'We are not afraid'

'We are not afraid'

With their campaign for justice for their murdered brother, the McCartney sisters have provoked a deep crisis in Irish republicanism. As they prepare to take their story to the White House, Angelique Chrisafis talks to the Belfast family who are forcing the IRA to change its ways

http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,3604,1435114,00.html

...

What drives them? "Love," Gemma says. "Basic love for my brother. Only now I'm in this situation do I realise how essential justice is. You see people on TV saying they're fighting for justice and you think, why don't they just accept things and get on with the grieving process? It's only now that I realise how important justice is. Otherwise he would have died in vain."


One of the ways in which these five wonderful women shame the IRA and those who support them is their understanding that vengeance is not at all the same as justice. Two very different things which, post 9/11, the governments of the US and UK have deliberately confused.

Lives lost: Other victims of the IRA

http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,3604,1435115,00.html

The IRA is estimated to have killed 20 people since it declared a ceasefire in 1996. Many more have been the victims of punishment beatings. Almost all of them have been members of their own community.