Internment

My education on Northern Ireland’s horrible history continued today, when Sophie & I went to see another documentary. This one was about the scores of women interned in Armagh Gaol during the Troubles. I knew nothing about this. When I was a teenager, like my peers, I paid little mind to the political situation around me--a privilege afforded to me because I lived in a middle class neighbourhood where the British Army wasn’t patrolling and where sectarian militias weren’t active.

So first a word about internment. The British Army conducted dawn raids in Catholic neighbourhoods in August 1971, arresting 342 people suspected of being involved with the IRA. Most weren’t. As part of Special Powers Act, these people were thrown in jail with no trial and some were tortured. Internment lasted until 1975. The brutal treatment of prisoners radicalised Catholics and nationalists. From the Wiki entry:

"During this time a total of 1,981 people were interned: 1,874 were from an Irish nationalist background, while 107 were from a unionist background.
"Historians generally view the period of internment as inflaming sectarian tensions in Northern Ireland, while failing in its goal of arresting key members of the IRA. Many of the people arrested had no links whatsoever with the IRA, but their names appeared on the list of those to be arrested through bungling and incompetence. The list's lack of reliability and the arrests that followed, complemented by reports of internees being abused far in excess of the usual state violence, led to more nationalists identifying with the IRA and losing hope in non-violent methods.”

The documentary we saw today had a similar theme. The brutality of the unionist government--aided directly or indirectly by the British--only hardened the people they sought to subjugate. The film included interviews with maybe 10 or 12 women who were interned. Like the men, they sought status as political prisoners (as distinct from criminals) and undertook protests when that was denied, including hunger strikes. A succession of prison wardens--big tough men, no doubt--set out to break the women. One tactic was strip searches. The women were allowed out to go to a funeral. Imagine being strip searched before and after attending the funeral of a parent or sibling? Strip searches were also conducted before and after they attended court hearings. Imagine layering the stress of physical violation on top of the stress of a court hearing?

One woman had a baby while in prison. She was taken to the hospital in an armoured army vehicle. The young English soldier in the Saracen was shocked that a woman in labour was being pushed into the vehicle. When he tried to help her, handcuffed as she was, the prison warden barked at him that she was a Provo bitch and he was not to help her, or words to that effect (Provo is short for Provisional IRA). She had to give the baby up at six weeks.

The Northern Irish and British governments did a good job of keeping these stories buried back in the day. In the wake of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, these stories are still buried as no one wants to threaten the peace. (This film was not well funded and will not be seen by many people.) But, like a toothache, these stories don’t go away. I know I’m naive but I don’t understand why some kind of truth commission can’t investigate the role of each element--the various Protestant paramilitaries, the various IRA factions, the British Army. What drove each to violence? What were the insecurities and rational/irrational fears driving them? What atrocities are they responsible for? What were the unintended consequences of their actions? As it is, each faction seems frozen in its ends-justifies-the-means rhetoric.
Nov. 4