Article ignored contribution to Ireland made by men like Collins
Mr Levy offered a rather cavalier review of who Michael Collins was and what he meant to Ireland.
Let me state the obvious, that in dying at age 32, at the height of his personal, professional, and physical powers, meant his personal faults and shortcomings, whatever they might have been, never had the opportunity to become part of his public persona.
This is not unlike the US’s own President John F Kennedy, who also died young. Eamon de Valera, on the other hand, lived to be 93 and all his shortcomings had plenty of time to be exposed, as well they were.
To refer to Collins as the “Elvis of terrorism” or that he was “a man who got famous for being shot” reveals a disturbing lack of depth of understanding of Collins and his contribution to Ireland.
Perhaps Mr Levy has a depth of understanding on these issues but, if so, it was not evident in this piece.
The notion that Collins was a terrorist is an interesting and complicated issue. Terrorism is commonly defined as the use or threat of violence to achieve political aims. Based on this definition, Collins and the IRA of 1919 (and subsequent period) certainly meet that definition.
Prussian military theorist Carl Von Clausewitz noted that war was simply “politics by other means”. This raises the larger question, however, of the justification of war and violence.
That the daughter of a British agent killed by Collins’s squad hates the Irish for the death of her father raises the question, for me, of the legitimacy of her father’s behaviour in Ireland.
I am sure there are plenty of children whose fathers were members of the Nazi SS and who mourn the death of their loved ones. However, their loved ones were members of a brutal, oppressive regime which terrorised and murdered innocent people.
Incredibly, Mr Levy states that Britain’s rule in Ireland in 1916 could not be described as tyrannical. The historical evidence is overwhelmingly to the contrary. Britain had no right to be in Ireland, no right to rule Ireland and the Irish people had every right to self-determination. Power is rarely, if ever, given up willingly.
As such, men like Collins and the IRA had to use force to convince Britain of the right to Irish freedom. Mr Levy seems quite conflicted as on the one hand he acknowledges the sacrifice of men like Collins, or Nelson Mandela and the ANC, but suggests that once the goal of independence has been obtained, such men should not be “sanctified”.
Collins and his IRA were not saints, but the simple point of war is to use violence to achieve political ends. Stripped of all euphemism, this is done by killing enough of the enemy so that their opposition to one’s political goals ceases. It is an ugly business and not to be taken lightly as the cost in humanity is immeasurable and those who reap the benefits of the such sacrifice should know exactly what that sacrifice entails.
Collins’s squad was extremely effective in achieving a desired outcome. However, it meant killing men in their beds, or in the park, in a cafe, or walking down the street. Most civilians never want to hear what their soldiers did in their name. They should.
I cannot disagree more strenuously with Mr Levy’s notion of Collins as a terrorist. He was not. He was a man who fought and died for his country.
William Matthews
Professor
School Psychology Programme
Hills South School of Education
University of Massachusetts
Amherst
Massachusetts
US
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