issue #02 pdf - Razorcake

BLOODY SUNDAY, PART 2
January 30, 2002, will mark the
30th anniversary of Bloody Sunday
­ the civil rights rally that turned
into a nightmare when British paratroopers
opened fire on Derry civilians,
killing 14 and wounding many
more. Following a hastily conducted
investigation, Chief Justice Lord
Widgery exonerated the soldiers of
any wrongdoing and implicated the
victims in their own deaths. In
1997, British Prime Minister Tony
Blair announced the introduction of
a new Tribunal of Inquiry to be
conducted by Lord Saville.
In order for the people of Derry
to be able to put this grisly chapter
in their troubled past behind them,
Saville's report must overturn
Widgery's rulings and put the
blame on the shoulders of those
who shot and killed unarmed civilians.
The British government has
been reluctant to do this because
they are afraid of what skeletons
such questioning will expose.
The principal question has
always been who fired first, the soldiers
or the protesters? If the
Inquiry finds that the soldiers did
indeed fire first, the next logical
step is to determine whether the
soldiers acted on their own accord
or if they were ordered to open fire.
If the Inquiry's findings reveal that
the soldiers were "following
orders," it must be ascertained who
gave them those orders and why
they felt they were necessary. The
British government is loathe to face
these questions because the
answers point to a terrifying conclusion:
the British army conducted
a premeditated military ambush on
a group of unarmed citizens. To
wit, the army waged war on its own
people, and they did it with
Westminster's consent. This is a
skeleton they would very much like
to keep closeted.
Not surprisingly, these questions
speak to the heart of the thorniest
impediments to peace in Northern
Ireland today: Who has the right to
police Northern Ireland? With the
biases and prejudices
26
so extreme, can any one security
force protect its civilians from sectarian
violence and criminal activity
without succumbing to pressure
to abuse that power toward political
ends? It is an issue that has become
a sputtering powderkeg that threatens
to destroy the good work
achieved by all the parties involved
in the peace process and plunge
Northern Ireland back into a state
of lawlessness.
Recently a friend from Belfast
forwarded a joke to my email
account which nicely codifies popular
perception of Northern
Ireland's security issues. It is as follows
(I have edited slightly for the
sake of clarity):
In an effort to establish which of
Ireland's many security
forces would take a leading
role in the new crossborder
bodies, the two
police forces and the two
armies were each brought
to a secluded forest area in
South Armagh, and given
the task of catching a rabbit,
which had just been
released there.
The Guards (Irish
Police Force) went in to
the forest and placed animal
informants throughout
the patch. They questioned
all plant and mineral
witnesses. They did a
video reconstruction of
the rabbit's release for
Crimeline, and waited for
some punter to solve the
crime for them. After three
months of intensive investigation,
they concluded
that rabbits do not exist.
Next came the Irish
army. They set up two
base camps, and cleared a
path through the forest for
the patrol from one to the other.
They placed listening devices in the
undergrowth, but were unable to
hear any signs of animal life on the
tapes. Their investigation is still
ongoing, six months later.
The British army moved into the
Pog Mo Thon
...the army waged war on its own people, and they did it with Westminster's consent.
This is a skeleton they would very much like to keep closeted.
forest in full combat gear, with fifteen
helicopters and three small
tanks. After two weeks without a
capture, they burned their patch of
forest to the ground, killing everything
in it, including the rabbit. An
investigation found that no blame
could be attached to any individual,
as the local animal community was
clearly harboring the rabbit.
The RUC (Royal Ulster
Constabulary) moved into the forest.
Two hours later, they came out
dragging a badly beaten bear. The
bear was screaming "Okay! Okay!
I'm a rabbit! I'm a rabbit!"
It is often said that the most successful
lies are those with the most
amount of truth in them. Lies that
depend on support spun out of thin
Photo obtained from the CAIN (Conflict Archive on the Internet)
Web service at http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/images/posters.
air aren't as successful as those that
are credible in places where they
can be verified, plausible where
they can't. The same holds true for
humor. Although this joke is not
without its biases and couched in
language that easily betray them, it
goes a long way toward explaining
the perceived "truth" about methods
employed by the various security
forces, and presents a somewhat
skewed view of the results
that can be achieved with such
methods. It reveals what generations
of bloodshed have taught
those in Northern Ireland to expect.
For example, the crack on the Irish
Guards addresses the perception
that the force is largely all hype and
no substance, that they are adept at
utilizing the latest technological
advances in crime fighting techniques
while doing very little to
actually prevent crimes or bring
those who commit them to justice.
The joke also includes a subtle
reminder that if not for the petty
betrayals of "punters" amongst
criminals (i.e. rival sectarian
forces, often from the
same "side"), the Guards
would seldom, if ever, have
anyone to arrest. As sectarian
forces frequently obtain
funding from organized
criminal activity (drugs,
prostitution, protection
rackets and shakedown
scams) a disaffected
teenager who sniffs glue,
goes joyriding and torches
the car afterward (more
prevalent than you might
think; it happened to a
friend of mine) has as
much, if not more, to fear
from sectarian hooligans
than the Irish Guards.
If you're like me, the
example of the British
Army burning the forest to
the ground seems more
bizarre than humorous,
conjuring up images that
only the most conspiracy
minded survivalist could
imagine. One would like to
believe that the joke
derives its humor from hyperbole,
painting a picture of excessive
force taken to excessive degrees.
Sadly this is not the case, as anyone
who has grown up taking armored
cars and barbed wire for granted the
way California kids expect an AM­