To suggest that people unfamiliar with the Northern Ireland conflict watch an episode of ‘Pop Goes Northern Ireland’ on iPlayer?

[Cakescakescakes]

I’m starting this by presuming you can watch BBC NI programmes in the rest of the UK?

Pop Goes Northern Ireland is a series looking at news footage from the Troubles year by year soundtracked (rather than narrated) by songs from that year. Tonight was about 1988 - dozens and dozens of murders - murders of innocents of all ages, state murders of IRA members, bomb attacks on school children, grenade attacks on funerals and the savage event where two soldiers were dragged from a car and shot in broad daylight. Total and utter horror on all sides involved. No winners.

Someone on a Brexit thread the other day mentioned that it ‘wouldn’t be ideal’ for trouble to flare up in NI again following Brexit and that breathtaking lack of insight made me post this.

Get a snapshot of what it was like living through this year after year after year (1988 wasn’t even ‘that bad’ relative to the 70’s etc). Recent history on your own doorstep.

[Cakescakescakes]

Sorry that sounds a bit confrontational reading back. Just a gentle push to anyone interested to understand the depth of the atrocities.

[Julie8008]

Sorry what are you trying to achieve asking people to watch something that happened a third of a century ago?

[boomboom78]

Will look out for it. I have to say Im always surprised by how little people know about the troubles e.g thinking it was one sided or a religious issue. I was born & raised in London but my parents are Irish.

[MissConductUS]

I found five of the episodes on youtube, so those should be available to everyone:

I''m a Yank of Irish ancestry and it was horrible growing up reading about the Troubles and seeing the carnage on television news. I'll watch the videos, so thanks for pointing them out.

[Cakescakescakes]

Because the rest of the UK seem to have very little awareness of the seriousness of what happened here and how that impacts on what is going on today in terms of concerns about Brexit, hard borders etc. And yes tonight’s episode was from 1988 but the murders continues for many many years after that and the legacy of the horror is still felt in every area of life in NI. Our schooling for example is almost entirely split on religious divides.

[Cakescakescakes]

Sorry for typos - very late :)

[Cakescakescakes]

My mum worked in a clothes shop in Belfast when I was younger. The last thing they did after closing was to check pockets of all the clothes for incendiary devices (fire bombs). Every day. That’s how ingrained the threat was.

[Ignoranceandapathy]

Julie8008: Sorry what are you trying to achieve asking people to watch something that happened a third of a century ago?

"Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it." George Santayana. (There are many variations of this)

[BatteredBreadedOrSouthernFried]

Sorry what are you trying to achieve asking people to watch something that happened a third of a century ago?

It’s explained pretty well in the OP.

Thanks OP. Terrifying that we could be on the verge of slipping right back down that time portal because of the shitfuckery of brexiters/leavers. In 2017. Please please let it not get there. Ever again.

[MissConductUS]

We still study WWII, not to shame the Germans and Japanese., but to learn from what happened. The Good Friday agreement didn't end the Troubles completely, but it did mark a turning point towards peace. That's a valuable lesson even today.

Thank you cakes.

[Julie8008]

We still study WWII, not to shame the Germans and Japanese., but to learn from what happened

What should we learn? That giving in to violence brings peace?

[Cakescakescakes]

Julie8008 don’t derail this thread. Strat a fight somewhere else. If you want to live with blinkers on about how society is impacted by tragedies of the past then go ahead. You’re kind of making my point for me though.

[Cakescakescakes]

Start a fight obviously

[MissConductUS]

What should we learn? That giving in to violence brings peace?

No, we should learn how preferable it is to solve conflict through negotiation, but that it's not always possible.

[beepboopbeep]

Thanks Op, I will check this out

[Julie8008]

Cakescakescakes I am not trying to derail this thread, genuinely interested in what you are trying to achieve. But if you only want an echo chamber then I wont post again, sorry for trying to be interested.

[mumisnotmyname]

I'm not sure what point you are trying to make julie ?

OP you are right to highlight the dangers that we are sleep walking into. The statement about civil disobedience if a border is reinstated today wasn't a sign of progress.

[Cakescakescakes]

My OP explains what I’m trying achieve - to point anyone who is interested in the right direction of an easily accessible overview of life during that time to help give insight into how that affects things today. I don’t know what you’re picking at? If you aren’t interested then no need to comment.

[Julie8008]

Message understood, I wont post anymore on this thread. Was not understanding that AIBU did not allow dissenting opinions. My bad. Sorry.

[Pandapenguin]

OP you’re right. There is so much ignorance - it makes me cringe. A lot of subtle hostility too and the faux “i am interested - what is the problem - i don’t see one. What troubles?” Those people are just not worth bothering with / responding to imo. Keyboard warriers striking again.

[MissConductUS]

Julie you are seeing ideological phantoms where none exist. The was no point of view to dissent from.

[MakeMisogynyAHateCrime]

Imagine not giving a shit about the dire history of a place that your country has forcefully claimed as part of your country.

[Sunnysidegold]

I live in NI and watched one of these episodes a while back. It is an interesting way to show what the troubles were.

I am someone who was so proud of how northern Ireland had come in my lifetime. I was so glad that I could raise my children in a different northern Ireland to the one I grew up in.

I feel genuinely scared at the political uncertainty.

[BitOfFun]

Thanks, Cakes, that sounds really interesting. I do have some grasp of the issues (I have read up on a fair amount, and I remember a bomb factory being raided locally to me in a Liverpool suburb), but I'm always up for learning more.