Sir, - The atrocities of September 11th in the United States did not teach "us. . .that violence is utterly unacceptable in the 21st century", (David Andrews, The Irish Times, October 6th). Those violent acts are unacceptable because they were unjust, not because they were violent. Many, however, consider them to have been just. They have been answered by violent acts that are, I hope, just. Many think them unjust.
The question as to what is just and unjust arises with respect to all violence. For the pacifist it is answered in principle for no violence is, for the pacifist, just. For the terrorist the question does not arise because, for the terrorist, the only question is whether or not the violence is likely to succeed.
The State, like most, "was born out of ...violence" (Andrews, loc. cit.). In the present circumstances in the world, after more than 30 years of violence in Northern Ireland and to a lesser but significant degree in this State and in England, more is morally demanded than the excuse that those were violent times, and that, therefore, we need not ask whether or not the violence that was at the origin of this State was justified.
The almost unquestionable assumption that it was justified still permeates the imagination and from this has flowed - not by logical necessity but by imaginative comparison - the deaths of many over the past 30 years. And already rhetorical moves are afoot to justify the violence that led to those deaths as the perpetrators, by whom violence has been valued uniquely by its anticipated success, become "freedom fighters".
The continuation of the original violence makes the reluctance to face the question the more appalling. - Yours, etc.,
Prof Garrett Barden, Tallow, Co Waterford.