What if the Provisional IRA and all other Republican paramilitaries had never fired a single shot, or planted a single bomb? Would the situation for the Catholic community in Ulster be better or worse today? I’m not posing this rhetorically, but as a point of discussion. Many will jump to respond that events such as Bloody Sunday render this game meaningless, worthless. Ulster Catholics would not, could not, and perhaps should not, have simply turned the other cheek. But whatever your take I only ask you to suspend it for a moment. We can be sure at least that this was not a logical impossibility, and not without historical precedent. For better or worse, it is not unknown of for humans to respond to intense violence and oppression with a stoical determination not to respond in kind.
Jumping straight to outcomes then, the important ones would seem to be twofold: death and politics. Assuming an absolute and unconditional commitment to non-violent protest by the entire Catholic community of Ulster, what might have been the outcome in these two areas?
First, deaths. Would there have been fewer casualties in the protestant community, less deaths of British soldiers and mainland British civilians? - undoubtedly. This is the unambiguous good news. No Claudy, La Mon House, or Enniskillen; no Newry or Warrenpoint; no Guildford or Birmingham, or Brighton Grand. All those people alive and intact today, assuming they hadn’t died since in a more peaceful manner. All those tears never shed, and hatreds not fomented.
What about fewer deaths in the Catholic community? This is more contentious. If you hold the ‘cycle of violence’ view then again yes, undoubtedly. Like the Tango, it takes two to create a cycle of violence. Every Catholic killed in a reprisal for an IRA shooting or bombing would presumably still be alive today, or represented by the children or grandchildren they never had. But as we've only asked Republicans to lay down their arms it's harder to gauge. Violence against the civil rights movement cannot be framed as ‘reprisal.’ That was prime-mover violence, original sin, and we have little reason to suppose it would have diminished if the Republican side had remained passive. Indeed the IRA liked to paint itself as the armed protector of the Catholic community. To whatever degree that was true, then perhaps some Catholics lives were in fact saved by the IRAs presence.
What about those killed by British soldiers? Would the British army have been in Ulster in the first place? Legend has it that they were first sent-in to protect the Catholic community. If this is true then it is possible to frame all violence by the British army as a response to Republican violence - the cycle again. It depends how much you believe the British army and British government were there as neutral peacemakers, maintainers of empire, or in cahoots with the loyalists.
Next, politics. For Ulster Catholics, would the political world of 2013 be better/worse/comparable if the IRA had never fired a shot? Would a body comparable to the current Northern Ireland Assembly have arisen without 30 years of bloodshed? Assuming it would have, would the Catholic hand be stronger or weaker on such an assembly? Would the treatment of Catholics as a class in Ulster - housing, education, job opportunity - be better or worse? How would the mutual opinions of a catholic and a protestant stranger differ today, sitting opposite on a Belfast bus? Would there be more or less fear, respect, suspicion?
While we can be sure things would not be the same as they are today, we can be equally sure that they would not be the same as 1969, either. Northern Ireland was not set in aspic, and the Troubles were not conducted in a vacuum. Britain and Ireland sit adjacent to a vibrant continent which itself underwent huge changes over this period - notably the collapse of dictatorships in Spain and Portugal, and the fall of Communism in the East. Much of this was achieved through political pressure, internal and external, rather than bullets and bombs.
And of course there is the EU itself. It’s not beyond possibility that it might have exerted greater pressure on Britain if Britain and the Loyalists had been the only belligerents. With the addition of IRA bombs however, perhaps it was easier for the British government to paint the whole thing as a war on terror - Britain under attack, rather than the rights of Irish nationalists. Could continental Europeans even discern the plight of the Catholic community through the fog of IRA incendiaries? God knows, most mainland Britons couldn't.
I stress again, I am not posing any of this rhetorically. I really haven’t a clue. But it's something that deserves thought. Hopefully Ulster has been through its worst pain and is safely on the other side. But the world is still full of comparable disputes. Anyone considering lending support to one party or another, materially or vocally, might do well to consider Ireland's case before pledging.
At this point one might ask, why the hell should the oppressed be the ones to lay down their arms, rather than the oppressors. I can only suggest, for reasons of pragmatism. The asymmetry of the forces involved in disputes like the Troubles make military victory all but impossible for the weaker side. War proper (though still deeply indecent) is a mutilation contest. The aim is to out-mutilate the opponent - and victory to the last man standing. This necessarily requires a degree of material equality between combatants. Otherwise it's all over before you get a chance to call it war (you have to settle for calling it liberation.)
In situations like the Troubles, on the other hand, the imbalance of power makes this form of victory near-impossible. The IRA was never going to 'take' Belfast like Monty took Alamein. So they chose guerrilla warfare. This is tactically very different. Rather than out-mutilate the opposition to capture the castle, the guerrilla army uses arbitrary small-scale acts of violence in the hope that this will frighten the opposition into vacating the castle voluntarily.
I won't comment on the morality of such tactics, but permit me one observation about their strategic value. Consider that the IRA's explicit war aim was the dissolution of the province and reunification of Ireland. I don't want to rub salt, but this goal is no closer today than it was in 1969. Indeed Sinn Féin now participates in the governance of the very province it was fighting to dissolve. How does that stand-up as a victory for guerrilla warfare? Is there nothing others can learn from this?
Returning to the original question, for Ireland at least, both answers are awful. If we believe that comparable civil-rights could have been secured by the Catholic community without them taking-up arms, then thousands died for nothing. Alternatively, if we believe that these gains could not have been secured without Republican terror then we would have to conclude that intense violence is sometimes the only way for one group of humans to secure basic rights from another - in which case our whole species should hang its head in shame. My personal hope, without much confidence or evidence to support it, is that the first conclusion is true, grim as it is.
