Educating Rita

In her Boston Globe letter, September 1, 2011, Rita O’Hare expresses ‘disbelief’ that Ed Moloney and myself should vent concern that the British police might, through their endeavours to break in to the Boston College oral history project, seek to undermine aspects of the peace process and the Good Friday Agreement which has annoyed some of them. In her view we should refrain from probing the motives of the British police or ascribe to them some other motives we do not believe them to have. How considerate of her to think of sparing us the effort.

What we are concerned with is hardly what Rita O’Hare thinks, on the odd occasion that she might. Our primary focus is this: as journalists and researchers our first commitment and duty of care is to the protection of our sources; in the journalistic world, the primus pares inter. Were the British police seeking to strengthen the peace process by obtaining the Boston College oral history archives, our concern would be the same. It just so happens that in their pursuit of those archives, elements of the British police are doing so for nefarious reasons, which when distilled down amount to what Niall O’Dowd has termed revenge. O’Hare at least seems to acknowledge this much in her reference to a fishing expedition driven by ‘political motivation.’ But only she is allowed to say so. In deference to the Führerprinzip, her party’s governing ethos, we should remember our place and remain silent.

O’Hare has also stated that Ed Moloney and myself ‘have attacked Sinn Fein’s president, Gerry Adams, and others for their role in bringing an end to armed conflict.’ From behind what burning bush was this strange mystery of the peace process revealed to her? It is an allegation without the slightest shred of evidence to support it. Nowhere have we written in support of armed conflict. We have been unambiguous in our view of the futility of it. I in particular, because of my IRA and Sinn Fein past which led me to previously endorse the IRA use of political violence, have gone to considerable lengths to express the very simple concept that never again should republicans use any form of coercion in pursuit of their goals.

O’Hare further alleges that for years in our writings we have been ‘at the forefront of those irredentist elements opposed to the Good Friday Agreement [wanting to] bring down aspects of the peace process they abhor.’ For Rita, old Stalinist habits die hard as she labours in truly pedestrian manner to besmirch those who probe beyond the standard narrative of the peace process so that people like her may be spared the effort of thinking seriously about serious matters. Her attempt to corral all critical or dissenting voices under the one roof, the democratic with the anti-democratic, the radical with the reactionary, is as shallow as herself. The blind faithful, as always, alone shall be bamboozled.

If Rita O’Hare genuinely believes that the British police hounding of Boston College is politically motivated, then she should direct her ire at those behind that politically driven act and ask why, in the North’s supposedly new dispensation, political policing remains as strong a feature as it previously did. On whose watch did that get through?  Attacking those determined to defend the pass against indolent and invidious policing encroaching on journalistic sources,  might sate a long festering resentment, but it does nothing to curb the forward momentum of British political policing, which both the peace process and Good Friday Agreement were supposed to have pushed back.

12 comments:

  1. Powerfull Anthony,when I read this post my initial feeling was one of really wanting to kick O Hare up her arrogant arse, then I thought about the rest of psf and decided I,d have one hell of a sore foot when finished,it highlights to me just how badly these highflying wannabe carpetbsggers have sold the pass and just how shafted they really have been,on the outside they show all the trappings of power but in reality they are more akin to the kings new clothes,looking more and more foolish in their nakedness and bent posture to become more loyal than any royalist, the emerging news from Libya about MI6/CIA involvement in rendition and torture makes that saying about lying down with dogs and rising with fleas so very true, I think psf must be so well infested by now that they move without moving their feet,

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  2. Marty,

    she was censoring prisoners when they were trying to raise left wing issues. People who did the blanket and hunger strike were being censored by this acolyte because she wanted to go places and would not rock the boat or allow prisoners to rock it either. For somebody with a People's Democracy past she has gone a long way down.

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  3. 'the emerging news from Libya about MI6/CIA involvement in rendition and torture makes that saying about lying down with dogs and rising with fleas so very true, I think psf must be so well infested by now that they move without moving their feet'

    IN A NUTSHELL!!

    if the conflict is over let those held/reditioned in maghabery out and move on.

    SF..blagh blagh blagh, SDLP wanabe's. can't go much lower than SF and O'Dowd and O'Hare eh!

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  4. Anthony well she has completed her journey a cara,she,s hit rock bottom now and I think its a shit hole she is in.!

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  5. Well worth reading

    http://bostoncollegesubpoena.wordpress.com/2011/09/06/fighting-for-confidentiality/

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  6. Just read that Anthony O Hare would be useful to our SMH and her artistic endeavours,O,Hare would make you wanna boke, as for Bangers well Anthony consider yourself told the whole problem lies with you and your goading,this goading has got to stop you naughty boy cant you see it like catholics calling the pope a lying cunt .

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  7. Call me stupid or naive...But why doesn't the PSNI simply arrest Gerry Adams under suspicion of murder? As far as I can make out most (if not all) the evidence is already in the public domain...

    Surely they have enough to work on(I reckon they know the truth and don't want to upset the apple cart)...I doubt Brendan Hughes had any axe to grind when he made the alligation that Gerry was behind the murder of Jean Mc Conville...(JMO)

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  8. To kinda back up my earlier post...Just read this on the BBC NI web site...

    'Alleged County Tyrone Real IRA leader granted bail...

    Police believe a Tyrone man who appeared in court on terrorism charges is a member of the Real IRA's army council and its leader in east Tyrone.'

    THe PSNI have no hard evidence..only an alligation..Why doesn't the same rule of law apply to Gerry Adams...(like I said in an earlier post, maybe I'm just naive...)

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  9. Good article Anthony,

    Marty, your first comment is, as Larry says, it IN a NUTSHELL! Go to the top of the class my man!

    "...these highflying wannabe carpetbaggers have sold the pass and just how shafted they really have been,on the outside they show all the trappings of power but in reality they are more akin to the kings new clothes,looking more and more foolish in their nakedness and bent posture..."

    Don't know wheather to laugh or cry.

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  10. Ah Mackers I look forward to your writing.

    Thirty years ago as we waited for news of our comrades clinging to life little did we know that something was already set in motion that stank more than our cells.

    That something was the beginnings of what was to become the Sinn Fein of today...

    An asset of the British occupation; so much so they even use Thatcheresque words to criminalise those who would dare oppose them.

    In fact the Peace Processors seem to forget that it was within their power to bring about peace years before yet the time wasn't right for them.

    If the Brits really wanted to damage PSF then it would only be a matter of withdrawing funding for the many 'community groups' under the shinner control and the rats would leave the sinking ship en masse.

    But why damage a sound investment?

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  11. Dixie the brits could wipe out psf today with no probs by letting slip the names of the touts at the top, and of course withdrawing funding for their "community "groups, the problem with this is that they would have to do the same to the "loyalists"and their reaction would be a much more violent response plus the fact these "loyalists "have a fair bit of dirt on their masters,this is imo their trump card and the reason the brits have to handle them with kid gloves,in other words the psf base relies on the loyalist groups like their boses rely on the dup to retain power.

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  12. SF conference on vatican tv today...dear oh dear. ill stay in me scratcher.

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