Celtic Supporters Thread (contains GB chat)

You might want to read it again.

 

Haha.

You're a funny guy.

You don't get wound up. Awrite mate. You do you.

 

You know what who meant what to you know who.

We’ll keep it between me and you but it’s in the unwritten unsaid/unposted.

I won’t * read it again either.

 

I'll get my enigma machine out in the morning and have a bash at that mate.

 

By the way. I knew exactly what you meant.

If you want me to dignify it with a serious response, answer my reply to you about 6 months ago instead of having stupid digs every so often.

 

Indeed, I wouldn't class the ones I knew as war criminals. I never said no British soldiers were war criminals.

No, it wouldn't be best. Think about it, mate. So you would instruct a little girl (I think she must have been 9 or 10 at the time) on the political and military history of the troubles or possibly you even mean before that? Can't you see that this attitude perpetuates the very thing you hate?

 

You'd think I didn't support a united Ireland or that I condemned the IRA or something the way you have me firmly on the opposite side to you. There's a broad consensus about what * symbols mean within a western context (yes, I'm aware that it has a different meaning in India or places that India has historically influenced), whereas you only have to read this thread to see that there's no consensus even among Celtic fans about what the poppy means.

As for your second point, your analogy only makes sense to you because you keep conflating the UK and the British empire, which is a bit like conflating Germany and the Nazis. Comparing the UK as a whole (rather than the empire) with the Nazis as you do is comparing apples and oranges. The UK has responsibility for the empire; but it's also a lot more than the empire just as Germany is responsible for the Nazis but is much more than the Nazis.

 

The very fact your buying her it will arouse her mind about political and military history don't you think. So with that would it not be best to not buy it at all because your choosing one side over many. It's not just us Irish who have an issue with this war symbol you know.

I actually have a 9 yr old myself and never shy away from teaching him about some of our history. I don't tell him the horrifics of it but I do let him know the Brits where filth!

Anyway I think it's clear my issues on this because we're just going round in circles. Esp with your last post. You just don't get it although if you lived in Belfast or Ireland during any of the dark days, I'd say your attitude would be different.

 

If it’s the same Sean I blocked a month or two ago on here then that’s putting it midly. An absolute walloper of a laddie.

 

In my opinion, I think a child at that age should be taught the reasons behind not buying her one. My daughter is 6 and she come home a few times from school recently asking to take money for one. I got off the subject quickly and she forgot all about it in the end and wasn’t bothered. If it comes to the point however where I need to tell her so she understands why I won’t give her money for one, then I’ll tell her.

 

Except that it wasn't the same symbol for her as it is for you. Of course if she had seen it as a symbol of colonial oppression or even if there existed a general consensus that this is what the poppy means, I would have been about as willing to buy one for her as I would to buy her a swastika. But that isn't the case. It's just a fact that it means different things to different people. You don't get to decree that a symbol means what you say it means when in fact there is little consensus on what it means. FWIW she's much older now and still knows nothing about any of this. I think she vaguely associated it with the world wars and some kindly older people and the fact that many of her friends had one.

Ah, so from that I gather this that at least one of your goals in telling him stuff no 9-year-old really needs to know is for him to hate the British as much as you do. You make my point better than I ever could. Thanks.

 

I think if you decide as her father that she needs to know something about the history and the politics, it's not my place to have an opinion on that. Presumably, though, you wouldn't be teaching her to hate an entire nationality.

 

I don't know, no amount of explaining will turn you to see it for what is. I know I don't get to decide but common sense tell you if it's for all wars the Brits where in, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to work out they where the cause of the majority of them. And the brutality they inflicted to the native population was horrific. The * even beheaded some natives. How can you not see this or do like to cherry pick the good from the bad.

My goal isn't to teach my young ones hate. They can decide that for themselves. They very well cherry pick like yourself and decide not to hate which I've no problem with. What I will not do is sanitise what them * did in our country. My great granny detested them for reason I've explained in previous posts. Grand parents, my parents also had their reasons to detest the Brits and myself included. Random, You do realise we all have our own valid reasons to hate the Brits ya know! As far as it goes, I don't think my younglad will have the same hatred as the previous generations in my family and others from where I'm from. He hasn't witnessed any of the oppression, the bombings and seen the death like we have.' Its amusing how you tried to turn thst post on me as if I'm inviting hatred into my young lad. What will not do, I won't deny him the lessons of our history and try to make the Brits out for what they weren't. They where * scum, always have been and continue to be!

Your niece needs to know all sides of what thst stained poppy is about and not fall for the British PR machine sugar coating it as if it's a symbol of peace and for old men winning a war against fascism! Also, you really need to visit places and meet families in the north who suffered at the hands of these * and hopefully you'll open your eyes then and see what thst poppy really represents.

 

No definitely not.

 

Listening to Jay Z lately, aye?

 

This is your whole problem IMO. You know everything about the crimes of the British empire; but from the fact that you seem to think they are exceptional, I can only assume you are unaware of the same crimes of the vast majority of other empires (probably all other empires). It's nothing new, it's not a British thing, it's not a western thing, it's an empire thing. This is why you see these crimes as saying something about the British rather than saying something about empires.

If you were teaching the younger generation to hate imperialism, I would have no problem with that.

 

The Romans aren't currently occupying Ireland tbf

 

That's not really the point, mate.

 

You appear to want to separate being British, from what the British did (recently), and in the timeframe that the person you are responding to is referring to.

That's the point. You are saying it's The Empires fault, when really the general and specific experience of those who lived in Northern Ireland across the time is that the British army where a bunch of heartless, bullying *, to a person to the Catholic community, without exception.

Sending an army in to police civilians pretty much always ends that way. The British government and population supported it, perhaps not unequivocally, but they did.

I think you should think a bit more about what @leeso-ardoyne experienced and the effect that would have, and what that means about how he arrived at his opinion. It certainly wasn't through any academic argument. Which appears to be were you are coming from, which is a bit tragic as you aren't taking any consideration of the person you appear to be having a conversation with.

 

Firstly, you are completely missing the point. Just because someone's conclusions are arrived at through life experience doesn't mean they're totally accurate. In fact, we are not very good at identifying the underlying causes of our experiences, we tend to only see the last link in a chain. The point is not that I disagree that he has experienced terrible things which are not excusable, the point is that the cause is not correctly identified, in a very counterproductive way.

Secondly, you yourself frame things in a deeply unhelpful and misleading way. The modifiers "to a person" and "without exception" are either totally untrue (if you meant them as statements of fact) or perfectly illustrate my point above (if you meant them as statements of experience). Moreover, the reason the army was there had little to do with policing civilians. We all know why the army was there.

I'm not sure what you mean by "appear" to be having a conversation.

I'm not coming from this from the point of view of academic argument; I'm trying to communicate my understanding of how these evils perpetuate themselves. The world is full of places where horrific violence erupts periodically because people nurse their hatreds and grievances and pass them down the generations. Do you want that for Ireland? For future generations to suffer what you suffered? That's where I'm coming from.

Hating the British is not the way to make sure this never happens again in Ireland. On the contrary, it leaves hanging the potential for endangering the process should circumstances change. Like it or not, a sizeable section (perhaps almost half) of the population of the occupied 6 considers themselves British. Since you are not crazy enough to propose ethnic cleansing as a solution, that leaves you with a bit of a trilemma:

1) A united Ireland.
2) A peaceful Ireland.
3) Holding on to hatred of the British as a people.

Logically, you can have any two of these but it's very hard to see how you can have all three (barring forcible ejection of all the people who consider themselves British). I would suggest that number 3 is by some distance the one to let go of. Note that I am talking about hatred not historical memory of what was done.