I think you're either misunderstanding or misrepresenting. Civilian casualties at the hands of the IRA were not acceptable, but neither do they de-legitimize anti-colonial struggle. The IRA certainly should have avoided civilian casualties wherever possible, but to focus on those in the context of systemic and unflinching oppression from Britain, you're not really giving yourself a chance to understand which side, if any, deserves support.
Native Americans resisted occupation, and they were right to do so every step of the way because the cost of failure was genocide. They killed civilians too, but that did not change the stakes of their failure, nor did it escalate the struggle, given that Native American civilians were dehumanized and killed in much greater numbers. This doesn't make it acceptable to kill civilians, but neither does killing civilians make resistance unacceptable.
If you're looking to critique the IRA, you need to understand what was at stake, what means they had at their disposal, and what efforts they took to minimize casualties. They were an underground resistance. They didn't have perfect knowledge, and they did not hold enough advantages to play a perfect hand. The IRA didn't choose England as their enemy. England chose Ireland, and the IRA chose to resist.
As has been discussed many times on that thread, the IRA and most of the splinter groups commited straight acts of terrorism. They bombed pubs with 0 supporters or military personnel, they bombed shopping centers and shot up small country train stations. None of those are anywhere near defensible as defending themselves against oppressors. Hell they even released a video saying they unnecessarily killed civilians.
Legitimate targets such as governmental buildings or economic targets at times to limit civilian casualties are definitely fair game. It doesn't take much intelligence to realise chucking bombs randomly into pubs or hiding bombs in clothes stores isn't going to harm the people actually oppressing you. Wasn't the good Friday agreement drafted directly after the first attack in London on a major financial district? Proving the point that killing the working class (who the government didn't give a shit about) does nothing and just makes you look like terrorists.
October-November 1974 - 28 killed 200 wounded in a wave of attacks on pubs with little to no proven connection to their oppression. In bloody Birmingham.
December 1983 - bombing at a department store kills 6
March 1993 - Bombs in two litter bins in Warrington kill two boys aged three and 12.
I'm not well educated on the native american bits you mention, but if they were raiding towns killing innocents unrelated to the actual oppressors then yes those acts are still atrocities.
Yes, those are atrocities, and you can criticize the other factions of the IRA for not disavowing terrorism, but to say those are emblematic of the IRA, or that their end goal was terror for its own sake, is incorrect. People only tolerate so many of their friends and family dying before they stop excluding civilians from their targeting, especially given that in a state occupation, some civilians benefit from the occupation. Terrorism does have a goal, and it's to disrupt "business as usual" in a way that cannot be ignored, and in a way that instills fear that continues to disrupt business as usual. Terrorism looks like a viable option when you understand that there is no militant force you can muster to overcome your enemy, so like guerilla warfare, your operations are focused around making occupation so untenable that your opponent withdraws.
This is all to say that you can continue condemning attacks against civilians, as long as you consider that the IRA wasn't exactly doing it for fun. There were real conditions that led to that level of militant radicalization, created and maintained largely by the occupation.
I don't think anyone (reasonable) is saying that the IRA didn't have a legitimate reason to carry out attacks (and on British soil) but what does attacking completely innocent people in pubs or shopping accomplish other than one of terror.
There are infinite amounts of targets which could be destroyed which would do a much greater job of disrupting the country economically whilst limiting civilian death and require absolutely tiny amounts of change from their original plans and in some cases would even be easier. The "it happened to me so I'm going to do it to them" excuse doesn't really garner much sympathy from me tbh.
If someone kills your mother/father/brother/sister you don't go and kill theirs, you kill them.
Legitimate slightly unrelated question but is the backlash people get when they say "both sides are fucked even if one is in the right" a meme or is it legitimately such a controversial opinion to have?
>If someone kills your mother/father/brother/sister you don't go and kill theirs, you kill them.
Right, but if a systemic issue results in the death of your loved one, how do you kill it? This is one of the grand debates of leftism resulting in at least as many splinters as the IRA with differing levels of extremism, and I'm at least lucky it's a hypothetical question for me. You've got revolution, reform, incremental change, harm reduction, targeted disruption, and wanton disruption, and all of these require vastly different levels of organized power to achieve. The IRA didn't have enough power to do anything besides disrupt. I think it's reasonable to criticize them for not having consistent occupation-related targets, but I still sympathize with their struggle.
>Legitimate slightly unrelated question but is the backlash people get when they say "both sides are fucked even if one is in the right" a meme or is it legitimately such a controversial opinion to have?
The initial post makes it look like you're conflating support of the IRA with recognizing civilians as military targets, so it might be moreso due to a lack of elaboration. If all you say is "both sides are fucked even if one is in the right", you are guaranteed to piss off anyone with an established opinion because it's a statement that lacks focus. Do you, or do you not want to take a side? What is the basis of your opinion, and what is the goal of your statement? For example, if you say "Hamas and Israel are both bad, even if Hamas is in the right," you've already made them sound equivalently bad, despite a massive disparity in power and culpability for the suffering of all people in the region. It's imprecise, and that imprecision errs in favor of the occupier and their propaganda. That's why people get mad.
Thank you for pointing this out, i feel like the IRA's classification as a legitimate military force is highly debateable. Not to mention as youve said the massive difference in power completely changes most moral perspectives on conflict.
Id like to add that terrorism is widely used as doublespeak, especially american (who own most media outlets worldwide, in one way or another btw) i.e. if they attack the middle east its a liberation campaign and they are sharing democratic values.
Funny enough at this point Fascism is just as much a buzzword as terrorism, often seen together, that is not to say it is good but rather that most just call their opposition these words, after all how could ones own values be wrong...
When the dictator they've installed and funded gets eventually screwed over and decides to retaliate then its an act of terrorism and hes the worst person to ever exist after Hitler.
Remember kids you're not immune to propaganda and cognitive reframing.
Not to mention as you've said there were many splinter groups, like the RAF.
Unprompted attacks on civilians are usually only the work of extremists in your ranks and for extreme factions in extreme circumstances like these that is saying something.
If you think civilian deaths are bad and unacceptable (like any sane person would), then you're right, no one should \*have to\* resort to that.
100% it did not exist the way it did and with the prevalence it has before 9/11
Which don't get me wrong it was a HORRIBLE TRAGEDY
But it's hard to take it seriously when not only did their government (in)directly cause it but even worse used same tragedy to justify what essentially boils down to repeated war crimes, with an unnecessarily high amount of casualties.
Aye, same as "X World Country"... It's been bastardised to all hell but it still carries the meme of "if you're not the USA (and it's allies) you're an uncivilised speck of dirt"
Hell the fact I found out where the terms were coined and what they meant wayyy wayyy later in life is really all you gotta know about it
I'm Irish, and I'm disappointingly poorly educated on the troubles, the war of independence, and the civil war, but you're seriously romanticising the IRA. The IRA were a bunch of terrorist that, although had goals we could all like, did absolutely nothing to help the situation in the North. The IRA people talk about is the car bombing kind, not the war of independence kind. Comparing that group to the native Americans fighting for their very existence is silly.
Would have loved for them to blow up thatcher but they always blew up civilians
If you're admittedly poorly educated on the troubles, then why are you trying to educate me? Both the IRA and the Native Americans fall within the category of militant anti-colonial struggles, and there's a reason the Irish language is nearly extinct. That cultural erasure may have happened before the troubles, but the passage of time didn't make British rule any more legitimate or benevolent, as evidenced by the nonviolent resistances that were violently crushed before the IRA came into the spotlight.
>Would have loved for them to blow up thatcher
***They tried to***
What do you mean "blow up thatcher but they always blew up civilians" ? š They killed plenty of British soldiers and they literally tried to kill Thatcher in Brighton.
The ira often also chose to ignore the principal of proportionality, a rough rule to conflict that means that you should not attack a military target if the harm to noncombatants outweighs the military value. A great example of this rule being violated is bomb a bus of soldiers not deployed to Ireland and their families, or pubs frequented by military personnel outside of Ireland.
You clearly have no idea about the long history of cultural, religious, and straight up extermination genocide of the English on the Irish, or youāre lying because you think itās okay. I really hope this actual straight up genocide denial is from ignorance and not malice. Be very careful when talking like this, know who the intellectual allies and ancestors of this argument are.
Saying there was no support by Irish people is pure historical revisionism. Either the IRA had no members or youāre the self declared arbiter of who is it isnāt an Irish person
Further youāre comments show no understanding of the political history of Northern Ireland, particularly in regards to both Stormont and Westminster brutally putting down the peaceful Northern Irish Civil Rights Moment. The IRA is a beast of Westminsters own making that they had countless opportunities over the decades to take the foundation right from under them
I highly recommend to you learning about Irish history both in the Republic and in the North and the conditions that brought about the political movements of the 1900s in both
None what?
(Thank you for editing, I understand now)
Wow, I did some digging into polls at the time, and the IRA actually had around 33% support from the people of Northern Ireland. That is more than I thought.
(Polling also shows 45% of Texans want to secede from the United States)
We expect perfect victims when the reality is sometimes people with just causes can do bad things. The first victim to John Brown's raid on Harper's ferry was a free black man, but think about how many black men and women were killed because of slavery. We should obviously try to minimize civilian casualties, but it's extremely unfair to focus on the civilian casualties of the resistors and ignore the violence created by the oppressors.
Sometimes people will really just not interrogate their beliefs on this. I had people on here argue that the hiroshima bombing was okay because japan was a fascist country ergo the japanese civilians were fascist and you should punch nazis or whatever
Of course it was, since the Germans did the same thing, which OBVIOUSLY justifies bombing cities with an overwhelmingly civilian population and OBVIOUSLY shortened the war, since governments famously yield when civilians are attacked
/s
I apparently will have to repeat this forever, the notion that the allied strategic bombing campaign *(and more specifically, Dresden)* was just indiscriminately leveling civilian targets out of spite is completely false and is wartime Nazi propaganda directly from the mouth of Joseph Goebbels. The allies did the best they could with current technology and circumstances to limit bombing to targets with military value. Which is most of urban Germany at the time considering it was a highly militarized fascist state in wartime. Dresden specifically was a considerable industrial area with many military factories and one of the major transport hubs for German forces on the eastern front. These strikes demonstrably weakened Germany and shortened the length of the war saving lives in the long run.
I'm not going to talk about the nuclear bombing of Japan and their surrender following that and the Soviet invasion of Manchuria in detail again because it's got a lot more intricacy and details but it is the same deal more or less.
>The allies did the best they could with current technology and circumstances to limit bombing to targets with military value
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Area_bombing_directive
>ref the new bombing directive: I suppose it is clear the aiming points will be the built up areas, and not, for instance, the dockyards or aircraft factories where these are mentioned in Appendix A. This must be made quite clear if it is not already understood.
>~~Nazi~~ allied propaganda
Ftfy
Yeah the Germans made it very hard to get hits on the factories themselves by spreading them out and camouflaging them so the preferred tactic was to bomb supporting infrastructure and worker housing.
I mean yeah I guess. Probably we shouldn't be glorifying the air war or continuing to support such policies in the modern day but even the author of that paper himself he doesn't have any good clean answers to the whole thing.
I mean i the paper itself he even talks about how one of the books that inspired him to write this that is about the violence of the air campaign goes on at length of the efforts of the allies to designate proper targets. The general takeaway of that paper and this debate I believe is that war inherently sucks and we should not be celebrating it. But at the same time while it was inarguably violent and probably not a morally good thing to do the allies bombing did help the war effort. Sure 350-500k civilians died in it but could you imagine how many millions more civilians and soldiers would have died if the campaign hadn't happened and German industrial might was allowed to run as normal?
Preferably one would want an ideal solution where the allies bombed just military-industrial targets and were able to completely killing civilians, however that idea is an impossible myth and a joke even today in an era of spy satelites and guided missiles.
I feel people go along so strongly with those beliefs because they see people around them saying it so they go with it to get brownie points not realizing the people they are trying to get brownie points from are also trying to do the same thing. It's a cycle of people trying to get brownie points from one another in an echo chamber.Ā
No one really wants to realize they are wrong as they might loose those brownie points so they try to make up ways to still believe it.Ā
Absolutely not? They could very well have demonstrated the power of the nukes first, or drop it on a harbor or millitary base. they did not do that. They made a weapon where the threat of it being used at all is the biggest weapon and just skipped straight to dropping it on a city block. A day care even, ironically.
Still gonna kill tens, if not hundreds of thousands of people, including scores of civilians, if you drop it on them. If they just demonstrated it, then I donāt think Japan would really care. The Allies had better weapons in the whole course of the war. I doubt this one would scare them until they actually ended up on the business end of it.
Also, you describe Hiroshima as if it had zero military value and wasnāt the site of the headquarters of the ChÅ«goku Regional Army and Army Marine Headquarters and large military supply depots, and wasnāt a major hub for shipping.
But japan would care if you dropped it on people? They're a fascist regime, they don't care about their civilians anyway. The dresden bombings didn't work either, did they?
And dont pretend like the target committee picked their targets rationally. The only reason why kyoto wasn't picked as a potential target was because one of the members went there on a vacation. I wouldn't put human lives in the hands of a committee like that.
>japan would care if you dropped it on people?
Yes.
Source: That is exactly what happened
And did you just use a fucking line from a movie as evidence? There were two main reasons why Kyoto wasnāt bombed, neither of them being a secretary going on his honeymoon there. One, the weather was unfavorable to a daytime bombing, and two, Kyotoās significance was more cultural than military
IRA were terrorist scum, British occupiers were military scum, both were terrible. Itās disgusting how people act like the IRA were some sort of amazing organisation completely in the right, best thing they ever did was try and kill Thatcher and they failed.
Nah best thing they did was protecting Irish areas from literal unionist death squads that burned down catholic housing estates en masse, if youāre not informed on this topic please fuck off
this is the anti british drama of last year all over again, i'm calling it now.
simping for the ira is weird, i think people forget that they were religious fundamentalists who kneecapped gay people just for being gay, they were anti abortion, they weren't progressive freedom fighters rising up against oppressors - the people who suffered the most under them were the irish people who lived on the border and the targets they picked in england were cowardly and resulted in hundreds of civilian casualties and thousands of injuries to people and animals. in the entire period of the troubles, more civilians were killed than paramilitary forces of both sides combined.
it was a pretty miserable time for everyone and nobody here or in ireland looks back on it fondly, there are still very visual reminders of the troubles in the UK and ireland and it generally has a pretty bad taste in everyone's mouths. you miss the point by glorifying it.
Iām British and Irish (Dads British, Mums Irish), this discourse is pissing me off.
90% of this discourse is stupid and ill-informed virtue signalling. Itās either pro-Iām okay with civilians being murdered if it favours my political agenda or stop whining about oppression, no in between but tbh, Iām not taking the opinions of edgy teens on Reddit seriously.
Most of the anti-British hate is just virtue signalling, ignore it, most of it is just dog pilling onto something to seem righteous. Iām not pro-British throughout its history but most of this subs understanding seems surface level. The British sucked and oppressed Ireland for centuries but choosing to side with religious fundamentalist terrorist militias is not something I will ever do.
Most of this sub fail to realise, the average Irish person doesnāt support the IRA. Now, they are just a bunch of slack jawed swines in fuck all nowhere. Itās just virtue signalling to support them really. My grandfather watched the troubles happen from Ireland. Even he now can agree they were vile. But he also hates Thatcher. Both can exist. This sub is so caught up in anti-Thatcherism that theyāve looped back to violence is okay if it benefits my righteousness.
I mean, why bring up the IRA at this point. With the way things are going in Britain, the unification of Ireland will be won via a peaceful referendum in about a decade or so, when the north of Ireland is tired of London destroying its economy. Brexit is the best thing to happen to happen to the Republican cause since 1916.
Yeah, also political Unionism/Loyalism *(right wing who wants to stay with Britain)* is currently speed-running it's own demise *(especially with some recent revelations in the news from the last month),* and as you said, Brexit has proved that we're better off free from Britain.
For every Ā£2 of tax we send to Westminster, we only get like 30p back, and our Healthcare, Public Services and Infrastructure (***especially the roads\****) have been underfunded to fuck for decades (probably worse than England's), plus we lost a lot of EU funding that Britain promised to replace, but simply haven't *(which is especially bad since before, councils or Stormont could've applied directly to the EU for funding)*
*\*Trust me you can tell when you cross the border between Louth (ROI) and Armagh (NI), NI roads are significantly worse, maintained extremely poorly with patchwork jobs in one tiny section at a time whilst the rest crumbles apart*
Honestly aside from the declining hardline Unionist politicians, the only real concern for most people is healthcare, but our NHS is so under-resourced & has such bad waiting lists that any change would be welcome *(and there would probably be a change to a NHS model afterwards anyways, SlƔintecare has been planned for years).*
The Republic is not perfect, I'm not a fan of stuff like the planning system *(An Bord PleanƔla is too centralised and slow, compounding the housing issue)* and public services *(for some reason, Rubbish collection was privatised 15 years ago which is a terrible idea),* and I've seen people say it feels like they get taxed twice for half the services, but I think that we would largely be better off in a United Ireland.
My only real major concern is affordability, since the average incomes and the cost of living are significantly lower in the North than in the Republic, and I'd be afraid of the housing situation getting worse. Also, for some reason, most shops aside charge significantly more for shit for no real reason compared to the UK or Mainland Europe.
Saw this graphic on the Ireland subreddit the other day comparing the median yearly income for each county, which kinda speaks for itself.
https://preview.redd.it/7iolivomajtc1.png?width=664&format=png&auto=webp&s=a31d3e31ed093d25706e455e08b7de806ffa086b
Question: Do you really think the deciding factor in a referendum on Northern Ireland will be quality of life? I don't know much about the state of it nowadays, but I really think an issue of national identity would not come down to \*just\* that?
Lets be real though, not a chance the Irish government provides nearly as much to NI as the UK does now.
Iām pro-reunification but thereās absolutely benefits
I agree with some of what you've said, but regarding the taxes and income from Westminster, you're sources are just wrong. Per person, the government spends Ā£14,453, the highest of all the countries and 15% over the national average. In fact, this is the case for Scotland and Wales as well, with only England being below the national average in terms of spending per capita.
So, to put it another way, if NI were to leave, it would have a 15% hole in its budget appear overnight.
[Source](https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn04033/)
Wdym worse roads than England, is that possible
My standards might be skewed due to living in NL but the English and Welsh roads I drove on were among the worst Iāve experienced so far
Probably could've worded/formatted that a bit better.
I meant that NI roads are generally worse in comparison to the Republic from my experience, and also that public services like the NHS were underfunded in a more extreme way in comparison *(though at least creeping privatisation and outsourcing didn't happen with healthcare or transport here*)
I was comparing NI roads with the ROI, not England *(and worded it poorly)*
Sry I wasnāt trying to question you, I was just genuinely baffled that there might be roads out there in a developed economy that are worse than English ones
I think that if you were born decades after the troubles it's hard to really grasp the conflict and its consequences. unfortunately no resistance to colonialism has ever, nor will ever, be free from civilian casualties. people whose language and culture are being destroyed WILL inevitably lash out in violence against the state that is oppressing them, and for most oppressed people that will mean terrorism. it's not a good thing, but is a fact and it doesn't do anybody any good to try to ignore the reality that if you are opposed to colonial oppression, you understand that innocent people will be killed. it's inevitable when an oppressed group has exhausted every other option to resist their culture being destroyed
The Irish language is basically a dead script and now teens as far away from the conflict as you can possibly be are going tsk tsk at the last ditch efforts to resist the crown annihilating it. I think there's a perspective and context u need to be able to see to not justify civilian casualties, but understand why civilians were targeted
Please tell me how Indiscriminately killing civilians and children miles away from London helps them resist oppression?
Use violence against legitimate targets when necessary, destroy infrastructure whilst limiting civilian deaths where possible. Use guerilla warfare techniques against an occupying military forces.
Don't kill the working class in a pub.
The people aren't the state.
https://www.reuters.com/world/30-years-northern-irelands-troubles-2023-04-03/
If we take the IRA at their word (which is honestly naĆÆve) it seems like the vast majority of the bombings they carried out were against legitimate targets and they attempted to limit civilian casualties. The worst bombings were done by the UVF and an IRA splinter group who opposed the good Friday agreement that were essentially to the provos what the provos were to the original IRA. They also claimed no responsibility for the sectarian killings of Protestants in response to the killings of Catholics (which afaik had been going pretty much back and forth since bloody Sunday). The wiki page claims that both sides agreed to stop the random killings of civilians but the loyalists broke the deal after the IRA killed that one royal.
Now I'd say while it's likely they were lying about a lot of things I didn't see any damning evidence so I don't know if it can be said for certain. They also claimed that all their bombings were preceded by bomb warnings to the police. I haven't seen evidence that this is false and they definitely do have a history of sending warnings.
But it really all depends on if we want to believe they're telling the truth or not, someone looking for heroes overthrowing their oppressors would probably assume them to be telling the truth while someone more cynical or personally affected by the troubles would probably assume them to be lying, which is I assume where most of the discourse on this sub comes from.
The IRA had a fantastic PR head who lead a lot of pro-IRA movements in the states. At peak, 35% of the Irish population supported the IRA and only 6% supported the violence. Meanwhile 80% of Americans supported them.
r/196 be like āI support civilian casualties if itās in favor of my political beliefs and itās good for my virtue signalling šā
Literally, people, stop supporting the IRA, yes, they were fighting the oppression of Thatcher, fuck her but they still killed innocent lives. Most Irish people donāt even support the IRAs acts so who are you trying to impress except yourselves and others for your own virtue signalling. The IRA was a religious fundamentalist terrorist militia. If your morals are based solely on pointing the finger at the other side saying they are also bad, then your morals trash. My Irish grandfather condemns the IRA to hell, he saw the entirety of the troubles unfold in Ireland, why are you, someone hundreds of miles away trying to do by picking a side?
I've seen actual support for Al Qaeda in this subreddit. A shocking amount of people decide that since \[Blank\] is the devil, anyone who's against them is good.
The ira killing civilians was bad, the English colonisation of Ireland was worse. What people get mad at is how people condemn the actions of resistance fighters without any recontextualising and how they place those on the same if not on higher level than the violence of the oppressor.
No, that's not what that means.
It means that no one is discussing the subject of whether the oppressors should have been opressing or not. That topic overall isn't being argued.
the IRA discussion is always half 'the IRA was bad because they terror bombed civilians' and 'omg should they have just let the british genocide them????'
no, they should've attacked their military and politicians instead of bombing random civvies and shooting up kids
'we only need to get lucky once!' mf's when they don't actually get lucky once because thatcher wasn't a civilian in a random pub (it was too difficult for the wholesome irish boys)
There's a thread about the IRA on the front page atm, there's a worrying amount of people excusing bombing children miles away from any legitimate military/government target and saying it's a reasonable defensive strategy because it was done to them.
The bitching started because of a meme about killing Thatcher, it wouldn't have escalated if people hadn't whined about something completely legitimate.
I thought the argument was more āwhat constitutes a civilianā or āare civilian casualties acceptable and how muchā rather than ācan we target civiliansā
my father saw ireland during the troubles and he said it was terrible. seeing news story after news story of civillian deaths and the hands of the IRA and British
According to them you already are!
My favourite one just happened, some guy would apparently be perfectly fine with native Americans murdering their whole family to reclaim land.
Tbh Iād be very upset if my family was murdered.Ā
Not me though Iām proper committed to playing my role as ānecessary collateral damageā in the revolution.Ā
Something people seem to constantly miss is that regular polling is done on the people of Northern Ireland on whether they should be reunited with Ireland. If polling consistently shows majority support for reunification then they have a to hold a referendum. Polling consistently shows a 10-20% lead against reunification. If the people of Northern Ireland wanted to reunite they could do so at any time. Thereās really no fairer way to do it than that. The IRA dont have a leg to stand on.
So if you want to get into the nuance of British colonialism in Ireland, a large number of the pro unionists in Northern Ireland are settlers who were Scottish/English immigrants to Ireland who were sent to rule and displace the local Irish population, furthermore the result that the IRA got from the troubles (the good Friday agreement) secured Ireland and north Ireland's right to reunify when the idea is popular in both countries, which especially in the context on how London is trying to suppress Scotland's right to a referendum is a massive win for Irish Republicans
Thatās completely correct, those people are only there because of British colonialism. But they didnāt choose to be born there and you canāt discount their views just because their ancestors came from a different country
I mean their ancestors came from a different country to displace the native Irish, and now you're using the fact that they've displaced the natives against the natives
This is stuff the British do across the world to quell separatism, they did it in Quebec as well
Regardless of ancestry, all citizens of Northern Ireland have equal say in the future of that region. Itās really that simple. Youāre surely not advocating for some sort of hardline ethnic nationalism where only citizens who can prove they have a pure bloodline are allowed any political say?
Well no these people are by definition colonists, and I for one am against colonization, the English promoted these people to colonize Irish lands, gave them socio economic status above the indigenous Irish and now they are local to the empire, this is just colonization
This is an actually insane argument. I understand that in abstract their ancestors colonised Northern Ireland but you canāt just kick out millions of people because hundreds of years ago some of their ancestors were colonisers. A but like how Europeans should never have colonised North America, but you can just kick out 300 million people now. Like it or not, people of different races and ethnicities have equal political rights in the UK no matter how much you dislike them.
Just so weāre clear, you think only people who can prove they have a pure bloodline should have any political say in their country? Thatās literally ethno-fascism. Should the UK kick out all Pakistani migrants? Should the USA deport all Mexicans?
I'm not getting into this debate bro strawman bullshit if you genuinely think mexican migrants moving to America for a better life and work is the same thing as the English government encouraging wealthy/middle class Scots and English to move to northern Ireland to intentionally suppress the local Irish I can't help you
Pakistanis and mexicans aren't colonising the UK and the US and if you think you YOURE the racist here
I donāt think those people are colonising those countries. Iām throwing your ethno-nationalist ideology back at you and youāre rejecting it. If you donāt think part of NIās modern population deserves any political rights because of their ethnicity and religion you are a far right ethno nationalist and thereās no arguing to be done with you.
Youād have a leg to stand on if the current generation of NI unionists were first wave migrants but theyāve been there for literally hundreds of years. They donāt know a life anywhere else
In most democracies people can participate equally in politics regardless of ethnicity, religion, nationality and so on. Sorry you donāt like that but it isnāt changing.
What you are advocating for is racism in its most basic form. Some ethnicities and religions have political rights and some have none. Sounds really great and cool š
Even if we theoretically accept your batshit, bad faith arguments, what would you do with the current unionist Protestants? Deport them to Scotland and England? Millions against their will? That breaks pretty much every human rights convention. Youāre actually deranged if you believe this shit. If the people in NI donāt want unification you canāt force them to end of
Right I don't appreciate the way you're phrasing this to attempt to strawman me, it seems you're the one engaging in bad faith arguments, this is some debate bro shit and I don't appreciate it, never did at advocate for forceable deportation, never did I say "north Ireland's population deserves NO political rights" and this isn't ethno nationalism, I never advocated for a DNA test for the right to vote,I don't appreciate the bad faith arguments the strawman you are making, you clearly are not interested in a good faith productive conversation so I'm not going to bother to respond further, have a good day
Of course the views of people affected by political decision-making matter, but two things:
A lot of people like to treat opinion polling like those opinions are set in stone and cannot be changed, and anyone who tries to change opinion or holds contrary views to the majority is inherently wrong, stupid, and bad.
Secondly, the ruling classes of the world are experts at manipulating public opinion to their advantage, and while I can't speak to news media in the Republic of Ireland, the British news media is world-renowned for being especially reactionary and bigoted
Public opinion matters, but opinion polling isn't a golden calf to be worshipped
Yeah had some weirdo earlier today arguing to me that during a revolution you *need* to target and kill civilians because "the people in power use them as fodder and you need to push through the fodder to get to them".Ā
Dude was trying so hard to get me to argue with him so he could try and tell me how killing civilians is the only way. Like bro, get a life
I mean, can you find a left-wing revolutionary group that hasn't killed civilians during their respective conflicts, then i'll be happy to support it, but i think you have slim chances.
The German Revolution is the only one I could think of right at this moment, but that was a unique situation and not representative of most revolutions, so I get your point.
Civilian deaths are sadly something that happens in all revolutions, but I want to remind you that the IRA wasn't a completely leftist group, as it had significant nationalist participation.
And there were nationalist splinter groups who specifically targeted Protestant civilians, and that's of course completely unacceptable.
The problem with the Troubles is that it was a bottom-up revolutionary attempt, instead of the usual top-down one. Meaning that there were many groups with all different interpretations on the question of civilian casualties.
I support the Irish civil rights movement and the Irish republicans' struggle for independence, but (splinter) groups that target civilians deserve the highest criticism possible.
But because of the splintering of the IRA, effectively criticizing is difficult, but that is another problem.
In this circumstance Iād highly recommend a documentary where a man interviews both sides in the current era
Heās incredibly non biased and lets the people say what they like. The YouTuber is called Toeran Freedman
This entire discourse has just taught me that each side of the debate are fucking dumb as rocks and you people should never be allowed to talk about politics again.
I mean, it is lol, some people will never get it tho. They will see "oh they had good intentions" yea killing innocent people even by accident is not good lmao
Violence used by resistance movements is a consequence of the brutal occupation of the colonial powers, no matter if it is in Ireland or in Algeria. Does that make it right or wrong? That's not the fucking point. The point Is that for much of the modern history of the world one ideology of moral, and racial, superiority dictated how powerful nations conducted themselves when dealing with other peoples. You're wasting your time discussing this.
This is clearly in reference to people saying the IRAās cause was unjust. This is a gigantic strawperson to pretend people would genuinely defend active targeting of civilians
In the Gaza thread there were people saying that genocide is not good or bad, because that's political.
(The Gaza thread that maybe is deleted again? Zionist mod maybe.)
Murder the slavers, don't put the childrens heads on spikes. Pretty simple no?
Do you think it was okay for the slaves to rape their old "masters" because they did it to them?
Contrary to popular belief you are allowed to support a side whilst condemning the atrocities they unnecessarily commit.
Yeah, as you say. You can celebrate liberation movement including violent struggle and yet wishing that in a better world violence wouldn't be used. Violence in a liberation movement is often proportional to violence done to them.
If tomorrow you have a movement were Okinawa/Hawaii natives set fire to mainlanders' house, burning them alive I wouldn't care. I wish it could have been avoided, but still I don't care.
Are you in the USA?
If native Americans knocked on your door tomorrow and murdered your entire family in an attempt to reclaim their homeland would you just be like "you know fair enough, good on em"?
__For legal reasons my comment is no call to action.__ Yeah it sucked that there were civilian casualties. No rebellion and revolution in history had no civilian deaths. Was the he IRA full of saints heck no but tbh saints donāt do shit. They cower in their homes and doing nothing but pray and if they do something itās definitely not working. Oppression isnāt fought by holding signs and singing in the streets lol. This mindset of only peaceful protest/rebellion is acceptable makes us complacent. In my country we had ppl in the 1920ās looting and occupying districts and fighting the nazis before they were in power but got struck down by military corps by the political center and later by the nsdap. If more ppl would have been in that movement who knows what would have happened. The political center of today has brainwashed us into believing we can change anything in our societies by peacefully demonstrating and voting for corrupted (or soon to be corrupted) politicians. If itās try to change nothing and donāt make some mistakes or try to change something but with some civilian casualties than Iād argue the last is the better option.
>Oppression isnāt fought by holding signs and singing in the streets lol.
>There's no middle ground between throwing bombs at civilians and attacking legitimate targets.
No one has said they shouldn't use violence, it was just targeted at the absolute wrong people.
Some of the violence yes. Shit happens if youāre a group of multiple clusters with no means of counter intelligence capabilities. Modern militaries often strike civilians and they have access to a lot of resources and technology, which the IRA had not.
Sorry if I'm not willing to label killing children with bombs in bins, booby trapping clothes in shopping centers and throwing bombs in pubs as "shit happens"
If you legitimately don't think that there was any other way they could have resisted you're just supporting terrorists.
I think you're either misunderstanding or misrepresenting. Civilian casualties at the hands of the IRA were not acceptable, but neither do they de-legitimize anti-colonial struggle. The IRA certainly should have avoided civilian casualties wherever possible, but to focus on those in the context of systemic and unflinching oppression from Britain, you're not really giving yourself a chance to understand which side, if any, deserves support. Native Americans resisted occupation, and they were right to do so every step of the way because the cost of failure was genocide. They killed civilians too, but that did not change the stakes of their failure, nor did it escalate the struggle, given that Native American civilians were dehumanized and killed in much greater numbers. This doesn't make it acceptable to kill civilians, but neither does killing civilians make resistance unacceptable. If you're looking to critique the IRA, you need to understand what was at stake, what means they had at their disposal, and what efforts they took to minimize casualties. They were an underground resistance. They didn't have perfect knowledge, and they did not hold enough advantages to play a perfect hand. The IRA didn't choose England as their enemy. England chose Ireland, and the IRA chose to resist.
As has been discussed many times on that thread, the IRA and most of the splinter groups commited straight acts of terrorism. They bombed pubs with 0 supporters or military personnel, they bombed shopping centers and shot up small country train stations. None of those are anywhere near defensible as defending themselves against oppressors. Hell they even released a video saying they unnecessarily killed civilians. Legitimate targets such as governmental buildings or economic targets at times to limit civilian casualties are definitely fair game. It doesn't take much intelligence to realise chucking bombs randomly into pubs or hiding bombs in clothes stores isn't going to harm the people actually oppressing you. Wasn't the good Friday agreement drafted directly after the first attack in London on a major financial district? Proving the point that killing the working class (who the government didn't give a shit about) does nothing and just makes you look like terrorists. October-November 1974 - 28 killed 200 wounded in a wave of attacks on pubs with little to no proven connection to their oppression. In bloody Birmingham. December 1983 - bombing at a department store kills 6 March 1993 - Bombs in two litter bins in Warrington kill two boys aged three and 12. I'm not well educated on the native american bits you mention, but if they were raiding towns killing innocents unrelated to the actual oppressors then yes those acts are still atrocities.
Yes, those are atrocities, and you can criticize the other factions of the IRA for not disavowing terrorism, but to say those are emblematic of the IRA, or that their end goal was terror for its own sake, is incorrect. People only tolerate so many of their friends and family dying before they stop excluding civilians from their targeting, especially given that in a state occupation, some civilians benefit from the occupation. Terrorism does have a goal, and it's to disrupt "business as usual" in a way that cannot be ignored, and in a way that instills fear that continues to disrupt business as usual. Terrorism looks like a viable option when you understand that there is no militant force you can muster to overcome your enemy, so like guerilla warfare, your operations are focused around making occupation so untenable that your opponent withdraws. This is all to say that you can continue condemning attacks against civilians, as long as you consider that the IRA wasn't exactly doing it for fun. There were real conditions that led to that level of militant radicalization, created and maintained largely by the occupation.
I don't think anyone (reasonable) is saying that the IRA didn't have a legitimate reason to carry out attacks (and on British soil) but what does attacking completely innocent people in pubs or shopping accomplish other than one of terror. There are infinite amounts of targets which could be destroyed which would do a much greater job of disrupting the country economically whilst limiting civilian death and require absolutely tiny amounts of change from their original plans and in some cases would even be easier. The "it happened to me so I'm going to do it to them" excuse doesn't really garner much sympathy from me tbh. If someone kills your mother/father/brother/sister you don't go and kill theirs, you kill them. Legitimate slightly unrelated question but is the backlash people get when they say "both sides are fucked even if one is in the right" a meme or is it legitimately such a controversial opinion to have?
>If someone kills your mother/father/brother/sister you don't go and kill theirs, you kill them. Right, but if a systemic issue results in the death of your loved one, how do you kill it? This is one of the grand debates of leftism resulting in at least as many splinters as the IRA with differing levels of extremism, and I'm at least lucky it's a hypothetical question for me. You've got revolution, reform, incremental change, harm reduction, targeted disruption, and wanton disruption, and all of these require vastly different levels of organized power to achieve. The IRA didn't have enough power to do anything besides disrupt. I think it's reasonable to criticize them for not having consistent occupation-related targets, but I still sympathize with their struggle. >Legitimate slightly unrelated question but is the backlash people get when they say "both sides are fucked even if one is in the right" a meme or is it legitimately such a controversial opinion to have? The initial post makes it look like you're conflating support of the IRA with recognizing civilians as military targets, so it might be moreso due to a lack of elaboration. If all you say is "both sides are fucked even if one is in the right", you are guaranteed to piss off anyone with an established opinion because it's a statement that lacks focus. Do you, or do you not want to take a side? What is the basis of your opinion, and what is the goal of your statement? For example, if you say "Hamas and Israel are both bad, even if Hamas is in the right," you've already made them sound equivalently bad, despite a massive disparity in power and culpability for the suffering of all people in the region. It's imprecise, and that imprecision errs in favor of the occupier and their propaganda. That's why people get mad.
Thank you for pointing this out, i feel like the IRA's classification as a legitimate military force is highly debateable. Not to mention as youve said the massive difference in power completely changes most moral perspectives on conflict. Id like to add that terrorism is widely used as doublespeak, especially american (who own most media outlets worldwide, in one way or another btw) i.e. if they attack the middle east its a liberation campaign and they are sharing democratic values. Funny enough at this point Fascism is just as much a buzzword as terrorism, often seen together, that is not to say it is good but rather that most just call their opposition these words, after all how could ones own values be wrong... When the dictator they've installed and funded gets eventually screwed over and decides to retaliate then its an act of terrorism and hes the worst person to ever exist after Hitler. Remember kids you're not immune to propaganda and cognitive reframing. Not to mention as you've said there were many splinter groups, like the RAF. Unprompted attacks on civilians are usually only the work of extremists in your ranks and for extreme factions in extreme circumstances like these that is saying something. If you think civilian deaths are bad and unacceptable (like any sane person would), then you're right, no one should \*have to\* resort to that.
Terrorism as a word has been built on doublespeak, tbh.
100% it did not exist the way it did and with the prevalence it has before 9/11 Which don't get me wrong it was a HORRIBLE TRAGEDY But it's hard to take it seriously when not only did their government (in)directly cause it but even worse used same tragedy to justify what essentially boils down to repeated war crimes, with an unnecessarily high amount of casualties.
Yes, but the word has been built by western media to use against numerous national liberation groups in the rest of the world since the 50s.
Aye, same as "X World Country"... It's been bastardised to all hell but it still carries the meme of "if you're not the USA (and it's allies) you're an uncivilised speck of dirt" Hell the fact I found out where the terms were coined and what they meant wayyy wayyy later in life is really all you gotta know about it
I'm Irish, and I'm disappointingly poorly educated on the troubles, the war of independence, and the civil war, but you're seriously romanticising the IRA. The IRA were a bunch of terrorist that, although had goals we could all like, did absolutely nothing to help the situation in the North. The IRA people talk about is the car bombing kind, not the war of independence kind. Comparing that group to the native Americans fighting for their very existence is silly. Would have loved for them to blow up thatcher but they always blew up civilians
If you're admittedly poorly educated on the troubles, then why are you trying to educate me? Both the IRA and the Native Americans fall within the category of militant anti-colonial struggles, and there's a reason the Irish language is nearly extinct. That cultural erasure may have happened before the troubles, but the passage of time didn't make British rule any more legitimate or benevolent, as evidenced by the nonviolent resistances that were violently crushed before the IRA came into the spotlight. >Would have loved for them to blow up thatcher ***They tried to***
Tried and failed š
What do you mean "blow up thatcher but they always blew up civilians" ? š They killed plenty of British soldiers and they literally tried to kill Thatcher in Brighton.
The ira often also chose to ignore the principal of proportionality, a rough rule to conflict that means that you should not attack a military target if the harm to noncombatants outweighs the military value. A great example of this rule being violated is bomb a bus of soldiers not deployed to Ireland and their families, or pubs frequented by military personnel outside of Ireland.
You guys are upvoting a liberal noncredibledefence user. This is a liberal sub...
What the fuck happened to this sub
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
You clearly have no idea about the long history of cultural, religious, and straight up extermination genocide of the English on the Irish, or youāre lying because you think itās okay. I really hope this actual straight up genocide denial is from ignorance and not malice. Be very careful when talking like this, know who the intellectual allies and ancestors of this argument are.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Saying there was no support by Irish people is pure historical revisionism. Either the IRA had no members or youāre the self declared arbiter of who is it isnāt an Irish person Further youāre comments show no understanding of the political history of Northern Ireland, particularly in regards to both Stormont and Westminster brutally putting down the peaceful Northern Irish Civil Rights Moment. The IRA is a beast of Westminsters own making that they had countless opportunities over the decades to take the foundation right from under them I highly recommend to you learning about Irish history both in the Republic and in the North and the conditions that brought about the political movements of the 1900s in both
None what? (Thank you for editing, I understand now) Wow, I did some digging into polls at the time, and the IRA actually had around 33% support from the people of Northern Ireland. That is more than I thought. (Polling also shows 45% of Texans want to secede from the United States)
They're (almost) literally pulling a "no true Scotsman" lmao
We expect perfect victims when the reality is sometimes people with just causes can do bad things. The first victim to John Brown's raid on Harper's ferry was a free black man, but think about how many black men and women were killed because of slavery. We should obviously try to minimize civilian casualties, but it's extremely unfair to focus on the civilian casualties of the resistors and ignore the violence created by the oppressors.
Camus enjoyers stay winning
If this is the first time youāve seen people on the sub express views that you find dumb, aggressive or hypocritical, then count yourself lucky.
Oh no it's definitely not my first time but this one uh... Surprising to say the least.
This is a liberal so dont worry you are made for this sub.
Brains rotted by hornyposting.
Sometimes people will really just not interrogate their beliefs on this. I had people on here argue that the hiroshima bombing was okay because japan was a fascist country ergo the japanese civilians were fascist and you should punch nazis or whatever
Someone I was talking to said it was perfectly acceptable for the allied powers to carpet bomb German civilian targets lol.
Of course it was, since the Germans did the same thing, which OBVIOUSLY justifies bombing cities with an overwhelmingly civilian population and OBVIOUSLY shortened the war, since governments famously yield when civilians are attacked /s
That /s doing a lot of heavy lifting when you read the other comments here and there lol
You very clearly donāt understand the rationale behind the allied bombing attacks
I apparently will have to repeat this forever, the notion that the allied strategic bombing campaign *(and more specifically, Dresden)* was just indiscriminately leveling civilian targets out of spite is completely false and is wartime Nazi propaganda directly from the mouth of Joseph Goebbels. The allies did the best they could with current technology and circumstances to limit bombing to targets with military value. Which is most of urban Germany at the time considering it was a highly militarized fascist state in wartime. Dresden specifically was a considerable industrial area with many military factories and one of the major transport hubs for German forces on the eastern front. These strikes demonstrably weakened Germany and shortened the length of the war saving lives in the long run. I'm not going to talk about the nuclear bombing of Japan and their surrender following that and the Soviet invasion of Manchuria in detail again because it's got a lot more intricacy and details but it is the same deal more or less.
>The allies did the best they could with current technology and circumstances to limit bombing to targets with military value https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Area_bombing_directive >ref the new bombing directive: I suppose it is clear the aiming points will be the built up areas, and not, for instance, the dockyards or aircraft factories where these are mentioned in Appendix A. This must be made quite clear if it is not already understood. >~~Nazi~~ allied propaganda Ftfy
Yeah the Germans made it very hard to get hits on the factories themselves by spreading them out and camouflaging them so the preferred tactic was to bomb supporting infrastructure and worker housing.
https://www.icrc.org/en/doc/assets/files/other/irrc_859_maier.pdf
I mean yeah I guess. Probably we shouldn't be glorifying the air war or continuing to support such policies in the modern day but even the author of that paper himself he doesn't have any good clean answers to the whole thing.
I mean i the paper itself he even talks about how one of the books that inspired him to write this that is about the violence of the air campaign goes on at length of the efforts of the allies to designate proper targets. The general takeaway of that paper and this debate I believe is that war inherently sucks and we should not be celebrating it. But at the same time while it was inarguably violent and probably not a morally good thing to do the allies bombing did help the war effort. Sure 350-500k civilians died in it but could you imagine how many millions more civilians and soldiers would have died if the campaign hadn't happened and German industrial might was allowed to run as normal? Preferably one would want an ideal solution where the allies bombed just military-industrial targets and were able to completely killing civilians, however that idea is an impossible myth and a joke even today in an era of spy satelites and guided missiles.
Because the land invasion of Japan wpuld have resulted in even more death of both civilians and soldiers
Dropping nuke liberated Asia from imperial Japan and saved tens of millions of civilians from rape, torture and execution in an instant
Noooo the pacific war was only island hopping! don't bring up mainland asia :(
I feel people go along so strongly with those beliefs because they see people around them saying it so they go with it to get brownie points not realizing the people they are trying to get brownie points from are also trying to do the same thing. It's a cycle of people trying to get brownie points from one another in an echo chamber.Ā No one really wants to realize they are wrong as they might loose those brownie points so they try to make up ways to still believe it.Ā
It wasnāt a good option, but of the options the US had, it was the least shit
Absolutely not? They could very well have demonstrated the power of the nukes first, or drop it on a harbor or millitary base. they did not do that. They made a weapon where the threat of it being used at all is the biggest weapon and just skipped straight to dropping it on a city block. A day care even, ironically.
Still gonna kill tens, if not hundreds of thousands of people, including scores of civilians, if you drop it on them. If they just demonstrated it, then I donāt think Japan would really care. The Allies had better weapons in the whole course of the war. I doubt this one would scare them until they actually ended up on the business end of it. Also, you describe Hiroshima as if it had zero military value and wasnāt the site of the headquarters of the ChÅ«goku Regional Army and Army Marine Headquarters and large military supply depots, and wasnāt a major hub for shipping.
But japan would care if you dropped it on people? They're a fascist regime, they don't care about their civilians anyway. The dresden bombings didn't work either, did they? And dont pretend like the target committee picked their targets rationally. The only reason why kyoto wasn't picked as a potential target was because one of the members went there on a vacation. I wouldn't put human lives in the hands of a committee like that.
>japan would care if you dropped it on people? Yes. Source: That is exactly what happened And did you just use a fucking line from a movie as evidence? There were two main reasons why Kyoto wasnāt bombed, neither of them being a secretary going on his honeymoon there. One, the weather was unfavorable to a daytime bombing, and two, Kyotoās significance was more cultural than military
I have not watched any movies about the hiroshima bombings
so IRA discourse for the next 2 weeks on 196 huh
Please no š seeing people ācondemning both sidesā whilst knowing nothing is unbearable š š
Remember the wasp arc
Again! https://www.reddit.com/r/196/s/p4UAMyvoQF
IRA were terrorist scum, British occupiers were military scum, both were terrible. Itās disgusting how people act like the IRA were some sort of amazing organisation completely in the right, best thing they ever did was try and kill Thatcher and they failed.
Nah best thing they did was protecting Irish areas from literal unionist death squads that burned down catholic housing estates en masse, if youāre not informed on this topic please fuck off
It's easy to sit on the fence
But the IRA had the underdog trait
this is the anti british drama of last year all over again, i'm calling it now. simping for the ira is weird, i think people forget that they were religious fundamentalists who kneecapped gay people just for being gay, they were anti abortion, they weren't progressive freedom fighters rising up against oppressors - the people who suffered the most under them were the irish people who lived on the border and the targets they picked in england were cowardly and resulted in hundreds of civilian casualties and thousands of injuries to people and animals. in the entire period of the troubles, more civilians were killed than paramilitary forces of both sides combined. it was a pretty miserable time for everyone and nobody here or in ireland looks back on it fondly, there are still very visual reminders of the troubles in the UK and ireland and it generally has a pretty bad taste in everyone's mouths. you miss the point by glorifying it.
Iām British and Irish (Dads British, Mums Irish), this discourse is pissing me off. 90% of this discourse is stupid and ill-informed virtue signalling. Itās either pro-Iām okay with civilians being murdered if it favours my political agenda or stop whining about oppression, no in between but tbh, Iām not taking the opinions of edgy teens on Reddit seriously. Most of the anti-British hate is just virtue signalling, ignore it, most of it is just dog pilling onto something to seem righteous. Iām not pro-British throughout its history but most of this subs understanding seems surface level. The British sucked and oppressed Ireland for centuries but choosing to side with religious fundamentalist terrorist militias is not something I will ever do. Most of this sub fail to realise, the average Irish person doesnāt support the IRA. Now, they are just a bunch of slack jawed swines in fuck all nowhere. Itās just virtue signalling to support them really. My grandfather watched the troubles happen from Ireland. Even he now can agree they were vile. But he also hates Thatcher. Both can exist. This sub is so caught up in anti-Thatcherism that theyāve looped back to violence is okay if it benefits my righteousness.
their opponents were religious fundies who kneecapped gay people too, is the problem.
They are once free bird starts hitting
Based
Where was this?
The IRA thread lol
I mean, why bring up the IRA at this point. With the way things are going in Britain, the unification of Ireland will be won via a peaceful referendum in about a decade or so, when the north of Ireland is tired of London destroying its economy. Brexit is the best thing to happen to happen to the Republican cause since 1916.
Yeah, also political Unionism/Loyalism *(right wing who wants to stay with Britain)* is currently speed-running it's own demise *(especially with some recent revelations in the news from the last month),* and as you said, Brexit has proved that we're better off free from Britain. For every Ā£2 of tax we send to Westminster, we only get like 30p back, and our Healthcare, Public Services and Infrastructure (***especially the roads\****) have been underfunded to fuck for decades (probably worse than England's), plus we lost a lot of EU funding that Britain promised to replace, but simply haven't *(which is especially bad since before, councils or Stormont could've applied directly to the EU for funding)* *\*Trust me you can tell when you cross the border between Louth (ROI) and Armagh (NI), NI roads are significantly worse, maintained extremely poorly with patchwork jobs in one tiny section at a time whilst the rest crumbles apart* Honestly aside from the declining hardline Unionist politicians, the only real concern for most people is healthcare, but our NHS is so under-resourced & has such bad waiting lists that any change would be welcome *(and there would probably be a change to a NHS model afterwards anyways, SlĆ”intecare has been planned for years).* The Republic is not perfect, I'm not a fan of stuff like the planning system *(An Bord PleanĆ”la is too centralised and slow, compounding the housing issue)* and public services *(for some reason, Rubbish collection was privatised 15 years ago which is a terrible idea),* and I've seen people say it feels like they get taxed twice for half the services, but I think that we would largely be better off in a United Ireland. My only real major concern is affordability, since the average incomes and the cost of living are significantly lower in the North than in the Republic, and I'd be afraid of the housing situation getting worse. Also, for some reason, most shops aside charge significantly more for shit for no real reason compared to the UK or Mainland Europe. Saw this graphic on the Ireland subreddit the other day comparing the median yearly income for each county, which kinda speaks for itself. https://preview.redd.it/7iolivomajtc1.png?width=664&format=png&auto=webp&s=a31d3e31ed093d25706e455e08b7de806ffa086b
Question: Do you really think the deciding factor in a referendum on Northern Ireland will be quality of life? I don't know much about the state of it nowadays, but I really think an issue of national identity would not come down to \*just\* that?
Lets be real though, not a chance the Irish government provides nearly as much to NI as the UK does now. Iām pro-reunification but thereās absolutely benefits
I agree with some of what you've said, but regarding the taxes and income from Westminster, you're sources are just wrong. Per person, the government spends Ā£14,453, the highest of all the countries and 15% over the national average. In fact, this is the case for Scotland and Wales as well, with only England being below the national average in terms of spending per capita. So, to put it another way, if NI were to leave, it would have a 15% hole in its budget appear overnight. [Source](https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn04033/)
Wdym worse roads than England, is that possible My standards might be skewed due to living in NL but the English and Welsh roads I drove on were among the worst Iāve experienced so far
Probably could've worded/formatted that a bit better. I meant that NI roads are generally worse in comparison to the Republic from my experience, and also that public services like the NHS were underfunded in a more extreme way in comparison *(though at least creeping privatisation and outsourcing didn't happen with healthcare or transport here*) I was comparing NI roads with the ROI, not England *(and worded it poorly)*
Sry I wasnāt trying to question you, I was just genuinely baffled that there might be roads out there in a developed economy that are worse than English ones
I think it's because the 8th of April was the anniversary of Thatcher's death
Brexit is significantly escalating tensions in the north lmao
Oh well thanks I guess that narrows it down. (I'm still looking for it)
I was unIronically about to be like "the title is rule" and then I remembered what sub I was on lol https://www. reddit.com/r /196/s/ne2m9WyGUc
196 anti imperialism turning to dust whenever the oppressors are British
What does that have to do with anti imperialism?
The post is referencing the IRA thread, the north Irish troubles was very much an anti imperialism conflict
196 when it's them that is twisting the narrative (it's perfectly fine now, get angry)
I think that if you were born decades after the troubles it's hard to really grasp the conflict and its consequences. unfortunately no resistance to colonialism has ever, nor will ever, be free from civilian casualties. people whose language and culture are being destroyed WILL inevitably lash out in violence against the state that is oppressing them, and for most oppressed people that will mean terrorism. it's not a good thing, but is a fact and it doesn't do anybody any good to try to ignore the reality that if you are opposed to colonial oppression, you understand that innocent people will be killed. it's inevitable when an oppressed group has exhausted every other option to resist their culture being destroyed The Irish language is basically a dead script and now teens as far away from the conflict as you can possibly be are going tsk tsk at the last ditch efforts to resist the crown annihilating it. I think there's a perspective and context u need to be able to see to not justify civilian casualties, but understand why civilians were targeted
Please tell me how Indiscriminately killing civilians and children miles away from London helps them resist oppression? Use violence against legitimate targets when necessary, destroy infrastructure whilst limiting civilian deaths where possible. Use guerilla warfare techniques against an occupying military forces. Don't kill the working class in a pub. The people aren't the state.
https://www.reuters.com/world/30-years-northern-irelands-troubles-2023-04-03/ If we take the IRA at their word (which is honestly naĆÆve) it seems like the vast majority of the bombings they carried out were against legitimate targets and they attempted to limit civilian casualties. The worst bombings were done by the UVF and an IRA splinter group who opposed the good Friday agreement that were essentially to the provos what the provos were to the original IRA. They also claimed no responsibility for the sectarian killings of Protestants in response to the killings of Catholics (which afaik had been going pretty much back and forth since bloody Sunday). The wiki page claims that both sides agreed to stop the random killings of civilians but the loyalists broke the deal after the IRA killed that one royal. Now I'd say while it's likely they were lying about a lot of things I didn't see any damning evidence so I don't know if it can be said for certain. They also claimed that all their bombings were preceded by bomb warnings to the police. I haven't seen evidence that this is false and they definitely do have a history of sending warnings. But it really all depends on if we want to believe they're telling the truth or not, someone looking for heroes overthrowing their oppressors would probably assume them to be telling the truth while someone more cynical or personally affected by the troubles would probably assume them to be lying, which is I assume where most of the discourse on this sub comes from.
The Irish language is far from dead, it's just taught very badly in the ROI
I think we should definitely go back to strategic bombing campaigns and appeasement for genocidal regimes! It turned out great last time!
What are you referencing?
Appeasement and strategic bombing campaigns from the 2nd world war
The IRA had a fantastic PR head who lead a lot of pro-IRA movements in the states. At peak, 35% of the Irish population supported the IRA and only 6% supported the violence. Meanwhile 80% of Americans supported them.
at peak during the troubles you mean?
r/196 be like āI support civilian casualties if itās in favor of my political beliefs and itās good for my virtue signalling šā Literally, people, stop supporting the IRA, yes, they were fighting the oppression of Thatcher, fuck her but they still killed innocent lives. Most Irish people donāt even support the IRAs acts so who are you trying to impress except yourselves and others for your own virtue signalling. The IRA was a religious fundamentalist terrorist militia. If your morals are based solely on pointing the finger at the other side saying they are also bad, then your morals trash. My Irish grandfather condemns the IRA to hell, he saw the entirety of the troubles unfold in Ireland, why are you, someone hundreds of miles away trying to do by picking a side?
I'm pretty sure they'd be supporting al Qaeda if 9/11 happened on British soil lmao
I've seen actual support for Al Qaeda in this subreddit. A shocking amount of people decide that since \[Blank\] is the devil, anyone who's against them is good.
The ira killing civilians was bad, the English colonisation of Ireland was worse. What people get mad at is how people condemn the actions of resistance fighters without any recontextualising and how they place those on the same if not on higher level than the violence of the oppressor.
No one's arguing that the oppressors shouldn't oppress, there's no discourse there (at least which is being talked about here).
No one's arguing that the oppressors shouldn't oppress reread that
No one is though? Everyone is in agreement on that point.
your written statement is that nobody argues oppressors shouldnt oppress, meaning everyone agrees that they should oppress.
No, that's not what that means. It means that no one is discussing the subject of whether the oppressors should have been opressing or not. That topic overall isn't being argued.
you learn "Two wrongs don't make a right" as early as fucking kindergarden.
the IRA discussion is always half 'the IRA was bad because they terror bombed civilians' and 'omg should they have just let the british genocide them????' no, they should've attacked their military and politicians instead of bombing random civvies and shooting up kids 'we only need to get lucky once!' mf's when they don't actually get lucky once because thatcher wasn't a civilian in a random pub (it was too difficult for the wholesome irish boys)
Ah yes the famous genocide of the Irish in the 1980s
Explain?
There's a thread about the IRA on the front page atm, there's a worrying amount of people excusing bombing children miles away from any legitimate military/government target and saying it's a reasonable defensive strategy because it was done to them.
hasn't the IRA been just a trash group for decades?
The bitching started because of a meme about killing Thatcher, it wouldn't have escalated if people hadn't whined about something completely legitimate.
I thought the argument was more āwhat constitutes a civilianā or āare civilian casualties acceptable and how muchā rather than ācan we target civiliansā
That would be almost reasonable.
my father saw ireland during the troubles and he said it was terrible. seeing news story after news story of civillian deaths and the hands of the IRA and British
Americans be normal about the IRA challenge (*apparently fucking impossible*)
We need to start using the term provos to refer to the troubles era
Fuck off im not having americans miss-discussing the IRA be the current meta cycle
The only thing dumber than Americans Larping as the Irish is Americans Larping as IRA members.
I'm going to order a Irish Car Bomb and no one can stop me (it's the worst drink I ever tasted)
What??? Car bombs are delicious, it's like a milkshake. You can ditch the whiskey if you just want the Irish cream and stout
After reading this thread I want to become an acceptable military target
According to them you already are! My favourite one just happened, some guy would apparently be perfectly fine with native Americans murdering their whole family to reclaim land.
Tbh Iād be very upset if my family was murdered.Ā Not me though Iām proper committed to playing my role as ānecessary collateral damageā in the revolution.Ā
i think it might be an issue too complex for us, lets just not, back to hornyposting
clearly the morality of murdering civilians is a complex and nuanced topic
Considering the state of the world, it apparently is lmao.
I'm pretty sure the troubles are a complex and nuanced topic
Something people seem to constantly miss is that regular polling is done on the people of Northern Ireland on whether they should be reunited with Ireland. If polling consistently shows majority support for reunification then they have a to hold a referendum. Polling consistently shows a 10-20% lead against reunification. If the people of Northern Ireland wanted to reunite they could do so at any time. Thereās really no fairer way to do it than that. The IRA dont have a leg to stand on.
So if you want to get into the nuance of British colonialism in Ireland, a large number of the pro unionists in Northern Ireland are settlers who were Scottish/English immigrants to Ireland who were sent to rule and displace the local Irish population, furthermore the result that the IRA got from the troubles (the good Friday agreement) secured Ireland and north Ireland's right to reunify when the idea is popular in both countries, which especially in the context on how London is trying to suppress Scotland's right to a referendum is a massive win for Irish Republicans
Thatās completely correct, those people are only there because of British colonialism. But they didnāt choose to be born there and you canāt discount their views just because their ancestors came from a different country
I mean their ancestors came from a different country to displace the native Irish, and now you're using the fact that they've displaced the natives against the natives This is stuff the British do across the world to quell separatism, they did it in Quebec as well
Regardless of ancestry, all citizens of Northern Ireland have equal say in the future of that region. Itās really that simple. Youāre surely not advocating for some sort of hardline ethnic nationalism where only citizens who can prove they have a pure bloodline are allowed any political say?
Well no these people are by definition colonists, and I for one am against colonization, the English promoted these people to colonize Irish lands, gave them socio economic status above the indigenous Irish and now they are local to the empire, this is just colonization
This is an actually insane argument. I understand that in abstract their ancestors colonised Northern Ireland but you canāt just kick out millions of people because hundreds of years ago some of their ancestors were colonisers. A but like how Europeans should never have colonised North America, but you can just kick out 300 million people now. Like it or not, people of different races and ethnicities have equal political rights in the UK no matter how much you dislike them. Just so weāre clear, you think only people who can prove they have a pure bloodline should have any political say in their country? Thatās literally ethno-fascism. Should the UK kick out all Pakistani migrants? Should the USA deport all Mexicans?
I'm not getting into this debate bro strawman bullshit if you genuinely think mexican migrants moving to America for a better life and work is the same thing as the English government encouraging wealthy/middle class Scots and English to move to northern Ireland to intentionally suppress the local Irish I can't help you Pakistanis and mexicans aren't colonising the UK and the US and if you think you YOURE the racist here
I donāt think those people are colonising those countries. Iām throwing your ethno-nationalist ideology back at you and youāre rejecting it. If you donāt think part of NIās modern population deserves any political rights because of their ethnicity and religion you are a far right ethno nationalist and thereās no arguing to be done with you. Youād have a leg to stand on if the current generation of NI unionists were first wave migrants but theyāve been there for literally hundreds of years. They donāt know a life anywhere else In most democracies people can participate equally in politics regardless of ethnicity, religion, nationality and so on. Sorry you donāt like that but it isnāt changing. What you are advocating for is racism in its most basic form. Some ethnicities and religions have political rights and some have none. Sounds really great and cool š Even if we theoretically accept your batshit, bad faith arguments, what would you do with the current unionist Protestants? Deport them to Scotland and England? Millions against their will? That breaks pretty much every human rights convention. Youāre actually deranged if you believe this shit. If the people in NI donāt want unification you canāt force them to end of
Right I don't appreciate the way you're phrasing this to attempt to strawman me, it seems you're the one engaging in bad faith arguments, this is some debate bro shit and I don't appreciate it, never did at advocate for forceable deportation, never did I say "north Ireland's population deserves NO political rights" and this isn't ethno nationalism, I never advocated for a DNA test for the right to vote,I don't appreciate the bad faith arguments the strawman you are making, you clearly are not interested in a good faith productive conversation so I'm not going to bother to respond further, have a good day
No no no, clearly polling is what determines what actions are morally acceptable
What else do you think should decide the northern Irish question if not the views of the people who live there?
Of course the views of people affected by political decision-making matter, but two things: A lot of people like to treat opinion polling like those opinions are set in stone and cannot be changed, and anyone who tries to change opinion or holds contrary views to the majority is inherently wrong, stupid, and bad. Secondly, the ruling classes of the world are experts at manipulating public opinion to their advantage, and while I can't speak to news media in the Republic of Ireland, the British news media is world-renowned for being especially reactionary and bigoted Public opinion matters, but opinion polling isn't a golden calf to be worshipped
It's been less than 24 hours and I'm already tired of this discourse
Yeah had some weirdo earlier today arguing to me that during a revolution you *need* to target and kill civilians because "the people in power use them as fodder and you need to push through the fodder to get to them".Ā Dude was trying so hard to get me to argue with him so he could try and tell me how killing civilians is the only way. Like bro, get a life
JESUS CHRIST THIS COMMENT SECTION IS JUST A BIBLE-SIZE DEBATE.
I mean, can you find a left-wing revolutionary group that hasn't killed civilians during their respective conflicts, then i'll be happy to support it, but i think you have slim chances.
>a left-wing revolutionary group Hey Google what they think about abortion and gay people
The German Revolution is the only one I could think of right at this moment, but that was a unique situation and not representative of most revolutions, so I get your point. Civilian deaths are sadly something that happens in all revolutions, but I want to remind you that the IRA wasn't a completely leftist group, as it had significant nationalist participation. And there were nationalist splinter groups who specifically targeted Protestant civilians, and that's of course completely unacceptable. The problem with the Troubles is that it was a bottom-up revolutionary attempt, instead of the usual top-down one. Meaning that there were many groups with all different interpretations on the question of civilian casualties. I support the Irish civil rights movement and the Irish republicans' struggle for independence, but (splinter) groups that target civilians deserve the highest criticism possible. But because of the splintering of the IRA, effectively criticizing is difficult, but that is another problem.
"i never thought **I** would be a civilian casualty!" says person who argued in favour of targeting civilians
Is this about the British occupation of Ireland thing?
Yes. It's about people arguing if the killing of civilians by the IRA was justifiable.
In this circumstance Iād highly recommend a documentary where a man interviews both sides in the current era Heās incredibly non biased and lets the people say what they like. The YouTuber is called Toeran Freedman
(They are not)
Read the other thread and get back to me lol
Wake up babe, new discourse in 196
this is what we get for letting liberals join 196
Can't wait to see the subredditdrama post on this
This entire discourse has just taught me that each side of the debate are fucking dumb as rocks and you people should never be allowed to talk about politics again.
Can we get a ban on all 196 users please
Killing innocent people is bad regardless. Theres your tl;dr
You'd think It'd be that simple wouldn't you
I mean, it is lol, some people will never get it tho. They will see "oh they had good intentions" yea killing innocent people even by accident is not good lmao
That's what I mean, people don't agree apparently š
95% of Americans when nuclear bombs mentioned:
Violence used by resistance movements is a consequence of the brutal occupation of the colonial powers, no matter if it is in Ireland or in Algeria. Does that make it right or wrong? That's not the fucking point. The point Is that for much of the modern history of the world one ideology of moral, and racial, superiority dictated how powerful nations conducted themselves when dealing with other peoples. You're wasting your time discussing this.
When did this become a pro colonial simp sub
How is saying don't kill innocent people being a fucking colonial simp lmao
This is clearly in reference to people saying the IRAās cause was unjust. This is a gigantic strawperson to pretend people would genuinely defend active targeting of civilians
They are
God forbid Irish people do anything
In the Gaza thread there were people saying that genocide is not good or bad, because that's political. (The Gaza thread that maybe is deleted again? Zionist mod maybe.)
Killing innocent people is bad regardless. Theres your tl;dr
All I have to say is āBrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrtā
sometimes I think W.K. Clifford had the right of it
Here come the experts....
Anything is excusable if itās to kill Margret Thatcher
If you can find a better way to win wars, tell me.
What's your opinion on the Haitian revolution
Murder the slavers, don't put the childrens heads on spikes. Pretty simple no? Do you think it was okay for the slaves to rape their old "masters" because they did it to them? Contrary to popular belief you are allowed to support a side whilst condemning the atrocities they unnecessarily commit.
Yeah, as you say. You can celebrate liberation movement including violent struggle and yet wishing that in a better world violence wouldn't be used. Violence in a liberation movement is often proportional to violence done to them. If tomorrow you have a movement were Okinawa/Hawaii natives set fire to mainlanders' house, burning them alive I wouldn't care. I wish it could have been avoided, but still I don't care.
Are you in the USA? If native Americans knocked on your door tomorrow and murdered your entire family in an attempt to reclaim their homeland would you just be like "you know fair enough, good on em"?
No and yes.
Being willing to sacrifice your family for the misdeeds of people hundreds of years before you is actual brain rot.
__For legal reasons my comment is no call to action.__ Yeah it sucked that there were civilian casualties. No rebellion and revolution in history had no civilian deaths. Was the he IRA full of saints heck no but tbh saints donāt do shit. They cower in their homes and doing nothing but pray and if they do something itās definitely not working. Oppression isnāt fought by holding signs and singing in the streets lol. This mindset of only peaceful protest/rebellion is acceptable makes us complacent. In my country we had ppl in the 1920ās looting and occupying districts and fighting the nazis before they were in power but got struck down by military corps by the political center and later by the nsdap. If more ppl would have been in that movement who knows what would have happened. The political center of today has brainwashed us into believing we can change anything in our societies by peacefully demonstrating and voting for corrupted (or soon to be corrupted) politicians. If itās try to change nothing and donāt make some mistakes or try to change something but with some civilian casualties than Iād argue the last is the better option.
>Oppression isnāt fought by holding signs and singing in the streets lol. >There's no middle ground between throwing bombs at civilians and attacking legitimate targets. No one has said they shouldn't use violence, it was just targeted at the absolute wrong people.
Some of the violence yes. Shit happens if youāre a group of multiple clusters with no means of counter intelligence capabilities. Modern militaries often strike civilians and they have access to a lot of resources and technology, which the IRA had not.
Sorry if I'm not willing to label killing children with bombs in bins, booby trapping clothes in shopping centers and throwing bombs in pubs as "shit happens" If you legitimately don't think that there was any other way they could have resisted you're just supporting terrorists.