S.c. Formed

ple. The meeting deplored the “intensifymmg censorship in the television, radio, and press coverage of events in Ireland’, and added: “We pledge ourselves to oppose it.”

He believed most of the coverage had been honest, but the bad had driven our the good.

He pointed out that anyone who interviewed an IRA member in Northern Ireland withFinally, each programme on Northern Ireland now had to be defensible by itself; items Placing the editorial judgment at a higher level than normal was not something he liked ‘sound and honest, good and couraJOURNALIST March 1972 The first public meeting of the newly-formed West London ISC was held in the Hammersmith North Labour Hall on March 23. Speakers included a member of the Provisional IRA. This caused quite a furore in the local press. The Shepherds Bush Gazette published interviews with local Tery and Liberal politicians, condemning Hammersmith North Labour Party for allowing its premises to be used by an organisation which supports the IRA and the struggle for Irish freedom. True to itself, the Labour Party reacted in panic and banned the branch meeting scheduled for the first Thursday in A pril—giving West London ISC barely one hour’s notice of the cancellation.

The ISC responded by organising a picket of the the Hammersmith Labour Party premises on Thursday, April 13, when the Executive Com- -mittee was meeting to consider further action. Executive members arriving for the meeting were greeted by pickets carrying posters demanding the right of free speech for ISC and attacking the Labour Party for bowing to Tory pressure. The decision of the Executive was that the ISC could continue to hold its regular branch meetings on the first and third Thursday of every month at 446 Uxbridge Road, Shepherds Bush, at least until the next meeting of the General Management Committee of the Party, The picket was extensively covered by the local press.

“ete ee elalale.: IRELAND: THE Vi

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Despite the fact that Justice Scarman’s Report was signed on 4th February 1972, two months later it is above all appropriate to the present conjuncture of Britishimperialism’s strategy in Ireland. Its subject is the history of the civil disturbances in the north of Ireland in 1969 which exploded in Derry in August and resulted in the large scale deployment of the British army to keep ‘law and order’ on the streets. In accordance with ruling class historiographical tradition it is essentially pragmatic and ideological. “The facts’ appear sacrosanct, but are garnished according to the needs of the moment. This is evident from its main lines of argument and conclusions. It is designed to please everyone and blame no-one who is part of the present attempt to inch towards the political settlement that Heath hopes will emerge eventually from the recent ‘initiatives’. Thus the middle class Catholic leaders are exonerated’ the SDLP completely, while the Civil Rights movement gets off with a reprimand--from any serious responsibility for the violence. Naturally enough, ‘extremists’ and socialists like Bernadette Devlin have little to commend them to Scarman as they are clearly outside the consensus that the Hon. Justice wishes to encourage.

The role of the police is at once obscured by the verbosity of the narrative, and by euphemistic descriptions of extremely concrete events. The murderous rampages of the police and ‘UVF’ style mobs—an “‘unhappy afa ee eee fair’’— are regarded as incidental, the ‘‘excess” of an individual or an “error” of judgement. One such “error” of the RUC officers during August ‘69 was that in nearly every tail about what is largely ‘keeping up appearances’ by the RUC establishment. The study of the 1969 events is made in a complete social and political vacuum. Rarely are the Rossville St, August 12. The ruc penetrate Rossville St, followed by civilian supporters throwing stones at the maisonettes on the righthand side of the street. The nine-storey flats known as Rossville Estates are visible on the left.