1971

Today consisted of:
Reading
Church
Movie

In the reading I learned that the U.S. is the only developed country that doesn't provide the basic human rights of health care and education for its citizens. USA! USA! USA!

At church, we heard about Lazarus at the gate of the rich man, who wouldn't help starving, sore-covered Lazarus. The rich man went to hell and Lazarus went to heaven and the rich man learned that his good fortune while he was alive was not due to God's favor. I think this is the opposite of the prosperity gospel so popular in the U.S., where serving the Lord is meant to rain profit down upon you.

The movie was called 1971 and took place in Belfast in that same year. It was about a British soldier who is separated from his unit during a riot in a Catholic neighborhood. As he tries to make his way back to barracks, you see some of the handiwork of both the Protestant and Catholic paramilitaries. Innocents killed on both sides, frequently by their own kind. I think everyone in Belfast should see this film so they remember what a return to sectarianism would look like.

It makes clear the dynamic underlying all wars: the British Army enabled the brutality of the Royal Ulster Constabulary, which in turn provided cover for the Ulster Defense Association. The oppression visited upon Catholics by the lot of them provided the fertile ground upon which the IRA was nurtured and its numbers multiplied. The film does a good job of showing how children were pulled into the conflict, often willingly to avenge parents.

It's a very tense film and a very good snapshot of the conditions that made Northern Ireland such a tragic place in the 1970s. I lived in Derry from 1974-1980. Because my parents lived in a nice neighborhood, I was sheltered from street riots and bombings, which were focused in poor neighborhoods and downtown. A great line from the film: "The army is about posh cxxxx telling thick cxxxx to kill poor cxxxx." A veteran of the Irish army tells this to the British soldier as he stitches up his abdomen.

A final note: Belfast has come so far since the 1998 Peace Accords that the film was shot in Blackburn, Lancashire, which had the required level of dreariness that has deserted Belfast. When you see archival footage of Belfast in the 1970s, it's hard to remember the skyline used to have so few tall buildings. A woman at church this morning was reminiscing how Belfast used to have only one hotel (the frequently bombed Europa). David estimates there are 30 hotels now.
10-19