Tit for tat
At first sight, the DUP's booking of a Stormont function room to celebrate the role of the SAS in defending the peace in NI seems reasonably OK. They went undercover to counter the threat from various undercover terrorist groups and were undoubtedly very effective in thwarting terrorist acts and unearthing the machinations of dark figures.
At first sight only, though. The news comes a few days after Sinn Féin was planning a similar event at the same venue to celebrate the life of the IRA bomber Mairéad Farrell.
I agree with Jeffrey Donaldson when he says the SF event should not go ahead. I mean, using government premises to laud terrorist acts is perverse in the extreme. Sinn Féin's Jennifer McCann says "Stormont is a shared space". Exactly! In shared spaces people are expected to behave non-offensively. This Republican urge to rub their terrorists in the faces of those who have also come a long way down the political road is distasteful and not worthy of Ireland.
Sinn Féin and the IRA say they are totally committed to the democratic path and have turned their backs on terrorism. That indicates more than just saying they're not going to do it any more. It implies a rejection of past activities now deemed inappropriate, indeed wrongful. And let's not hear any weasely words trying to wriggle through semantics here. There's a clear logical tie-in, and any attempt to re-cast it will eat away at SF's credibility among the electorate.
To say both "we're committed to constitutional peace" and "weren't them the days" would be hypocrisy.
The DUP, though, are also behaving wrongly. To flaunt a celebration of the SAS in the faces of Sinn Féin at Stormont is equally unbefitting of the peace process because it opens up wounds, re-creating division where a healing process appeared to be setting in. There's no point retaliating, using the SAS to counter the SF initiative. That initiative should be countered with words carefully chosen to inflict political damage instead of using the SAS, who killed Mairéad Farrell, in an effort to humiliate.
posted by B.U. @ 8:23 a.m.
7 comments
7 Comments:
That initiative should be countered with words carefully chosen to inflict political damage instead of using the SAS, who killed Mairéad Farrell, in an effort to humiliate.
The law-abiding population of Northern Ireland have a lot to be thankful to the SAS for...but I agree with your main point here.
The Republican use of this "shared space" concept is a very selective one; the DUP and other Unionists would be better place exposing to the wider world the disgraceful happenings at Enniskillen Fire Station, where the photograph of the innocents massacred by sectarian gangsters has been removed in order to placate Republican sensitivies.
Unionists at Stormont and elsewhere should not be expected to "share space" with a memorial commemorating a terrorist from that self-same gang.
>> I mean, using government premises to laud terrorist acts is perverse in the extreme.<<
Very apt use of words that could also mean the terrorists in the SAS, who along with Unionist death squads were used by the British government to terrorise the Nationalist population.
I'm sure the pettiness of the DUP is helpful when dealing with their electorate. Who after the Poots Allister bitch fight seem content to vote for the biggest anti-Irish bigots.
Sad!
"terrorists in the SAS, who along with Unionist death squads were used by the British government to terrorise the Nationalist population."
Damn right. The Brits should be ashamed for sending in the SAS to burn the poor beleagured nationalists out of their thatched cottages and eat their babies.
BU's right. It clearly is tit-for-tat and the DUP should know better, but the pettiness of the DUP is a secondary issue here to that of Sinners using any excuse and soiling any worthy cause just to point out that not only did they spend thirty years trying to kill us, but they'll spend the next thirty or more rewriting history and turning the perpetrators into victims and vice versa and sticking two fingers up to their neighbours at the same time. It's despicable and further it makes a mockery of all their talk about "neutral working environments" a few weeks back.
I think the sad thing here is that either event is important enough for this kind of debate. No matter how far the process has come, it hasn't come far enough, obviously. "Let the dead bury their dead". These are things that these folks have to go through before they can move on with things. It's important to them. Get a life for goodness sake !
Your tit for tat analysis seems to be completely on the ball BU. The DUP now only intend to go forward with their event if the IRA one gets the nod.
So we have children running the north. How reassuring!
March 8th's full title is actually:
‘UN Day for Women’s Rights and International Peace’.
I don't think even Tony would claim that Farrell was trying to blow up people in the cause of International peace!!!
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