Gerry Adams Victim Blaming - Time to go?

[Sunny]

We are indeed in danger of going off tangent here. You seem like a reasonable person but that is such a distortion of what was happening I feel I have to correct it.

After weeks of hooligans from West Belfast nightly engaging in an orgy of burning, looting and rioting in the city centre it got out of hand and elements of the RUC lost control and were briefly backed up by the Protestant mobs. Believe me if the same thing was happening from the far more disadvantaged areas of West Dublin the reaction of our own security forces would have been far more firm and decisive, more Egypt style than Belfast style.

As it happened the British Army moved in quickly to impose some sort of order and Catholics were mighty glad for their intervention. By the time Charlie and his mates were arming the Provos it had nothing to do with protecting Catholics (total myth that Provos protected Catholic communities anyway). It was a mixture of wanting to vent their own bigotry and hatred against the unionists and also promoting their ultimate aim of a united Ireland, which they saw as possibly flowing from undermining completely the Northern State.

Please, please no T&R. I just couldn't stomach the cringe making spectacle described by Betsy.

No offence but are you trolling? You can't be serious with a post like that. And you accused Purple of distorting events!

 

[Duke of Marmalade]

No offence but are you trolling? You can't be serious with a post like that. And you accused Purple of distorting events!

The answer is no. Is this is an attempt to close down this discussion? Which particular assertion of mine do you suspect of being a troll? I think the Boss may have to put Norn Iron on the banned list.

I notice that people from the South, and I mean reasonable people like yourself and Purple, find it very difficult to see the NI thing through a completely different but entirely valid lens. For them the narrative is simple. NI Catholics were suffering like the black people in South Africa (note Purple's remarks) There was a popular uprising ruthlessly suppressed by Protestant reactionaries supported both by the RUC and the British Army. They reacted by arming themselves in defence and resistance and the rest is history.

Believe me, in the day that is in it, Grizzly is no Nelson Mandela (despite his own conviction that he is) and neither, I hate to disappoint, is John Hume.

 

[blueband]

We are indeed in danger of going off tangent here. You seem like a reasonable person but that is such a distortion of what was happening I feel I have to correct it.

After weeks of hooligans from West Belfast nightly engaging in an orgy of burning, looting and rioting in the city centre it got out of hand and elements of the RUC lost control and were briefly backed up by the Protestant mobs. Believe me if the same thing was happening from the far more disadvantaged areas of West Dublin the reaction of our own security forces would have been far more firm and decisive, more Egypt style than Belfast style.

As it happened the British Army moved in quickly to impose some sort of order and Catholics were mighty glad for their intervention. By the time Charlie and his mates were arming the Provos it had nothing to do with protecting Catholics (total myth that Provos protected Catholic communities anyway). It was a mixture of wanting to vent their own bigotry and hatred against the unionists and also promoting their ultimate aim of a united Ireland, which they saw as possibly flowing from undermining completely the Northern State.

Please, please no T&R. I just couldn't stomach the cringe making spectacle described by Betsy.

that has to be the most simplistic and ridiculous version of the troubles I ever heard in my life!

 

[delgirl]

NI Catholics were suffering like the black people in South Africa (note Purple's remarks) There was a popular uprising ruthlessly suppressed by Protestant reactionaries supported both by the RUC and the British Army. They reacted by arming themselves in defence and resistance and the rest is history.

Having lived in both Northern Ireland and in South Africa for many years during the apartheid era, I can say that the treatment of the catholics in Northern Ireland, while not on a par to that meted out to the non-whites in South Africa, was characterized by a hate-filled campaign of segregation and discrimination where they were subjected to some of the worst social injustices in the Western world.

In a nutshell, indigenous catholics were treated as second class citizens in their own country.

 

[Duke of Marmalade]

Having lived in both Northern Ireland and in South Africa for many years during the apartheid era, I can say that the treatment of the catholics in Northern Ireland, while not on a par to that meted out to the non-whites in South Africa, was characterized by a hate-filled campaign of segregation and discrimination where they were subjected to some of the worst social injustices in the Western world.

In a nutshell, indigenous catholics were treated as second class citizens in their own country.

Please, when I see the pictures of SA and its shanty towns and its "Whites Only" signs in recent days, I cannot but reflect that conditions of NI Catholics should not even be mentioned in the same sentence. People in the South may like that comparison but it is an utter travesty. Let's have a T&R session to compare the two regimes, maybe we should delegate that module to the South Africans.

As to segregation, the Housing Trust made a brave but hopelessly naïve attempt to put a sprinkling of Protestants in the newly built housing estates of Andersonstown in the fifties. The working class people of NI were having none of it. These days the odd Protestant enclave that used to adjoin the Falls, for example at Broadway, has long since disappeared at the desire of both sides. Housing has always been a local matter and under power sharing Sinn Fein have ample opportunity to promote integration but there is absolutely no appetite for it on any side. Another naïve initiative was to establish non denominational schooling. The Catholics were having none of that either. To compare the voluntary segregation in NI with the imposed Apartheid regime frankly nauseates me.

Reverting to topic, someone compared Grizzly's statement to saying cyclists were responsible for road deaths. It is actually worse than that. What he was saying was that "cyclists get what they deserve if they are careless and drivers deliberately take them out".

 

[Betsy Og]

Though I know this is Troll feeding, Hume could well be the best politician ever to grace this island. If there was anyone of his equal on the other side a lot of bloodshed might have been avoided. Definitely an Irish Mandela - he was slagged for his 'single transferable speech' - I think that is because there is no point repackaging commonsense. He may or may not have been the person who called the Good Friday/Belfast Agreement -'Sunningdale for Slow Learners', but he would have been well within his rights to do so.

The island owes a great debt of gratitude to Hume, Mallon & Co.

 

[Duke of Marmalade]

Though I know this is Troll feeding, Hume could well be the best politician ever to grace this island. If there was anyone of his equal on the other side a lot of bloodshed might have been avoided. Definitely an Irish Mandela - he was slagged for his 'single transferable speech' - I think that is because there is no point repackaging commonsense. He may or may not have been the person who called the Good Friday/Belfast Agreement -'Sunningdale for Slow Learners', but he would have been well within his rights to do so.

The island owes a great debt of gratitude to Hume, Mallon & Co.

++1

I note a big contradiction in this blog, a contradiction which is fairly typical of the popular narrative in the South.

There seems to be a feeling (thank you Purple) that the plight of NI Catholics was close to par with that of SA blacks. If that's what you really believe, then what is the difference between Grizzly and Mandiva? Both are terrorists turned peacemakers. The fact is that the position of NI Catholics has been the most over egged grievance in the history of the World (Grizzly once cited to a US audience that a prime example of this oppression was that street names in NI were not in Irish) and the Haughey et al sponsored terrorist response was the most disproportionate reaction in the history of the Universe.

Betsy it was Seamus Mallon who so astutely observed that GFA was Sunningdale for slow learners. Anybody here know the difference? I'll tell you. GFA had a reference to the Irish language and to Ulster Scots. Very admirable increments to Sunningdale, I am sure, but was it really worth the 25 years of the deaths which occurred in the Troubles, before Grizzly and his buddies caught up with the rest of the class?

 

[Betsy Og]

++1

..... before Grizzly and his buddies caught up with the rest of the class?

While I agree with your general point about, I suppose, Republicans pursuing 'the long war', wasnt it the Ulster Workers Strike that 'did for' the Sunningdale Agreement?

Also, about 3 posts ago you said Hume was no Mandela, now you're ++1??, conclusive proof of trolling???

As regards MOPE (Most Oppressed People Ever) - the view that Nationalists overegg it - calls for basics like One Man One Vote, equal rights to housing, end to gerrymandering, some form of parity of esteem, were met with State violence (RUC on Derry march), then sectarian violence (most of burning was of Catholic areas of Belfast), army brought in under unionist government control, internment, Bloody Sunday (all in the first 4 years or so).

So I'd say for a few years there it felt every bit as bad as SA (& once the narrative is set its very hard to change it). As regards republican blame, there was never going to be a victory, so once the 'pogram' style sectarianism abated, and any defensive role receeded, there should have been a winding up of operations (along with army withdrawal) - then re-enter the impartial policeforce to restore law & order.... Of course by that stage any number of relatives had been killed, communities further marginalised & radicalised, and the movement was on the road to a 32 county socialist republic (never going to happen). Cue decades of bombing for no rime or reason.

Such a tragic pointless conflict, the end solution that we now have (&I do believe it is more or less the final position) was always going to be the solution because institutionalised inequity on that type of scale will always be overcome. If unionism had responded reasonably at the outset the bloodshed could have been spared, but no doubt reasonable men were shouted down by Big Ian. He or his direct associates my not have pulled a trigger but his incitement to hatred and strangulation of any accomodation towards a significant minority of the population of the North more or less ensured that two communities would be pitted against each other. Of course when he's good and ready he's one half of the chuckle brothers with an IRA leader, cheers Ian, but 35 years too late.

 

[delgirl]

Please, when I see the pictures of SA and its shanty towns and its "Whites Only" signs in recent days, I cannot but reflect that conditions of NI Catholics should not even be mentioned in the same sentence. People in the South may like that comparison but it is an utter travesty. To compare the voluntary segregation in NI with the imposed Apartheid regime frankly nauseates me.

While you're entitled to your opinion, quite frankly you're not qualified to reflect on either as you obviously have no experience of growing up in the North at the height of the 'troubles' as a Catholic living in a 'Protestant town' nor have you experience of the segregation in South Africa during the apartheid era.

To describe the segregation in the North as 'voluntary' frankly nauseates me as someone who as a teenager was beaten to a plup for daring to walk in the main street of my hometown after the shops had closed.

If unionism had responded reasonably at the outset the bloodshed could have been spared, but no doubt reasonable men were shouted down by Big Ian. He or his direct associates my not have pulled a trigger but his incitement to hatred and strangulation of any accommodation towards a significant minority of the population of the North more or less ensured that two communities would be pitted against each other. Of course when he's good and ready he's one half of the chuckle brothers with an IRA leader, cheers Ian, but 35 years too late.

While Grizzly is quite rightly being taken to task for his comments, people like Ian Paisley, while professing to be a man of God, with his vile, hate-filled rhetoric incited more riots and murders in my hometown than anyone else, walk away chuckling.

 

[Duke of Marmalade]

Also, about 3 posts ago you said Hume was no Mandela, now you're ++1??, conclusive proof of trolling???

I am not trolling. Hume deserved his Nobel. He was no Mandela because NI was no SA by a long shot.

I am totally on message up until Sunningdale. I believed I was a second class citizen in sixties Belfast (are you watching delgirl?) I thrilled at the civil rights movement. I was frightened by the Protestant mob. I was mightily relieved by the sight of a British soldier at my front door. As to the IRA I felt neither protected nor threatened by them.

The British should have suspended Stormont as soon as they had to deploy their troops on the streets in 1969. Their delay gave the Haughey faction time to prime the republican terrorist machine.

You are missing my point about Sunningdale. Yes, in the end it was Paisley brought it down. But my point is that Sunningdale failed miserably to bring peace. That was because the IRA were electoral pariahs at that time. A fair dispensation in NI was absolutely the last thing they wanted. The republican war machine greatly intensified its campaign of murder and bombing in the wake of Sunningdale. Haughey complained of "copperfastening" partition. Perhaps Sunningdale could have had a chance if there had been a De Valera style clampdown against republicans south of the border but there was no political appetite for that in the 26 counties.

Roll on 25 years and a hunger strike and republicans suddenly find themselves with electoral acceptability. Come back Sunningdale, all is forgiven.

In summary, whatever the justification for violent resistance before Sunningdale, and there was some, there was not one scintilla of justification post Sunningdale. The next 25 years of republican violence are devoid of any moral standing.

Postscript to delgirl. I admit that when it comes to SA I am an armchair observer, just as I suspect many on this blog are armchair observers of NI. I note you have experience of both. Please don't tell me that they are comparable after all, because like everyone else I hero worship Mandela. Please don't destroy my innocence by telling me that after all he is really no different from Grizzly.

 

[Betsy Og]

You are missing my point about Sunningdale. Yes, in the end it was Paisley brought it down. But my point is that Sunningdale failed miserably to bring peace. That was because the IRA were electoral pariahs at that time. A fair dispensation in NI was absolutely the last thing they wanted. /QUOTE]

I'm not convinced of that argument, or at least there wasnt the opportunity to put the thesis to the test. Isnt it a big supposition to say that if the Ulster Workers strike hadnt destroyed Sunningdale then Republicans would?? I dont doubt that in the end they found it hard to support the PSNI and enjoyed their social control/domination of their heartlands, but to say they were so bloodthirsty and/or craving power that they would have wrecked that agreement is, I think, going a bit far - surely they would have alientated themselves (a la RIRA) if they were going against the obvious best interests of nationalists?

 

[Duke of Marmalade]

I'm not convinced of that argument, or at least there wasnt the opportunity to put the thesis to the test. Isnt it a big supposition to say that if the Ulster Workers strike hadnt destroyed Sunningdale then Republicans would??

Definitely in danger of being closed down as we have long surpassed the boredom threshold.

Whether republicans would or would not have succeeded in bringing down Sunningdale is not my point. I am asking why did it take 25 years of what by definition must be seen as pointless violence for them to come up the learning curve and accept an almost identical settlement as if it was of their own creation?

 

[Purple]

While I agree with your general point about, I suppose, Republicans pursuing 'the long war', wasnt it the Ulster Workers Strike that 'did for' the Sunningdale Agreement?

Also, about 3 posts ago you said Hume was no Mandela, now you're ++1??, conclusive proof of trolling???

As regards MOPE (Most Oppressed People Ever) - the view that Nationalists overegg it - calls for basics like One Man One Vote, equal rights to housing, end to gerrymandering, some form of parity of esteem, were met with State violence (RUC on Derry march), then sectarian violence (most of burning was of Catholic areas of Belfast), army brought in under unionist government control, internment, Bloody Sunday (all in the first 4 years or so).

So I'd say for a few years there it felt every bit as bad as SA (& once the narrative is set its very hard to change it). As regards republican blame, there was never going to be a victory, so once the 'pogram' style sectarianism abated, and any defensive role receeded, there should have been a winding up of operations (along with army withdrawal) - then re-enter the impartial policeforce to restore law & order.... Of course by that stage any number of relatives had been killed, communities further marginalised & radicalised, and the movement was on the road to a 32 county socialist republic (never going to happen). Cue decades of bombing for no rime or reason.

Such a tragic pointless conflict, the end solution that we now have (&I do believe it is more or less the final position) was always going to be the solution because institutionalised inequity on that type of scale will always be overcome. If unionism had responded reasonably at the outset the bloodshed could have been spared, but no doubt reasonable men were shouted down by Big Ian. He or his direct associates my not have pulled a trigger but his incitement to hatred and strangulation of any accomodation towards a significant minority of the population of the North more or less ensured that two communities would be pitted against each other. Of course when he's good and ready he's one half of the chuckle brothers with an IRA leader, cheers Ian, but 35 years too late.

Agree completely on all of the above, the bit I have highlighted in particular.

 

[Duke of Marmalade]

Cue decades of bombing for no rime or reason.

++1
Purple also appears to be ++1

 

[Purple]

++1
Purple also appears to be ++1

Indeed I am.
Read what's posted, not what you think the posters opinions are from the post.
It's a nonsense to suggest that there wasn't rampant discrimination in NI in the 60's, just as it's a nonsense to suggest that the later actions of the PIRA were justified.