It has been observed the most vicious warfare is among people who are closely related.
Civil wars are intransigent. The Middle East, the Sudanese, the Eritreans and Ethiopians and the American Civil War--all very nasty affairs.
And yet it has always been difficult, for me at least, to understand the Irish "Troubles" especially as they exploded just after the First World War. During a visit to Dublin, I was stunned to read about Irish leaders, IRA leaders, who embraced Hitler. There were some IRA who decried Hitler and Mussolini but there were some prominent leaders who embraced him, hoping he could bring down the British government.
That was difficult to understand--of course the enemy of your enemy-- but Hitler?
Watching the excellent Netflix series "Rebellion" I can now understand.
While loyalties were divided, as they often are in Civil Wars, and while some Brits in Ireland were admirable, clearly there were enough really vile Brits to provoke enough Irish into pitched rebellion.
Then there was the Catholic-Protestant thing.
Have seen only the first three episodes, but I'm hooked.
Yes, it's a sad statement about my own ignorance that my knowledge about the troubles should come from a fictional TV series, but just watch those three episodes and tell me you do not see a sort of truth there which non fiction would be hard put to match.
What this story is really about, however, goes beyond Ireland, to the nature of rebellion. The rebels engage in much windy rhetoric about glory, righteousness and history, but there are moments when the ideal crashes into the specific--when a detachment of rebels decked out in their mismatched green uniforms comes face to face with a determined, unarmed British Bobby outside the "castle," and when the Bobby refuses to step aside a rebel raises his pistol and shoots the Bobby dead.
Some of that detachment are horrified. The Bobby could have been shot in the knee, not the head, and he was unarmed. Each rebel is suddenly faced with the realization, there is no going back now. Once you have been part of this, you are either rebels or just murderers.
There are the zealots who, when faced with the choice, announce they will die to inspire others and their comrades who say, "You die to inspire others. I'll try to live to fight another day."
And the Brits, a mixed bag, are led by ruthless, despicable officers who seem little different than Gestapo, shooting people in the head, without trial, simply imposing their will.
Whether it's Dr. Zhivago and the Bolsheviks vs the Whites or the IRA and Sein Fein vs the less violent free Irish, rebels have to enunciate an ideology and ideology has a way of curdling quickly when brought into contact with the heat of events.
"Rebellion" is strong, thought provoking stuff. Well worth a few hours of your life.
Civil wars are intransigent. The Middle East, the Sudanese, the Eritreans and Ethiopians and the American Civil War--all very nasty affairs.
And yet it has always been difficult, for me at least, to understand the Irish "Troubles" especially as they exploded just after the First World War. During a visit to Dublin, I was stunned to read about Irish leaders, IRA leaders, who embraced Hitler. There were some IRA who decried Hitler and Mussolini but there were some prominent leaders who embraced him, hoping he could bring down the British government.
That was difficult to understand--of course the enemy of your enemy-- but Hitler?
Watching the excellent Netflix series "Rebellion" I can now understand.
While loyalties were divided, as they often are in Civil Wars, and while some Brits in Ireland were admirable, clearly there were enough really vile Brits to provoke enough Irish into pitched rebellion.
Then there was the Catholic-Protestant thing.
Have seen only the first three episodes, but I'm hooked.
Yes, it's a sad statement about my own ignorance that my knowledge about the troubles should come from a fictional TV series, but just watch those three episodes and tell me you do not see a sort of truth there which non fiction would be hard put to match.
What this story is really about, however, goes beyond Ireland, to the nature of rebellion. The rebels engage in much windy rhetoric about glory, righteousness and history, but there are moments when the ideal crashes into the specific--when a detachment of rebels decked out in their mismatched green uniforms comes face to face with a determined, unarmed British Bobby outside the "castle," and when the Bobby refuses to step aside a rebel raises his pistol and shoots the Bobby dead.
Some of that detachment are horrified. The Bobby could have been shot in the knee, not the head, and he was unarmed. Each rebel is suddenly faced with the realization, there is no going back now. Once you have been part of this, you are either rebels or just murderers.
There are the zealots who, when faced with the choice, announce they will die to inspire others and their comrades who say, "You die to inspire others. I'll try to live to fight another day."
And the Brits, a mixed bag, are led by ruthless, despicable officers who seem little different than Gestapo, shooting people in the head, without trial, simply imposing their will.
Whether it's Dr. Zhivago and the Bolsheviks vs the Whites or the IRA and Sein Fein vs the less violent free Irish, rebels have to enunciate an ideology and ideology has a way of curdling quickly when brought into contact with the heat of events.
"Rebellion" is strong, thought provoking stuff. Well worth a few hours of your life.
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