Beastly Spies

It's good to hear that reason hasn't reared it's sensible head in the continuing mistrustful relationship between Israel and the Arab states. This week's story of the Saudi Arabian authorities arresting a vulture on suspicion of it being a Mossad agent sums the extent to which reason has been banished from that region, but we have a similar example of hysterical mistrust involving one of our near neighbours, in our own history.

The vulture story reminds me of the story of the monkey hung in Hartlepool for being a French spy during the Napoleonic wars. According to local folklore, a monkey was washed ashore, alive, following a French ship sinking in bad weather. The story continues that the locals, not knowing what a Frenchman looked like, and what with the monkey being dressed in a French uniform (presumably for laughs by the luckless crew of the ship) feared the monkey was a French Spy and decided to put it on trial there and then. Of course, the monkey couldn't understand a word they spoke and failed to speak a word of English - proof positive that this was a filthy Frenchie up to no good.

So they hung it as a spy.

Perhaps in another couple of hundred years the Jews and Arabs can enjoy as close and trusting a relationship as we have now with our neighbouring garlic eating surrender monkeys.

In former times, when war and strife

The French invasion threaten'd life

An' all was armed to the knife

The Fisherman hung the monkey O !

The Fishermen with courage high,

Siezed on the monkey for a French spy;

"Hang him !" says one; "he's to die"

They did and they hung the monkey Oh!

They tried every means to make him speak

And tortured the monkey till loud he did speak;

Says yen "thats french" says another "its Greek"

For the fishermen had got druncky oh!

Hammer his ribs, the thunnerin thief

Pummel his pyet wi yor neef!

He's landed here for nobbut grief

He's aud Napoleon's uncky O!

Thus to the Monkey all hands behaved

"Cut off his whiskers!" yen chap raved

Another bawled out "He's never been shaved",

So commenced to scrape the Monkey, O!

They put him on a gridiron hot,

The Monkey then quite lively got,

He rowl'd his eyes tiv a' the lot,

For the Monkey agyen turned funky O!.

Then a Fisherman up te Monkey goes,

Saying "Hang him at yence, an' end his woes,"

But the Monkey flew at him and bit off his nose,

An' that raised the poor man's Monkey O!

In former times, mid war an' strife,

The French invasion threatened life,

An' all was armed to the knife,

The Fishermen hung the Monkey O!

The Fishermen wi' courage high,

Seized on the Monkey for a spy,

"Hang him" says yen, says another,"He'll die!"

They did, and they hung the Monkey O!. They tortor'd the Monkey till loud he did squeak

Says yen, "That's French," says another "it's Greek"

For the Fishermen had got drunky, O!

"He's all ower hair!" sum chap did cry,

E'en up te summic cute an' sly

Wiv a cod's head then they closed an eye,

Afore they hung the Monkey O!.

(Lifted from Thisishartlepool.co.uk)

Armies and Civil Rights Protesters Just Don't Mix

So, after 12 year and almost £200,000,000 spent, the Saville report is finally complete and published. Its conclusions are clear. The victims were innocent and the shootings could not be justified.

It seems an awful lot of time and money to put into a review of a 38 year old event but, regardless of the questions around how long it took and how expensive it was, the report probably is a necessary step in the reconciliation process in Northern Ireland.

For me, one message comes out clearly from this report and from recent events off the coast of the Gaza. That is that armies and civil rights protesters don't mix.

The difficulty for governments facing civil unrest is that there normal police forces are usually not equipped or trained to deal with well organised and intense violence. That was certainly the case in the early 70's in Britain. The army were sent into Northern Ireland to quell the violence on both sides of the troubles. Indeed, it was concern for the catholic/nationalist minority that contributed to the then Labour government deploying the army in the first place. Subsequent governments maintained and strengthened the army's presence as the violence escalated as the nationalist community started to regard the army as an occupying force and turned on them.

I'm not going to pretend I know enough about the Troubles to pass judgement on whether the army deployment was right or wrong, but Bloody Sunday and the recent Israeli flotilla incident do highlight the consequences of placing trained, armed killers amongst hot headed, fanatical activists.

Our natural sympathies are for the "unarmed" protesters. Of course, "unarmed" usually means no guns but sticks, knives, petrol bombs, stones etc, are usually involved. And whatever the rights and wrongs on both incidents in Derry and off the coast of Gaza, you have to feel for the young men put in positions of danger with live weapons in their hands being confronted with a mob of "unarmed" but violent protesters. These guys are trained to fight against an enemy, and yes, they are trained to deal with civilians, but they are also trained to kill when they feel sufficiently threatened. So it should be no surprise that this is often the outcome in these situations.

The miners' strike in the 80's taught the authorities a lot about dealing with violent protests and I think our police are now immeasurable better prepared to cope compared with the late 60s/early 70s. However, such was the intensity of the violence in Northern Ireland I doubt even our modern police could have coped and we would still deploy the army if the same unrest was happening today.

At the end of the day, if you are going to throw rocks and try to break through a barrier defended by armed men, you are taking your own life in your hands. I'm not saying any of the dead on Bloody Sunday were armed with anything other than a deep desire to protest against a draconian internment policy. But the army were duty bound to stop them marching through a loyalist area and specifically to stop the march altogether as it was illegal at the time to march (as it was seen as being deliberately inflammatory to the other side - which usually they were). Just as, having decided to have an exclusion zone off the coast of the Gaza Strip to help stop the smuggling of weapons for Hamas terrorists to use against Israel, the Israeli military had to stop the flotilla as it was breaking their government's rules.

People felt strongly that these rules were wrong and oppressive and challenged them. In my opinion, in both cases, the feelings were inflamed by political beliefs, and probably by terrorist organisations, that polarised the views of the protesters and drove many to act violently towards their "oppressors". Had nothing gone wrong, in either case, no doubt the army could have contained the situation without loss of life and they should have done. But things do go wrong. People make the wrong decisions, there's chaos and confusion everywhere and people get frightened. Frighten people will use their weapons and, tragically, that often ends up with deaths and injuries to innocents in the area as well as those actually attacking.

It's right there's been an enquiry, I'm glad we know the individuals killed are innocent. But lets not have a witch hunt for the soldiers involved at the time. Certainly question the operational decisions made on the day but, really, that should only be for lessons to be learnt for similar situations in the future.

And governments need to think long and hard about deploying military personnel to police civilian unrest as, almost inevitably, that leads to events like these that ends up just inflaming a bad situation and making matters worse for everyone. If you can't avoid deployment, then deal with events like these quickly and honestly or otherwise allow your enemies to use them as recruiting sergents.