On August 26, 1982, Francie McCluskey, a 46-year-old father of eight, was shot six times in the head and chest as he crossed some waste ground on his way to work in north Belfast. Loyalist paramilitaries later claimed responsibility for what detectives said was a purely sectarian killing, one of thousands in Northern Ireland’s decades-long Troubles.
Francie’s wife, who was pregnant with their ninth child at the time of his murder, later gave a newspaper interview in which she said her husband was in “great form” as he left the house that morning. “I remember him asking me for another kiss but I laughed that he had already had his share of two that morning,” she told The Irish News. “Francie went out full of fun. That night he came home in a coffin.”
Francie McCluskey was a relative of mine. Although I was too young to know him personally, I’m aware of the pall that his pitiless killing cast over my mother’s family. In that Irish News interview, Francie’s widow said that she held no bitterness against her husband’s killers and that their last child together, Francine, would grow up “without any hatred or malice, but love for the father she never knew”.
Such dignity in the face of suffering and violent loss was on my mind this week after reading about two other women who have experienced some of the worst that humanity is capable of. Earlier this month, Diane Foley – the mother of James Foley, the US journalist gruesomely and publicly murdered by ISIS in 2014 – delivered an emotional and moving testimony at a vigil service at the Vatican.
Ms Foley, who has written a book about her face-to-face encounters with Alexanda Kotey, the British-born militant who was charged in connection with her son’s death, described how these encounters had helped her to heal. “I staggered under the weight of that loss, unsure if I could go on,” she said. “In those dark moments I prayed desperately for the grace not to become bitter, but to be forgiving and merciful.” Ms Foley said her meetings with Kotey “became moments of grace”.
Days before, another Vatican event heard from Nobel Peace Prize winner Nadia Murad, a survivor of ISIS’s genocidal campaign against the Yazidi people of northern Iraq. Just days before James Foley was killed, the militants murdered Ms Murad’s mother and six of her brothers before imprisoning her and subjecting her to months of torture and rape.
Now a forceful human rights campaigner seeking justice for the crimes committed against her people, Ms Murad told the World Meeting on Human Fraternity: “What happened to my community at the hands of ISIS proves that hatred and violence are choices, and they continue wherever the world looks away. But we can choose differently. We can choose freedom. Freedom means standing for justice. Freedom means ensuring every human being lives with dignity.”
Ms Murad’s choice to eschew revenge in favour of the application of international justice is a powerful one. In 2023, she joined more than 400 other Yazidis in bringing a lawsuit against French conglomerate Lafarge, accusing it of conspiring to provide material support to ISIS’s campaign of terror. Her advocacy organisation – Nadia’s Initiative – continues to fight for justice, support survivors of sexual violence and work towards the regeneration of the Yazidis’ homeland.
Ms Foley and Ms Murad’s experiences should challenge us. Can one choose to forgive, even without some form of accountability? Is it necessary to see justice done before real healing can begin – if that’s even possible? Certainly, for every widow or bereaved mother who finds it within themselves to be, as Ms Foley said, “forgiving and merciful”, there are plenty of people for whom forgiveness is too much to ask.
Five Minutes of Heaven, an award-winning 2009 film about the Troubles, tackles this exact issue head on. In it, Liam Neeson plays Alistair Little, a paramilitary-turned-peacemaker. James Nesbitt plays Joe, the anguished brother of one of Little’s victims. Thirty-three years after the murder, a reconciliation project tries to bring the two men together on camera and Joe, still full of anger, brings a knife with him to the set, intent on settling the score. When a production assistant learns of his plan shortly before filming is due to start, she tells Joe that killing Little “wouldn’t be good” for him. “Oh, not good for me?” Joe replies. “My five minutes of heaven! How would that be not good for me?”
There are no easy answers to these questions, and each person’s journey is different. But I do feel that if we listened more to voices such as those of Diane Foley and Nadia Murad, then we, as a global community, might find ourselves in a better place. For, although these two women’s words command respect and attention, elsewhere some political and military figures – people who should know the importance of speaking carefully – set a very different tone.
Whether it is former Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant’s 2023 outburst about “fighting human animals” in Gaza or the vengeful, overheated rhetoric emanating from the highest political levels in the US, the default setting for much of our public discourse, especially online, appears to be one of unrelenting hostility and dehumanisation. This narrows our vision and degrades our ability to find answers; although one does not have to agree with, for example, Diane Foley’s decision to maintain a dialogue with an ISIS killer, one can still respect those who try to find a different way forward.
Last month was 43 years since Francie McCluskey stepped out of his home for the last time. In the decades between then and now, across the world thousands upon thousands more people have lost their lives in wars and other violent conflicts. Others have suffered different forms of cruelty and violence. One thing is for sure, learning from survivors’ journeys – whatever form they take – remains the most important way to build a different future.
