Organise Against State Repression
| Date: | July 1981 |
|---|---|
| Organisation: | Revolutionary Struggle |
| View: | View Document |
| Discuss: | Comments on this document |
| Subjects: |
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Commentary From The Cedar Lounge Revolution
20th July 2020
Dating from precisely 39 years ago, this one page document from Revolutionary Struggle National Question Collective issued during the Hunger Strike campaign argues for attacks on the enemy of the working-class. It argues in particular for the release of those arrested while protesting outside the British Embassy on July 18th 1981. As CAIN notes :
Saturday 18 July 1981
There were serious clashes between Republican demonstrators and Gardaí following a demonstration outside the British embassy in Dublin, Republic of Ireland. Over 200 people were hurt during the clashes.
Here’s one perspective on the day’s events in 1981 . And here is another .
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By: alanmyler Wed, 22 Jul 2020 09:21:41
In reply to gypsybhoy69.
No it’s not a cheap point scoring exercise. I don’t think I’ve ever replied to a Roddy comment in the past, there’s no history of animosity there between us at all. And I agree that it would be equally distasteful coming from a Stick or a Provo, or anyone else.
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By: Colm B Wed, 22 Jul 2020 11:15:21
In reply to alanmyler.
I agree that jokes about violence are distasteful though, like most people, I have to admit that I’ve told and laughed at such jokes.
I think the issue here is that while Alan is obviously sincere in his disgust at jokes about such a brutal act as kneecapping, condemnations of Provo violence coming from a WP member opens the way for a charge of hypocrisy. Yes, the PIRA openly engaged in punishment beatings, kneecappings etc but the WP’s armed wing also engage in routine, if small scale, violence against its real and perceived opponents long after its ceasefire. I’m not referring to the feuds with the Provos or INLA here but to the activities of the OIRA in the 80/90s. It definitely wasn’t on the scale of the PIRAs activities and fortunately did not result in deaths but it was still brutal in the same way as you describe the consequences of Provo kneecappings.
I’m not saying members of the WP, or indeed ex-members like myself, don’t have a right to condemn or disagree with PIRA violence but few would take such opposition seriously unless there’s an acknowledgement of WP engagement in violence in the past.
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By: alanmyler Wed, 22 Jul 2020 12:04:15
In reply to Colm B.
I agree that paramilitary violence from any group is to be condemned. I’m a WP member only for the past decade and would not be impressed in the least by jokes about anything that went on in the past. None of that is in any way a part of my motivation for joining the party. I understand that such things happened in the past, and that they have to be acknowledged, and part of that is that they shouldn’t be joked about. And I’d expect the same of people in SF. I understand that for people who went through the years of brutality in the Troubles that perhaps it seems a bit precious for someone like myself to be calling out the joke when the reality of the event behind the joke was far more terrible, but the events are behind us and so should the casual normalisation of them through humour. I also get it that soldiers use humour to try to keep some sense of humanity in awful circumstances, but as I said above the CLR doesn’t really strike me as the right place for that if it still needs to be done at all.
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By: Fergal Wed, 22 Jul 2020 12:17:48
In reply to alanmyler.
Isn’t all humour offensive? The piano falling on top of somebody ain’t nice!
Isn’t it Ricky Gervais who said just cos you’re offended doesn’t mean you’re right?
Taken to another level being offended means gunmen blowing the heads off journalists for working for a publication that drew their god… or the Danish embassy being torched in Beirut or Danish goods being boycotted (exactly how racism works… take one person from a group, in this case the Danish cartoonist) and then blame all the group for his/her wrongdoing…
I can see Alan’s point and Roddy’s…
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By: alanmyler Wed, 22 Jul 2020 12:26:36
In reply to alanmyler.
Fergal, I think there’s a qualitative difference between generic type jokes about pianos falling on Wilie Coyote’s head or whatever and jokes about pianos falling on people’s heads as expressed by someone who was involved in an organisation that actually did that to people in real life. No?
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By: WorldbyStorm Wed, 22 Jul 2020 13:06:35
In reply to alanmyler.
Again, I think both of you have a point and it’s more than okay to air the issue. That said at this stage isn’t it going around in circles a little.
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By: http://new-all.com/ Tue, 24 Aug 2021 09:30:09
http://new-all.com/
blog topic
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