I bet you haven't heard, read or thought about that name in a while, have you?

Bernadette Devlin, an elected member of Parliament who had acknowledged IRA connections, was interviewed on television by David Frost in 1970 or thereabouts. When asked by Mr. Frost whether she wanted peace in Northern Ireland, she replied yes, of course, everyone wanted peace in Northern Ireland. She elaborated: "We cannot have peace without freedom, because peace without freedom isn't peace. It's slavery. If we can have peace together with freedom, that would be best, but if we can't have both together, we will have freedom first, and then we will have peace."

Please note that, in Ms. Devlin's world view, the oppressors were the British and the Ulster Protestants, who the US is not accustomed to look upon as villains. Yet she addressed a degree of civil rights and equal protection under the law that didn't exist for her Catholic constituents at the time.

Self-determination provides a tested avenue to freedom. Syria is attempting to prevent it in Lebanon. The Irish limped toward it in Northern Ireland, dragging some of their people kicking and screaming. We have failed to provide enough civil order for it to occur in Iraq, and have not provided enough attention to support its brief moment on the Afghan stage either. Yet self-determination is not ours to bestow. It must, as its name implies, be claimed by the people themselves.

The difference between "realism" and "reality" is only this: realism is the picture of what we think reality looks like. But realism is only a picture; reality provides us with that third dimension, depth.

Bernadette Devlin was correct in her assessment. One cannot take away the essential part of peace in order to have it. Without the dimension of freedom, what passes for peace will be a dull, flat and unprofitable counterfeit.