.@fotoole fears that talk of a burgeoning civil war in America risks becoming a “self-fulfilling prophecy. I lived through this period in Ireland… It gives the excuse [for extremists] to say, ‘We better start moving first, we better take the violent action before they get us.’” pic.twitter.com/VU4eXYLQr9

— Christiane Amanpour (@amanpour) January 4, 2022

“I lived through this period in Ireland when there was fear of an island-wide civil war – which never actually happened – at the start of the Troubles in Northern Ireland and the fear of civil war didn’t stop people from stepping back..[and saying] ‘oh we’d better be careful here (laughs) and not go there’. It went in the other direction, which is that for people inclined to violence…it gives the excuse then to say that we’d better start moving first. We better take the violent action before they get us and you get this kind of horrific circular logic where people who are in fact aggressors can see themselves as defenders. They can say that ‘we’re just taking action now to prevent the annihilation that’s coming from the other side’.

“We need to be very careful about talking about civil war and I think for America we need to be talking about what’s happening right now which is the issue of impunity. If you want to tackle the threats…you really have to start with the fact that there’s been an attempted coup, that there are a lot of court cases, a lot of minor people  perhaps being prosecuted but so far no real sense that it’s being called out for what it is, being seen as a crisis, an insurrection, which demands a response which actually criminalises that behaviour.”

Fintan O’Toole on the US January 6, 2021 Capitol Hill riot.

Anyone?

Previously: We Don’t Know Ourselves