Apparently Barack "isn't black"
- Thread starter john eden
- Start date
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droid
Guest
No - political recognition of the rights of Catholics in NI was purely the result of the queen's benevolence.
maybe we should adopt a color for sarcasm, which is often difficult to detect online. this other board i know uses green. not a bad choice.
vimothy
yurp
Ok, but was it specifically the IRA who forced the UK government into granting Catholics more civil rights in NI, because they were "scared by what the populace might do"?
crackerjack
Well-known member
In most cases I'd personally draw the line defending violence between those who have the right to vote and those who don't. It should also be noted that the ANC's actual use of 'terrorism' was pretty minimal.
Good question. The SDLP was the major republican political force throughout the 70s-80s - are the IRA's defenders seriously suggesting they played no role?
crackerjack
Well-known member
I'd expect nothing else from dissensus' redsident Baader boy.
i like how, on my monitor at least, my yelling literally breaks through the boundaries of the oppressive walls of the quote box.
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droid
Guest
Not according to the US state department who branded them as terrorists and happily supported the apartheid regime. Reagan described the ANC as one of the world's "more notorious terrorist groups" in 1988 - in fact Mandela was only taken off the terrorist watch list this year.
The IRA's 'defenders'? :slanted:
As with most political struggles which involved terror and violence, both the 'moderates' and 'extremists' played a role with the UK vacillating between the two poles as events dictated.
crackerjack
Well-known member
and since when are we taking the Reagan admin's word on anything? As per cold war rules, anyone vaguely leftist anti-government movement was deemed crypto-communist and a soviet ally. Doesn't later my point - the ANC's terrorism was minimal. Anyone got an actual/estimated death toll?
What's to eye roll? (btw I wasn't talking about you, or anyone here necessarily)
straight
wings cru
im not saying that, there are many factors involved which im not going to derail this thread with (and is why I didnt mention the SDLP whom i was brought up to support and my family always voted for). I'm merely pointing out how ridiculous that times articles premise of peaceful protest winning in NI when a man who spent most of the 70s in a commanding position in the IRA ended up sitting in the Primeministers chair (well, sharing it).
Its actually quite pathetic but ive not paid much attention to NI politics the last few years, id rather put the lot behind me
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hucks
Your Message Here
Only just watched this. Loved this bit
Paxman: Mr Rascal, do you believe in political parties?
Dizzee: Yeah, they exist, I believe in 'em. Dunno if I care.
vimothy
yurp
Yeah, cool. I'm not sure I read the quote as supporting the notion that peaceful protest won through in NI. It says,
The election of Mr Obama is a rebuke too... to the IRA with their pub bombs.... It is a rebuke to all those who abandon law and peace in favour of the gun.
Why I responded to your post is more because you seemed to me to be saying that the IRA were some necessary component of the civil rights struggle in NI. I mean, maybe that's true, but it also leaves out at east half the equation, as far I concerned, namely that the IRA might also have significantly prolonged the civil rights struggle and indeed, subsumed it in a new but no less sectarian and now self-perpetuating argument about you having shot at me, or someone having killed one of your friends, or me not liking you because that's how it is.
I'm not saying this because I'm trying to belittle the Republican cause. In fact, I was raised a Republican -- my family are from Andy town, my uncle was a councillor for SF. I remember soldiers on the streets when I used to visit, my Dad getting stopped at checkpoints, etc. And my grandparents had a hell of a time unable to get work, bank accounts et al. I'm very much supportive of equal rights in NI.
All I'm saying is that I doubt that you can say with any degree of certainty that political violence in NI on any side helped move the country to resolution. It's at least equally plausible (in fact a lot more likely, I'd argue, if I wasn't derailing the thread hopelessly already) that the violence prolonged the conflict and made resolution more difficult.
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droid
Guest
I think that's all fair, but the essential question you're not asking is why the conflict started to begin with - namely as a result of attacks on civil rights marches in NI prompting the formation of the provisionals in '69. The existence of the IRA in NI primarily came about as a result of loyalist and government violence against Catholics, so I think the IRA (in some form), were a necassry component - at least at their inception. Without them, there would not have been a 'resolution' as they would not have been forced into a situation which they had to resolve.
Now you might say that the IRA prolonged the conflict simply by particpating in it, and there is no doubt that peace could have been reached earlier - but at the same time, the British governement explicitly denied the political dimension of the struggle until the mid 80's at least...
I think the question to ask (in another thread maybe) is what you've hinted at: What would NI look like today if the IRA had not existed? Given the consistently brutal historical behaviour of the British in Ireland and in many of their other (ex)colonial territories, I'm not sure it would be such a pretty picture.
Crackerjack - no figures on the ANC. I guess what I was trying to highlight with the Pentagon/Reagan example is - if the US's definition of terrorism has obviously been so flawed, how can it be taken seriously today? Iran for example...
Now you might say that the IRA prolonged the conflict simply by particpating in it, and there is no doubt that peace could have been reached earlier - but at the same time, the British governement explicitly denied the political dimension of the struggle until the mid 80's at least...
I think the question to ask (in another thread maybe) is what you've hinted at: What would NI look like today if the IRA had not existed? Given the consistently brutal historical behaviour of the British in Ireland and in many of their other (ex)colonial territories, I'm not sure it would be such a pretty picture.
Crackerjack - no figures on the ANC. I guess what I was trying to highlight with the Pentagon/Reagan example is - if the US's definition of terrorism has obviously been so flawed, how can it be taken seriously today? Iran for example...
vimothy
yurp
Agreed.
I think that the formation of the IRA was a tragic error from the perspective of Catholics, but one that was preceded and compounded by equally tragic, and certainly no less brutal, errors on the part of Loyalists and the British State.
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crackerjack
Well-known member
The obvious answer is that it can't. 'Terrorism' today fills the slot occupied by 'communist' 30 years ago - a shorthand scare-term .for 'the other side'. That said, there's no serious doubt that Iran has long financed Hezbollah, and more recently Hamas (is there?).
nomadthethird
more issues than Time mag
The thing is, were it not for the black panther/black power movement and arguably Malcolm X and his followers, many of the gains that made Obama's election possible would never have been made. So I think Malcolm X and others like him are the ones whose shoulders Obama is standing on.
I think Obama's main objective in using moderate rhetoric is that, since blacks are technically/legally (if nominally) allowed "in" to political life through the hard work of civil rights warriors past, it's important that blacks actually get involved in the political mainstream and have a voice that isn't perceived as *merely* radical/reactionary in the vein of Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton (who, funnily enough, seem pretty vindicated nowadays), which therefore can be used to "reach across the aisle."
I think Obama's main objective in using moderate rhetoric is that, since blacks are technically/legally (if nominally) allowed "in" to political life through the hard work of civil rights warriors past, it's important that blacks actually get involved in the political mainstream and have a voice that isn't perceived as *merely* radical/reactionary in the vein of Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton (who, funnily enough, seem pretty vindicated nowadays), which therefore can be used to "reach across the aisle."
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Certainly, yes. And if it were not for the suffragette movement and the gains made by feminists in the 1960s/1970s, Margaret Thatcher might never have come to power
[Is Jesse Jackson really considered a radical in the US?].RE Obama's use of 'moderate rhetoric': I think that piece you posted earlier by Judith Butler points to the problems pertaining to the left's support for Obama, those of fetishistic disavowal:
nomadthethird
more issues than Time mag
Certainly, yes. And if it were not for the suffragette movement and the gains made by feminists in the 1960s/1970s, Margaret Thatcher might never have come to power
RE Obama's use of 'moderate rhetoric': I think that piece you posted earlier by Judith Butler points to the problems pertaining to the left's support for Obama, those of fetishistic disavowal:
Jesse Jackson is indeed one of talk radio's favorite "there go black people again, stirring up white hate by insisting that black people are oppressed" punching bags. Throughout the 90s especially he was considered a huge Part of the Racist Problem. The right actually blamed O.J. Simpson's victory in court as a direct result of the influence of Sharpton and Jackson on American culture (it wasn't that you can buy justice in the U.S. or anything...)
I wish the left in the U.S. actually was "the left", but it isn't. I agree with Butler, but I do think you can overstate the "failures" of the American left given the fact that the American left is not very liberal ideologically, and doesn't want to upend the powers that be. Democrats believe in capitalism, too. Obama thinks you can simply reshuffle the tax burden and--voila--you'll make gains for the underclass.
jambo
slip inside my schlafsack
Just want to say I appreciate this post. And mistersloane's.
jambo
slip inside my schlafsack
Is a good idea.