Too weak to succeed but too strong to defeat

[two gun sid]

From The Guardian:
Sinn Féin remains locked in a parallel universe, themselves alone

Martin Kettle
Tuesday March 1, 2005
The Guardian

In Northern Ireland, there used to be a system of apartheid, Gerry Adams observed recently. Adams doesn't do unintended comments. So his remark was crafted not just to flatter Irish republicanism's own sense of victimhood but to appeal to some of its useful idiots too. Not least because its implication, none too subtle, was that Sinn Féin was Ulster's ANC and Adams its Nelson Mandela.

Granted, the Northern Ireland in which Adams and his generation of Catholics grew up was a place of grim, persistent and sometimes aggressive discrimination. But apartheid? Under apartheid, black South Africans were denied citizenship and the vote. They weren't allowed to live in the cities. They had to carry a special pass, and they committed a criminal offence if they had sex with a white. None of this even remotely applied to Catholics in what was nevertheless an unjust and unequal relationship with Ulster Protestants.

There's another big difference too, eloquently exposed by the writer Fintan O'Toole in a response to Adams. First, he said, the worst discrimination against Ulster Catholics was already being tackled before the IRA began its campaigns. Second, the IRA itself quickly became an enemy to the civil liberties of Catholics and Protestants alike. And third, the ANC used violence sparingly and reluctantly and, once democracy and equality were on offer, it disbanded its armed wing.

The IRA, of course, has done no such thing. Its failure to do so is the main reason why Northern Ireland has no devolved government any longer and why there is little likelihood of it having one any time soon, especially now.


http://www.guardian.co.uk/Northern_Ireland/Story/0,2763,1427734,00.html

[Maeve]

1. You know Mandela and Adams are friends

And that several investigations have shown that the people of Northern Ireland do not have the minimal civil rights expected throughout Europe. As for equality...In 1999, it was revealed by a British government agency that Catholic males are now three times as likely to be unemployed as Protestant males and the proportion of Catholics in the long-term unemployment category has risen to 70%.

In other words, the writer is talking out of his ass.

[RogueTrooper]

2. being friends makes no difference

I thought the Martin Kettle did a rather good job with his editorial. I thought he was quite astute in his analysis of SF's electoral chances this year; both in the forthcoming by-elections in the South and in the UK general election in the north. I agree with his view that the SDLP will not fair as well as either they, or the governments in Ireland and the UK are hoping.

That as for the transformative effect the anger surrounding Robert McCartney's murder, and subesquent cover-up will have on forthcoming election: I am not sure; nor do I think Martin Kettle is sure either.

[Maeve]

3. My point was that Adams and Mandela have more in common

Than the British press, and possibly the British public, is comfortable with admitting. (And I'm not aiming at you, Trooper, as I hope you realize--I'm just frustrated with the one-sided crap I see in the press).

While I do not and have not defended the criminal actions of many current and former IRA members, I strongly object to the "guilty until proven innocent and then we'll just say 'oops'" treatment I've seen as well as the accepted implication that if it weren't for those nasty old republicans everything would be hunky-dorry.