Counterterror

Part of the Global Perspectives on War and Peace Collection. Documentary about the conflict between Northern and Southern Ireland. The tape focuses on setting straight the misconceptions perpetuated by the world news media and attempts to cover "the unheard politics of everyday life."

0:00Copy video clip URL The tape begins with several impassioned citizens explaining how the Irish cause is misunderstood. “All these people who are calling the IRA terrorists, they don’t realize what an occupying army is – they’ve a foreign culture, they bring it over here expecting us to accept it. They’ve a foreign media, using that to brainwash our people.” “It’s always portrayed as a religious war. It’s Catholics against the Protestants in this bloody war that the irrational Irish have been engaged in for centuries. And I think until the basic political point, which has been the colonization of Ireland and now partition, is addressed, then its just going to go on.”

1:05Copy video clip URL In Strabane, a town on the border between Northern and Southern Ireland, a small-scale version of the conflict between the two sides plays out. This town has the highest rate of unemployment in Western Europe, yet the everyday horror of these citizens’ lives goes unheard.

2:34Copy video clip URL The Incident. Several local families and British news footage relate the story of a recent morning when three boys were shot by British security forces. While the official story is that the boys were terrorists, several details, including the fact that they were shot a total of 170 times, mostly through the back, have led the local population to feel that the killing was an ambush.