Jude Collins

Wednesday 14 August 2013

Tom and trigger words




My input to the Nolan Show which was originally to be yesterday was in fact today. I was on with Tom Elliott, former leader of the UUP, and the debate was probably useless, if you define ‘useful’ as something that moves us forward. 

I remember Robert Ballagh the famous painter once saying that there are a number of trigger words in this society which send people spinning into irrationality. Words like ‘united Ireland’ and ‘Ulster’ and ‘terrorism’.  Tom and I were discussing terrorism, in the light of Gerry Kelly’s comments on yesterday’s Nolan Show.  Tom was arguing that Gerry Kelly and the IRA were a bunch of terrorists who are now intent on setting a ‘shrine to terrorism’ at Long Kesh/the Maze. My point was that it doesn’t matter whether people use terrorist/guerrilla tactics (as did Nelson Mandela, Che Guevara and the French Resistance) or whether they approach the enemy in massed ranks dressed in uniform, as in World War One. The upshot is the same - death. In other words, terrorism is a methodology, not a philosophy. It’s another way of killing people, and if you think that killing people is wrong, you won’t give a damn whether it’s done using one tactic or another. As to the ‘shrine’ at Long Kesh/the Maze, the facts of what happened there should be laid out, as they are for example in Kilmainham Jail in Dublin. Then let visitors react to those facts as they wish. My own experience of taking the tour of Kilmainham Jail was that I felt chilled to the bone by the terrible things people had done to other people there. A shrine at which to worship? I think not.

Towards the end of my debate with Tom Elliott, a man rang in to berate me for a blog I’d done on the Shankill bomb. I can’t remember exactly what I  said in it but I do remember my essential point:  that if you define murder as the premeditated taking of  someone’s life, then the Shankill bombers weren’t the murderers of the innocent people who were killed by their bomb. Thomas Begley and his companion had the premeditated taking of life in mind all right, but it was the lives of some UDA men, not the fish shop customers. The bomb exploded prematurely, killing one of the bombers and a great number of totally innocent people in a scene of carnage. The bomb brought in by Begley and his companion was responsible for those deaths; but since the deaths of UDA men was their premeditated target, not those who actually were killed,  it didn’t fit the definition of murder. Stephen Nolan made the point that the bombers couldn’t possibly have killed the UDA men in the room upstairs without killing lots of innocent customers below. He’s probably right. But that’s conjecture. What we do know is that whatever you call the action, the bomb killed good and innocent people, and the pain is deep and lasting regardless.

In fact, my original blog was probably guilty of the very thing I accused Tom Elliott of  this morning - using emotive words. In his case ‘shrine’ and ‘terrorism’, in my case ‘murder’. No matter what you call it, the deaths are still cruel and grim. And by using trigger words, we only inflame passions rather than help people move on. 

Last point: I think we’re being held prisoner by the dead. That is, we’re so obsessed with what has happened, and defining what words we should use of it, we can’t quite get round to mapping out a future and working for that. Maybe, as well as a six-month moratorium on marching, we should have a six-month moratorium on talking about the past, beyond acknowledging that terrible hurt was inflicted on both sides. Don’t let’s call it ‘shrine’ or ‘terrorist’ or  ‘murder’ or anything else - let’s call it a day on all that. We really have hurt each other enough. Let’s instead discuss practicalities for a shared future. 


Welcome, Dr Haas.

13 comments:

  1. As I've said on another source of broadcasting, When political unionism defines terrorism and being choosy about which side is, for them, guilty of terrorism, they are reduced to an untenable position of either saying all the natives - who fight/fought to rid their homeland of colonists whether those colonial powers are British, French, Spanish Dutch or other - must be called terrorists for using the same methods to evict powers, OR that it's ok for the British to occupy whatever land they have stolen, just because it beneffitted unionists in this instance Ireland. It's typical double standards but there you go.
    I don't suppose Crawley in his TV documentary of the Presbyterians in Ulster, [An Independent People] dwelled too long on the land thieving aspects of that criminal enterprise. [Madraj55]

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  2. Presume I'm right in thinking that Begley was convicted of murder.The Judge must have differed from yourself and felt there was sufficient evidence to convict.

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  3. Having listened back on the discussion, I'm not sure what point Stephen Nolan was trying to make when he asked, 'was it possible to bomb the UDA without killing innocent customers' or something along those lines.

    The answer is probably not, that is, such an operation was always going to register civilian casualties. Bombs by their nature don't discriminate between those you're targeting and those unfortunate enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

    Whether delivered via a ford escort or F16 fighter, all bombs kill innocents.

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  4. So any non- paramilitaries that got killed in the explosion were just collateral damage!It must be great to be an I R A "freedom fighter"!

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  5. Jude
    " It’s another way of killing people, and if you think that killing people is wrong, you won’t give a damn whether it’s done using one tactic or another."
    Such an argument lumps all killing together and enables the murderer to hide behind the person acting in self-defence.
    Each situation must be judged in itself. Terrible deeds during the two World Wars have no bearing whatsoever on the rightness or wrongness of the IRA campaign here. There is of course a good deal of hypocrisy around with people happy to condemn the latter, but blind to the former.
    I don't know if you subscribe to just war theory or not but it would be interesting to know if you do, and if so whether you believe the PIRA campaign would meet the criteria?
    As for Begley I think I mentioned before the notion of transferred malice, whereby killing person B when you set out to kill person A may still be deemed murder. I'm not a lawyer, but it would seem to apply.

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  6. "Terrible deeds during the two World Wars have no bearing whatsoever on the rightness or wrongness of the IRA campaign here.

    Why giordanobruno? Please expand.

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    1. Ceannaire
      Sorry, my reply to you seems to have gone missing somewhere in Jude's rigourous vetting system.
      Anyway it seems obvious to me that other wars are not relevant to our nasty mess here. Why would they be?
      If the point is to highlight hypocrisy by supporters of British military actions, well fair enough.
      But in judging the rightness or wrongness of the PIRA campaign, or the deeds of loyalist terror groups, I don't see why we need to refer to WW2.
      It is of course a useful way to obfuscate the issue, but I am sure Jude would never try to do so.

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  7. I wonder how many that say terrorism is terrorism and evil or criminal(like the British are fond of saying) support the anti-Assad groupings in Syria.To some they are freedom fighters but if you really check them out you will find out the major group funded by the Americans and the UK are one of the worst Islamic terrorist organisations on the planet,they only take prisoners to horribly torture,mutilate and kill them. One video on Youtube shows one of these US/UK backed "freedom fighters" cutting out the internal organs of an opponent and eating it on camera,this same group is getting huge shipments of armaments including anti-tank rocket launchers and hand held missile launchers to fight a rebellion against a sovereign government albeit a dictatorship.

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  8. The Shankill bomb was wrong, it shouldn’t have happened; it caused widespread revulsion in the Nationalist community at the time. Thinking about it now I am still disgusted that someone thought that was an appropriate answer to loyalist violence.

    It didn’t happen in a vacuum.

    FRU, Special Branch, MI5, MI6 and the British Government through link-men murdered innocent civilians like Pat Finucane and then tried to cover it up. They colluded with agents in the IRA, UDA and UVF to name but a few. You had only to be inconvenient to the regime or their agents to end up dead. The murder of Robert Bradford illustrates that, I suspect that hasn’t changed at all, in real terms.

    Pat was friends with Kevin Sheehy, as outlined in Kevin’s book. Kevin Sheehy a top RUC officer. Did the RUC allow its officers to associate with IRA personnel? Then why are they allowing Sean O'Callaghan to slander an innocent man?

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/personal-view/3590237/Finucane-should-not-have-been-killed-but-he-was-in-the-IRA.html

    About the murder of Francisco Notarantonio, killed in place of an FRU agent.

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/northern_ireland/3018537.stm

    About the murder of Aidan Wallace. Police permanently checkpointed the bridge linking Finaghy Road North to Finaghy Road South. Police vanished allowing gunmen to shoot up the Devenish Arms bar. Those brave heroes shot an eight year old child, he lost an eye!

    Seemingly RUC Special Branch officers handed back a Browning 9mm pistol to the UDA without tracking the weapon. This was a weapon used in the Devenish attack after being handed to paramilitaries by police officers.

    Plenty of war crimes and war criminals on all sides. Plenty of spies protecting themselves. Shameful bastards one and all.

    http://www.nuzhound.com/articles/irish_news/arts2003/dec2_handed_over_gun_killed_6.php

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  9. Anon 09-19
    The logic of what you are saying is that the I R A was not really responsible for many of the worst atrocities of the Troubles.It was "themmuns " and those bad British agents who made them do it!!.Yet Sinn Fein continue to salute those "brave volunteers" who fought the fight for Irish freedom.Has that freedom been achieved yet?

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  10. 1. If you accept that the FRU penetrated the IRA internal security unit. Open source information suggests this is true. They vetted every IRA candidate and retrospectively examined every IRA operation. Meaning they could predict future capabilities and deployment of IRA personnel. They had at least partial lists of IRA members and the operations those members carried out. Over time they would have a complete picture of IRA operations. I would imagine Loyalist groups would have been the same. So why the war?

    2. MI6/CIA penetrated the IRA weapons supply channels and upgraded technology and remarkably helped smuggle weapons. On that, why didn’t John McIntyre know about K-series satellite capabilities? His father was an ex-CIC agent. He worked for STRATCOM before smuggling guns. His boss Whitey Bulger was a FBI top echelon informant; his brother Billy Bulger American retired Democratic Party politician, lawyer, and educator. Stephen Joseph "The Rifleman" Flemmi was also on the books and his brother Vincent James Flemmi also a tout. Another brother Michael S. Flemmi, a retired Boston Police detective no less.

    3. If you examine the last gun running effort from Florida and the behind the scenes actors in that then you have to wonder who was pulling the strings and to what end? Siobhan Browne ran "The Royal Britannia" in the town of Del Ray according to Irish community sources in Florida. Her husband Meir Rappaport used three different identities in the US.

    4. So if them’uns were/are an international Cabal of gangster capitalists masquerading as patriots then yes it was them’uns what did it! I imagine them’uns probably do it most of the time, that’s how them’uns got rich.

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  11. Gio - I'm taking a break from commenting on comments but I'm making this one because you talk of my 'rigorous vetting system'. As you in particular should know, I do not vet comments other than those that are simply abusive or libelous or both. Please don't make that accusation again.

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    1. Jude
      I do indeed know you are open about comments,and I respect you for it. I was making a joke! Have to start using smiley faces I suppose. Anyway sorry for the misunderstanding. I might accuse you of many things, but not censorship.
      I find your comments 'below the line' to be generally more interesting than your main pieces, so I hope your break from the comment zone will not be too long. Slán.

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