culturalmarxist:

i’m not sure i agree entirely with your last point (the US plays down “white terrorism” a lot [OKC, unabomber, that Tea Party guy who flew into a side of a building] and i think even the American Right would have a hard time attacking Obama for that without sounding like they outright endorse terrorism) but yeah the average English attitude re:Irish independence falls somewhere between ‘ignorance’ and ‘callousness’. even the name ‘the Troubles’ bothers me. it’s about as close as you get to calling it the ‘inter-British Tiff’ or ‘That Spot of Bother with the Paddies’ while still retaining a semblance of empathy.

Or, as Dara O’Briain refers to it, “The Awkwardness”. Though I always assumed The Troubles was an Irish name for it, considering we also called WWII “The Emergency”. Which really kind of undersells it. Then again, I’ve rarely seen an English person talk about it outside of BBC Dramas, and they’re usually ex-military characters just knowingly refer to it as Northern Ireland.

Also, I don’t know whether Irish or American propaganda has gotten to me, but I’d hesitate to put your examples in the same category as the IRA. I’m not condoning their actions, but they always seemed like a more … understandable cause.

American White Terrorism tends to be along the lines of “I disagree with how my country handles things, so I’m going to blow some one or two buildings to get my point across”, as opposed to Irish terrorism, whose stated aims were more along the lines of “I disagree with a foreign power claiming sovereignty over my country and actively oppressing my people, and so I’m going to stage a guerrilla war in order to stop that”. Like, they were still massive dicks, but in the context of the time, it’s much more reasonable stance than the Unabombers, you know?

Maybe I used a poor example, as The Tea Party aren’t really analogous to the IRA. Maybe like … I dunno, the Hawaiian Liberation Army actually existed it would be a better example?