The Death of the British Empire

mike65

I know who said it! (him and Gay Byrne in the 80s).

Mike.

Jackie laughlin

I don't have a problem, Darkman. I just decided to contribute to an on-line conversation and provoked a vexed response.

I think it is contradictory to hold that using violence to force the British out of Ireland was OK 1916-1922 and bad 1970ish to today. Indeed the romanticising of the former violence helped promote the latter.

The PDs and Labour would be republican - one liberal, the other socialist/social democratic. FF and FG would be nationalist.

HellOrConnaught

Jackie laughlin wrote:

I think it is contradictory to hold that using violence to force the British out of Ireland was OK 1916-1922 and bad 1970ish to today. Indeed the romanticising of the former violence helped promote the latter.

No... The Old IRA had the recognition of the overwhelming majority of the Irish people as their army. The Provisional IRA had a considerable chunk of support in the nationalist community, depending on the time, but had not got the support of the majority of Northern Ireland. So it wasn't okay, because it was largely undemocratic. The Old IRA did not bomb pubs either or set out to intentionally slaughter innocents. There's very major differences. However ruthless the Old IRA campaign may have been, it paled in comparison to the Provisionals. It was far less sectarian and violent acts commited where usually neccessary evils. There are certain parallels to both eras, but they only work to certain points.

The Provisional IRA was promoted primarily by the actions of the Stormont government in brutalizing civil rights marches, failing to prevent loyalist progroms, introducing internment and using the British Army in stupid ways. Of course the memory of the Old IRA helped to promote it, but it didn't particularly help to start it. That's as rediculous as Paisley stating the Easter 1966 commenorations created the troubles, especially considering until the violence of 1969 the IRA was diverging swiftly away from violence. The troubles started when the RUC broke into Sammy Deveny's house in the Bogside and beat him to the point of death in front of his daughters (He died later of his wounds). It is not very fair to tarnish the name of earlier Republicans by observing the evolution of the movement as modern Sinn Fein. I highly doubt the patriots of the Tan War would be very pleased at many of the Provisional IRA's actions.

Regardless, we've moved very far off topic.

Mad Finn

The British Empire, like any other Empire, crumbled when its subject peoples copped on to the fact that the mother country was becoming too dependent on them to fight its wars and put down its insurrections, and came to the reasonable conclusion that they would be far better off running their own countries themselves. In many, but not all cases, this is perfectly true.

All empires rely to a certain extent on divide and rule and the Brits were no exception. The Irish were for centuries the shock troops of the Empire. Kept in penury at home it wasn't too difficult to build up the semi literate farm boys to believe in their own superiority over the wogs, fuzzy wuzzies and Zulus who occasionally kicked up trouble in the colonies.

As the Gene Hackman character says of his father in the film Mississippi Burning whose motto was "If you can't be better than a ****** what can you be better than?" The old man was so full of hate he couldn't see it was being poor that was killing him--but at least he was better than the "****".

The Irish were very effective at herding Boer women and children into concentration camps in the Boer war. There's a monument to their prowess at the top of Grafton St. Also in India there were thousands of Irishmen putting down the indian mutiny in a campaign of terror that became known as "The Devil's Wind" Happily, fewer Irishmen serve in the British Forces now and that role is largely taken over by the Scots, who in the words of Renton are "the lowest of the low, the most miserable servile scum on the face of the earth" But at least they've one up on the Iraqis just as they used to have one up on the Fenians in Northern Ireland.

Which is not to say that the Irish were the only ones running the empire. There weren't enough of us for that. The Turkish minority ran the police force in Cyprus; the Sikhs populated much of the army in India. (still do) And with the multitude of tribes in the various African colonies, it wasn't too difficult for the rulers to play one lot off against the other.

Sadly for the British they had to recruit so many colonials into their armies in teh World Wars that they just did not have the strength to hold on to their empire when those colonials turned on them and demanded their payback in the years immediately after. Britain's precipitous retreat from India in 1948 had as much to do with the fact that they had to build up a huge indian army to fight the Japanese in Burma and were therefore in no fit state to hang on if they cut up rough. Just as many of the heroes of our own independence struggle learned their trade in the British Army in WWI.

America's empire will go the same way: when it runs out of allies ready to jump at the chance to send their troops to get killed in whatever hot spot the yanks decide needs to be 'liberated' from whatever despot has got up Washington's nose this week. At the moment it's pretty much down to UK, Israel and Australia. None of which are the most populous of places.

Suitably back on topic?

HellOrConnaught

Mad Finn wrote:

Suitably back on topic?

Yep, spot on as well. Well done.

Jackie laughlin

Hell,
Forgive me but I must briefly go back off topic to respond to you.

It is true that the old IRA (Remember that there is complete continuity.) did not use car bombs etc. (This was a mistake in the movie "Michael Collins") but there the difference ends. The IRA never had the support of the overwhelming majority of the Irish people. They always had that "we know best" fascist desire to dictate.

Check out the intentional unarmed and the civilian casualties for 1916. There never was any reluctance to kill unarmed Irish police officers or civilians during the so-called War of Independence. The provos merely killed more people.

The argument, as you present it, suggests that the "new" IRA had more justification than the old.

All empires seem to over-reach and decline. Perhaps sheer size is the fatal flaw. Imperialism can bring both good and bad. Few people shed tears over the Roman subjection of Britain but then that predated the rise of nationalism by,say, a millennium and a half.

HellOrConnaught

Then forgive me if I have to go off topic to reply.

Jackie laughlin wrote:

Hell,
Forgive me but I must briefly go back off topic to respond to you.

It is true that the old IRA (Remember that there is complete continuity.) did not use car bombs etc. (This was a mistake in the movie "Michael Collins") but there the difference ends. The IRA never had the support of the overwhelming majority of the Irish people. They always had that "we know best" fascist desire to dictate.

Actually the Old IRA is primarily now your state's defence forces. There's a very weak line of ascendancy toward the provisionals, who where mostly new blood. Young working class catholics from Derry and West Belfast neighbourhoods. The Old IRA certainly did have the majority of the people behind them. Many of the seats in the elections went uncontested because the other parties knew that to stand against Sinn Fein would be futile, considering they had public backing. The range of support for Sinn Fein ran quite high, around 60% to 70% of the vote, which if we cancel out the Northern protestants (around 25%) who where ideologically opposed to the idea of democracy in Ireland gives you a massive figure. The actions of the Black and Tans just solidified support.

Check out the intentional unarmed and the civilian casualties for 1916. There never was any reluctance to kill unarmed Irish police officers or civilians during the so-called War of Independence. The provos merely killed more people.

Could you provide a source? I know that the British Army killed quite a few civillians during the Rising, as far as I know they arrested 3 journalists and executed them for no apparant reason, as well as 15 civillians killed by the Stafford Regiment. Not to mention the shelling which probably killed countless more. Doubtless if there where executions by the rebels (and I don't doubt it, except prehaps the circumstances and motives), you seem to be focusing inordinately upon them, while completely ignoring British complacency where the balance of cruelty in both the Rising and the War rests. Why you seem to villify inordinately a bygone generation of young Irishmen who fought for their freedom is beyond me. Maybe you've read too many books by Peter Hart, a man who claims to have interviewed long dead IRA men and who ignores the facts to suit his own agenda. War is War, bad things happen, executions happen, and the fact is, the IRA where not nearly as nasty as the Black and Tans.

The argument, as you present it, suggests that the "new" IRA had more justification than the old.

First off, put yourself in the shoes of a 16 year old living on Bombay Street. His house has just been burned to the ground by Loyalist mobs, who kept his family in poverty for 50 years because of his religion. His brother has been beat to a pulp, possibly killed by the loyalist mobs which included B-Specials and some RUC men. That's all the justification most people would need to sympathise with the IRA. So yes, at the time, the IRA was a neccessary evil. The fact that they persisted long after they where needed, and started targeting along sectarian lines was the bad thing.


Just for the sake of it, here's a geneology of the IRAs. Hardly complete continuity.

New_Departure06

I think it started to decline in 1921 after Southern Ireland left the UK. It was the first time since 1776 that a country had left British rule. It inspired people like Gandhi because it showed even colonies in close proximity to Britain could break away, and this implied that independence for the rest was feasible too. Of course Gandhi used different methods, but I would argue that in doing so it brought independence far later than might otherwise have been the case. Certainly the Irish people were not prepared to go through the motions of waiting another 20-30 years to break away from that odious system.

At the same time, I think WW2 also played a major role here. The British (and Dutch) lost most of their Asian colonies to Japan and even after taking them back, they weren't strong enough to hold onto them all. India became independent in 1947, Ceyon in 1948, Palestine in 1948 (though in a botched way that has created disaster ever since). The African colonies were only lose in the late 50's and in the 60's following nationalist campaigns which I feel were partly inspired by the Irish example, although sadly most of them made a mess of their independence unlike Ireland. Clearly then there are other things they have to learn from us.