Did you watch that? Gerry Adams talking about Jesus and how Jesus affects him.
Here it is here on 4oD if you missed it.
A very interesting thing to watch, for me. I’m really not sure about Gerry Adams. The whole Troubles thing confuses me.
There was a time, when I was younger, I didn’t have to think twice about it. I was led to believe that Sinn Fein, the IRA, Celtic supporters, Catholics and the Irish were the baddies. The UDA, Rangers supporters, Proddies, the Orange Lodge and the UK were the goodies.
And from what I heard from the other side, they thought the opposite about me. Not that I’m trying to make out that I grew up in a sectarian warzone. I had plenty of Celtic-supporting, Catholic pals that never said one word to me about the situation in Northern Ireland. And I have to remind myself of that sometimes, because I can get myself worked up about how much religion divides people, before realising that it was never as big an issue as I think it was.
Mind you, you’d hear about people in other areas of Glasgow that would get murdered for wearing the wrong football top, so religion was a big issue to somebody. But it wasn’t where I grew up, I don’t think. What there was, though, was a feeling that everybody belonged to one of these two sides. Your religion, your school, your favourite football team, your stance on Northern Ireland and whether it was the Queen or the Pope that were to get themselves to fuck – they were all locked on together, you would know all these elements of a person’s personality by only knowing one.
Like people created on a production line. Cardboard cut-outs. And I’m embarrassed to say that I was one of them. I don’t mean to put down people who see themselves as one of those two sides. If you’ve thought it all out and those are your views, then fair enough. But I felt like they were put in my head, and I never questioned them.
And, over time, I started to unweave this fucking crap that passed down the generations, from one fucking idiot to another. I started to wake up to some of the realities of my personality.
I was meant to be a Rangers supporting Protestant that believed that Northern Ireland should be forever British. Until I realised that I’ve never actually liked football; I can’t be a Protestant if I don’t believe in God; and that I don’t think it’s right to chop off the top of another person’s country and claim it as your own, whatever way you look at it.
But for some reason, I held onto a mild liking of the Orange Walk. I remember some of my uncles being in it when I was young, seeing them walking in their suits and sashes, as part of this loud as fuck and long as fuck procession. I must have felt proud that I was in some way related to this powerful presence that had brought the traffic to a standstill.
And I held onto that right into my mid-twenties, I’m ashamed to say. Despite managing to deprogramme myself from all the other shite that was fed to me, I didn’t bother with this one. Until the Orange Walk themselves helped me to see the light.
They were doing a mini-walk in Yorkhill, round from where I lived, and I was on the pavement with my bike, waiting to cross. They were taking ages. I saw a gap, a large gap between one group walking and the one behind, and I went for it. I was halfway across the road on a moving bike, plenty of room on all sides, and only a second or two from reaching the other pavement. But a few of the cunts from the front row of the rear procession weren’t having it. They raced forward, grabbed me, said “Ye cannae dae that, ye cannae cut between the walks” or some shite like that, and dragged me back the way I came, with my bike scraping across the ground between my legs.
I stood there on the pavement in disbelief, as one cunt after another walked past, showing their fucking contempt. There were cunts in the band having a laugh at the fanny on the bike that got dragged off the road, and there were cunts that didn’t see the funny side as much and just growled at me. And then there were the cunts in the suits. I remember these sneering bastards keeping their heads faced forward, but looking at me out of their corner of their eyes, only a foot or two away from me.
I sensed one collective thought that they perhaps all shared: “Probably a Fenian”.
And that’s when it clicked for me. That’s when my eyes were opened. For years I had seen those walks in Northern Ireland where families would be barricaded into their own street, and I never gave two fucks.
And there I was, standing on a pavement that I was dragged back to, after being barred from crossing a street that was round the corner from my fucking flat, the place where I fucking live, by these sneering, growling cunts. There I was fucking outraged. Fucking pumping with adrenalin, furious.
I’m ashamed that it took that happening to me to snap me out of my acceptance for the Orange Walk. I should have been able to snap myself out of it purely with thought, and I should be able to empathise with other cunts’ situations without something similar happening to me. But there you go, that’s what it took.
If I take that outrage that happened to me, and multiply it by a few hundred, or a few hundred thousand, I think I’d experience the kind of outrage that radicalised the people of Northern Ireland during the Troubles. I can understand why they did the things they did. I can imagine their desire for justice or vengeance.
And so I finally get round to making my fucking point here.
I’ve told you all of the above to let you know in some way where I’m coming from. I’ve taken everything that’s been taught to me from a young age regarding these divisions and sides and the opinions on who’s right and who’s wrong, and chucked it all out my head. So that I can hopefully start new and see all sides.
But I watched Gerry Adams on that programme. A seemingly mild-mannered and intelligent man. And I thought “Did you do your best, Gerry? With all the faculties your mind had to offer you, did it really have to come to all that it came to?”
And I think the same thing about the IRA. I see cunts on my Xbox Live list with IRA in their name, I’ve seen pals in the past, good people, shout “Up the RA!”. I’ve tried to consider the IRA as freedom fighters working towards a noble cause, fighting against the injustice committed by a foreign country.
But, fuck me, as hard as I’ve tried to see the IRA as awright, it’s just not happening. The bombings. The fucking bombings, the violence. Was that really the only way? Was it?
I can’t ask myself what I’d do if I was in their shoes, because not only would I have done what they did, I probably would have been much, much worse. But I put that down to me being wired wrong and being not right in the head. What’s their excuse?
Look at Gandhi. Despite the Indians being on the receiving end of massacres and other injustices, he started a non-violent movement, no war, no bombs, no guns. News of the movement was reported, word spread, it found support, and India became an independent country.
With all the money that Sinn Fein or the IRA received, could that not have been used in a non-violent way? Call me fucking simplistic and naive, but couldn’t that money have been used on cameras or intelligence or just whatever means necessary to report what was going on? With that reported to the friends in America, wouldn’t that have made an influence? Did it have to come to guns and bombs? Did shootings and bombings really lead to the current, relative peace, or did it only lead to peace decades after it might have come?
Gerry Adams said he had no blood on his hands. Of course he does. He said he is at peace with himself. I don’t think he should be.
Like I said, if I was there at that time, I may very well have been one of the people committing the atrocities. But when it was all over, like it seems to be now, I would know that I had blood on my hands, and I wouldn’t be at peace until I had the forgiveness of everybody affected by my violence.
But anyway, it’s all over. Hopefully all over. I had a lump in my throat when Gerry Adams met the guy whose wife was killed in the Shankhill bomb. When I see reconciliation like that, I get a glimpse of how the future could be. Not just in Northern Ireland, but a future where no one’s killing anyone.
