100 years of trying to explain the difference between good and bad IRA men

By Martyn Turner (here)

Mike Burke, a lecturer in Politics in Canada, wrote on Anthony McIntyre's blog, the Pensive Quill:

"How could the Irish state… both celebrate its insurrectionary origins and conduct a counter-insurgency campaign against the Provisional IRA, which claimed to be the direct lineal descendant of the insurrectionary impulse that had given birth to the state?"

This is the southern state’s current and constant dilemma.

"So take it down from the mast, Irish traitors,
/It’s the flag we Republicans claim.
It can never belong to Free Staters,
For you’ve brought on it nothing but shame. Then leave it to those who are willing/
To uphold it in war and in peace,
/To those men who intend to do killing
 Until England’s tyranny cease."

Blowback

[UPDATE - more considerations on my Tumblr here]

Writing in the Guardian, Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) explained why western nations can end up as targets and victims of violence:

"The answer is actually well-known and well-documented. As explained by the CIA, the Pentagon, former CIA agents, and British combat veterans, spending decades bombing, invading, occupying, droning, interfering in, imposing tyranny on, and creating lawless prisons in other countries generates intense anti-American and anti-western rage (for obvious reasons) and ensures that those western nations will be attacked as well. In the London case, the attacker cited precisely such anger at US/UK aggression as his motive ("this British soldier is an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. . . . the only reason we killed this man is because Muslims are dying daily"). Those are just facts."

When are we going to have a sensible debate about the conduct of parades? Ctd

"The real danger isnt Chua's ideas,the danger is that we might be too timid to discuss them" #triplepackage http://t.co/NzupDM7D7l
— Bloomsbury Australia (@BloomsburySyd) February 9, 2014

Loyalism's exemption from the rough and tumble of public discourse and from serious and sustained criticism is not because its claims are stronger, but because its radical fringe is more violent. Against a history of menace, threats and intimidation, who or what agency would stand alone?

As I have explored in my series, 'Political correctness is the worst kind of censorship,' I have attempted to show that we are incapable of confronting even the most chronic and grievous problems, lest we unsettle and cause offence. For as Jenni Russell (@Jennirsl) said in The Sunday Times:

"Because it challenges a liberal tenet: that exploring the cultural differences between groups amounts to racism."

Northern Ireland - A forever Groundhog Day

 

 

John Hewitt wrote of Northern Ireland in his 1970 poem, 'Conversations in Hungary':  

"Our friends in Budapest  

days later also, puzzled, queried why,  

when the time's vibrant with technology,  

Such violence should still be manifest.  

 

Between two factions, in religion's name.  

It is 300 years since, they declared,  

divergent sects put claim and 

counterclaim to arbitration of the torch  

and sword."

We can go back even further. A timeless observartion on the state of the Orange Order was made in 1925 by W.D. Allen MP, who wrote in an essay here:

"A remarkable feudal, patriarchal, tribal, historical anachronism in these days of moderation, toleration – whine, don't fight – enlightenment."

As James Joyce said, no longer is Ireland an "outcast from life's feast." When will the mindless swamp of backwardness end? Your country needs you - stop whining, fight back.

 

Northern Ireland Needs a 'George the Poet'