How to become the target of rage

The late David Dunseith, presenter of Raidio Uladh’s Talkback, said many sensible things during his life. The one that sticks in my mind is his comment that “People in this place don’t hear what you say. They hear what they want you to say.”

Drawing on just two personal experiences, I can vouch for the truth of what David said.

The first involved a picture on social media of dissident republicans, in paramilitary gear, parading or maybe posing for the cameras – from-behind shots only, so their identity wasn’t revealed. Also behind them stood a young boy – about eight, I’d guess. He too was dressed in paramilitary gear.

This produced shrieks of outrage from many social media users, decrying that  the republican group were essentially training this child in violence  and claiming it amounted to child abuse.

This struck me at the time as being more than a little over the top, and I located a shot of some parading Boys Brigade kids, in full uniform. I wrote a two-word comment on this BB picture: “Like this?”

The twitter and mainstream uproar was enormous. It went on and on, and it was demanded that I withdraw my comment and apologise for my words. When I said I didn’t think I wanted to do that, the fury redoubled. The BB was NOT  a paramilitary organisation nor did it have any connections with a militant group. That, at least , was the core of the towering anger. It was in vain for me to say that the BB wore uniforms, had ranks within the organisation, paraded, saluted, trooped the colour, was called a Brigade  – in short, in dress and rank and actions, they resembled the military. I had cast a huge slur on a fine organisation by saying ‘Like this?’ What I said was that the Boys’ Brigade mimicked various military features. What they heard was that the BB kids were being inducted into a violent organisation.

The second and even more tempestuous occasion came when I wrote about the grisly death of a man who worked in a British army base. The IRA had warned that anyone doing such a thing would be deemed a legitimate target. This man was captured by the IRA, strapped into a truck full of explosives, and forced to drive to a British army check-point, at which stage the explosives were detonated and the man, along with several British soldiers, were killed.

I wrote that when the story of this unfortunate man’s death was told, it almost always left out the fact that he had decided to work in a British base, while knowing that this made him an IRA target. This could be seen as being foolhardy or extremely brave, but it was a fact that he had decided to work there.  I noted that other victims had been killed without ever having done anything at all.

The fury this aroused made the BB affair sound like a gentle breeze. What sort of heartless brute was I to say such a thing? I asked people to tell me what it was I’d said that was untrue, but that didn’t matter. I was a monster. So monstrous that a unionist victims’ group spokesman approached the BBC and told them I must never be heard on the airwaves again. The BBC immediately did what they were told.

Once again, I had said that, to tell the story of this man’s death, it made sense to tell the whole story. That’s not what the twittersphere and others heard. They heard me saying that the man’s horrible death was a good thing. I’d said nothing of the sort but that’s what they heard.

Or maybe they knew exactly what I said and decided to weaponise it. The reason I was stubborn in both cases was that words must have an objective meaning, not a meaning that you or I or anyone decides to inject into them. Or as Lewis Carroll had Humpty-Dumpty say: “When I use a word… it means just what I choose it to mean. ”

That way madness lies.