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Post by Bilk on May 28, 2008 17:50:00 GMT
I have to say, I'm pretty taken aback and offended by what you just said Bilk. Generalisations are very dangerous and is one of the main ingredients of fueling sectarianism. I challenge you to find one quote from me on this forum where I defend the IRA and the murder of innocent people. And we are the only poor brainwashed fools that are blinkered, while the PUL has the divine God given light to see clearly into the dark! Pure poppycock. Your as blinkered as you accuse me of. I'll admit to being biased on a lot of subjects, as you are too. Collusion is evil, no matter if it were the UVF or the IRA. If the British, as is starting to come to light had undercover operatives active on both sides, then how many innocent lives were lost, as they played God? You might retort as to how many were saved, but we would both be pulling figures from our arseholes. They fought fire with fire and innocent people got killed, so it's all down to whichever blinkered perspective appeals to you. Of course you won't decry the lawful forces of the land, as we don't decry the Gardaí. What point are you trying to make? That we a re all a bunch of terrorist lovers brianwashed into our blinkered views of the Catholic church? Wind yer neck in Bilk. We all sing of the same hymn sheet? I want you to categorically state that you believe myself, Collina and republic are IRA lovers who defend the IRA. Such generalisations are very unbecoming of you Bilk. I'd given you far more credit than that, but it would seem that low blows are not beyond the best of us. First off, I don't think you have ever said "I defend the IRA's murder of innocent people". And you are certain I will never find it, because you are not stupid enough to say it in those words. But when we are in debate and I say something you can't deny. The answer is, "Ah but you have to understand why this happened". I have to understand about the famine, I have to understand about the penal laws, I have to understand how nationalists/republicans felt about these things. As I have said to AFD, I don't want to understand why this or that happened, there is no good reason for anyone to kill innocent people, none full stop. Not in the PUL or the nationalist/Republican community. I am not making generalisations, you asked why so many unionists are cutting and running, I am telling you what the reason is in my opinion. I have never decried the Garda Earl, I have always admired the Gardal and you well know it, despite the rumours that they worked in colusion with the IRA on many occasions. They have a right to use whatever methods they see fit to defend their country and it's laws. But you and other nationalists don't feel the same way about the UDR/RUC/British Army. You have decried everyone of them at some time despite the fact they were defending this country against one of the most organised terrorist group the world has ever seen. On another thread on here nationalists were bemoaning the death of the one time leader of the PIRA. He was a wonderful guy because he helped to bring about peace. He was the war ffs. And before you say you said similar things about David Irvine when he died, I don't care, I didn't. I said I would never vote for him nor have anything nice to say about him. He was part of the war machine too. That is where we differ, me and other unionists/loyalists, where we differ from you and other nationalists. We haven't forgotten what they did because they have stopped doing it, and the first person asks me "do I want to go back to the bad old days" and I'm out of here too. I don't want just peace, I want peace with justice, there is another place we disagree. These are irreconcileable differences, that is why people are leaving. Many nationalists/republicans will say the same as you "I do/did not support the PIRA" then go on to defend their actions with excuse after excuse, dating as far back as the famine and the penal laws. That is not sectarian, that is an observation. |
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Post by Bilk on May 28, 2008 20:04:09 GMT
I think the same accusation is true for your side also, and most other people on this planet. I mean, how much of the negative aspects of the British Empire are taught in British schools? Facts are in demand, because trying to debate opinion is pointless. I never realised that unionists took offence to republicans defending themselves. It's not like unionists aren't doing the same, yet no republicans throw their toys out of the pram and take offence when a unionist defends himself or his community. You might get fed up with republican spin, we get fed up with being told that we are all a bunch of terrorist lovers who are brainwashed by the Catholic church. And our side is not the only one who thinks they are white as snow. The way some unionists go on, you'd think that a Protestant never held a gun in anger ever and that everything was rosey until the PIRA showed up. Despite the unionist flaws, you still won't see any of us running away from a debate.  I was taught all about Cromwell in school and how big a bastard he was, I was also taugh about Sutherland and how he treated his Scots tennants. But I wasn't taught that it was because he was British, I was taught that it was because that's how the Aristocracy of the time behaved. The Irish/Scots/Welsh and English aristocracy. I didn't need to be taught about the big bad unionists in the 50's and sixties when this war started, I lived through it. The deprivation of the working classes was atrocious. The spin put on that by republicans was that it was happening to nationalist/Catholics because they were nationalist/Catholics. What I got from nationalist/republicans was ah but nationalists/republicans were poorer than the poor unionists. What utter shite and garbage. With a mindset like this you wonder why unionists just pack up and go? I don't. The only flaws that unioists have is they don't play the game to your rules, I am not here to defend loyalist killers. And you shouldn't be defending nationalist/republican ones with spin. If that's what you really want to do then can I suggest you go to a republican site where they all backslap each other and tell each other how right they were to start the war. Because that is what unionists feel you are saying to them when you spin like you do. |
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Post by Bilk on May 29, 2008 9:26:20 GMT
bilk you may think that the UDR/RUC/British Army were some sort of honest brokers but inquiry after inquiry, investigation after investigation says different. We're entitled to have our opinion in them and I think our opinions of them were/are backed by the findings in these independent inquiries. again on the Big House Unionists, you have a valid point that they treated all the working class people with contempt BUT there was no law that forbade the average PUL from holding any office. The same wasn't true for the Catholic/Nationalist. These are our points and we feel they're valid. We back these points with verifiable and independent examples and sources. If we didn't we'd just be ranting. Your opinion on what we say is Unionists can disengage from here alright. I will always respect that. But what is discussed here is a microcosm of the Assembly, Councils and Society. Unionists can't disengage from the Assembly or Councils. If you want to understand where we're coming from, and equally if we want to understand where your coming from, then dialogue at every level of society is the only answer. I don't have to like what you say and you don't have to like what I say. But as long as we respect and try to understand each other, we SHOULD be in for a peaceful future. Only by talking at every level can we break down the mental barriers that exist in all of us. Setanta, one of the two of us is very naive, if you think the ordrinary man or woman on the streets of belfast gave a shit who was governing them then it's you. And the only reason there wasn't an SDLP prime minister, or whatever office you were looking for them to hold at the time, was because they couldn't get enough votes. That too was the fault of the United Ireland lobby. I have said many times, every labour candidate in Northern Ireland had a UI agenda at the top of their hit list. David Bleakly was the only one I ever remembered who didn't (NILP) and he swamped to victory over the unionists in east Belfast, a hotbed of unionism. His problem with nationalists was the words "Northern Ireland" appeard in the name of his party, not a vote catcher for the United Irelanders. Their was nothing set down in law to say the SDLP couldn't hold office if they had been elected as the largest party. It was their policy on a UI that stopped working class unionists voting for them. You see these are the sort of sweeping remarks Nationalists/republicans make that really annoys unionists. Can you imagine a Unionist Party forming in the south, and top of their hit list was a reunification with the uk for Ireland. Then going out and murdering people because they can't get elected? And I don't think any armed force in the world is beyond stepping outside the law, and that includes the UDR/RUC/British Army, and the gards and Irish army in the right circumstances. But the UDR/RUC/British army at the time were fighting the best organised bunch of murdering thugs the world has ever seen. And you expect them to play by the Marquis of Queensbury rules while their enemies have torn them up. Enquiry after enquiry is right they never stop, every nationalist republican who was ever killed during the troubles has his/her own personal enquiry. Unless of course they were killed by nationalists republicans, then it's to be swept under the carpet. Like the poor woman who cradled a dying British soldier outside her door. She was a mother and recognised this lad was someones son. Her body has never been found, where is the outcry for her enquiry? Where is your consistency in that? If we are going to have enquiries then all should be judged not just some. This again is where we differ, I want enquiries into the deaths of all innocent Catholics, not just the ones killed by the forces of law and order. Only when we all come clean, like they did in other countries who have had similar problems, will we have proper peace, but nationalists don't see it like that. You wonder why we don't understand you, you wonder why unionists just up and leave becaause they can't come to terms with or understand that mindset? |
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Post by earl on May 29, 2008 14:05:58 GMT
First off, I don't think you have ever said "I defend the IRA's murder of innocent people". And you are certain I will never find it, because you are not stupid enough to say it in those words. You'd sooner believe that I'm a sneaky conniving secret PIRA supporter than believe that I do not support the PIRA. Cheers Bilk. That means a lot. I have never said it because I don't support them. So you either take me at my word, or this whole 'way forward' is just a bunch of cr@p. So why are you on here? Is it to find out how nationalists/republicans feel on certain issues, or is it simply to lay it down how it is with unionists, and fcuk all other opinion. So you are equating Irish history and it's discussion to simply justifying the IRA??? So all Irish history should be banned incase it justifies the IRA? I love history. I will talk about history for it's own sake. I have made it abundantly clear on where I stand on the troubles, yet you are blinded by the fact that I know my history and you assume that I use that knowledge to further the IRA cause. If that's not blinkered, I don't know what is. Yes you did, and I quote: "And the only thing you (nationalists/republicans) differ on are side issues such as left/right."
"If you all believe that what the IRA did was ok then there is no hope for this or any other forum"
"You make arguments in defense of them and what they did. I have heard you and I have heard others."Now I have never defended the troubles. Understanding how they occured is not defending them. It's ensuring that it won't happen again as you need to learn, not ignore. Yet you will lump me and all nationalists/republicans into the same boat. Wasn't my point Bilk. I'm sure if partition hadn't of occurred, we'd be having this conversation in reverse. I have spoken out against the orgainisations, the practice of collusion with both sides and the bad, bad people they harbour when they are supposed to be the law of the land and the keepers of justice. I've no issue with the majority of soldiers/police on the ground as they are only following orders. Here's a little observation test for you Bilk. Go to that thread and read my posts there. You will see that I paid no tribute and did no more than rebuke WASP for being hypocritical. What might that hint at? Am I being sneaky and conniving again? So we get lectured about not forgetting our history, and basically get told by merely mentioning it, we support the IRA. Now you say that the difference between us is that you don't forget your history??? Please make your mind up. How come if you remember the bad times, it's ok, but if we do it, we are justifying the IRA? The only person who was hinting at any kind of violence here was WASP. That's a rather bold assumption you just made there. If you want to make yourself look good, stick to what you know. Stop assuming and fabricating fiction as to what I want to do it. Be a man Bilk. Show me an example of this, because I grow tired of these unfounded accusations. |
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Post by Jim on May 29, 2008 15:10:03 GMT
Actually Blik I can't think of a republican that will say protestant working class wasnt deprived and held with contempt by big house unionists, so much so that it was a key element to the thinking of the OIRA and some Provisionals and probably the biggest reason for the original split. Theres even a lovely big mural of docker strikers on the Falls road.
What we do say is that they were prefered by the establishment to the nationalist republican and catholic working class and therefore given jobs and housing in preference. It doesnt mean they were of a good standard.
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Post by Bilk on May 29, 2008 22:07:41 GMT
You asked why unioists were leaving here and I gave my opinion as to why that was so. If that offended you I'm sorry, I call it as I see it. Like all nationalist/republicans the ones on here do-
"seek out and continue discourse with the unionist community?"
because you take great pleasure in telling unionists how stupid they are. And that we don't read enough Irish history, but solely Irish history, the Irish version of Irish history.
We take on board the British version of that Irish history, the one that says that everything that happened in Ireland happened to one degree or another in the rest of the UK. Why do I believe that rather than the nationalist Irish version? Because I lived through a period where it all happened again. Britain no longer had a foothold in the RoI, but they were still here, in N. Ireland. And like in the rest of the UK, the working classes were being treated like shit. That's why people like che guvara's pictures were plastered on walls in the UK, that's why the protest songs of the likes of Bob Dylan, Donovan and Marieann Faithful were so popular.
But here in Northern Ireland we heard the same cry of old, nationalists were downtrodden because they were nationalists. The downtrodden unionists were downtrodden too but not to the same extent. How stupid does that sound?
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Post by earl on May 30, 2008 13:10:31 GMT
Ok Bilk. Lets take it back a bit. I've cooled down. You don't need to apologise for speaking your mind and we appreciate it that you do. You are always consistent, reliable and honest.
I was just shocked that you simply consider discussing history as in someway supporting the IRA or spreading propaganda. You have to believe me that it's simply not the case. I've posted up threads as tribute to those who were murdered at la mon, I've agreed with WASP on the whole sick and twisted murders in Enniskillen and I've paid no tribute to any IRA members who may have died recently. I've paid more tribute to David Irvine on here than I have to any IRA man, and that's because I could see that he had genuinely turned his back on violence, was remorseful for the part he played and he really wanted to help make the future for everybody in NI and not just those who vote for him.
I thought we knew each other better, but clearly you have a wrong impression of me, and whether that's my fault or not, I don't know, but I will double my efforts to make myself clear.
No-one here thinks any unionist is stupid. We grew up with differing education systems, at differing periods over the last few decades, with differing emphasis within each subject, especially history. I'm not going to tell you that what I learned was the 100% truth, but I will certainly deny what most unionists tell me that it's 100% a lie.
If the very issue of unionists leaving is down to how we debate, and that cannot be changed, as that is who we are and how we do things, how can we move forward? We accept many of the characteristics that would be common amongst our unionist posters. Sometimes (most of the time in my case) we might get annoyed, but never enough that we want to burn the bridge behind us as we flee dodge. I mean, can a unionist poster just temporarily leave on a hiatus to cool down for a few days, instead of dramatically declaring that their account should be deleted? I mean, on this road towards a better future, both here and in normal life in NI in general, both communities are going to have to start dealing with each other. If the first reaction is to turn your back or run away, then we'll be stuck in this perpetual mistrust of each other for eternity.
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Post by Bilk on May 30, 2008 21:20:33 GMT
Ok, we've all had our say, and I can even see how you may think I am being rude in what I say, or even sectarian, I am not. I am telling you why I think unionists are leaving. Not all this is based on my view but what they have been saying to me in private. Now a lot of it I do agree with, the Irish whether you are willing to admit it or not dwell heaviy on their history. I have said this many times, and whether you think that is nonsense or not it is a perception that unionists have of nationalists. I was actually delighted to see a change in tone on another thread started about the report on the Brits and being responsible for the death of some innocents here. An acceptane if you like, that has been lacking, that we all have sinned and come short.
I am heartened by that, because when we go on about Irish history, and how the Irish see that history and what the Brits did to the Irish. To a unionist it appears to be finding excuses for the murdering of people in Northern Ireland for thirty years.
When I say I know nothing about history, I mean Irish history. I could recite you chapter and verse of British history, and nowhere was I taught about the battle of the Boyne. Anything I know about that battle I learned after I left school. I was taught about Harold and 1066 and the battle of hastings. Etc Etc.
The difference I think is that in British history they don't hide anything, it's told warts and all. We have no one to blame but the British for our ills. But we don't blame the British as a nation, we blame the governments of the time. Again this is just a perception, but the Irish blame everything negative that ever happened in Ireland on the British as a nation. As though the ordrianary man and woman on the street had some part to play in the things that happened in Ireland. They didn't, it was the goverment, and they were doing the same in every part of the UK. And the British at the time (as in the Scots,Welsh and English) probably hated that government every bit as much as the Irish did.
Now it is my belief that it is not just that unionists don't know enough about Irish history, it's that neither of us know enough about each others history. The trouble I have with the Iish is that no matter what they are told happened on the rest of these islands, it is their fervent belief that it was worse for them. Against what do you measure better or worse? Poverty is poverty, there is a line below which you go, and after that it doesn't matter, you are in poverty. People starved to death in Scotland and Wales and England and their was no famine.
Anyway that is about all I have to say on this matter. What do we do I have been asked, your guess is as good as mine, is the only answer I can come up with. I guess we will always see things differently, that is not a bad or a good thing, it is just a fact.
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