Q: Can you give me an example of a group of people intensely interested in linguistics?
A: Yes. Some prominent members of the unionist community here.
Q: Give me an example of this.
A: When they raise the case of Jean McConville’s death, for example, they make a clear distinction between the words “killing” and “murder”. There are other instances – for example Ulster Unionist Tom Elliott refers routinely to the “IRA campaign of murder”.
Q: Any other comment on this tendency to refer to killings that occurred during the Troubles as murder?
A: Yes. This is not a term that they ever use when speaking of killings by the British Army, RUC, UDR etc.
Q: Aren’t they’re entitled to call these deaths what they want to? Free speech and all that.
A: That’s true. But they also are insistent that everyone else uses their vocabulary.
Q: Eh?
A: They insist that everyone else refers to such deaths as that of Mrs McConville as murder as well. If they don’t, it’s taken as a sign that they approve of the murder.
Q: But surely it cuts both ways. Surely nationalists and republicans refer to killings by the British army as murder.
A: That’s true.
Q: And they insist that everyone else refer to those deaths as murder.
A: Well actually no. I don’t recall any nationalist or republican pressing a unionist to use the word ‘murder’ for what happened on Bloody Sunday. Do you?
Q: Well, no. However, I’m asking the quesions, not you… So why are some unionists so insistent that everyone uses the m word for the killing of Jean McConville but not insistent on it for cases such as Bloody Sunday?
A: A number of reasons. Firstly, the McConville killing was done by the IRA and not by the ‘security’ forces. Secondly, If they can be successful in pressuring everyone to talk of IRA killings as murder, then the IRA becomes a criminal conspiracy. If that is done, it’s a short step to painting the history of the Troubles as a mass outbreak of murder by psychopathic republicans.
Q: And killings done by the ‘security’ forces?
A: An unfortunate but necessary part of the brave work involved in bringing the province back to normality.
Q: Were they successful?
A: Of course. Look around you.
Q: I’ve heard some people say that the deaths of people like Mrs McConville are used as a political brush to paint the past in a particular way.
A: There are those who do say that. Unionist commentators naturally deny any such suggestion. They insist that their sole concerns are compassion for the McConville family and a desire to bring others to their moral plane by using their vocabulary.
Q: If you don’t talk like me you’re a monster?
A: Something like that.
Q: But they still believe in free speech?
A: Of course.
Just wars?
The Greek government is currently demanding 279 billion euros from the German government in compensation for war damage. It is being argued that an interest-free loan that occupied Greece was forced to make to the Nazis in 1942 was never repaid. There was a famine in Greece during World War II. The local population suffered greatly during this period as a result of the Allied blockade of Greece.
Perhaps it is time to calculate the appropriate level of compensation as a direct result of An Gorta Mór in Ireland. (1845 -1850) It is estimated that 1.5 million died of starvation and disease. There was potato blight, however, there was also an abundance of food, transported to England at the point of a gun, (Dragoons, Hussars, Lancers) and courtesy of a naval blockade eg, Warships Stromboli, Eliza, Dee, Merlin, Warrior, Dragon, Medusa, Comet and coast guard vessels. (Disposition of the Army: Public records Office, London)
Causing bodily or mental harm to members of a group or deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction is defined as genocide.
The British administration threatened another terrible war in Ireland if the electorate did not accept An Conradh Angla-Éireannach, Anglo-Irish Treaty in 1921. Fast forward to 1969 – 1990, how would the residents in the shires have reacted if many acres of their green and pleasant land had been confiscated in order to establish military fortresses? How would they have responded to roads being permanently blocked and bridges blown up? What was the rationale for a military response? Successive British administrations failed to address the reality of unionist misrule in Ireland which needed a paramilitary police force in order to facilitate gerrymandering and discrimination.
The Tories are promising to fund public services properly if they win the next election. This is an explicit admission of a deliberate policy to underfund services over the past number of years. Perhaps it is time to demolish the myth that “there is no more money.” Perhaps it is time to follow the example of the Greeks and demand compensation for deaths and damage as a result of the military occupation of Ireland?
100% agree with you lolar, why shouldn’t the Irish people demand compensation for the things the British Empire done here in Ireland and to the Irish people, both in the distant past and the very recent? Were the 1 million Irish people who were starved to death between 1845 – 1850 any less human than we are today? Was there suffering any different to what a humans would be today? That’s not to mention the fact the actions of the British Government during the “Famine” cant be described as anything less than deliberate genocide.
Certain people will say just “forget” about it. You cant forget and move on with such a gaping open wound in our history. I honestly don’t see Ireland and Britain’s relationship ever properly moving on until such things are addressed. That’s not to mention the fact Britain still occupies the 6 counties today.
Its completely legitimate to demand justice and compensation.
Greek massacres of Turks
British historian Arnold J. Toynbee wrote that there were organized atrocities since the Greek landing at Smyrna on 15 May 1919. Toynbee also stated that he and his wife were witnesses to the atrocities perpetrated by Greeks in the Yalova, Gemlik, and Izmit areas and they not only obtained abundant material evidence in the shape of “burnt and plundered houses, recent corpses, and terror stricken survivors” but also witnessed robbery by Greek civilians and arsons by Greek soldiers in uniform in the act of perpetration.[93] Toynbee wrote that as soon as the Greek Army landed, they started committing atrocities against the Turkish civilians, as they “laid waste the fertile Maender (Meander) Valley”, and forced thousands of Turks to take refuge outside the borders of the areas controlled by the Greeks.[94] Historian Taner Akçam noted that a British officer reported as follows:[95]
The National forces were established solely for the purpose of fighting the Greeks..,. The Turks are willing to remain under the control of any other state.,.. There was not even an organized resistance at the time of the Greek occupation. Yet the Greeks are persisting in their oppression, and they have continued to burn villages, kill Turks and rape and kill women and young girls and throttle to death children.
Every word uttered by Unionist politicians is used to try and paint their narrative as THE narrative, they want Nationalists to accept that the British state and it`s many armed groups, both `legal` and `illegal` were really only a reaction to the criminal conspiracy started by the IRA. Of course this is nonsense, Unionist supporters including some who regularly post on this site, will, occasionally when pressed, condemn the UDA and UVF, but this condemnation is the very meaning of `weasel words`, they will never criticise their beloved `legal` state forces for the hundreds of deaths they caused. The UDR and RUC are regularly praised and given civic honours, yet as soon as a play park is named in honour of a Republican martyr, they scream the house down in hypocritical outrage.Just for the record, the Nationalist community regard the RUC/UDR/UVF/UDA/Third Force/Ulster Resistance/British army/and the others as the bad guys. No amount of spin will EVER change that. The headstones of their victims are there for all to see.
I wonder how long it will until Unionism has its ‘Are We The Baddies?’ moment
Ha ha RJC… gotta give the Nazis their due , mind…they really did have the best uniforms….no question.They did look sharp!!! Pity about the fascism , mind….
Much agreed there paddy – RJC spot on with his quote and the (very funny) video. And a good quote from yourself too. – And excellent contributions all round.
Many thanks for your last reply – a bit 50/50 here, but keeping going. Hope yourself and Jude are keeping well yourselves.
beir bua
John.
Of course the converse is quite true as well….RJC
It is important when discussing this issue to consider the definition of the word “murder” as it is of crucial importance.
1. the unlawful premeditated killing of one human being by another.
The crucial word here is “unlawful”.
The laws of any jurisdiction of course are determined by the organs of the state which control that jurisdiction.
So the premeditated killing of one or more human beings by another group of human beings may not in fact be unlawful in the eyes of the state if the state in charge chooses not to apply the normal laws.
So the premeditated killing of civilians in places like Dresden, Hiroshima, Libya, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Vietnam, Kenya or Gaza are only considered to be murders by those with no power to enforce sanctions on the perpetrators of the killings.
The state will of course claim the killings to be the unavoidable consequences of war, law killings, executions and other such terms.
In Ireland it boils down to whether you recognise the legitimacy of a Protestant State for a Protestant people and all the mechanisms set up to maintain that supremacy. If that is the case then you will likely consider every killing by Republican forces as murder.
In crude terms your definition will all boil down to whether you support NI FC!
Apologies, that should read ‘lawful killings’.
The Norneverland Unionists (NU) are obviously paying more attention to the smoke signals which the Southern Unionists (SU) are sending from their media mountain tops than they are prepared to admit.
Certainly if one is to judge by their grasp on linguistics.which bears both a canny and an uncanny resemblance alike to their counterparts south of the Black Pig’s Dyke.
Big Chief Great Shakes of the Sewanee tribe once wrote of the ‘slings and arrows of outrageous fortune’. This translates as ‘the slinguistics and arrows of outspan oranges’ when applied to the Southern Unionists (SU).
For, indeed, SU is but a contraction of the tribe they belong to: the Sioux.Or rather, the Sioux Nua. The media of this morphed tribe of renegade Murphs consists entirely of braves called Tonto whose grasp of their native tribal language consists of nothing more than a ‘cupla focal’. They are enormously proud of this exercise in self-diminution and find it an endless source of uproarious Self-Depracating Laughing Parties. (SDLP).
The ‘cupla focal’ of course, being: ‘Kemo Sabay’.
The most conspicuous use of this ‘cupla focal’ happened some years ago within the ceremonial Wigwam of the Southern Unionists when the visiting Squaw in Chief of the Ruling Pale Faces greeted the local toad-eaters with an ill-pronounced but well-meant ‘Kemo Sabay’.
To say that the immediate reaction was rapturous is to tip toe through the tulips of understatement. Pre-eminent amongst the fawn-coloured sounds to be heard was ‘Wow’ which emanated from the strangulated tonsils of Tonta, the local Squaw in Chief. So overcome was she with sheer awe she was quite unable to articulate the first part of that particular cupla focal: Pow.
As in Pow Wow. It rhymes with kow-tow.
Mind you,Esteemed Blogmeister, the linguistic pace is hotting up some, down here in the Free Southern Stateen, So much so that the Norneverland Unionists(NU) will have to keep a particularly close ear to the ground. If they are to have a hope in Hopi hell to keep up.with the SU (Southern Unionists). While your election is a whole month away, our election down here is a mere year to go, just around the corner, boys,so to speak.
Hence the hotting up.
Nowhere is this more in evidence here than in the (gulp) obituary columns. Here new sacred ground is being broken by the Tontos. In which obituaries are being treated as legitimate weapons of crass destruction. Not mind you, with regard to the deceased, where ‘de mortuis nil nihi bono’ still applies. Which, of course, translates as ‘ About the dead, speak only in Bono-tones’.
But rather as an op to wallop the enemies of the deceased. With,yes, the sllinguistics and arrows of outspan oranges.
Two examples in the last week will suffice.The first was penned by a leading ego of the Irish Dependent (ID) about the recent sad departure to the happy hunting grounds of the super ego of ID. That would be Declan Lynch lamenting the passing of his mentor in chief, George ‘Frogman’ Byrne.
Though laden down with unmitigated grief Dec the Neck, aka Game for a Scaff was resilient enough to lift a tomahawk and take a scalp or two.of all those upon whom the Indian sign has long since been put.
Not only did he emphasise (with something approaching a warwhoop of glee) the impeccable PC credentials of the deceased but he reminded one and alkali that the ‘Frogman’ (as the faithless departed was affectionately known by his throngs of Tonto fans) was ye one and onlie coiner of the hilarious term for reservation football: ‘Bogball’.
P.C., ni ga a ra, in the Free Southern Stateen, is conterminous with Post Christian.
But, soft you, as Big Chief Great Shakes (see above) also remarked, a word or two before you go go.
It is a truism of even the new journalism that a Kodak mo is worth a mile focal (that’s cupla focal multiplied by 500). But, what pray is the linguistically challenged reader to be greeted with in the next edition of the Irish Dependent?
Yes, indeed: the remains of the Post Christian deceased being removed in a coffin around which was wrapped the green and white hooped flag of his beloved Shams, from his local (gulp) RC Church. Isn’t that supposed to be the temple of all that is superstitious and unsophisticated?
Can -whisper it ! – the legend that was George Byrne have been, all this time, speaking (gulp) with forked tongue? Unlikely, for his protege, Dec the Neck, is none other than the Tonto who coined that great new addition to the Hiberno Englsh (sic) dictionary: Eejitry. No flies on him or his hymnbook.
Now, as a self-declared English Language supremacisit, perhaps DL is unaware that Tonto means Eejit in Spanish and hence, Tonteria signifies… Eejitry. Surely not: say it ain;t so. And him and all to be an aficionado of La Liga.
Some time ago, the same DL (oh, happy initials) penned a penetrating piece entitled ‘Sinn Fein will meet themselves at both ends of the political spectrum’. Is one to take from this that….(gulp)…the ashes of GB (oh, maybe not no happy initials after all) are to be scattered across the terraces of Hill 16 in the Cathedral of Bogball?
If it ain’t got that swing it ain’t slinguistics. Perhaps DL will not be so, erm Game for an Epitaph again.
Meanwhile, across the Liffey in the sniffy upper remove dorm of its sister paper, The Unionist Times, its Dispatch Column dread e no na dread, went even one better .Up to this both obit sob departments had been vying with each other to pip the other at the last post, so to speak. Some have compared this ribald RIPalry as akin to AJ. MCoy going neck and neck with Tony McCoy.
Is this instance, however, TUT has beaten even Dec the Neck by a, erm, neck.
One refers to the touching tribute paid by Michael Nugent , Supreme Pontiff of the Atheist Church of Latter Day Ain’t Believers in the FSS, to his deceased wife, Anne Holliday.
Other less cosmopolitan countries have their Intelligentia; the Free Southern Stateen has its Nugentia.
So? So, it is another newspaper norm that an obit gets writ within a week, a fortnight, or a month max. But, the deceased passed over (gulp) four years ago. So, why another obit …now, like?
Let the modest Michael speak: ‘We worked together to help build a peaceful, liberal and caring Ireland, challenging the influence of the Catholic Church on Irish law in areas like constipation, divorce, and abortion and opposed terrorism from all sides (sic) in Northern Ireland. If she was still alive, Anne would have been immersed in the marriage equality referendum campaign’.
Thump ! Thump ! Thump !
Schrodinger, Perkie’s pernikety pet pussy cat, thumping the Axminsinter, demanding correciton.
Oops ! ‘constipation’ should read ‘contraception’. Mo leithsceal Another typo.
But, here’s the real point of puzzlement for Perkie’s inner plodder: how come a devout Atheist was to be seen with a Union Jack (Jill, under the Q;s rule?) in her hand, a forlorn beacon of moral courage on one side of Dawson Street, Downtown Dublin on the momentous, all-inclusive day that Prince Je Suis entered the Mansion House?
Is not his mum the Director General (no less) of The Church of England and is not the Union Jack/Jill an integral part of the eccelsiastical furnutire of said church and its FSS franchise, the Church of Ireland?
What’s a linguisitically-challenged loonderamawn to make of all this sophisticated shtuff?
Thump ! Thump ! Thump !
Oh, yes, there is a most affecting paragraph in the obit about how the blissfully contented couple, who were not blessed with children, shared their marital bed with three or four of their pet moggies.
No, Schrodinger, NO !
Perkie’s inner mere immortal is now off to pen his own obit before he orbits the Great Out Yonder.
In the timeless words of Carly Simon: ‘Nobody does it better’.
Which was fiittingngly penned as the theme song for the Bond movie, erm, ‘The I who love Me’.
“The most conspicuous use of this ‘cupla focal’ happened some years ago within the ceremonial Wigwam of the Southern Unionists when the visiting Squaw in Chief of the Ruling Pale Faces greeted the local toad-eaters with an ill-pronounced but well-meant ‘Kemo Sabay’.” AND “Oh, yes, there is a most affecting paragraph in the obit about how the blissfully contented couple, who were not blessed with children, shared their marital bed with three or four of their pet moggies. No, Schrodinger, NO !” must be deemed the neck-and-neck winners of today’s epistle to the unwashed. But with so many worth also-rans, so MANY! I can only quote your own term, Perkie: thump thump thump!
GRMA, Esteemed Blogmeister, but a minor quibble.
If one may speak up on behalf of one’s solitary epistle peruser: she would dispute the adjective ‘unwashed’. One curious cat is she with time and touchiness on her paws.
One always takes pains to pet rather than prod this cat.
The predictable result being the reason for this: in fairness, she immediately stops scratching the furniture, peeing on the carpet and with, erm due diligence sets about licking her fur coat till it’s as clean as a Dublin full back.
And when she’s done that, sheer momentum prompts her to lick the air.
A pretty chocolate box picture, no doubt, though it cannot be gainsaid some collateral damage is unavoidable, Planet Earth being what it is. ‘Into each life some rain must fall’, a truism once spotted by the perceptive Inkspots.
In this instance the victim is the leprechaun proverb / an seanfhocal Gaelach:
– Ar a shon fein a dheanann Perkie cronan.
Beir bua !
Unionism regards any narrative that they don’t agree with as “revisionism”, even if that narrative is cold, hard fact. Take Bloody Sunday for example, even after David Cameron apologized, admitted there was no justification for the actions of the British Army that day, etc , how many Unionist politicians have said the innocent people gunned down by the parachute regiment were murdered? I have yet to hear any.
Unionism is its own worst enemy in my opinion. I doubt they will ever change. They have been wedded to this siege mentality and to a political mind set that originates from the 17th century. Any progressive voices within Unionism have been repeatedly drown out through the years with the cries of “Lundy!!”.
Gerry Adams maybe didn’t use the right kind of words when he said “Equality, equality is what is going to break these b*stards. That’s our strategy” but Gerry is 100% correct because political Unionism cant afford for everyone to have equality, especially “them’uns”…..
This is a bit of a long read, but has some relevance to the original post
http://thegreatrefusal.tumblr.com/post/116240435030/deep-state-subversion-and-legitimacy
Particularly this bit –
‘Dalton was not the only colonial transfer from Kenya to Northern Ireland. In a famous case of the British civilising mission, 11 detainees were beaten to death by prison warders at Hola detention camp in Kenya on 4th March 1959, with junior officers blamed for ‘excessive behaviour’. A letter between civil servants in Northern Ireland on 24 November 1971, 3 months after the introduction of internment, voiced the need to obtain from the Foreign & Commonwealth Office the instructions given for the treatment of detainees running of camps in former colonies, including the Hola camp. From what we now know, largely thanks to Ian Cobain’s book Cruel Britannia, about the transfer of the five techniques of torture throughout the British Empire and to Northern Ireland, British officials were clearly concerned with ensuring the cover-up of state-sanctioned torture.’