Monday, February 18, 2008
Enniskillen Bomb Plaque and the Equality Commission
The removal of the memorial in Enniskillen Fire Station to those murdered in the 1987 Poppy Day bombing was apparently prompted by a complaint from one member of staff. It was allegedly seen as a political emblem for having photographs of the one girl and ten pensioners murdered and the following words: “The innocents who lost their lives.” The removal of the tribute itself caused extremely widespread controversy. A new tribute to those murdered has now been put up in Enniskillen Fire Station according to the Impartial Reporter. This has not, however, satisfied Arlene Foster or Tom Elliott nor would it appear some of the relatives of those murdered.
One of the strangest aspects of this is that, according to Arlene Foster, the Fire Service did not seek any advice regarding the original tribute’s alleged offensiveness from the Equality Commission. A similar problem seems to have afflicted Banbridge Council with the unionist councillors seemingly panicking and removing plaques honouring the RUC and UDR, apparently before there was any evidence of a complaint having been made (except obviously by SF councillors).
Both these episodes seem to show that fear of possible censure by the Equality Commission is provoking actions which the Equality Commission might well not have demanded; a little like the assorted occasions on which fear of Health and Safety legislation is used as a reason to ban things which the real Health and Safety professionals would be unconcerned with.
Turgon @ 12:52 PM
Unbelievable.
Shame.Posted by on Feb 18, 2008 @ 01:27 PMWho is this member of staff?
I see no reason why the media should not identify this individual.Posted by on Feb 18, 2008 @ 01:38 PM“Who is this member of staff?”
Someone who somehow considers the Enniskillen victims to have been “guity” of something.
Perhaps she also considers the perpetrators to have been “fine men”.
Posted by on Feb 18, 2008 @ 01:48 PM‘’She’’ Willowfield? Do tell.
Posted by on Feb 18, 2008 @ 02:28 PMThere is a clear public interest in questioning this person’s motives.
Why hasn’t the media done so?Posted by on Feb 18, 2008 @ 02:38 PMI must say I am sick with people getting on their high horse over this issue. the fact that someone objected to the photomontage does not mean at all that they believed the perpetrators for the enniskillen atrocity to have been fine men or that the people killed have been guilty of anything.
As far as I know this was the only commemorative plague in Enniskillen fire station. The commemoration of a single event within a public service building in a community where there have been many such horrific events and the use of the word innocents in a society where some victims of the conflict are not regarded as innocent was likely to become problematic . I don’t think that this being pointed out takes away from the wrongness of the bomb or the innocence of the victims. Would the Fire Service need to go to the Equality Commission on this issue at all? I’m not sure and likely it was within the powers of the service to act to comply with the law and to avoid a constructive dismissal or harassment claim. Given that no local resolution was found can one not conclude that there was not even unity amongts the staff over how this issue was to be dealt with? Little option then than for the management to impose a solution
Posted by on Feb 18, 2008 @ 03:46 PMRapunsel,
So someone objecting to the use of the term “innocents” does not mean that they are taking away from the innocence of those persons who were indeed innocent. How fascinating. So black is indeed white and vice versa.As an alternative to your view may I proffer that this is an example of one especially nasty, sectarian and bigoted individual objecting to public recognition of those who died in one of the more dreadful sectarian murders committed here. Further it is an example of in this case the Fire Service failing to stand up to such pathetic bigotry.
Posted by on Feb 18, 2008 @ 03:56 PMRAPUNSEL says:
“the fact that someone objected to the photomontage does not mean at all that they believed ... that the people killed have been guilty of anything”.
Then, he or she says:
“… the use of the word innocents in a society where some victims of the conflict are not regarded as innocent was likely to become problematic . “
Posted by on Feb 18, 2008 @ 04:14 PMHas now gone from “shameful” to “disgraceful”.
Posted by on Feb 18, 2008 @ 04:20 PM‘ So someone objecting to the use of the term “innocents” does not mean that they are taking away from the innocence of those persons who were indeed innocent. How fascinating. So black is indeed white and vice versa. ‘
Spot on Turgon
Rapsunel
‘ where there have been many such horrific events’What other horrific events have been dealt with by the Enniskillen Fire Station?
‘the use of the word innocents in a society where some victims of the conflict are not regarded as innocent was likely to become problematic’
who are the ‘some victims’ of the conflict not regarded as innocent?
Posted by on Feb 18, 2008 @ 04:21 PMRapunsel: “I must say I am sick with people getting on their high horse over this issue.”
So am I… although I doubt we mean precisely the same thing.
Rapunsel: “the fact that someone objected to the photomontage does not mean at all that they believed the perpetrators for the enniskillen atrocity to have been fine men or that the people killed have been guilty of anything. “
But it is, within certain tolerances, the most likey explanation, although we may end up quibbling about the specific words. Someone is somehow offended/upset that the victims of this bombing have been memorialized.
That said, the language of the memorial is non-partisan and fairly accurate—unless you’d care to explain to me how ten pensioners and a pre-teen girl were somehow deserving on this fate…
Rapunsel: “As far as I know this was the only commemorative plague in Enniskillen fire station. The commemoration of a single event within a public service building in a community where there have been many such horrific events and the use of the word innocents in a society where some victims of the conflict are not regarded as innocent was likely to become problematic .”
*shrug*
Neither here nor there, Rapunsel, unless you can point to a bombing that this fire-house responded to that they have chosen to ignore.
Rapunsel: “I don’t think that this being pointed out takes away from the wrongness of the bomb or the innocence of the victims.”
But it does high-light that someone would prefer their memory swept under the rug, rather than memorialized.
Posted by on Feb 18, 2008 @ 04:59 PMIf I knew the name of this bigoted fire woman, I would name and shame her for trying to undermine the innocence of the people who died on that horrific day.
name and shame her!
Posted by on Feb 18, 2008 @ 05:54 PMThere are many versions of how we reached the divided state of this society and trying to claim all virtue for any of them won’t get us very far. Sure, you can bring back the witch-burnings and the personal attacks, indeed there are times when thee seem to be very little else being posted here, or alternatively you can try and learn that the minority too have their right to be heard, however repugnant that right is to you.
Like Rapunsel, I truly don’t understand why and how unionism appears to have no shame or regret for its part in what has happened here to the point of writing all opposition out of history. This was a militaristic display celebrating a violent occupying army in the centre of an occupied town. It was tragically attacked in a shocking display of hatred which repelled any decent person.
I respect your right to have your opinion but don’t forget that there are a great many people who see things in a very different light. And you can’t just keep locking us up or denouncing us forever or murdering our peaceful demonstrators. Those days have gone.
Posted by on Feb 18, 2008 @ 07:09 PMThere will come a day when we can mourn our dead together and with respect. Can’t we at least leave the hate and political opportunism out of things until then?
Posted by on Feb 18, 2008 @ 07:30 PMlib2016: “Like Rapunsel, I truly don’t understand why and how unionism appears to have no shame or regret for its part in what has happened here to the point of writing all opposition out of history. “
As opposed to the enthusiastic erasing of inconvenient truths by republicans, lib2016? Just shuffle off the unfortunate, create the unremembered dead and dumb down the Troubles to a vague “bad things happened, we should just forget about it” meme?
lib2016: “This was a militaristic display celebrating a violent occupying army in the centre of an occupied town.”
How do you derive a “militaristic display” from “photographs of the one girl and ten pensioners murdered and the following words: “The innocents who lost their lives.””
Are these pensioners toting firearms? Was the child carring munitions?
Are fire-fighters somehow now paramilitaries, lib2016? Or is it now time to outfit you with a head-dress and royal barge, you having fallen into denial?
Lib2016: “It was tragically attacked in a shocking display of hatred which repelled any decent person. “
Aw… some Republican unable to stomach the fruit of their beliefs, more like it, perhaps with a little scab-picking and point-scoring on the side.
As a point of reference, most “decent” people would have been outraged by the bombing itself, not the rememberance of it.
lib2016: “There will come a day when we can mourn our dead together and with respect.”
Only we won’t be allowed to remember who they were or what they believed, lest the act of remembering offend someone… Oddly enough, this policy of forgetting doesn’t apply to Republican paramilitaries.
lib2016: “Can’t we at least leave the hate and political opportunism out of things until then?”
So long as SF and their ilk use the Equality Commission as a clumsy bludgeon to excise rememberance of the fallen, I suspect your words will ring hollow, lib2016. Tolerance, it might suprise some, is a two way street, not just one set of muppets whining their way to an erasure of their fellow-travellers misdeeds.
Posted by on Feb 18, 2008 @ 08:17 PMThis was a militaristic display celebrating a violent occupying army in the centre of an occupied town.
Words fail. The ethnic hatred and intolerance are dripping out of that sentence.
Posted by on Feb 18, 2008 @ 08:32 PMThe obvious question still remains - why did the fire service choose this slaughter above all other slaughters for commemoration? All or nothing! There is no hierarchy of victims!
Posted by on Feb 18, 2008 @ 09:27 PM>>This was a militaristic display celebrating a violent occupying army in the centre of an occupied town.<<
Fair comment I reckon!
Dread
>>So long as SF and their ilk use the Equality Commission as a clumsy bludgeon to excise rememberance of the fallen<<
There is merit in much of what you say. However is there not a chance that remembering the dead could equally be used as a clumsy bludgeon. I personally have no truck with having such a plaque at a fire station. Does not negate the wider point though.
Posted by on Feb 18, 2008 @ 09:29 PMPancho - because they (Eniskillen firefighters) had to pick up the pieces after this one.
Lib, PE - wise up.
Posted by on Feb 18, 2008 @ 09:49 PMPrince Eoghan: “There is merit in much of what you say. However is there not a chance that remembering the dead could equally be used as a clumsy bludgeon. I personally have no truck with having such a plaque at a fire station. Does not negate the wider point though. “
A couple of points…
I can fully understand why, out of all the instances the fire-house responded to, a bomb that killed pensioners and a child would stick with the responders to the aftermath of the bombing.
Yes, rememberance of the dead can be a bludgeon, but doubt this was the case in the instance under discussion, Eoghan—a simple memorial plaque in one fire-house—no sectarian rhetoric, just the rememberance of a very bad call, one very bad day for the firemen of that firehouse.
Do you think that Republicanism is ready for the wholesale dismantling of “offensive” memorials, such as those to the Hunger Strikers? I mean, one man’s poison may be another’s ambrosia. Or would there be, as I personally suspect, a loud howl of protest from a sizable portion of SF muppetdom were there a wholesale uprooting of these shrines?
Lastly, the more these things happen, the harder many will cling to these symbols. It would be a better and surer path to ignore these symbols—let the photographs yellow and curl and let the plaque dust into honest oblivion than to try and pry them from the objecting fingers of those who hold them dear.
Posted by on Feb 18, 2008 @ 09:50 PMNot to labour a point but I’m sure the same firemen pulled men, women and children from wrecked cars/burning buildings and may even have gathered up the corpses of ‘security force’ victims - so why choose this slaughter?
Posted by on Feb 18, 2008 @ 09:56 PMPancho’s Horse,
“why choose this slaughter”Well 10 pensioners and one girl (19 from memory, I can get her exact age very easily if you want) dead and lots more injured. I thinks that’s why.
Posted by on Feb 18, 2008 @ 10:02 PMAh, so that’s the key, Turgon ........... numbers! And there’s me thinking it was because they were all British camp followers. How wrong can you be?
Posted by on Feb 18, 2008 @ 10:08 PMPancho’s Horse,
Be a little careful of insulting those to whom some events have great significance. I choose not to scoff at anyone’s death in Northern Ireland and I think my record bears that out. Maybe you could consider doing likewise.Posted by on Feb 18, 2008 @ 10:12 PMI am not scoffing, Turgon. Au contraire! It is the singling out of one victim more than another that I despise.And this mean little ‘province’ is very, very good at it in so many hurtful little ways.
Posted by on Feb 18, 2008 @ 10:17 PM
