AIBU to think Brits don't care about state involvement in murders in NI?

[Somatronic]

More evidence of state collusion in loyalist murders of Catholics/nationalists in Northern Ireland. This time it's the RUC.

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/feb/08/evidence-police-in-belfast-colluded-with-loyalists-in-the-troubles-report-finds

AIBU to think that British people don't care that their army and British police forces were involved in the murder of civilians in Northern Ireland? That there's a strange attitude that only the IRA or republican actions were wrong?

@Dollybirds

There seems to be so much emphasis on state involvement in the deaths.

Let’s not ever forget the atrocities of the IRA and how many people they murdered; including police, soldiers and civilians. All in the name of freedom

How absolutely ignorant are you!

It's not about what aboutery.

It's about the state police and army directly murdering one section of the community in the north.

Parliamilitaries existed on both sides. The police and British worked with one set of parliamilitaries to murder Catholics and nationalists.

That is not comparable to any what aboutery you can think of.

It's the police and army. On the streets in NI.
Murdering Catholics.
Covering up murders that loyalist parliamilitaries carried out

Do you honestly not get that??????

If you're going to say it's OK for the Army/Police to murder innocent people because the IRA did then you're basically saying the Police/Army are on the same level as a terrorist group........

@Dollybirds

There seems to be so much emphasis on state involvement in the deaths.

Let’s not ever forget the atrocities of the IRA and how many people they murdered; including police, soldiers and civilians. All in the name of freedom

I'm not sure I get your point

How is the IRA's actions relevant to what is being discussed?

@Dollybirds

There seems to be so much emphasis on state involvement in the deaths.

Let’s not ever forget the atrocities of the IRA and how many people they murdered; including police, soldiers and civilians. All in the name of freedom

Oh dear.

The ignorance and bias amongst much of the UK population of British Imperialism in general and Ireland in particular is shocking and illustrated very well by @Dollybirds

Daftasabrush it isn’t nice to make generalisations about a population of 68 million though.

The IRA are/were a Terrorist group, the state should-quite rightly-be held to a much higher standard, these are the people supposedly keeping the law and protecting it's citizens

The thing is - the state are not being held to a higher standard, they have thus far been apparently held to a much lower standard since not a single person has been punished for their involvement but plenty of IRA members were.

Violence and murder on both sides was wrong, but 'two wrongs don't make a right' is a fairly basic toddler lesson 101 that one would hope that the state and authorities should understand. In this case they clearly did not.

@stairway

Daftasabrush it isn’t nice to make generalisations about a population of 68 million though.

Well, generally, there doesn't seem to be much general interest or general knowledge among the population, does there? You could take a general look at the number of posts that general subjects generate and then look at this one and you could probably generalise that it's not a topic of general focus.

@Dollybirds I suppose when state actors murder citizens and lie and cover it up for decades it's a kind of a big deal for those affected.

Your comment is really quite shocking and ignorant.

PleasantBirthday I wouldn’t personally make generalisations of a population of 68 million based on a mumsnet thread though. Although many people on here do to be fair.

@stairway

PleasantBirthday I wouldn’t personally make generalisations of a population of 68 million based on a mumsnet thread though. Although many people on here do to be fair.

Well, the evidence that we have is that almost nobody out of a population of 68 million has posted here. Of those, several have been "but look at the IRA", others have been "I can't be expected to know anything about this, I've a lot on around the house" and yours was "you can't draw any conclusions from any of that".

So I'm not thinking there's much engagement.

@BewareTheBeardedDragon

The IRA are/were a Terrorist group, the state should-quite rightly-be held to a much higher standard, these are the people supposedly keeping the law and protecting it's citizens

The thing is - the state are not being held to a higher standard, they have thus far been apparently held to a much lower standard since not a single person has been punished for their involvement but plenty of IRA members were.

Violence and murder on both sides was wrong, but 'two wrongs don't make a right' is a fairly basic toddler lesson 101 that one would hope that the state and authorities should understand. In this case they clearly did not.

Absolutely agree

PleasantBirthday someone previously referred to the English on here as being like Isis. I have no problem talking about what the British government at the time got up to and what the current government are doing at the moment to prevent prosecutions, I think we should be discussing this more. However certain language does discourage debate. I can see why most don’t want to engage.

The only interest the British have ever had in NI is whether or not British soldiers are being killed. If they are not, then it ceases to be of any interest at all to them. OK, this is a generalisation but not, I think, a sweeping one.

I read somewhere that towards the end of his life, Carson was increasingly depressed at the total indifference of the British towards NI.

There seems to be so much emphasis on state involvement in the deaths.

Why does that come as a surprise? Even my mil whose father was murdered by the IRA believes the state should be held to higher account because they are the STATE.

When mil first went to England in the mid 60s, her landlady wouldn't let her and her friend have a bath because they were Irish...they didn't argue because no one else would rent them a room (because they were Irish). In many ways I think that sums up the issue. Didn't matter that mil had a university degree or grew up in a big fancy farm house, she was a dirty little Irish girl who if left to her own devices would bring a different man home every night, steal and wreck the bathroom somehow in the eyes of the landlady. If you see people as subhuman, pointing guns at them is easy.

stairway I didn't compare the English to isis
I compared the British state providing information to isis, which is as near as what damn well happened in NI.
I'm in no way saying "the English" are in anyway responsible for our problems. BUT state collusion on both sides, British agents fed to the IRA and UVF/UDA etc plus let paratroopers in to kill indiscriminately to innocent people.
I was simply pondering if "the english" would care if "their" state colluded with a different bad guy and indiscriminately killed people and how they would feel about it then. If those who died weren't the big bad Irish who the TV said were terrorists

@stairway and of those 68 million how many know the origin of the term beyond the pale? How many people believe the 1 million Irish deaths during the 1840s were due to famine rather than British policy and discriminatory legislation?

There seems to be so much emphasis on state involvement in the deaths.

And rightly so. The police and army need to held to account for breaking the law. It really is as simple as that.

I should have said how many people in the UK believe the Irish famine was caused by potato blight rather than British discrimination?

@Daftasabroom

I should have said how many people in the UK believe the Irish famine was caused by potato blight rather than British discrimination?

I hate when it's called "famine" too, that helps hide what really happened

To respond to the OPs question, I think there is the attitude referred to, or just not caring about Northern Ireland at all. Perhaps increased by the Unionists as represented by the DUP being seen as backwards and reactionary/bigoted (views on same sex marriage for example).

I don't understand it. DD1 'did' NI for history GCSE and I couldn't get a clear handle on it even then. To me it seems a mess.

• a long complicated history, that the 'English' should have stayed out of in the first place
• atrocities on all sides
• too many long memories, especially around the marching season and insistence on marching historic routes even when not wanted by local communities
• the impasse and suspension of Stormont

Well, it is a mess, but it was a mess that was a long time in the making. I think that blaming these situations on long memories rather than history having an impact that is felt for a long time is a bit of an issue, though because it (even when it's not the intention) blames people who are still impacted long term.

It would take a very callous mind, for example, to look at the institution of slavery and the current position of the African American population in the US and say that they should never refer to the past and how it impacts their present because it's a long time ago.

Pleasant I agree, but then what's the solution?

From the outside it seems that the GFA and setting up Stormont was a good chance to move forward, but the politicians seem unable to do so.