From “Grace Over Guns: Pursuing Peace in a Militarized World” by Ben Daniel
The history of the Troubles in Northern Ireland is complex and worthy of more ink than I’d dedicating to it here, but if one thing is certain about the Troubles, it is this: the military violence that the United Kingdom employed in Northern Ireland didn’t work. It didn’t bring peace. It didn’t achieve any kind of political stability. It didn’t prevent atrocities. The Troubles ended and the ensuing unsteady and imperfect peace began no because one side had more weapons or smarter soldiers and was able to overwhelm the opposition, beating it into submission. (I didn’t have to spend much time with former Catholic and Protestant terrorists to realize that such people don’t get beaten into submission; violence only strengthens their resolve.) Rather, the Troubles ended when Protestants and Catholics – political leaders and ordinary people – started talking to each other. Often these conversations began in churches, monasteries, and other sacred places, as Christians came to realize that their faith, in both its Catholic and Protestant iterations, called them to love their neighbors, pray for their enemies, lay down their weapons, and study war no more.
The failure of military violence to bring about a just peace in Northern Ireland is hardly anomalous.