New York City
7 February 2015
SB: And we're now going over to Coalisland,
Co. Tyrone, to talk to Bernadette Devlin-McAliskey, who you've just been
listening to on this documentary, Off Our Knees. Bernadette, thank you
very much for being with us.
SB:
And Bernadette, we've been listening to excerpts from this documentary
which you wrote and narrated and it covers the whole period from '68 to '88.
And why is it so important to look back at that? Some people would just say:
well, it's ancient history – why should we bother with that?
BDM:
Well I think there are two reasons, Sandy. First of all it's not such
ancient history – that period still very much determines the course of events
of the present period. And I think in that respect it's very good to put down a
marker as we go along because quite a lot of the history of that period is
being re-written and revised to suit the present narrative as it were. I think
there's a second reason as well is that a lot of the history of that period and
a lot of the history of the civil rights movement which took some of its own
inspiration from the American civil rights movement and leads us forward into
what people called the Egyptian Spring and civil rights movements throughout
the rest of the world. So there's a continuity of people in struggle that is
not an ancient history. It is our ongoing present throughout different
countries in the world at the minute. So it's very much living history.
SB: Bernadette, there's a conventional wisdom
from this period that is: first you had the wonderful, non-violent, peaceful
civil rights movement and then you had the nasty terrorist IRA. Is that really
the truth?
BDM:
No. I think that's very simplistic – a very simplistic and a very
consciously – if I can put it that way – you know from the powerful people if
you like – a consciously distorted narrative because it gives an impression
that the government of the day didn't have a problem with the civil rights
movement - just with the “baddies” who came along after it.
So you have to
recognise what's happening here: The first violence in Northern Ireland was the
violence of the state. You look at the mass demonstrations and the democratic
election of a government in Egypt which didn't please the West and didn't
please the power-mongers and so that gets overthrown and you have the violence
of the state against that democracy.
You look at Blair
and Bush taking us to war in Iraq and we're paying for that now in the violence
of ISIS. But if you extract the violence of the state from the discussion you
can get this simple narrative that the ordinary people are alright – you don't
give them anything - but then along comes the “bad terrorists” and then
everybody gets afraid and the government then uses that to terrorise the
population.
SB:
Bernadette, I have watched this documentary again yesterday and a couple
of things struck me: first of all we
forget when this whole thing started – and probably it's unbelievable even to
young people today - Catholics couldn't vote – Catholics couldn't get a house!
BDM:
That's right. People tend to
forget that – and we're talking in the latter half of the twentieth century
within British democracy - that significant elements of poor people, in which
ranks the Catholic population predominated - it wasn't only that Catholics
didn't have the vote - you couldn't have the vote unless you were a property
owner. So the poor didn't have the vote.
But the majority in looking at the poor, the Catholic were
over-represented in the poor. And in order to stop Catholics from getting the
vote they were denied housing. So while it was the reality was that the poor
couldn't vote that piece of undemocratic legislation became a weapon for
stopping people getting a vote by stopping them getting a roof over their head,
essentially.
SB:
And Bernadette, this is the documentary, Off Our Knees, which you
actually made but looking back – these are, you know - Eamonn McCann, Michael
Farrell, Tommy Gorman - these are people you knew and worked with very
intimately. What's it like for you to
look back on that?
BDM:
Well it's interesting. I look back on it and the one thing that I think
surprises me is how we survived that and how – certainly the people you have
mentioned – how enough of us survived that with, if you'd like – and I'm lucky
I did survived because there were so many colleagues and friends who didn't –
who lost their lives in that struggle and whom indirectly that struggle took
its toll on and died prematurely as a result - but what's interesting
politically looking back on it is that we may have been young and we may have
been naive but we weren't wrong. We
weren't wrong, Sandy.
When you look at it
you can see how young people to an extent instinctively reacted against
injustices and I think we were right.
You know, it wasn't glorious but it was right. I remember old Mrs.
Mullen here who lost sons and daughters and sons-in-law in the struggles said:
You know, no matter where it went wrong and no matter what little we got out of
it to have risen up against that injustice was noble, right and necessary. And
when I look back on it I still maintain that – we may not have always been wise
but it was necessary and it was noble and it was right.
SB:
And I think you can say the same thing here. You know we're talking now
about Selma and the civil rights movement but which was - of course you drew inspiration from – but
that struggle goes on...
BDM:
...that struggle goes on. We see
it in Ferguson and we were again delighted that – you know I'm part of the
Bloody Sunday March Committee and were delighted – we hoped to have a speaker from
Ferguson and they, suffering from exhaustion, only got the length of New
York.
But we had a
speaker from #BlackLivesMatter both at the weekend seminars and as a
keynote speaker on the march and so those parallels continue to made and that
continues to be one, as I said, one ongoing struggle - people's civil rights
have not yet - we're not there yet, Sandy – put it that way - in the things
that people gave their life to and gave their life's work to – that struggle
continues.
JM:
Yeah, Bernadette, John McDonagh here.
BDM:
Hi, John.
JM:
Hi, Bernadette. You were talking about it didn't go quite in the
direction that everybody was hoping – I mean you can say that maybe from the
ANC and a lot of revolutionary groups that rise up and then, as Ernie O'Malley
in On Another Man's Wound, you can see what happened from 1916
and you can see what happened in the struggle back then how historical
forces come together and push the movement in different directions that you
might not have wanted to go and how could that be stopped? I mean, is it just the forces you were up
against?
BDM:
Yeah. I think it's not historical
forces I think we have to look at what are those forces which historically
re-assert themselves and of course they're the forces of power. I think in
struggle we often forget how all-powerful - all-embracingly powerful - those
who hold onto power are: economically, politically, socially - and how they
will, at every opportunity, regroup – they hold the military power - they hold
the economic power - they hold the political power and you know you come back
to it – well I do from my perspective, John – that the revolution only starts -
it never ends and so in every generation we keep trying to get closer to that
point of a fair and equitable world where people matter before profit and human
beings matter before we go speculating on world markets and turning water into
a commodity and having a wealthy nation that citizens sleep in the street.
SB: And Bernadette in this documentary you talk about all those things that
are tremendously important but there's also the fact that we can't get away
from tho we try: that the British government still runs Northern Ireland.
BDM: Oh
yes, it does. Yes, it does. And people try to – and that's what I said at the
outset about people re-writing history and trying to – which historically
happens as well – that when those who lead us try tell us we're further down
the road than we are then you have to begin to twist the story and tell the
tale.
Of course the
British government still directly governs Northern Ireland through its devolved
administration in the same way that it governs Scotland through its devolved
administration. And the Scots made a better run for independence in the past
two years than we seem to have done – that's a very vibrant, radical movement
that I think will ultimately secure independence for Scotland and that will change
the whole debate. But you know the issue of – it's commonly said – our argument
about Britain running the country just isn't a kind of narrow Nationalism – the
country cannot be governed in the interests of the people while Britain
continues to run it.
JM:
Bernadette, there's a documentary that's just coming out of Sundance –
it's about the history of the Black Panthers - there's a documentary on The
Young Lords in Spanish Harlem – it seems all these struggles were coming
together because you have the distance of time to look back at it to see what
was right and what was wrong - is there any sense of it now? I mean the
documentary we're doing now is from 1988. Is there any sense of it now because
we're going into 2016 and The Twenty-Six County government put out a YouTube
video about celebrating 2016 and didn't mention the uprising of 1916!
BDM:
Well you see...what...I have to ask you, John and I appreciate that it
is a wider American audience: what would you expect the government to do if you
had betrayed the revolution of 1916 and were still in government? How would you
try to celebrate a hundred years of freedom you had wasted?
JM:
That would be a tough documentary.
BDM:
That would be a tough documentary. You know, what the government really
should do if it wanted to honour the men of '16 is just pack up and
resign! (all laugh)
SB:
Well, I think you could say the same thing about some people in Stormont
today.
BDM:
You could say exactly the same thing. If you wanted really to say what was
it the people of 1916 wanted? You could
say if you really wanted to get back there we need to walk.
SB:
And Bernadette, we're going to wrap up with you in a little while
because we have to get back and try to raise the money to keep this show alive.
BDM: Listen. Let me tell ya – if anybody's got
any money in their pockets get it out there because it's a show - there aren't
many opportunities left and the ones that we have - I keep saying to people -
we have to look after the people who hold the truth. We have to look after the
organisations that are not afraid to speak the truth. And we have to keep the
channels of truth and communication open. Your show is one of the few left,
Sandy, so let's everybody get their money in their pockets and keep it breathing.
SB:
Bernadette, thank you very much. It's tempting – I'd love to talk to you
– we could go on for hours – but as I said you just heard Bernadette talk about
the value of the station and the show so again, Bernadette, thank you very
much.
BDM:
You're welcome. Talk later. Talk later. 'Bye, John. 'Bye Sandy!
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