Brutality and fear

real lesson of IMC report

by Siobhan O'Dwyer

The ongoing political furore about the rights, wrongs, lies and truths of the IMC Report rumble on and we hear a lot of self-righteous indignation or satisfaction from all sides. The most telling part of the whole report has been largely ignored while the real aim of the report ie., the political naming and shaming of the IRA and Sinn Fein, grabs most attention.

The shocking reality outlined briefly in the report is the frequency and brutality of the attacks on primarily young people in many working class communities. The fact that these attacks are called punishment beatings or shootings and many say, are called for by working class people who live in extremely deprived area’s should not disguise the reality of what is actually happening. Grown men, some past “freedom fighters”, beat up frightened boys with hammers, baseball bats, screwdrivers and sometimes shoot them as well. Just think about that - Five or Six Grown Men holding a defenceless young man/ boy down and breaking their finger, legs, arms. What if it was your son? Brother? Father?

The level of brutality that is accepted in this society is of course, partly a legacy of the thirty years of war and now a sign of the deprivation and degraded circumstances in which many working class communities continue to live with no hope or belief in themselves. However, that is not an excuse to sit back and say that these sorts of attacks have to be accepted as they are not only brutal but a diversion away from the demands that communities should be making for better conditions for all. The men who carry them out, whether ex-paramilitaries or not, have no right to demand our complicity on the basis of a past struggle which they have given up on. We must demand real economic and social change in our communities and reject this quick fix brutality.

3 May 2004