The News Letter is the oldest daily newspaper in the English language, a generally respected mainstream organ. But you’d never guess that from its editorial yesterday. The paper accuses “even moderate nationalists” of pushing “an emerging narrative” (I think I hate that word) of the Troubles, with a murderous British state and the IRA the only reasonable response.
Where have they been hearing “moderate nationalists” say this? Nowhere, I suggest. But of course that’s a red herring. What’s really on their mind emerges in the third paragraph. It’s the “latest reports of state collusion”. It’s a lie, this collusion talk, The News Letter says. The truth is “a restrained British state overwhelmingly abided by the rule of law in the face of terrorist depravity”. It goes on to call on moderate unionism to support “a group of academics” who are challenging the nationalist bid to retrospectively legitimise terrorism. All hands to the pump.
You see what they did there? One minute we’re talking about a British state which colludes in the killing of its own citizens. The next we’re concerned with these nationalists who are intent on presenting the IRA as reasonable. Uh-uh. Sorry, guys. Stick to the original topic or you’ll lose marks. The topic you’re concerned about is Anne Cadwallader’s book Lethal Allies and the locked-down, screwed-tight and carefully-rivetted cases of collusion presented there. State forces, acting with the knowledge of those at the top of the RUC and of top government officials, killing innocent Catholics by the score.The DPP ignoring glaring evidence when ‘security force’ killers were involved and blocking cases from coming to court. Pieces of evidence going mysteriously missing. In cases that got to court, the fact that the accused was a member of the ‘security forces’ conveniently omitted.
The News Letter is right in one thing: there is an effort underway to rewrite the history of the Troubles. To rewrite the history which would present a restrained British state attempting to counter IRA depravity, with an occasional low-level bad apple giving the security forces a bad name. To substitute for that the truth of what happened in the 1970s to over 120 innocent Catholics. Because collusion was not, as the News Letter would like us to think, “low-level”. Read the book. Instead of providing diversions with talk about border Protestants being killed - for which there is a case to be answered -stick to the topic. Border Protestants weren’t killed by the state forces paid to protect them. Don’t try to throw people off the scent by talk of “serial killer republican thugs”. Read Cadwallader’s book. Suspend your efforts to present a restrained British state under assault from psychopathic republicans.Instead address the appalling tale of over 120 innocent people killed with state support and approval. Read the book. Then tell us which part isn’t true.
You bet recent history needs to be rewritten. Because the lazy accepted one collapses in the face of Cadwallader’s research.
Of course,you have the advantage on the rest of us,having read the book.Am I right in assuming that the majority of her sources are from H E T reports?If the State is as bad as alleged,it seems rare that it or its agency is providing the material for the book.
ReplyDeleteRead the book
ReplyDelete"There is an effort underway to rewrite the history of the Troubles". Who are those that are attempting to do these?Could you give us a few examples?
ReplyDeleteWell, Anon, there are probably several different versions of history of the Troubles being touted. For example, there's a strenuous effort among right-wing unionists to present NI as a grand wee place where everyone got along until the murderous IRA embarked on their campaign. There's the British gov version which is two crazy bloody Irish tribes, with the republican one clear the worse of the two, that it - Britain - has tried to keep apart at great cost to itself. And there's a view that the state here was a sectarian construct, was ruled using discrimination and gerrymandering, that when civil rights were demanded by Catholics/nationalists they were attacked by the police and British Army, and out of that the IRA campaign was born. Surely you must have heard at least one of these histories? You may even subscribe to one. Maybe I shouldn't have said 'rewrite' - rather 'write'.
DeleteMy late parents were attacked by paisley supporters during a Civil Rights march in Amagh. My parents were Protestants from the Shankill Rd. Many other Protestants were members including some of the leaders. I remember how my mother would always get irritated when people would say that Catholics were demanding civil rights in the sixties. She of course knew where they were coming from but she felt it insulting nevertheless. So maybe we should re-right some parts of history.
DeleteI accept your correction fully, Anon. Civil rights were in the early days a concern of all decent people.
DeleteI think its fair comment to mention a very limited protestant support for the Civil Rights movement. It was early on and it was largely educated protestants who drew their inspiration from the US. I think its also fair comment to acknowledge that when Paisley, his murder gangs and the RUC and FRU began their ethnic cleansing of Irish catholics, most of (not all) these same voices were very hushed or non- existant. Now before I hear- 'yea, wattabout the IRA takeover of civil rights, bla, bla...' my point is this: The slaughter of innocent nationalists by these gangs,directed, trained and financed by the British state went on for 30 years. That was citizens of this state. Collusion in these crimes was endemic within politics, the judiciary, the media and the police and army. Where were all the aspirational concerned civil rights protestant activists throughout this period, when history was being twisted and we were being socially engineered to swallow the 'republican terrorist' mantra? Read Paul Larkin's 'A very British Jihad' to see how our local impartial BBC dealt with truth: sectarian doublespeak, from the post room right to the boardroom. And take comfort from yesterdays' editorial in the Newsletter which copperfastens the mindlock in moderate unionism that it was 'a few bad apples.' Now that should put it to bed 'once and for all'!
Deletetruthrevisionist..Nah I'll save myself some money and wait on your new book A very Irish Jihad. I'm sure you would expess the same opinions on the United Irishmen or the Gaelic League. And before I could say whatabout you were off on a tirade of whataboutery. You've come out once again with your two six-guns blazing and once again hit everything except Paul Larkin. Your time would have been better spent watching Jim Larkin on TG4 tonight.
DeleteAnonymous 00:11, the zeitgeist of those turbulent times, alas, eluded me, given that I wasn't around: and allowing for my sceptical nature, I usually question all written history, because, more often than not, its' written by people with money, to control people without money. So I'll pass on your rather weak and dubious comparisons. That said, I've been known to opine on matters that suggest lies, deceit, duplicity, hypocrisy and the general stink of criminality in the sinkhole society that we refer to as the 'state' and its' 'servants' here in the six counties. Specifically in the last fifty odd years of my own experience, I have never ceased to be impressed by, not so much the persuasive power of the state controlled media, but the ignorance of its consenting gullible slaves. Now anon, if by this stage in the living history of this contaminated entity called 'The North' you still don't have the integrity to acknowledge the silence of the protestant unionist majority, when innocent catholics were being 'hacked' and 'shot to death' by state run murder gangs, then I would suggest the 'saboteurs' of your willing mind have been successful. Anon-- people don't want to kill each other-- governments do!
ReplyDeletetr I cant address anything you say because it's incoherent at best and bigoted and sectarian at worst. You've been criticized for racist remarks recently and to be honest as a pro- Palestinian I was appalled at what you had to say in your posts. Amongst that ramble of yours you assure me that you question all written history and in another part I found a suggestion from you that MY mind had been sabotaged. Now may I suggest that YOU ask yourself some serious questions. And if you're going to come back at me please keep the two six-guns firmly in their holsters as we don't need any further injured bystanders.
ReplyDeleteAnon, you 'can't address anything' I say, because your tangential mindset cant address the truth. You sound like a perfect candidate for ADL membership.
Deletetr Without your usual histrionics would you just expand a little on your last sentence as I'm a bit unclear as to what you're getting at. And as I've said try and stick to the point without too much melodrama sincere or otherwise.
ReplyDeleteAnon 19:47, ADL-- subterfuge, deceit, lies and equivocation on all matters concerning the criminal 'rogue state'.of Israel. The promotion of 'anti-semitic victimisation' on an industrial scale to obscure the thievery of its dual citizen banksters and its duplicitous media. Expand your mind a little, read some Norman Finkelstein.
Deletetr .You speak the same language as the fanatics that accuse Jews of being anti-semitic for condemning the Israeli state. You do the Palestinian cause no good. Israeli policy makers thrive on people with views like yourself. You're the fuel that sustains their fires. And if Norman Finklestein is responsible for the expansion of your mind then frankly I'll give him a miss,
DeleteTruth revisionist
ReplyDeleteThey say that brevity is wit.Perhaps you would learn that virtue as there is clearly little wit in your diatribes,
Anonymous 11:45,
DeleteThanks for that very brief comment. So brief in fact, it says absolutely nothing.
There is none so blind as they who will not see!
DeleteMr Collins your support for the men who slaughtered innocents for decades is putrid. No revision of history no clever words can make up for lost sons and daughters husbands and wives.
ReplyDelete