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?

The naïveté on this thread is near jaw dropping and proof of British media propaganda.
I actually laughed out loud at some comments of that Westminster had no control of Belfast police, the IRA started it all.
PP need to educate themselves.
Do people even know the U.K. govt interred Catholic men?
The British have committed genocide across the globe for centuries and are still hailed as a great nation, it sickens me the version of history pushed and believed by people.

‘Educate yourself’. What does that even mean? Watching a couple of documentaries? Reading an article? Invariably reaching the conclusion that you want them to? It’s a refrain used the the perpetually outraged

@TheKeatingFive

I wouldn’t personally call the Normans British.

That was the point at which 'English' interference with Ireland began. You might not call them English, but the normans became the ruling class in England at that point.

And weren't remotely English. As if they could invade country A then country B but country A is at fault in any way ffs.

Partly because of press coverage at the time many British people seem to think that there was one ‘bad guy’ - the IRA- they ignore loyalist paramilitaries and terrorists all together and anything the British State or their soldiers did was to beat the IRA. End of.

Exactly, there's also the assumption that the "innocents" weren't innocent.

Do people even know the U.K. govt interred Catholic men?

Honestly no, not till I read that. And why is that? It’s because the government that was doing it was keeping us in the dark. We were not complicit. I for one was a child through the Troubles so I’m failing to see how/why I’m expected to shoulder this.

‘ and partly due to many families having sons in the army, they knew they'd do a tour of NI and they worried about their own’

Exactly, no-one wants to think of their own sons as murderers, committing crimes or Shooting unarmed civilians.

he naïveté on this thread is near jaw dropping and proof of British media propaganda

you're talking about a country that is ruled by the MSM and their own agenda, they get to decide how the electorate vote and thats why we have Brexit and a fucking tory government

`Then you come along and say look whats happening over the water - they don't understand why they can't afford heating and prices are shooting up for everything - they're less likely to understand whats happening elsewhere.

The British government have fucked over a few countries, (look at the mess in the Middle East) but its not the general population thats have done this.

I think when you're living through something, your feelings and behaviour are different from how they are when you look back or if you're removed from the situation. In future years people will laugh that during covid people isolated mail for several days or that they couldn't sit on an outside bench. But at the time things felt very different for many people. When sections of people, ie republicans and loyalists, decide to commit atrocities, they know that innocent people are going to get hurt. And that's what happened here. Innocent people from both political divides died or were maimed. That was a direct result of terrorist activity. Without the IRA, the loyalists would not have existed, and without them both, bombing and murders would not have happened. Now, we have allowed all those participants to walk away from their crimes without fear of punishment.
There's no doubt that the police ran informants that were involved in crimes. I would say that still happens yoday in police forces across the whole of the British Isles. It's simplistic to look back and say how the police, who were under threat of death every day, should have behaved. But the ombudsman is a lawyer who has spent her life making clinical decisions at a distance from any danger. Its easy to be critical when looking at facts without the human emotion of fear and desperation involved.
Having said all that, the public has a right to expect that the police treat everyone the same and protection of their life should be one of their main aims. I don't think it's that British people don't care, its just that many are weary of the whole war, and just want to forget. Same as people wanted to forget about WW2 and the appetite to carry on talking about it through the prosecutions of war criminals held little appeal for most people. It's a tragedy that the 11 people she's writing about lost their lives. Worse still that the RUC was involved to an unspecified degree. But it was 30 years ago and, sadly but understandably, I think most people don't have the mental capacity to feel strongly about it when their lives are facing upheaval in the here and now.

@SockFluffInTheBath
Nobody asked you to 'shoulder it', but be aware that all you're presented in the press, by your govt, isn't necessarily true.
We shouldn't bury our heads in the sand.

and are still hailed as a great nation,

hardly

look at the Russians laughing at England, long gone are the days when England was hailed as a great nation - we are a laughing stock www.lbc.co.uk/world-news/boris-ridiculed-russia-tension-ukraine/

Without the IRA, the loyalists would not have existed,

really?

Brits?

‘ Do people even know the U.K. govt interred Catholic men?’

I’ve yet to meet someone over here with any more than a vague notion about that.
Again though, I’m not sure it’s their fault - even in KS3 history books for the England Schools curriculum now covering modern ‘Britain’
the Troubles barely get a footnote.
The government and officials very much painted it as British Army/ govn ( the good guys) versus the IRA ( evil savages ) and Loyalist terrorists not really a factor.
And even now when the truth has come out about what a bloody mess it all was with shoot to kill, collusion, Paras running amuck, state sanctioned
Murders AND the fact that the U.K. government were actually talking to the IRA behind doors while proclaiming that they would never negotiate with terrorists many mainland people still believe what they were originally fed back in the day.

[quote OnaBegonia]@SockFluffInTheBath
Nobody asked you to 'shoulder it', but be aware that all you're presented in the press, by your govt, isn't necessarily true.
We shouldn't bury our heads in the sand.[/quote]
I know, now I’m older, I do realise they’re an absolute shower. When I was at uni I had a Welsh friend who told me what the English historically did to the Welsh. From my family I knew about what they did in Scotland. When the peace process started I looked into the history in Ireland. It’s sickening all round and I would honestly change if I could but I can’t.

Most of us who are old enough to remember The Troubles will have a view coloured by our own experience.

I grew up in a city with a large Irish population and heard strong views on both sides and don't believe any of the participants can claim any moral high ground at all, including many of the civilian population who supported or turned blind eyes to the brutality that went on, often against innocent people.

One of my friends had moved with her family to near us after her mother and the 4 children were held at gunpoint in their own home by gunmen while her father was forced to drive a vehicle loaded with explosives to a location under threat that his family would be killed if he failed. They were all understandably traumatised, not just from the experience, but also as it was likely that others in the community had colluded with the perpetrators.
We also have friends, now in their 60s, who were very young soldiers back then, just teenagers, and still severely traumatised now by some of the awful things they saw and heard

To the British people saying it's nothing to do with them, NI is part of the UK, it elects MPs to Westminister, they have held the balance of power in the past and proped up Teresa May as your taxes prop up NI, Boris Johnson is committed to keeping NI in the UK, it's causing huge headaches re the implementation of Brexit which could lead to an even harder Brexit as the UK tries to back away from the agreement it negotiated and signed.

And to those of you who feel the Troubles are nothing to do with you, so why should you care, are you not concerned that your govt is trying to bring in an amnesty for the soilders who shot and killed 14 men and boys on a civil rights march on Bloody Sunday 50 years ago. Does that not make you concerned for the future of right to protest on the UK.

You have a current government which wants to prevent prosecutions for soliders who shot young men in the back when they ran away - British soilders, in the UK. The same government which is pushing through legislation to criminalise protest in the UK - surely it's in your self-interest to find out about Bloody Sunday and think about if you are happy with the way it was and is being handled.

Terrible things happened in the Troubles, and they were carried out by terrorists on both sides, but when the army - the British Army - and the police, answerable to the Home Secretary - carry out acts of terrorism, or collude, or cover up, all that is being done in the name of the British people.

I wonder about the state of the history curriculum in England ( I’m in Education) - there’s now a massive emphasis on trying to introduce diversity into as it’s still all a bit Henry the 8th, industrial Revolution and the Victorians. Britain has such an awful colonial history between Ireland, India, the Middle East, Slave ships and on and on and on it makes me glad I’m not English and I can see why it’s not always addressed as it should be though the curriculum.
I was having a convo the other day with some allegedly educated English people who were unaware that there had even been an Anglo Irish war and that Northern Ireland only came into existence 100 years ago.

I think the sad truth is that the English don't give a shit about NI full stop.

Furbulousnous well done you for being born in another country other than England

To quote my DstbxMiL when I first met her “I don’t know why you Irish didn’t just stay part of Britain. You’d all be much better off now.” 🤣🤣

Kudos to those on the thread who know some actual history ☘️

From this thread it seems like the first step towards caring would be to not be defensive because we weren't personally involved.

We can be completely uninvolved and totally innocent individually of our governments actions, and at the same time hold the state and the government that represents the state accountable and responsible for acts carried out by them or facilitated by them.

English people do not need to take any criticism of our governments activities as a personal attack.

As a NI Catholic, I don't think anyone should be feeling responsible. Ordinary English people didn't do any of this.

What I would like is for it not to be minimised. Murder of innocent civilians at the hands of police/army of the state that's supposed to govern them is a fucking scary situation. Internment was an extraordinary breech of human rights. I've seen at first hand what that did to people.

I would also like people to do a minimum of reading on the topic before doling out judgement. The IRA weren't the only terrorist outfit in town. They also didn't emerge out of a vacuum, but out of 800/500 (depending on your view) exploitative English behaviour in Ireland.
And yes I get that growing up in the U.K. the IRA was all that was on the news, but there is any amount of information available now for people to educate themselves.

So yeah, this is not about people taking responsibility for things they personally didn't contribute to, or even caring too much about things that happened in the past, but a basic acknowledgment of what actually happened.

Britain has such an awful colonial history between Ireland, India, the Middle East, Slave ships and on and on and on it makes me glad I’m not English

Didn’t you say you’re from NL @Furbulousnous ? The Dutch had a pretty hot slave trade themselves. People in glass houses my love.

@TheKeatingFive agree

So yeah, this is not about people taking responsibility for things they personally didn't contribute to, or even caring too much about things that happened in the past, but a basic acknowledgment of what actually happened.

That’s absolutely fair, and not much to ask at all.