Korean Job Discussion Forums

[JMO]

[Bingo]

Nonsense. The vast majority of Catholics rejected the IRA. Sinn Fein got approx. 11% support in Northern Ireland and 3% in the Republic. Hardly an overwhelming endorsement. The IRA also had no interest in 'protecting' its community. It killed approx. 450 Catholics during the Troubles. The RUC, whom you castigate, killed 57. And the RUC didn't torture Catholics days on end before killing them. The IRA often did. And they intentionally killed Protestants and bombed Protestant communities in the hope that the UDA/UVF would respond by killing Catholics. When the loyalists did just that the IRA would go out onto the streets and say "We'll protect you" when it was they who intentionally invited the kiilings of Catholics in the first place. They weren't the Catholic community's defenders but their greatest oppressor. Many in the SDLP have even said this.

[JMO]

[philipjames]

I absolutely do blame one side. The terrorists. Both republican and loyalists. There were a few bad apples in the RUC (as in every police force in the world), but the overwhelming majority of policemen in Northern Ireland were decent people doing an extremely dangerous job. And people in prison for crimes they didn't commit? There's not a country in the world that doesn't have innocent people wrongly convicted. There are punk cops in every country. If you add the fact that for several years NI was the most dangerous place in the wotld to be a police officer, you're going to get embittered characters looking for revenge.

And don't forget that many nationalists were bitterly anti-police for ideological reasons, not because of some imahined 'oppression.' Even if every RUC man had been an angel sent down from heaven, many Catholics would still have despised them on ideological grounds.

If you don't think the IRA intentionally brought violence upon its own community in order to bolster its support base you are very naive indeed.

[Bingo]

Can you please stop referring to Bloody Sunday. There is an enquiry ongoing at the cost of tens of millions of pounds. Nationalists demanded this enquiry. Let's not hand out blame until the enquiry reports. Let's wait and see if, after 154 IRA murders, the British Army did indeed overeact on that day. And if it did, we must then begin to put it into context with the countless bloody sundays, mondays and tuesdays committed by the IRA after that event. So let's not comment on the Army's culpability just yet.

[JMO]

[quote="philipjames"]I absolutely do blame one side. The terrorists. Both republican and loyalists. There were a few bad apples in the RUC (as in every police force in the world), but the overwhelming majority of policemen in Northern Ireland were decent people doing an extremely dangerous job. And people in prison for crimes they didn't commit? There's not a country in the world that doesn't have innocent people wrongly convicted. There are punk cops in every country. If you add the fact that for several years NI was the most dangerous place in the wotld to be a police officer, you're going to get embittered characters looking for revenge.

And don't forget that many nationalists were bitterly anti-police for ideological reasons, not because of some imahined 'oppression.' Even if every RUC man had been an angel sent down from heaven, many Catholics would still have despised them on ideological grounds.

[quote]

A few bad apples?A majority of people in my family who lived in the north has stories of police discrimination from the small to the big. It can be something small like being made to say " I'm going to Londonderry" rather than "I'm going to Derry" by some idiot cop at a checkpoint(I saw this one) to my dads stories of cops recklessly searching his truck then leaving him to fill it again, whilct calling him a paddy or a taig or whatever. It was not a few bad apples. The oppression was not imagined.

[Bingo]

The examples you give can hardly be called "oppression", unless you're using it in the nutty ultra-polical correct sense. The Irish (both sides) are known for hyperbole for good reason, and neither side is inclined to understate an insult. But can you really call those things "oppression"? If so, your family should count their blessings for living in a state where the "oppression" dealt out by the police was of such a nature.

[JMO]

[philipjames]

Let's not forget that the RUC was not Protestant by choice. It was Protestant by default. What do I mean? Well, from partition one-third of positions were set aside for Catholics. Due to a Catholic proclivity against wearing the uniform of the Crown, that number of Catholics could not be met. At the outset of the Troubles 10% of police officers were Catholics. The IRA stated that it would kill those who didn't resign. Most did, since they had to return to working class nationalist districts to live. Their family's were also vulnerable. During the Troubles Catholics counted for about 5% of the police. This is exactly what the IRA wanted. It wanted to depict the RUC as a sectarian Protestant force. But it was only a Protestant force because Catholics refused to join for the reasons stated. That was their right. But to turn around and call it a Protestant force, or a sectarian force, was shameless. You can't boycott an institution (any institution) then complain that it's unrepresentative of your community.

That's just plain dishonest.

[philipjames]

On today's episode of "Most Oppressed" we follow this story.

"I'm going to Londonderry," said the cop to the truck driver. "OPPRESSION" screamed the truck driver.

[Bingo]

During the Troubles Sinn Fein loved to play up the Ulster - South Africa analogy for largely uninformed foreign journalists. Outside Sinn Fein's Falls Road office their used to be a mural of Nelson Mandela. Adams used to compare the fate of Catholics in NI to those of blacks in S. Africa. The comparison was, of course, despicable in its dishonesty. But the fools in Boston and New York ate it up, having never been to N. Ireland or South Africa. The truth of course, was that any South African black would have give his right arm to experience the "oppression" of life in Northern Ireland. But Ulster Catholics have this notion of being the most oppressed and long-suffering humans since creation. That's their line, and they're sticking to it.

[socrates flitcraft]

if you guys are wandering into the blame game I think a certain Mr Carson and his bigoted cronies deserves quite a generous stipend. Their actions spawned a vicious cycle of violence that led the entire island a merry dance.

they armed the orange loonies after the 1912 home rule bill was passed, creating the physical imperative for the later official westminster partition bill. And once those pigs armed themselves the voluneers had to, leading eventually to the old IRA thru the 1916 muppets. This trail leads to the civil war aswell incidently.

they pretty much incited the post ww1 riots on the docks in Belfast which led to unionised catholic workers being attacked and then sacked from their jobs...bar a few deep shore dockers in the southern dominated union. This led to months of serious rioting and the divison of the north along sectarian lines for the next ?0 years.

I don't like the ira ,or nationalism for that matter anywhere.
But the scum in the north pushed decent people too far and created a situation where there had to be some blow back. the b specials, high unemployment, access to education, civil service jobs...

'The war is over' so the thugs on both sides can now turn their hands to more regular criminal or violent pursuits.

partition and bigotry= bombing campaigns, punnishment beatings et al. Not bad for one of the north's most popular sons.
A fine politician- zero respect for the democratic will of the people, an expert in Gerrymandering
and creating a system of feudal voting rights for catholics.

[JMO]

[Grimalkin]

[Grimalkin]