I've seen a lot of political violence in my life. I know what it

Hear the words of Paul Greengrass, a storyteller who has walked among shadows, who declared: “I've seen a lot of political violence in my life. I know what it looks like. I know what it smells like. I know what motivates young men to do it. I've talked to them about it. I know what victims feel like, you know? I know the abominable effect it has on politics. I know how intractable it is.” These words are not spoken as theory, nor as the idle musings of a philosopher. They come from a man who has looked into the eyes of both the aggressor and the victim, who has stood at the threshold where human pain becomes weaponized, where anger becomes ideology, and where politics descends into blood.

The origin of these words lies in Greengrass’s long career as a journalist and filmmaker, often immersed in stories of conflict. Before he brought his vision to cinema, he chronicled the troubles of Northern Ireland, a land scarred by bombs, barricades, and generational hatred. He spoke with those who carried the weapons, young men hardened by loss and driven by rage, and with those who bore the wounds, families torn by death, communities drowned in grief. Thus, when he speaks of political violence, he does so not as an outsider, but as one who has tasted its closeness.

Political violence is unlike any other storm, for it corrodes not only the flesh but the spirit of nations. When the gun and the bomb enter politics, dialogue shrivels. Fear replaces reason, and trust between communities is shattered. Greengrass calls it abominable, for its effects linger long after the smoke clears. It twists justice into revenge, and it teaches generations that power is won not by words, but by blood. Even when peace returns, suspicion festers in the bones of a people, as though violence itself becomes part of the air they breathe.

Consider the example of Northern Ireland’s Troubles. For decades, Catholics and Protestants, nationalists and unionists, were locked in bitter struggle. Young men joined paramilitary groups, believing they were fighting for justice, dignity, or revenge. Innocents perished, families were broken, and the land itself grew weary of sorrow. The politicians spoke, but their words fell on ears deafened by gunfire. It was only after years of dialogue, sacrifice, and persistence that the Good Friday Agreement brought fragile peace. This story reveals the heart of Greengrass’s words: political violence is intractable, resistant to quick solutions, binding generations in chains of grief.

Yet his words also serve as warning. He tells us that violence begins not in the explosion of the bomb, but in the hearts of the young men who are seduced by it. He has spoken to them, he says, and knows what drives them: anger at injustice, desperation from poverty, the intoxicating call of belonging to a cause greater than themselves. To stop political violence, one must not only confront the act but also the roots that nourish it—alienation, despair, humiliation. Without healing these wounds, the cycle repeats endlessly, for new hands will always rise to carry old weapons.

O seeker, the lesson is clear: political violence is not the path to justice, but the destruction of justice itself. Its victories are illusions, its costs eternal. When anger tempts you toward destruction, remember that every bomb dropped on a neighbor is a bomb planted in the future of your own children. The path of peace is harder, slower, more fragile, but it is the only path that yields life. To walk it requires courage greater than the courage of war—the courage to forgive, to listen, to endure the pain of compromise.

And what actions must we take? Build communities where the young are not abandoned to despair. Offer them belonging not through guns, but through education, dignity, and hope. Resist the voices that glorify destruction, for they sow only ruin. And when you see injustice, do not be silent, but fight it with truth, with solidarity, with the strength of peaceful resistance. For peace is not the absence of struggle, but the refusal to let struggle descend into hatred.

Thus remember the words of Paul Greengrass: political violence corrodes, deceives, and endures. To overcome it, we must learn to recognize its roots, to heal its wounds, and to resist its seduction. For though it is intractable, it is not invincible, and the light of peace, though faint, is always stronger than the darkness of bloodshed.