No Faith in the System

Sr. Sarah's eloquently written work will be a must read in social justice and human rights classes around the world. Her vivid descriptions of the torture undergone by dozens of innocent Irish families and especially the devasating effect it had on their children and marriages rips apart the apathy many might feel when the subject of Northern Ireland arises today. We have eyewitness accounts , straight out of novels about KGB and Pinochet tactics, of children being bribed to pin false allegations on their parents, of marriages ripped apart because of offical ex-judical sentencing into internal exile of husbands. The frigthening thing is that this did not happen in Nazi Gemany or Marxist Russia but rather in the country that claims to have the "mother of parliaments" and a bastion of civil liberties. Sr. Sarah's accounts of her simple but poweful ministry in reaching out to the accused and incarcerated in England from the mid 1970s to 1995 catches one for its lack of anger towards the individuals and system that sent to jail 7 year olds because of their ethnic background. Its stories highlight the Prevention Of Terrorism act issued in the early 1970s against the IRA but used exclusively to create a climate of hostility against the Irish in Britain as effectively as any apartheid government could. She documents that 90 percent of those arrested and tortured for 7 days without access to any outside communication were freed without charge. As she points out however it was usually a far different person released than arrested. The psychological as well as physical torture (including strip searching of females by men) saw to it that a generation of Irish britons were forever cast as suspicious in the eyes of their neighbours. A powerful book from a person who exudes grace under the hell of constant intimidation and threat. This is a marvellous work absent of hate, even though it would be justified, and full of dignity. Sr. Sarah deserves our respect for shedding light on a regime which destroyed true democracy based on intrinsic human rights in Britain .