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Keith E Rice's Integrated SocioPsychology Blog & Pages

Aligning, integrating and applying the behavioural sciences

Bloody Sunday’

Leave Gerry Adams alone!

The 4-day arrest and interrogation of Gerry Adams (30 April-3 May) in connection with the murder of Jean McConville in 1972 has raised 2 fundamental questions not only for Northern Ireland but all similar conflicts… How do we deal with the crimes of former terrorists who have gone on to become leading statesmen? How do the victims and the aggrieved in such conflicts get justice – and, if justice can be obtained, should it be at the expense of peace? The world’s most famous ex-terrorist-turned-statesman was, of course, Nelson Mandela. With the background guidance of advisers like Don Beck – see: Don Beck & South Africa – Mandela went from being a convicted terrorist still committed to the ‘armed struggle’ to one of the greatest mediators of peace and reconciliation our world has ever known. Not only was he jailed for sabotage and conspiracy to violently overthrow the government in 1964 but he continued to plot violence whilst in prison – by his own admission (1995) ‘signing off’ on the murderous Church Street bombing of 1983. Yet, in spite of the publicly-acknowledged ‘crimes’, he became a symbol of peace, unity and hope not only for millions of South Africans – black, white… Read More

Martin McGuinness for President?

Martin McGuinness, the deputy first minister of Northern Ireland, always good for a soundbite, is certainly making some interesting news stories these days.His effective admission yesterday (3 October) that the Provisional IRA did commit murder when innocent people died as a result of their activities is another – major? – step forward in Northern Ireland’s unsteady and decidedly volatile route to a lasting peace. McGuinness told The Independent: “The IRA were involved in quite a number of incidents which resulted in the accidental killing of innocent people and the term used by the relatives of those people who were killed was that they were murdered. I wouldn’t disagree with that. I’m not going to disagree with their analysis of what happened to their loved ones…. I accept that, in the circumstances where innocent people lost their lives, then it’s quite legitimate for the term murder to be used.” Of course, McGuinness maintains that the army and police personnel and Unionist paramilitaries blown up or gunned down by the IRA were legitimate targets in a ‘bitter war’ – to say anything other would be to disrespect both his own past and the hundreds of IRA members who died or served jail sentences for their cause.… Read More

Prisoner abuse and the mess in Iraq

So Donald Rumsfeld has not only admitted to Congress that, yes, American soldiers have been doing rather nasty and degrading things to Iraqi detainees but there is, in fact, far worse to come – including videos! (It’s already been confirmed that 2 Iraqis have died in US custody – one with ‘strangulation’ identified as the cause of death on his post-mortem report! – and there will almost certainly be more come to light if allegations of firing on unarmed prisoners from a prison watchtower are accurate.) However, the abuse, according to Rumsfeld, has not been ‘systematic’ but merely the actions of some ‘bad apples’. As his President, George W Bush, points out, there are some 200,000 American troops in Iraq and the vast majority are doing a demanding and highly-dangerous job with bravery and integrity. In the larger scheme of things, the average ‘GI Joe’ in Iraq is probably epitomising Bush’s case on a daily basis. Unfortunately for Bush and Rumsfeld, the International Committee of the Red Cross, Red Crescent, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have them squarely in their sights. According to the Red Cross, they recorded regular abuses at Baghdad’s Abu Grhaib jail between March and October 2003 – the worst being in the October – and presented the… Read More