Betty Williams And The Butterfly Effect: The Butterfly Effect

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It has been said that one small moment can create large effects; the butterfly effect. For Betty Williams, her small moment occurred on August 10th, 1976 when she witnessed an innocent family get mauled by a runaway car driven by an IRA member in her hometown Belfast, Ireland. Three children were killed and their mother, Anne Maguire, was seriously injured and later committed suicide. Williams was greatly moved by this tragic event. Two days after witnessing the accident, she obtained six thousand signatures on a petition for peace. Later, Williams teamed up with Anne Maguire’s sister to form The Women For Peace, now known as the The Community For Peace. The organization was known for holding mass protests. William’s spearheaded a peaceful march of ten thousand Protestant and Catholic women. The march was diffused by the Irish Army, but it did not stop the movement. The next march was attended by 3,500 people, proving that nonviolent protesting was effective. The loss of three children eventually led one woman to …show more content…

She believed that nonviolence does not come easily and has learned. On July 14th, 2006, while delivering a speech to school children, she made an extremely controversial statement saying, “I have a very hard time with this word 'non-violence, ' because I don 't believe that I am non-violent. ... Right now, I would love to kill George Bush. I don 't know how I ever got a Nobel Peace Prize, because when I see children die, the anger in me is just beyond belief.” She believes that it is the duty of all humans to protect human life and if we fail to do so we lose our right to life and joy (Williams). A Gandhian critique of this statement would be that saying she wanted to bring physical harm to someone is just as violent as actually harming them. Based on this statement, however, I do not think Williams believes in principled nonviolence the way Gandhi and his followers

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