www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-25586694
I know quite a bit of the history obviously. The North and the South have a long and proud history of service to UK forces for decades. Is this a lack of sensitivity by the Government or over-sensitivity from the complainers.
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Like most things a bit of both. Many are mega sensitive to anything related to the military, probably overly so. It does seem like some want the 'normalisation' of NI to continue but only if it suits them. Although I'm not sure the woman quoted even read the poster as it's RAF recruitment not an army one...
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Its a mistake by the recruitment agency that the gov outsourced all armed forces recruitment to.
I mean for gawds sake,you don't want to give the people of londonderry any more killing skills.
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As a native of Ireland (born in Belfast on the Falls Road) I'd say that putting up the poster in the said location was not the smartest move. By a long way.
Things have changed a little since I left Ireland over 30 years ago, but old attitudes die hard, and I imagine it will take a millennium or so for some mindsets to change.
One needs to remember that the British armed forces were, per se, the enemy for much of the nationalist community. Any member of the British armed forces was considered a legitimate target by the Provisional IRA, simply by virtue of being a member of the British armed forces. And the Provisional IRA was not a fringe organisation. Over the course of the Troubles, its political wing saw its share of the vote rise - so that in many areas, it was the majority party in the nationalist community - as it is today.
Of course, the poster could have been worse - it could have been a recruiting poster for the Parachute Regiment.
I must confess I find the bit about the MOD being an equal opportunity employer pretty funny. There you have it. Commitment to equality and diversity is to blame for this act of extreme insensitivity.
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>> >> One needs to remember that the British armed forces were, per se, the enemy for
>> much of the nationalist community. Any member of the British armed forces was considered a
>> legitimate target by the Provisional IRA, simply by virtue of being a member of the
>> British armed forces.
....don't forget the Old Bill and Prison Officers, they were considered 'fair game' as well...and so was the generally innocent population at the receiving end of the odd bomb.
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>> ....don't forget the Old Bill and Prison Officers, they were considered 'fair game' as well...and
>> so was the generally innocent population at the receiving end of the odd bomb.
Indeed, prison officers and members of the RUC were also considered legitimate targets by the Provisional IRA, since they were part of the British state security apparatus.
While the Provisional IRA had few qualms about "collateral damage", and were not averse to murdering members of the public who had no connection to the security forces at all, they never claimed that such people were, per se, legitimate targets.
Last edited by: tyro on Fri 3 Jan 14 at 17:21
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>> >> ....don't forget the Old Bill and Prison Officers, they were considered 'fair game' as
>> well...and
>> >> so was the generally innocent population at the receiving end of the odd bomb.
>>
>>
>> Indeed, prison officers and members of the RUC were also considered legitimate targets by the
>> Provisional IRA, since they were part of the British state security apparatus.
>>
>> While the Provisional IRA had few qualms about "collateral damage", and were not averse to
>> murdering members of the public who had no connection to the security forces at all,
>> they never claimed that such people were, per se, legitimate targets.
So how was Selfridges a legitimate British state security target?
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The Warrington bombings were two separate bomb attacks that happened during early 1993 in Warrington, England. The first attack happened on 26 February, when a bomb exploded at a gas storage facility. It caused extensive damage but no injuries. While fleeing the scene, the bombers shot and injured a police officer and two of them were then caught after a high-speed car chase. The second attack happened on 20 March, when two small bombs exploded in litter bins outside shops and businesses on Bridge Street. Two children were killed and dozens of people were injured.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warrington_bomb_attacks
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>> So how was Selfridges a legitimate British state security target?
>>
It wasn't.
Look again at the final sentence in my post.
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>> >> So how was Selfridges a legitimate British state security target?
>> >>
>>
>> It wasn't.
>>
>> Look again at the final sentence in my post.
>>
Ok, we'll just call it an act of extreme insensitivity then.
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Well, even a guy who works with me - an ex-Para, considered the MoD's poster to be wrong. So there we are.
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The British economy and high profile outfits within it were also regarded as legitimate targets. Selfridges and Harrods were thus in the frame. Warnings were usually given so that property suffered instead of people.
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I've spent a lot of time in Ireland both North and South. I've been going there on business on and off for more than 30 years. Some of my customers there have become personal friends and in some instances I'm now doing business with the sons and daughters of my original clients.
I've always been careful to avoid expressing any political opinions no matter what has been happening and I've seen the blockades, the miltary prescence, the marches, even heard and seen the odd explosion or riot.
The people I've worked with have come from both sides of the political/religious/cultural divide. Some of them, indeed many of them in fact, hold the most entrenched and some would say extreme views which to those of us living on this side of the Irish sea can sometimes seem astonishingly intolerant.
The most troubling thing for me though is how "right" both sides feel about their respective positions and how "wrong" they feel those with an opposing view are.
There has been a calming in recent years and I'm sure most people welcome that and just want to get on with their normal lives but feelings still run astonishingly high.
To some, that poster would either be innocuous or indeed a cause of pride, to others it symbolises oppression.
There is no quick fix to all this. It needs generations of peace and tolerance before emotions will recede.
On both sides.
Last edited by: Runfer D'Hills on Fri 3 Jan 14 at 22:21
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I have lived/worked in Dublin, Galway and Sligo and for a lot of the time I had an Irish Catholic Girlfriend. It was always pretty friendly and mostly not an issue.
Later I worked in Belfast. Horrendous, hostile and pretty dodgy in many places. Many was the time I either decided or was told not to open my mouth because of my British accent. I found Bogota and Guatemala less intimidating.
I was in the South in the 80s/90s and the North in the 00s.
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>>I have lived/worked in Dublin, Galway and Sligo and for a lot of the time I
You're not the central character to this book are you? :-)
tinyurl.com/o2jvjh4
You seem to have lived and worked everywhere so must be old by now.
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>>so must be old by now.
I certainly feel it.
I got married and got a family very late, so I had a lot of years to do whatever I wanted. Its easy to change countries if you have no allegiance to where you are, can pack everything you own into a suitcase and don't have to consider anybody else's opinions.
As for everywhere, the fact that I typically use is that I have been paid to be in 108 countries*. However, I've been pretty much nowhere on holiday; As I recall quickly, Southern France, Spain and Mallorca.
*it might be 106. I'll work it out again one of these days.
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>> Belfast. Horrendous, hostile and pretty dodgy in many places.
It must have changed then. Despite the divide, between the sixties and eighties when I used to go there, at first as a market researcher working for the Belfast tobacco firm Gallaher, later as a hack covering (among other things) Bobby Sands's famous hunger strike, individuals in all classes and both communities were extraordinarily nice, charming in fact, sad about the troubles and keen to explain them patiently. Hardly a moment's anxiety in those four or five scattered visits (and I certainly don't sound Irish). There was stuff going on of course, but no one seemed to think I was involved in any way.
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Last time I was there, early 80s, there were a lot of warlike graffiti including
'13 dead but not forgotten
We got 18 and Mountbatten'
I loved the rhyme, which only works in the local accent. Can't remember where the 18 were... not Regent's Park where most of the victims were horses I think. There was a bandstand somewhere, another park.
Last edited by: Armel Coussine on Sat 4 Jan 14 at 00:24
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>> Last time I was there, early 80s, there were a lot of warlike graffiti including
>>
>> '13 dead but not forgotten
>> We got 18 and Mountbatten'
>>
>> I loved the rhyme, which only works in the local accent. Can't remember where the
>> 18 were... not Regent's Park where most of the victims were horses I think. There
>> was a bandstand somewhere, another park.
>>
The eighteen were the paratroopers blown up in a b***** Sunday revenge attack on the same day Mountbatten was killed.
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>> The most troubling thing for me though is how "right" both sides feel about their
>> respective positions and how "wrong" they feel those with an opposing view are.
My observation too, which led me to think it would not be solved in my lifetime. More progress was made than I expected, but it's far from over.
>> There is no quick fix to all this. It needs generations of peace and tolerance
>> before emotions will recede.
>>
>> On both sides.
The problem being that there are enough who actually like to keep it going. From the outside, the flag business is just pathetic, yet it is one of the apparently insoluble differences.
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Human beings have a natural disposition to "isms" but even when they publicly aquire and adopt them they still manage to deny being "ists".
All comes down to the monkey genes.
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>> The most troubling thing for me though is how "right" both sides feel about their
>> respective positions and how "wrong" they feel those with an opposing view are.
>>Human beings have a natural disposition to "isms" but even when they publicly aquire and adopt them they still manage to deny being "ists".
The key phrases are "both sides" and "human beings".
I think that you have got it, Humph. It is about "human beings".
The problem with the people on "both sides" in Northern Ireland* is that they are just like other people. The vast majority of people all through history have felt that their positions are very right and those of differing views are seriously wrong. Look at the comments on Huffpo, Comment is Free, the DT, or the Mail. If you don't agree with the commenter, you are a knave and a fool.
It's just that in the north of Ireland, a lot more blood has been spilt over rather a lot of centuries over this ethnic conflict than over the comparatively recent differences of opinions that excite most of the people in England or Scotland or Wales or the USA. So the people of the Northern Ireland are just like everyone else; they've just spent rather a long time in a cauldron that is at a higher political temperature than most people are used to.
(*and despite being an Ulsterman, I have the arrogance not to include myself in the people on both sides, on the grounds that to a large extent my view could be summed up as "a plague on both our houses". )
And as for the poster, it is pretty much a visceral thing to many of the people of Derry.
Or, if you prefer, Londonderry.
:-)
Last edited by: tyro on Fri 3 Jan 14 at 23:11
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>> And as for the poster, it is pretty much a visceral thing to many of the people of Derry.
I know from work that we should say and refer to Derry... Don't use Londonderry if you can help it.
I can see why they might mind.... so why don't we make it Derry again?
Last edited by: rtj70 on Fri 3 Jan 14 at 23:13
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>> The problem with the people on "both sides" in Northern Ireland* is that they are
>> just like other people.
I'm sorry, I really object to the notion that gerry adams and ian paisley and their supporters are just like other people - IE us.
They are not. Not by a long way.
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>> Warnings were usually given so that property
>> suffered instead of people.
Oh well that makes it all right then. Glad no-one got hurt.
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When the bomb (the IRA one) went off in Manchester it had impact on me. I was meant to be in our offices the next day.... it could have been on the Saturday. Any warning back then was to be communicated how if already there?
Thankfully it was not so bad.
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All other considerations apart, one would presume that the MOD would target its advertising in the areas most likely to produce recruits?
I don't know the Brandywell estate - is it a fruitful recruiting ground for the British armed forces?
Last edited by: Cliff Pope on Sat 4 Jan 14 at 11:03
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It's contracted out now to a private company. Sometimes drives can happen in areas that low in producing recruits. We have a few outreach times that target groups that are underepresented. Looking at what tyro said, I doubt it's an area full of potential recruits. But if we don't even try we never will.
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>> www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-25586694
>>
>> I know quite a bit of the history obviously. The North and the South have
>> a long and proud history of service to UK forces for decades. Is this a
>> lack of sensitivity by the Government or over-sensitivity from the complainers.
>>
The Irish have an extremely well developed, selective memory.
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>> And the British.
>>
Well, than can follow of course.
The residents of Northern Ireland are British and irish.
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>> >> And the British.
>> >>
>>
>> Well, than can follow of course.
>>
>> The residents of Northern Ireland are British and irish.
And neither country wishes they were.
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>>
>> >> The residents of Northern Ireland are British and irish.
>>
>> And neither country wishes they were.
>>
Over half of one country is glad they are and the other country is paying the price for ruling an overseas nation and making a pigs ear of it.
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At the root of most conflict is the fact that most people are born with two ears and one mouth and yet despite that huge clue from Mother Nature, they still tend to use those facilities in inverse proportion.
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Is it just me ? - Manatee
