When I was a kid, a former Nazi was caught with some regularity. Most were small timers like camp officers or regional functionaries. I recall the hunt for the Josef Mengele being a big deal. Without looking it up I did not remember that he was never caught. He drowned and was later positively identified. I was conflating the facts with the movie, The Boys from Brazil, which was a very big deal when I was a kid. Even today, when the few remaining Nazis are octogenarians, they still hunt for them and cheer when they find one somewhere. For some, the past is a nightmare from which they never awake.
I’ve always had mixed feeling about these things. Human nature pushed us to annihilate our enemies. We know that from archaeological evidence as well as genetic evidence now. Way back when we were hunter-gatherers, bands of humans would attack other groups and try to kill every single one. It was take no prisoners war. Humans had figured out that the best way to avoid retribution was to kill anyone who could hold a grudge. That’s probably what drives the hunt for 90-year old Nazis. Until the Nazi hunters are sure the last one of them is dead, they cannot rest.
Anyway, the same thing is playing out with the Irish. The Troubles are long over, but there are still scores to settle. Police in Northern Ireland have arrested Gerry Adams for the murder of a Belfast widow 40+ years ago.
Police in Northern Ireland arrested Sinn Fein party leader Gerry Adams on Wednesday on suspicion of involvement in the Irish Republican Army’s 1972 abduction, killing and secret burial of a Belfast widow.
Adams, 65, confirmed his own arrest in a prepared statement and described it as a voluntary, prearranged interview.
Police long had been expected to question Adams about the 1972 killing of Jean McConville, a 38-year-old mother of 10 whom the IRA executed as an alleged spy. According to all authoritative histories of the Sinn Fein-IRA movement, Adams served as an IRA commander for decades, but he has always denied holding any position in the outlawed group.‘‘I believe that the killing of Jean McConville and the secret burial of her body was wrong and a grievous injustice to her and her family,’’ Adams said. ‘‘Well publicized, malicious allegations have been made against me. I reject these. While I have never disassociated myself from the IRA and I never will, I am innocent of any part in the abduction, killing or burial of Mrs. McConville.’’
Reflecting the embarrassment associated with killing a single mother, the IRA did not admit the killing until 1999, and her unmarked grave was discovered only by accident near a Republic of Ireland beach in 2003.
Adams was implicated in the killing by two IRA veterans who gave taped interviews to researchers for a Boston College history archive on the four-decade Northern Ireland conflict. Belfast police took legal steps to acquire the interviews, parts of which already were published after the 2008 death of one IRA interviewee, Brendan Hughes. The researchers fought unsuccessfully to avoid handover of the tapes of the second IRA interviewee, Dolours Price, who died last year.
In his interview, Hughes, a reputed longtime deputy to Adams within the Belfast IRA, said McConville was killed on Adams’ orders. Hughes said Adams oversaw a special IRA unit committed to identifying, killing and secretly burying Belfast Catholic civilians suspected of spying on behalf of the police or British army. An independent investigation by Northern Ireland’s police complaints watchdog in 2006 found no evidence that McConville had been a spy.
Adams was always a loathsome character. Every revolt has characters like Adams, who see the unrest as a chance to profit. He was never much of a fighter, but he was good at talking for those who did the fighting. He was never much of a politician, but he was happy to stand in front of cameras and take credit for the work of others. That said, he was never the worst of the IRA and probably should get credit for bringing about the Good Friday Agreements.
What Adams was good at was seeing the American Empire emerging in the 80’s. If he could get Americans on his side, he could put pressure on the British government. Politicians like Peter King of New York became aggressive advocates for the killing of women and children, even helping the IRA raise money. Having a US congressmen on the payroll was worth a thousand masked paddies holding clubs.
Anyway, the argument for going after him now, after all these years, is that justice must be served. That sounds fine when you are a great distance from the events, but it is a reminder to present and future adversaries that you can never sleep as long as the other side lives. Adams thought he put all of this behind him. Now he probably wonders if he should have ever done business with the Protestants. Every future rebel will draw the right lesson here.
The bigger issue is the fact the past, this part of the past anyway, is heading down the memory hole. I recall when the battles in Ireland were front page news. Today, hardly anyone remembers it. The modern Irish on both sides have no interest in the struggles. They don’t go to church and they don’t care about the past. Young Irish are not interested in planting bombs. They want to get drunk and fornicate while listening to hip-hop.
The Nazi hunters succeeded in keeping the past alive, but that’s an different thing than this. The American Empire is largely run by Members of the Tribe so keeping the Holocaust alive has real value to people wholly unrelated to the events of 70 years ago. No offense to the Irish, but even the Irish have lost interest in Irish history. I just don’t see the point in trying to keep The Troubles alive. But, people have long memories and an innate desire to kill their enemies.
“Way back when we were hunter-gatherers, bands of humans would attack other groups and try to kill every single one.”
Not quite true. Fertile females were allowed to live if they agreed to become wives or concubines of those who killed their men.
Not really. Females moved between groups, but most likely it had little to do with war. Studies of mtDNA shows much wider distribution than Y-chromosome distribution. Observations of the few hunter-gatherer groups remaining shows females movement between groups. Either way, females had no say in the matter so there were certainly some women carried off after the men were all killed or chased off. The point here is that one of the earliest human behaviors to evolve was war. Early humans lived astoundingly violent lives. Killing off the competing males was a primary goal of ware because it had reproductive… Read more »