place last week that should command our attention, if only because we are a global village and should learn from the mistakes of others. We refer to the publication in London of the Saville Report into the events that transpired 38 years ago in Northern Ireland.On January 30, 1972, Bloody Sunday, 13 people were shot dead in ten minutes by British soldiers on duty in Northern Ireland, then being ruled directly from England, when the said people and others were engaged in a peaceful demonstration. Fifteen others were injured and the issue has festered just beneath the surface of British-Irish relations ever since.Now after an inquiry lasting 12 years and costing  $192 million, a most meticulous report by British Supreme Court judge Lord Saville has found that the demonstrators were peaceful and unarmed and blamed the carnage on a “serious and widespread loss of fire discipline among the soldiers” who subsequently lied about their actions, claiming that they were attacked by bombers and gunmen.An earlier enquiry by another judge just after the events, had cleared the soldiers, but widespread labelling of that report as a “whitewash” by critics from a wide cross section of British society led Prime Minister Tony Blair to establish the Saville Enquiry in 1998.One instant reaction to the report is that there are certain fundamental principles of prime importance for the maintenance of any democracy anywhere. Whether the armed forces are called out in Northern Ireland or, for example – Tivoli Gardens, or in St Vincent, or in Grenada, or in Trinidad and Tobago – to cite some regional examples, they must  operate with discipline, in order to secure for themselves the protection of the law. In an ideal world, police forces, prisons and defence forces would not be needed, but the often times irrational behaviour of people makes these institutions necessary, even if the overarching principle of the rule of law makes it patently clear that the civil authorities constitute the ultimate authority in the state.  Disciplined forces must at all times act with discipline and Lord Saville, who did a two-year stint of national service at the rank of second lieutenant found that such a departure from basic norms led to the catastrophe. The lessons are not confined to Britain, but are of general application. Another equally important lesson is that the peaceful protest remains a useful political weapon and it must be respected even in the most trying situations.Northern Ireland was not an easy place in the 1970s and the Irish Republican Army in its quest to drive the British from Northern Ireland attracted the empathy of the former colonies, even if they did not approve of the IRA’s campaign of bombings in Ireland and on the mainland Britain.But such insurrectionist conduct could never justify the killing of innocent unarmed civilians peacefully demonstrating against the political decisions of the state. Not in a democracy!Yet in all of this, the force and power of public opinion is perhaps the ultimate victor. It was public opinion quietly and peacefully at work over the years which “rubbished” the earlier report and laid the ground work for the new enquiry. That is a lesson that all peace-loving democrats everywhere must embrace. Further, the constitutional right to freely express one’s views is still a most potent weapon in a democracy. The persistent non-violent call for an impartial enquiry into Bloody Sunday shows this to be so. The pen is said to be mightier than the sword. Now we also know that persistent, peaceful protests may also silence the gun.