TWBN#2: The IRA Bombing Campaign Part 2

I wrote earlier about my memories of the IRA Bombing Campaign in the 80's. I also want to say something about how I think it affected people and the Government at the time, though as I said in the earlier post I accept that I'm not an expert, just someone who was around at the time. I'm surprised actually that people aren't talking about this more, because there are some obvious parallels with the current "War on Terror".

There was a lot of pressure on the Police and this led I think to Police mistreatment of irish people, particularly men. Irish people were already somewhat stereotyped and the bombings (particularly the ones in the 70's I think, but also later) made it more likely that you would be stopped, searched and possibly harassed if you were Irish.

The mistreatment went further in the cases of the Guildford Four and the Birmingham Six, two groups of men who suffered appalling injustice at the hands of the Police and the justice system. I don't know enough detail to allow a comparison between the justice system then and now, but what seems obvious is that when the police are under great pressure they are more likely to cut corners and not pay enough attention to the rights and needs of their more vulnerable suspects (I think these cases happened before there was a lot of awareness of how seriously psychological pressure could affect the testimony of people).

It's apparent that stereotypes that were around at the time and had been around for a long time contributed to a dehumanising effect which was part of the environment in which it was seen as OK to mistreat Irish suspects by those in authority. Other aspects of this environment may have been lack of professional control and a general hysteria at certain times, reflected (or encouraged) by the press. You would hope that there should be more awareness of this nowadays, but Abu Ghraib still happens.

The other parallel that I see is that governments enact laws aimed at putting pressure on the terrorists, but the actual effect is to put further pressure on the wider group (i.e. Irish people in the UK, or Muslims in the UK). In 1971 Internment (indefinite detention without trial) was introduced in Northern Ireland. It was ended in 1975. In later years this policy was seen as a great recruiter for the IRA. We might see this as a parallel with the recent repeated demands for longer periods of detention without trial of terrorist suspects.