Re: The UK march agaimst Bush

In uk.culture.language.english professor vonroach <vonroach@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
wrote:
> On 17 Nov 2003 08:39:11 GMT, Matthew Huntbach <mmh@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
> wrote:
 
>>Right, if you are going to take that line, I shall remind you that you
>>Yanks used to think it fine to have leaders and apologists for a
terrorist
>>group that was planting bombs in our cities leading "St Patrick's Day"
>>parades in your cities. You used to justify it by pointing out that for
>>a short time we interred suspected terrorists, and our squaddies in
>>attempting to keep the peace in Northern Ireland occasionally got things
>>wrong.
 
> Do you regularly assume that others conform to your prejudiced views?
> I have never thought the IRA or any of its leaders were `fine'
> regardless of where they hide and raise money. The American
> `professional irishmen' as an irish acquaintance of mine once observed
> are pathetic and insufferable. In a free country they have the right
> to parade and make total fools of themselves. A right they do not seem
> to have in England.  

Of course they have that right. However, my understanding is that these
parades were often big things, attended by civic dignitaries and the 
like. They were held in New York and other major cities. I never heard
of anyone organising a counter-protest, pointing out that the IRA were
unjustified terrorists and the Sinn Fein political party existed solely
to be their mouthpieces. I have, however, heard of plenty of ordinary
Americans of Irish descent who were led to believe that cheering in
these people who in turn cheered on the bombing of our cities was just
a natural thing to do to express their Irishness. I believe this did
much to encourage the IRA to continue with their terrorism, and to 
sideline those Northern Irish Nationalists who campaigned for Irish
unity in a peaceful way. Had the IRA and Sinn Fein been treated worldwide
with the revulsion they deserved, I believe they would always have been
seen as just a minor thing. Instead, they grew, had to be taken into
account and given leading positions in the Norther Irish settlement
and sit there today as living evidence - thanks to a large part to the
suppot they received in the USA - that terrorism works.

Matthew Huntbach