"I eventually came to appreciate a feature of the situation that has since helped me to understand similar obduracy in Lebanon, Gaza, Cyprus, and several other spots. The local leaderships that are generated by the “troubles” in such places do not want there to be a solution. A solution would mean that they were no longer deferred to by visiting UN or American mediators, no longer invited to ritzy high-profile international conferences, no longer treated with deference by the mass media, and no longer able to make a second living by smuggling and protection-racketeering. The power of this parasitic class was what protracted the fighting in Northern Ireland for years and years after it became obvious to all that nobody (except the racketeers) could “win.” And when it was over, far too many of the racketeers became profiteers of the “peace process” as well. No, what got people going in Belfast in the early 1970s was not humanism and solidarity but rather violence, cruelty, conspiracy, bigotry, alcohol, and organized crime."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Chapter 8, “The Fenton Factor” (p. 145)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Hitch-22
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Hitch-22
93 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Hitch-22 →
Related Quotes
"Nothing reminds one of impending extinction more than the growth of one’s children, for whom room must be made, and w…"
"Death has this much to be said for it: You don’t have to get out of bed for it. Wherever you happen to be They bring …"
"I of course do not believe that it is Allah who determines these things. (Salman Rushdie, commenting on my book god I…"
"Everything about Christianity is contained in the pathetic image of “the flock.”"
"“The one unforgivable sin,” she used to say, “is to be boring.”"
"It was indeed Auden – who had been a master at such a school as well as having been a pupil at one – who had said tha…"
"The conventional word that is employed to describe tyranny is “systematic.” The true essence of a dictatorship is in …"
"But a protestation of my innocence would have been, as in any inquisition, an additional proof of guilt."
"Of course I now recognize this as the working model, drawn from monotheistic religion, where love is compulsory and m…"
"The irruption of death into my life has enabled me to express a trifle more concretely my contempt for the false cons…"