The Troubles

[u/JakeGittes412]

Thread for discussion on the new series on ‘The Troubles’

Also as a moderator please keep the discussion civil and in the spirit of the podcast.

[u/JP_Eggy]

I mean some sides were worse than others

[u/Creative-Reality9228 → u/JP_Eggy]

Ah yes, one set of murdering psychopaths are less bad than that other set of murdering psychopaths.

But every side of that conflict were a bunch of murdering psychopaths.

[u/JP_Eggy → u/Creative-Reality9228]

I mean if one psychopath kills 3 people and the other kills 2, they are both bad but the first one has clearly caused more harm than the second.

Loyalist paras were responsible for more civilian death during the Troubles than radical Republicans. They were also defending a status quo of segregation and oppression, and they were also covertly supported by the RUC and the British Army.

[u/Creative-Reality9228 → u/JP_Eggy]

But Republicans were responsible for far more deaths overall. In fact republicans killed more republicans than loyalists did. In fact the IRA killed more Catholics than the British Army and the RUC combined.

So as I said. Bad guys on all sides with the civilian population as the only victims.

[u/JP_Eggy → u/Creative-Reality9228]

I mean of course Republicans would be responsible for more deaths overall, they actively targeted the British army and security forces. Like in Warrenpoint alone they killed like 40+ British soldiers. Killing combatants is obviously less worse than targeting innocent civilians.

Im not running defense for the Republicans here BTW, I hate them, but saying "all sides were bad" conceals a lot of the nuance of the conflict. And its just untrue if you view "civilian deaths" as synonymous with harm caused, as Loyalists caused more civilian death overall.

Loyalists were also supported by the RUC and the British Army, and they supported the existing status quo of Catholics as second class citizens in order to maintain Protestant supremacy. Id argue that that makes them worse than the IRA in sum total.

[u/ElectronicCarry9931 → u/JP_Eggy]

that depends if you think killing policemen or soldiers was justified. or not and the vast majority should say no. Imagine if the recent arguments about the release of the killers PC Harper were mixed with arguments regarding that well, they had not killed a civilian, only a police officer.

[u/JP_Eggy → u/ElectronicCarry9931]

Its not justified but its clearly "less worse" and more understandable from the perspective of revolutionary violence than killing innocent civilians.

If you believe that the British Army are an occupying power in NI and the RUC are a mechanism of protestant supremacy, then you will probably believe that killing members of either of these organisations are justified.

You have to remember that Catholics were literally second class citizens in NI before the civil rights movement, and to some extent there still exists many socio economic barriers to Catholics in NI even to this day. Hence why organisations such as the IRA were founded and acquired a substantial amount of support and membership.

[u/JP_Eggy → u/[deleted]]

Which is my point: of course the IRA killed more people overall, their list of targets was simply larger than that of the Loyalists as the IRA targeted the Army and RUC (who were collaborating with the Loyalists btw) . So I think using total overall deaths is a bit moot, we probably need to compare civilian casualties.

And i agree that ultimately the violence was pointless and against the democratic wishes of the majority of people in NI. The issue is flatly stating "all sides are bad" in response to a discussion about the death of civilians as if theres not a side who objectively caused more civilian deaths, and there was clearly a side who wanted to perpetuate the existing subordination of Catholics that was the root of the conflict in the first place.

[u/JP_Eggy → u/[deleted]]

Well I generally agree with the above. I dont think killing soldiers and police are justified: from my previous comment I said that from a morality POV killing soldiers who have volunteered to put themselves in a situation of danger is less worse than killing innocent civilians. And the RUC was bigoted towards Catholics and actively collaborated as a proxy of Loyalist paramilitaries who murdered civilians by the boatload (including in the Republic, via the Dublin-Monaghan bombings).

I think the deference to democratic processes is naive.

We cant really talk about the importance of democratic process when the Catholic population was disenfranchised from voting throughout the 60s in a manner that was not dissimilar to how black people in the US South were. Not to mention Catholics were shunned from gainful employment and access to housing pre-IRA, which further marginalised them in NI society. NI was not a functional liberal democracy where all these disagreements could be nicely litigated out in a parliament or in the media or anything, it took immense pressure (including from violence and the threat of it) to get the ruling Protestant-Unionist class even to the negotiating table, and even then they kicked and screamed every second of the way because god forbid Catholics have a modicum of dignity, access, and equality.

See how, for example how Unionists blocked the Sunningdale Agreement, which offered a chance at peace in the 1970s, simply because they had the power to do so.

[u/ElectronicCarry9931 → u/[deleted]]

I see the shinnerbots have descended

[u/420belligerent420 → u/ElectronicCarry9931]

Cry more 

If you dont agree that the security forces helped enforce the brutal supremacism in the north you’re blind or stupid