Bobby Sands Quotes
They won't break me because the desire for freedom, and the freedom of the Irish people, is in my heart.
Sands, Bobby. Writings from Prison. Mercier Press, 1998.
He was elected to Parliament while in jail and never took his seat as he died as the result of a hunger strike in jail.
He had been King of Portugal and then had come to the Portuguese colony of Brazil where he led a revolution against Portugal, declared independence from the “mother country, and was elected as Emperor of Brazil. The Colony was much larger and richer in natural resources than the “mother country.”
British colonial economics imported raw materials to England which then exported them back to the colonies as manufactured goods. Gandhi correctly calculated that by minimizing purchase of English cloth, colonial control of India would not be as profitable. Gandhi not only called for the boycott, but called on Indians to spin their own cloth, set an example be spinning himself, and his Congress party adopted the spinning wheel as its logo and symbol which continues today. Narcotics, was at the time not only legal, but British economic interests controlled much of the world narcotics trade. Gandhi’s call for a boycott of narcotics was as much an economic tactic as it was a health measure.
For his seditious activities he was sentenced to penal servitude for life. He escaped and came to America where he entered politics
In most revolutionary settings leaders have to persuade people who have voted with no success to turn to the rifle. In Ireland at this point, almost all the nationalsits knew that the rifle would help them but they were not sure that a vote would have the effect of a bullet.
Robert Gerard Sands was a member of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) who died on hunger strike while imprisoned at HM Prison Maze (also known as Long Kesh) in Northern Ireland. Sands helped to plan the 1976 bombing of the Balmoral Furniture Company in Dunmurry, which was followed by a gun battle with the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC). Sands was arrested while trying to escape and sentenced to 14 years for firearms possession.
