Comments on The Pensive Quill: Prisoner without a Name, Cell without a Number.

Mackers I read this book and felt sickened by th...

2013-03-29T11:57:42.772Z

Mackers

I read this book and felt sickened by the sheer brutality of the junta. I am a firm believer in the rights of prisoners in any conflict to be treated with dignity and humanity. This surely comes from my own experience particularly in the H-Blocks. Even in the heat of battle human empathy must be present otherwise we succumb to our basest instincts.

Frankie, certainly an interesting take.

2013-03-29T00:55:12.515Z

Frankie,

certainly an interesting take.

Years ago when I disovered the Blanket, I read
2013-03-29T00:34:13.900Z
Years ago when I disovered the Blanket, I read Sowing Dragon’s Teeth .

Estimates of paramilitary membership are difficult to make, but police statistics show that since 1972, over 17,000 people have been charged with terrorist offences, and it is likely that more people in Northern Ireland have participated in illegal paramilitary organizations than at any time since the United Irishmen rising of 1798 Once again, extrapolating these figures to Britain or the US show the intensity of the violence; shooting incidents alone would have numbered over 1 million in Britain, and over 5 million in the United States. Around half a million British people would have been charged with a terrorist offence, and nearly 2.8 million Americans. By any standards, what Ulster people euphemistically call ‘the Troubles’ is, in fact, a war.

In the same way if the North and Argentina where the same size, population. There wouldn't be much difference in the numbers. JMO, I can't see the difference in a repulican or loyalist prisoner getting ten barrels kicked out of him or an Agentinian prisoner.

As for the disappeared. Unfortunatly some will end up as victims of war and (JMO) not everone is going to be able to give their loved one a proper funeral or find out the truth. Balkans is the same. I'd hazzard a guess and say some of the PIRA who where involved in the disappearing and had information to locate some of the bodies are probably dead through natual causes or other.

Will Pope Frankie do much about Argentina (apart from sound bites). No. He's Italian, he is Argentinian by proxy.

Frankie, so many numbers as to make the differenc...

2013-03-28T22:48:29.492Z

Frankie,

so many numbers as to make the difference qualitative in my view.

And of course your acerbic observation is no less true because of its wit.

I agree that it was a a very different degree o...

2013-03-28T22:10:24.521Z
I agree that it was a a very different degree of repression. Take away the rape and the only difference in the brutalilty are numbers. Another difference beteween Argentina's Dirty War and the Dirty War in the North is instead of the State forces doing the disappering, it was comrades of some of the readers of the TPQ who done the disappearing.

Niall, about 9 or 10 years ago I think it was wh...

2013-03-28T13:26:36.700Z
Niall,

about 9 or 10 years ago I think it was when I finished it.

The comparison between our experience and the Argentine one was vastly different. Thousands were disappeared by the regime in Argentina and it was much more brutalin both its torture and repression. That doesn't make the Brits decent but we are talking about a very different degree of repression and brutality.

Have you finished it yet!??!?!? Seriously, that w...

2013-03-28T12:51:40.740Z
Have you finished it yet!??!?!?

Seriously, that would have set the tone for your meeting with the prisoners families but then, in your day, you would have witnessed just as equal brutality and that wasn't under a dictatorship. Argentina / Israel, what’s the difference – was this guy on some sort of crusade?