Monumental hypocrisy
BY FERN LANE
On 11 April 1991, IRA Volunteer Colum Marks was shot dead in
Downpatrick by the RUC. They were congratulated on the success of
their operation by the SDLP's Eddie McGrady, who commented that the
degree of violence used had been entirely justifiable despite the fact
that Marks was unarmed. Shortly after the killing, members of his
family and the local community, wishing to honour his memory, erected
a white cross on the spot where he died.
The cross remained
there, unmolested and uncontested, for eight years, until the same
local community organised, and paid for, a more permanent memorial
stone. Included on it were five further names of local IRA volunteers
killed in action going back to 1923.
The new stone, which was placed on exactly the same spot as the
white cross, was unveiled in a simple ceremony on 13 February this
year. The following day, at a meeting of Downpatrick Council, UKUP
Councillor Billy Alexander raised an objection to the new memorial on
the basis that it did not have the benefit of planning permission.
Despite the fact that the original memorial did not have planning
permission either and had not been opposed by anyone during the
previous eight years, he was supported in this objection by the SDLP's
John Doris.
Accordingly, the matter was discussed at a committee meeting on 29
March, where another SDLP Councillor, Eamon O'Neill, also objected to
the memorial stone, this time on the grounds that it represented an
insurance risk because someone might, theoretically, trip over it.
Billy Alexander claimed to have received numerous letters from
``ordinary'' Catholics (that is, SDLP rather than Sinn Fein voters)
opposing the stone, although to date he has not been able to produce a
single one of these alleged letters. On the other hand, those wishing
to retain the memorial have produced a 300-name petition supporting
the erection of the stone. Throughout the entire saga, the SDLP and
the UKUP have demanded that Sinn Féin Councillor Aiden Carlin
tell them who is responsible for the memorial.
This local difficulty is, of course, symbolic of the much wider
issue of the way in which the British state and its cohorts
continuously seeks to assert control over which parties to this
conflict are to be permitted to commemorate their war dead, and in
what manner. In short, we have the unedifying spectacle of the SDLP,
clearly worried by the electoral gains being made by Sinn Féin
in the area, acting in craven connivance with the most unsavoury
elements of unionism, the British military and The Daily Telegraph -
witness the newspaper's recent campaign, enthusiastically supported by
the British Army establishment, for local permanent memorials to be
raised to all British military personnel killed during `the Troubles',
including members of the UDR. This motley coalition are attempting to
deny the nationalist community the right to remember their dead in any
tangible way.
The uproar over the INLA memorial in Derry is another example of
the stratospheric level of hypocrisy which abounds on the issue.
Granted, the INLA's memorial may not in the best possible taste, but
it still commemorates the loss of loved ones through conflict and,
despite Gregory Campbell's carry-on, it is hardly Nelson's Column. It
is, actually, also in a graveyard, whereas the British war dead are
commemorated in a 20-foot high sculpture of a squaddie in extravagant
combat posture, slap-bang in the middle of Derry town centre. Gregory
Campbell has to go somewhat out of his way to be outraged by the
statue in Derry cemetery, but the looming edifice in the Diamond is
almost impossible to avoid.
It does not, of course, require a great deal of effort to
understand what is really going on here; this is merely another
skirmish in the seemingly endless ideological battle waged by the
British state against any suggestion of equivalence between British
soldiers and Irish republican soldiers. The insistence that British
war memorials are normal, respectable and legitimate (whereas
republican war memorials are the reverse; abnormal, provocative,
illegal) and that the their war dead are more important and valid than
ours is simply part of the old, old fight by the state to criminalise
the republican struggle.
Aiden Carlin, rightly, refuses to accept the terms of this
particular debate and has fought tenaciously with Downpatrick Council
for the right of the nationalist community to properly honour its dead
IRA volunteers. However, the SDLP-controlled Policy and Resources
Committee, having sought ``legal opinion'' on the matter, is due to
meet at the end of this month to rubber-stamp an order to remove the
memorial to Colum Marks. The local British war memorial, meanwhile,
remains securely in place.
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