Gays in N.I. under siege as attacks soar

making perversions obvious, old paisley's been doing that with his own for years!
and as they say in the us of a, hate and discrimination are not family values...
imagine loving someone and not being able to show it for fear of the idiot meathead next door?
god damn the discriminators!
xx

Indymedia. Is it time to change the editorial policy? The ammount of crap, comments by bigots, reactionaries, religous nutcases, professional bullshitters, trolls, spoilt kids with too much time on their hands, homphobes, misyognists, general fash, egomaniacs,and ignorant people who regard themselves as 'relaists' or 'cynics',timewasters, and people who make even Captain Wardrobe seem half sane ;-) has increased so much after the past few years that it's getting a waste of time to plough through to find anybody that understands what 'research' is or how to string together a coherent sentence. Site rethink. Nothing seems to be posted in its place; Local news in National wire,events on the newswire etc etc ad infinitum. However we don't want to give in to these fuckwits. Suggestions please.

Except for the fact that I lived in an affluent area unperturbed by outside intrusion, this is how I lived Northern Ireland. I now live in another country. But rest assured, this is what Northern Ireland (six counties) is (are) like. Incredibly narrow minded people clinging tenaciously to an identity, any identity, just so long as it will give them a spurious sense of belonging and a basis upon which to exclude outsiders of any perceived variety. And I'm not even gay. But this is how it was. I was scared to go out. The police were no help. After I was knocked to the ground by a blow to the head they were reluctant to do anything because my injuries were not "life threating". When I insisted on making a statement they played games making me wait for hours and when finally an officer arrived to take my statement, I found myself having to say "I have a strong sexual preference for mature adult women and none whatsoever for children of either sex". Those were my very words. I remember them clearly. After I speculated that maybe the reason these kids were tormenting me was because they thought I was a paedophile the officer totally went over to interrogating me to try to discover whether I was one. I went to them with the complaint. For the longest time I couldn't figure out what these people had against me. Was it sectarian? Was it homophobic, or paedophobic (is there such a word)? All I knew was they perceived me to be different and I could be attacked at any time without warning. I, too, learned to stay in. When I started taking alternative routes into town and going out only under cover of darkness, the police started stopping me and describing me, as only they know how, as "suspicious". Towards the end, shortly before I left, I was surrounded by a large group of stone throwing school kids one of whom took down his pants in broad daylight and turned and bent over in a mock gesture of paedophobic hostility (I can't think what else to call it). This same kid, I discovered by a remark he made in a later encounter, was from the Irish identified part of the population. (It's hard to tell anymore with mixed shools and housing etc.) I am from the British identified, though I take no pride in it. Was his attitude towards me sectarian. At one point I was walking down a street and suddenly a couple of thugs appeared from a side street and yelled a homophobic jibe at me. I used to tutor kids for eleven-plus. That may have had something to do with it. Also, having been away from Northern Ireland for a long time I was readilly identifiable as "different". I have never mentioned this to anyone before. I speak only now on the web. I just lived like a mouse as quietly as I could. Life is better for me now. When I first came here and discovered I could walk the streets in peace, I couldn't believe it. For about the first two weeks I kept expecting to be attacked. Noone has attacked me. I am free. Joy of joys. This is Northern Ireland. Read the article and weep. Will it really change when/if the British leave? Is it possible that the extreme xenophobia of this population actually predates or at least logically precedes the famous divisions of imperial divide and rule? I don't know, but something is wrong, and as far as I am concerned, they can all go to the same hell they reserved me. I have done noone there any harm. I grew up there. But its people are nuts. Simply nuts. Is there really a Northern Ireland problem, or is there instead a self-created purgatory with which, for the most part, its creators are quite contented? You decide. For me, the solution was simple - a one way ticket. The world is a very large place. I am its citizen. I have no need to stay unstintingly in the tiny corner of a tiny island (the smaller of two) where I was born.

One thing I should say, though, to be fair, is that remarkably things have changed there as regards attitudes towards gays. It is now much more acceptable to be gay than it was, say, twenty years ago, when it was just axiomatically taken to be an abomination. There was even, I believe, a very tiny and under-reported Pride Parade in Belfast. Something of the wider world has impinged upon the culture of even this remote desert. But the proximity in the public mind between gay and paedophile, combined with the paedophile hysteria (a child dies of AIDS in subsaharan Africa every three minutes buy nobody cares as long as they haven't been "abused") leaves plenty of room for self-righteous prejudice, whether it be the silent whispered prejudice of the religio-respectables, the conduct of the police in maintaining the existing order without regard for law, or the open and frightening hostility of their underlings, the thugs and jackass secto-nutters. Read the article for yourself. You will see how it is. This is Northern Ireland. For hope, look elsewhere.

blimey i must be famous or something....


now either a post on this thread has been deleted,
or the third poster didn't bother to read the second poster properly


can't stand someones opinion?

just slag off someone as insane


it works for the neocons
who call anyone who disagrees with
their ideology

a racist or a loon

as for the original post....

i stand alongside you
as a person who regularly finds intimidation
a regular tactic used by those who fear difference...


not to mention the other mind games involved with
the ongoing psychological operations
that seek to psychically suck out any hope
or burgeoning dissent in our hearts

against this growing tyranny of oppression
we face daily...

i mean fancy putting pressure on any person to
make what they say fit a narrow
band of what is 'allowed' to be discussed?

all those kids/new computer users

who have never had a voice
will surely be put off
by being scared of saying the
wrong thing...


this is a process of dehumanisation



so which is it/

healthy debate...
respect and acceptance of difference

forging alliances...where once there were none...

hoping to educate some of these meatheads and mend the error
of their ways, without becoming simply a programmer of
ill-thought out pure dogma of ideological doctrine


solving our problems via a shared journey of mutual
agreement to not resort to mindless
violence?

or

mistrust, blaming, steering issues, headfucking,
nauseating snobbery, lack of respect for
others standing in the community...
for others who may not have been as far down their roads
as some of you think you are....as you play the divisive
'knowledge is power' games with your chums.


What is important is the settling of disagreement
by peaceful means...by reasonable acceptance
of our dialects, our differing cultures and backgrounds
via a dialogue...

for disagreements to be settled they first
have to be noted & acknowledged


have some humility.


lead by example
















cw