Right of Conquest

One of the ideas that  helped to shape history but  we could usefully get rid of is The Right of Conquest.

It was believed – or people professed to believe – that when you conquer another people’s land you  own it  by Right of Conquest. It was  a way of  justifying theft and the receipt of stolen goods. It was accepted by Christians in whose Bible  the right of conquest is  glorified, however ruthless it might be. Right of conquest is still with us, but it takes different forms nowadays. Sometimes it is disguised as opening up the way for democracy  for people who are suffering from dictatorships whose badness we , and not they, define.

Historically the theft of other people’s land has been glorified even to the extent of attaching sacred names to stolen territory. Corpus Christi was never meant to be used that way. With a Bible firmly  in hand , or  stored in a locker ready for action when required, it was easy for invading Christians not only to steal territory but even to say God was the reason for it. And God was praised for it too.

One of  our  neighbours in West Belfast , Mr. Gowdy  who in his own words was educated in the university of the Universe – and often showed us great wisdom as a result – used to  sum up a segment of Irish history neatly. When  told that one of the awful things done  in Ireland was that invaders came and stole the land of the O Neills, the great Northern family, he had an immediate and devastating answer : “Yes. And who did the O Neills steal it from ?”

They must have taken it partly by armed strength and partly by craft because in Ireland the land used to belong to the people who walked on it  for the very first time, and then by their tribes and  then when  one or more families became powerful gradually  control of the land became concentrated  in them. One of  many  interesting places in Ireland is Newry, Co Down where land was thus brought into the control of local princes, who donated some of it to a monastery ( coming in from outside)and when invaders were stealing monastery lands everywhere ,  the Newry land was stolen. As usual in those days of enlightenment when monasteries were destroyed, their hospital services, their rest and refuge houses were destroyed with them, in the first massive privatisation of medical services ever to happen . Stones of the monastery buildings were used to build fine houses for the new possessors.

What they had done was justified partly by saying they were  civilising natives and partly because God wished such things to happen and largely because  the Right of Conquest was believed and acted upon with vigour in those Christian times. Happily, a lot of the stolen land in Ireland kept its old names and did not have the miserable experience other peoples had of being re-named by the thieves in honour of  St Dominic or the Blessed Virgin once the blood had dried.

It seems  now that this ancient idea of the Right of Conquest is slowly giving place to a more modern  idea, the Right of World Policing. But it is much as usual. The aims are the same, theft of other people’s wealth , the methods are the same and , not surprisingly,  the excuses are the same.  After all, they say, powerful nations have  to civilise the world somehow .And that costs money. And lives. Other people’s  most of the time.