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SF- Protecting the Brits

MM | 12.07.2004 20:57 | Repression

a sectarian march being forced through nationalist area by armed RUC/Brits/SF!!



I am shocked! I am absolutely stunned!

I am so angry at what I witnessed just now. I AM REPUBLICAN, and I just witnessed former comrades punch and beat residents off the streets and off Brits in my own community. People/residents, who like myself objected to a sectarian march being forced through nationalist area by armed RUC/Brits/SF!!

I just want to ask, What the fuck is happening when I just witnessed Provies attacking members of their own community from getting stuck into bastards who had us under siege all day!

Is this what we have come to, beating people for the sake seats at Stormont. What I saw today has changed the way in which I see my life and the politics that I thought I had in common with fellow republicans. I feel sick and angry, I am in shock and in disbelief. I turn to a neighbour on the way who asked me "did I really see what happened there?"

I have to say that I felt the question running through my head.

Am I the enemy now? Does SF/Provies see me and the community that I belong to as the enemy for opposing a sectarian march and all that comes in its path?

If that is what it takes to have a few seats in power then I'm afraid these people no longer represent me!!

MM Occupied North Belfast

MM

Comments

Hide the following 4 comments

perhaps Sinn Fein are now democrats?

12.07.2004 23:02

the marching season is always a pain in the ass, loyalists want to riot and you presumably were up for a fight too, Sinn Fein stewarding a protest against orange sectarianism must see that the protest is peaceful otherwise the message is lost. You however wanted to fight and cause trouble, that wouldn't have solved the problem only exacerbated it. times are changing for the better if slowly and slightly that is why peaceful protest is the way forward. What would have been the benefit for the community if there had been a riot and peelers and brits had stormed the area with rubber bullets and water cannon?

Seamus

a common feeling?

13.07.2004 01:47

Maybe, when any group of people accustomed to nurturing hate for another finally begins to behave better - then the more bigotted members of that group feel precisely the sense of rage and disbelief you describe.

gduut

Moved on

13.07.2004 09:20

I feel this post illustrates very well how some have moved on from the old days of Northern Ireland and some haven't. I covered the Marching Season for The Guardian in the late 1980s and it was always obvious how for some it was little if anything to do with political or social protest but a lot more related to a good old punch up after a few beers.

Both Republicans and Loyalists have changed, a combination of the Good Friday agreement, the SAS killings of key IRA Army Council members, demographic changes and most of all a willingness on all sides to finaly talk has been the catalyst for change.

With greater EU integration the Irish question may well not even be 'a question' twenty years from now.

Journo

Do ball lick 'em, Fight 'em!

14.07.2004 21:52

This is nothing to be surprised about $F and the IRA have been well bought out, and sucked into the briish establishment. Onwards to the Workers Republic of Scotland and Ireland!

Moranie

Moranie