Is this the UVF's opinion as to what caused the (recent) troubles?

IIMII

If it is it is refreshing. The PUP seems to have more sense than all of the Trimble's and Paisley put together.

Unionists at odds over cause of Trouble
Irish Times, Wednesday, November 4, 200UNIONIST POLITICIANS clashed over the causes of the Troubles during a debate on a proposed bill of rights for Northern Ireland in the Northern Assembly yesterday.
Progressive Unionist Party (PUP) leader Dawn Purvis accused the former unionist establishment of denying that discrimination existed, “mostly” against Catholics, while Ulster Unionist MLA Basil McCrea said the conflict was caused by republican attempts to achieve a united Ireland.
The two politicians engaged in their historical argument during discussion of an Ulster Unionist Party motion, supported by the DUP, calling on Northern Secretary Shaun Woodward not to proceed with a bill of rights for Northern Ireland.
UUP deputy leader Danny Kennedy said that if Mr Woodward proceeded with the bill of rights as supported by the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission it would be “to reject the democratically expressed will of the majority in this Assembly”.
Sinn Féin, the SDLP, Alliance and Ms Purvis, leader of the PUP, which is linked to the UVF, support the bill of rights proposals.
The DUP and UUP oppose the proposal and have concerns that regardless of their opposition Mr Woodward could enact a bill of rights for the North at Westminster.
The Assembly rejected the UUP motion and supported an amendment by Ms Purvis calling on Mr Woodward to publish a consultation document on the Bill, as a prelude to the introduction of the Bill.
During the debate Ms Purvis raised the issue of how the Troubles started.
She asked, “What came first: stinking, polluted politics or bloody awful violence?” She accused mainstream unionism of having a “particularly blinkered view” of the causes of the conflict.
“They deny discrimination existed. They deny that all working-class people, but mostly Catholics, endured in slums, squalor, poverty, and unemployment in order to preserve the power of the political elite,” she said.
“You continue to deny working-class children, Protestants, the right to a decent education by holding on and wanting to hold on to academic selection,” added Ms Purvis.
“I have to say to you, you have to stop living in denial, you have to start looking at what happened here, what caused the conflict here, because you are doing a great disservice to working-class people, in particular Protestant working-class people, and the most vulnerable in our society,” she said.
Lagan Valley MLA Mr McCrea said the issue simply was whether it was right to put the bill of rights proposals out for public consultation when two of the major parties opposed them. Such a move would contradict the cross-community consensus essence of the Belfast Agreement.
He rejected Ms Purvis’s analysis of how the conflict started. “We argue as a party for the social justice that is demanded by all the people of Northern Ireland and we will not be browbeaten by people from whatever side of the house who wish to rewrite history,” he said.
“Those that argue that the source of our troubles was some form of social, economic problem, those who say it was all about housing, miss the fact that this terrorist activity that we have had over the last 30 to 40 years was not about social deprivation: it was about a political aim for a united Ireland perpetrated through people that believed that violence was the way forward. That is not the way,” said Mr McCrea.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2009/1104/1224258026815.html

R.Dub.Fusilier

purvis never mentioned that part of the reason that Protestant areas were slums was due to loyalist/unionist terrorists groups , including the uvf, demanding protection money from builders in their own areas which resulted in builders having to buy substandard and cheap materials.

Morlar

I always had more respect for David Ervine than any other loyalist politician (even though he was a former UVF terrorist), it seems that his party has not lost it's way since his death.

Judgement Day

Have to agree with you Morlar, isn't it interesting the way people like the Progressive Unionist Party and Sinn Fein have a far more pragmatic attitude than people in the mainstream parties with little or no direct involvement with violence and its social breeding grounds. David Ervine would have made a far better First Minister than that rabble rouser Peter Robinson.

MrMicra

R.Dub.Fusilier wrote: »

purvis never mentioned that part of the reason that Protestant areas were slums was due to loyalist/unionist terrorists groups , including the uvf, demanding protection money from builders in their own areas which resulted in builders having to buy substandard and cheap materials.

Really and that's true for the period before the beginning of the most recent troubles?

McArmalite

Judgement Day wrote: »

Have to agree with you Morlar, isn't it interesting the way people like the Progressive Unionist Party and Sinn Fein have a far more pragmatic attitude than people in the mainstream parties with little or no direct involvement with violence and its social breeding grounds. David Ervine would have made a far better First Minister than that rabble rouser Peter Robinson.

This might surprise some of you, but I actually had a discussion in Belfast one time with a ex loyalist prisioner Eddie Kinnear of the PUP. It was with a bunch of typical middle class hypocrites from Susan McHugh's 'Peace' 93. A bigger bunch of hypocrites you couldn't get, at one point I was shaking my head in disbelief as one of them justified british collusion with the loyalists, and she was wearing a peace badge with a dove on it, serious. Indeed there also was an English chap on it, a 'christian' who wouldn't accept that Ireland had been wrongly partitioned and that the resultant violence was the product of britain. To this day I'm sorry I didn't engage him in robust debate.

So anyway, when I got talking to Eddie Kinnear, been a working class bloke like myself, their was a certain empathy of what would drive a man to commit violence. Indeed in the whole weekend, it was about the only positive I can think of that I got out of it.

Anyway, here's some photo of rabble rouser Peter Robinson -

MarchDub

McArmalite wrote: »

This might surprise some of you, but I actually had a discussion in Belfast one time with a ex loyalist prisioner Eddie Kinnear of the PUP. It was with a bunch of typical middle class hypocrites from Susan McHugh's 'Peace' 93. A bigger bunch of hypocrites you couldn't get, at one point I was shaking my head in disbelief as one of them justified british collusion with the loyalists, and she was wearing a peace badge with a dove on it, serious. Indeed there also was an English chap on it, a 'christian' who wouldn't accept that Ireland had been wrongly partitioned and that the resultant violence was the product of britain. To this day I'm sorry I didn't engage him in robust debate.

So anyway, when I got talking to Eddie Kinnear, been a working class bloke like myself, their was a certain empathy of what would drive a man to commit violence. Indeed in the whole weekend, it was about the only positive I can think of that I got out of it.

I think you make some interesting and valid points. History has always been used by interested parties to justify present actions or explain away the social reality of what caused violence. Those of us who remember Northern Ireland prior to the recent troubles can certainly speak of first hand experience of a society that was full of tension, inequality and blatant outright prejudice. How anyone can say that the second-class position of the Catholic population within the state of NI did not lead to the troubles is living in cloud cuckoo land.

Addressing the issue in 1966 before the troubles began Seamus Heaney spoke of the dismal life of the Catholic population and how near the edge they felt - “life goes on here, yet people are reluctant to dismiss the possibility of an explosion". The explosion came – as Heaney and others indicated it would - as a result of the lack of willingness to extend civil rights to the Catholic population.

McArmalite

MarchDub wrote: »

I think you make some interesting and valid points. History has always been used by interested parties to justify present actions or explain away the social reality of what caused violence. Those of us who remember Northern Ireland prior to the recent troubles can certainly speak of first hand experience of a society that was full of tension, inequality and blatant outright prejudice. How anyone can say that the second-class position of the Catholic population within the state of NI did not lead to the troubles is living in cloud cuckoo land.

Addressing the issue in 1966 before the troubles began Seamus Heaney spoke of the dismal life of the Catholic population and how near the edge they felt - “life goes on here, yet people are reluctant to dismiss the possibility of an explosion". The explosion came – as Heaney and others indicated it would - as a result of the lack of willingness to extend civil rights to the Catholic population.

True enough, but apart from the English ' Christian ', the rest of them were from the south. I had a suspicion once I heard that Susan McHugh's ' Peace ' 93 collection of middle class hypocrites would be on it, it's not surprising how some people from the six counties can be so angry with the Free Staters as they say, really it's not. A ' peace ' campaigner justifying collusion with the loyalists - doesn't it say it all :mad: Having said that I won't say that they were nesseccarily an accurate reflection of the general man or woman in the street down here ( I hope not anyway ), but these ' peace ' movements down here such as the PeaceTrain*, were always full of santimonious, middle class hypocrites. And the gas thing is, nearly half of them worked in RTE or Independent newspapers !!!!!


* The PeaceTrain http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_Train_Organisation was headed by Bray trade unionist Chris Hudson who got an MBE from Mrs Windsor for his efforts :rolleyes::)

donaghs

McArmalite wrote: »

True enough, but apart from the English ' Christian ', the rest of them were from the south. I had a suspicion once I heard that Susan McHugh's ' Peace ' 93 collection of middle class hypocrites would be on it, it's not surprising how some people from the six counties can be so angry with the Free Staters as they say, really it's not. A ' peace ' campaigner justifying collusion with the loyalists - doesn't it say it all :mad: Having said that I won't say that they were nesseccarily an accurate reflection of the general man or woman in the street down here ( I hope not anyway ), but these ' peace ' movements down here such as the PeaceTrain*, were always full of santimonious, middle class hypocrites. And the gas thing is, nearly half of them worked in RTE or Independent newspapers !!!!!


* The PeaceTrain http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_Train_Organisation was headed by Bray trade unionist Chris Hudson who got an MBE from Mrs Windsor for his efforts :rolleyes::)

I think its quite refreshing to hear a Unionist voice blaming the causes of the Troubles on decades of Unionists (mis)rule. Previously I only recall hearing Unionists blaming Nationalists for the Troubles, e.g. a typical interpretation was:
everything had been rosy until the Civil Rights movement (an IRA front) started stirring up trouble, and then came out into the open as the IRA and caused murder and mayhem.

So there has been some change for the better, that's what I took from the OP's article.

I don't get the link with the Peace Train people, and their support for Loyalist Collusion? I never noticed that before. Perhaps this individual or idea was not representative of the other members? To describe them as "middle class" hypocrites implies the other members were also saying one thing, and doing another. The main aim appears to have been to keep the Belfast-Dublin line open, and promote peace on the island, a good thing in my opinion.

About Hudson, as well as being a trade unionist and a one-time Communist, he's also worked as a Unitarian (technically Protestant) minister in Belfast, despite being born a Catholic from a Republican background. I personally don't like "honours" systems, but after peace and power-sharing, shouldn't Nationalist, Unionists and "others" be able to receive an honour from either government if really want it?

blinding

Judgement Day wrote: »

Have to agree with you Morlar, isn't it interesting the way people like the Progressive Unionist Party and Sinn Fein have a far more pragmatic attitude than people in the mainstream parties with little or no direct involvement with violence and its social breeding grounds. David Ervine would have made a far better First Minister than that rabble rouser Peter Robinson.

The PUP are far more Progressive than the other staid Unionist parties.

The other Unionist parties yearn to go back to the old days.

They cannot come to terms with the reality that there is no going back to the old Unionist ways.