Some people forget that the UK started having regular terrorist attacks fifty years ago.
Exactly. When I moved to London in 1999 there were no rubbish bins anywhere. IRA terror was very real. My daughter’s school in Camden Town had no caretaker, because the caretaker had been jailed for hoarding weapons in the care takers house on the primary school premisses. Never found out whether he was a Unionist or Nationalist.
Then there were the Soho and Brick Lane nail bombings. This is what Bishopsgate looked like after the 1993 truck bomb:
Noone suggested that all Irish are banned. The IRA no longer threaten London and that is not because the Irish were decimated and deported but because the UK government Major + Blair sat down with the warring parties and negotiated a peace deal. A peace deal that is now being threatened by the ignorant Brexit government.
Martin McGuinness, one of the highest ranking IRA members in the 70s and 80s who died this week, is being remembered mostly for his role in bringing the Nationalist to the table. That is how progress is made. Should yesterday’s attack turn out to be a terrorist attack motivated by religion than we and more importantly UK Politicians need to keep in mind that dialogue is the only way to change.
[quote=“nojaboja, post:64, topic:97506”]
When I moved to London in 1999 there were no rubbish bins anywhere. IRA terror was very real.[/quote]
1999 was after the Good Friday accords; you should have been past the terror stage. To be honest, things were already relatively quiet by the 80s, when I lived in England.
Martin McGuinness, one of the highest ranking IRA members in the 70s and 80s who died this week, is being remembered mostly for his role in bringing the Nationalist to the table. That is how progress is made.
My impression from watching/listening to quite a bit of BBC News this week is that he is being remembered mostly for his role as a vicious, bloodthirsty terrorist. The fact that he was one of the chief provo baddies at the time is likely what gave him the cred to get his people to accept the negotiated settlements.
The New IRA blew something up the other day, it almost felt nostalgic.
Thanks for lecturing me on my experience. We moved from Berlin and had friends who were caught up in the Canary Wharf bombing. As I also wrote my daughter’s tiny infant school for children aged 3 to 7 had no caretaker because a weapon arsenal was discovered in the caretakers house on the school premisses in the middle of Camden Town.
It took us months to figure out why London had absolutely no rubbish bins in any public spaces. Then came the nail bombs. Terrorism felt as a very real threat–but it was void of the current moral panic and rhetoric of divide conquer. Basically, the narrative changed after 11th September 2001.
No idea what you have been watching on McGuinness but Radio 4 was very balanced and his role and contribution to the peace process was discussed in detail by Tony Blair and the Chief US Negotiator. Tony Blair spoke a lot of sense I almost kind of starting to like him now (no surprise given the people who followed him in the job).
There is a reason why Bill Clinton is attending McGuinness’ funeral and it is not because he likes to be associated with bloodthirsty, vicious thugs.
The Irish Peace Process which attempted to settle a bitter and bloody conflict that begun 700 years ago is very instructive and McGuiness’ contribution to it has been well recognised. It takes a strong character to go from rough kid on Derry’s Bogside to sitting in the Assembly along side Ian Paisley. Even Ian Paisley Jr praised McGuinness, so no clue what you have been watching.
And yes the IRA no longer threatens London or the UK, but the UK government is trying its very hardest to inflame sectarianism. And unfortunately the terrorist attack will add fuel to Monster May’s burning flame.
I’m not commenting on your experience, only on the state of the troubles after the '99 accords. I lived in England for half of the 80s, then Scotland for a chunk of '96, then back to England in '99. By contrast to the 70s and early 80s IRA activity by the late 90s was very significantly less, and less lethal.
Canary Wharf was 1992.
Listening to R4 and watching BBC morning news (on in the evening where I am). People are cordial about McGuinness, and certainly discussing his role in the peace process, but almost universally quite candidly say they believe him to have been the mastermind behind many of the deadliest attacks in the 70s.
All I can say is that to us moving from Berlin to London and in 1999 the city still felt on high alert in to us. The Irish conflict still felt very raw.
Would have done. IIRC it was easing off with the peace process, but still only a couple years after the Manchester bombings and there was still a threat from splinter groups such as the Continuity IRA and Real IRA.
And another one was stopped in Antwerp. He drove at high speed through a main shopping street, but everyone was able to jump out of the way. When stopped by police, he was wearing camouflage and had a gun and some knives.
Well, no. But in the 70s they were quite good at locking innocent people up for bombings in Birmingham and Guildford. I wouldn’t over-romanticize how well the Irish were treated in the UK during the Troubles.
