[Politics] Ballymurphy

Aden in '64 - 67 wasn't exactly a bundle of fun either. So called local 'police' roadblocks happily opened up on British forces. In the end no-one knew who was shooting at who. Needless to say, I'm not at the front of any queue for donations to Yemen, however wretched things are there.

Funnily enough I don't have nightmares or anything else about Aden, but my six years, over 60 years ago, as a boarder at a minor public school still give me a very occasional bad night!

Shropshire Seagull said:

Fighting terrorism is a thankless task and sadly there will be collateral damage on both sides.
I'm certainly not advocating that two wrongs make a right.
If only there was an easy solution to worldwide religious disputes.

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So who were the terrorists? These people were shot randomly by British soldiers because they happened to be in a catholic housing estate and were assumed to be catholic . The 30 years of the 'troubles' went through many phases but in the early phase the IRA were pretty much a spent force - local graffitti in 1969 (when there was ethnic cleansing of catholic families in mixed estates ) was IRA = I RAN AWAY.

Its pretty clear that in shaping the violence that followed the UVF undertook a 'terror' campaign against anyone who opposed them be they moderate unionists, republican/nationalists/ moderate (SDLP) catholics and of course they also killed British soldiers who in the early days were there to protect the catholic population from armed protestants.

And don't forget that the violent protestant reaction in late 60's was a direct response to the Civil Rights movement where the catholic population were peaceably looking to improve their conditions having been spurred on by what was happening in USA.

So again I ask who were the terrorists

marcos3263 said:

My dad was at both and said similar - He said NI was frightening as he had kids spitting at him and you couldn't tell who was the 'enemy'

He was Royal engineers so rebuilt Port Stanley airstrip and just saw dead penguins - a much more black and white war (and not just the penguins)

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Did he ever get over the death of those penguins ?

BiffyBoy100 said:

I wonder how history would have played out if we never sent the British Army over? - The IRA has obviously been around for years, as had the UVF, with the UDA forming after the British Army's entrance...

Would it have been a complete blood bath? or would things have come to a resolution quicker without our involvement?

We certainly provided the IRA with great recruiting tools, Thatchers policy on the hunger strikers, Bobby Sands etc.

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The IRA had been a tiny faction of fanatics since the 1950s and in fact were mocked by nationalists for not being able to protect their neighbourhoods when the loyalist answer to civil rights protests was to burn Catholic neighbourhoods. The IRA massively revived after Ballymurphy and Bloody Sunday in terms of recruits, and money and arms from the US. Sending the army in to keep the peace was not an unreasonable thing to do, but sadly it quickly became a tool of oppression for those who wanted a united Ireland.

Wardy's twin said:

So again I ask who were the terrorists

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I'm no historian but wasn't William of Orange aka William III the instigator of all this?
Starting with the battle of the Boyne in 1690 and there have been issues ever since.
Long before the term "terrorist" became common speak.
Ballymurphy was a [tragic] example of collateral damage that I referred to in my initial comment.

In the meantime Israelis and Palestinians both continue the failed strategy of retaliation in another religious dispute.
In my lifetime I've seen Rwanda, Balkans, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc. all taking lumps out of each other in the name of religion.
Maybe I'm incorrect to label this all under "terrorism" but isn't all sectarian violence just that?

Harry Wilson's tackle said:

That's what it looked like to me as a 13 year old kid, watching the news, at the time.

In 1972 this record was released:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0zGVVcsbPg

That's Sir Paul, supporting IRA murderers.

Except he wasn't, because they hadn't yet started.....they needed an excuse, and the support (tacit or otherwise) of their community and, as noted above, 'the Brits' gave them what they wanted.

I have sometimes wondered whether this was deliberate planning on 'our' part (provoke the IRA and use this as a justification for a clamp down) or simply a massive balls up triggered by stupic arrogant military leaders, like the one in the programme. Conspiracy or cock up? I don't know. My money would be on the latter.

Once the genie was out of the bottle . . . well, many more lives were destroyed. Tragic.

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All empires have been notoriously heavy handed at dealing with any protest against their right to rule, and Britain was no exception as its empire crumbled. Controlling the fringes of Britain's empire was handed to public school educated officers like Mad Mitch in Aden and Col.Wilford on Bloody Sunday who saw their job as giving Paddy or Johnny Arab a bloody nose. The tough combat troops they commanded were trained for a NATO war on the plains of Germany, not for coping with civil unrest. And so they buggered it up...

Shropshire Seagull said:

I'm no historian but wasn't William of Orange aka William III the instigator of all this?
Starting with the battle of the Boyne in 1690 and there have been issues ever since.
Long before the term "terrorist" became common speak.
Ballymurphy was a [tragic] example of collateral damage that I referred to in my initial comment.

In the meantime Israelis and Palestinians both continue the failed strategy of retaliation in another religious dispute.
In my lifetime I've seen Rwanda, Balkans, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc. all taking lumps out of each other in the name of religion.
Maybe I'm incorrect to label this all under "terrorism" but isn't all sectarian violence just that?

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I don't think the victims in Ballymurphy were collateral damage; that implies that they were accidentally caught in a cross-fire between two combatant groups. These people were the actual targets of the paras because they were nationalists protesting for their right to not be second class citizens in their own country. It's interesting that all the other conflicts that you mention are, the same as N.Ireland, the legacy of imperial mis-rule, mainly British, but also Ottoman, Austro-Hungarian, and Belgian.

Shropshire Seagull said:

I'm no historian but wasn't William of Orange aka William III the instigator of all this?
Starting with the battle of the Boyne in 1690 and there have been issues ever since.
Long before the term "terrorist" became common speak.
Ballymurphy was a [tragic] example of collateral damage that I referred to in my initial comment.

In the meantime Israelis and Palestinians both continue the failed strategy of retaliation in another religious dispute.
In my lifetime I've seen Rwanda, Balkans, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc. all taking lumps out of each other in the name of religion.
Maybe I'm incorrect to label this all under "terrorism" but isn't all sectarian violence just that?

Click to expand...

It isn't really about who started it but how it gets finished. Someone pointed out that the genie is always tricked back into the bottle.

I wouldn't blame all this on religion, let alone a religious dispute, though. These things generally start as land grabs. When hostilities are between people ostensibly co-existing then people need to invent something dehumanising (like racism, naziism) and a narrative, typically of envy (the 'rich jews protecting their own') in order to trigger the pogroms, looting and murder.

Religion and race are just two things we use to identify our tribe, and if we become obsessed with our tribe and another tribe then, when circumstance are favourable for misadventure (eg the collapse of the German economy after WW1) the troubles may start. The agressor is usually the dominant tribe (why start a fight you don't think you can win?).

Colonialism is a sort of aftertiming - the invention of justification for the state of things; in the early 60s I grew up with inherited childrens' books from the 30s and 40s and genuinely though I was lucky to live in the best country in the world. Then, when I travelled abroad I learned the truth. I love England and won't move (I lived in Canada for 4 years and might have stayed...) but a lot of that is habit, family commitments, rose-tinted spectacles, etc., but I digress. The English and their missplaced sense of superiority makes us figures of fun to many (albeit we still seem to be held in some affection in some parts of the world - sometimes surprisingly so).

I found it easy to avoid becoming a little englander (or worse) but perhaps I'm just fortunate. I also think we have come on leaps and bounds in the last 30 years. Renewal, re-envention, realignment with societal values....our institutions (police, military, civil service, politicians) will adapt or die. That, or realise they cannot and will not, and so trigger a coup (as was mooted here in the 70s; secret armies, 'country going to the dogs'; stash of weapons buried in the woods; fill in the prejudice and bedwet of your choice and wait for the balloon to go up).

I'll not post any more on this thread, and trust that it won't go the way of some others. I thank those who have served, and hope that those serving still benefit from the leadership they deserve.

I can only say how shocked I was to hear those people recounting their experiences at the hands of the British Army... UK citizens on U.K. soil..
I am glad the truth finally came out, but like the Hillsborough tragedy it took too long and was a tale of official cover up.

You could go back to other atrocities at some point in the British Empire. It does make me chuckle sometimes when the Spitfire fighters in the battle of Britain were saying they hated their German opponents for trying to make them slaves, when at the time or before the Empire had a quarter of the world under its control.

Questions said:

Did he ever get over the death of those penguins ?

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put it this way - he has never been able to watch Happy Feet

Harry Wilson's tackle said:

That's what it looked like to me as a 13 year old kid, watching the news, at the time.

In 1972 this record was released:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0zGVVcsbPg

That's Sir Paul, supporting IRA murderers.

Except he wasn't, because they hadn't yet started.....they needed an excuse, and the support (tacit or otherwise) of their community and, as noted above, 'the Brits' gave them what they wanted.

I have sometimes wondered whether this was deliberate planning on 'our' part (provoke the IRA and use this as a justification for a clamp down) or simply a massive balls up triggered by stupic arrogant military leaders, like the one in the programme. Conspiracy or cock up? I don't know. My money would be on the latter.

Once the genie was out of the bottle . . . well, many more lives were destroyed. Tragic.

Click to expand...

I think you need to brush up on your history, the IRA were active and murdering people from 1970 onwards,you're completely wrong with this statement.