Click photo for larger.
I am frequently amazed what bumper stickers folks put on their vehicles. Living in the epicenter of BDS territory, I see a lot of angst. Most of the stickers are snappy sayings like “buck fush” or pleas for peace or diversity. Yesterday I was stunned to see this one. You will have to enlarge the photo to read it.
Sinn Fein: Uniting Ireland
Isn’t Sinn Fein the political front of the Irish Republican Army, the one that blows up innocent men, women and children? This bumper sticker to me is equivalent to one that may say “The PLO, bringing the Middle East together”.
Cross posted at LITGM.
This bumper sticker to me is equivalent to one that may say “The PLO, bringing the Middle East together”.
Or for that matter, any number of ostensibly peaceable Islamist organizations.
“Hizb-ut-Tahrir
Uniting Muslims. Uniting the world.”
That reminds me of a few neighborhood bars in San Francisco in the late 80s and early 90s. There, behind the bar, was occasionally a small collection box for the IRA.
“Hizb-ut-Tahrir – Peace to the World”
hehe
At some point in the future, when all of the archives are open, we are going to scratch our heads and wonder why the US was so tardy in suppressing the flow of funds to thugs in Ireland, and why we put up with the failure of the Irish government to to do likewise.
Usually, bumper stickers like that don’t appear on relatively reliable cars, but on rusted 1982 Toyotas with nonfunctioning headlights or turn signals.
Also, many other political stickers are plastered nearby for your reading pleasure while parked in a traffic jam.
It was the political front of the (now disbanded) IRA. Its senior members (and no doubt its less senior members) have been members of the IRA previous to their more cosy political love-in, which therefore made them terrorists.
Now, as peace seems to be relatively free-flowing in Northern Ireland at the moment, nobody rocks the boat and the past is left to be the past. Both Republicans and Unionist terrorists were given the luxury of a clean slate.
Unfortunately, in the past, there were some Americans only too keen to help support the IRA (through the likes of NORAID), no doubt encouraged by the notion of ‘quaint’ Irish freedom fighters and the family legend that ancestors fled Ireland for the US, if only to get away from those awful Brits. Of course, all that money went on to support an organisation that bombed my home town and targeted thousands of innocent civilians. Quaint, eh?
Sinn Fein is the 2nd biggest party in Northern Ireland, for people actually living there unlike yourselves, it’d be no different than a Conservative/Liberal or Republican/Democrat sticker. Get educated,because you’re all mighty stupid.
it’d be no different than a Conservative/Liberal or Republican/Democrat sticker
Much different, actually. Unlike Sinn Fein, none of the American political groups you list has been recently affiliated with an illegal armed group that lacked significant popular support but used terror bombings and political murder in an attempt to control govt policy and foment holy war against its religious and ethnic adversaries. A better comparison for Sinn Fein might be with the Colombian narco-terrorists, some of whom ultimately joined the legitimate political process.
Unfortunatley, the people who have written into this post happen to know very little about the situation in Northern Ireland. Seeing as how I grew up in Belfast, (now I am a Canadian Citizen) I will enlighten you.
Sinn Fein is a very legitimate political party, with the goal of uniting Ireland. While they have ties to the former PIRA (Provisional Irish Republican Army), they were hardly involved in the violence.
Many of the posters here are attempting to criminalize the IRA. Don’t forget that it was the British Army that fired into a crowd of students that fateful Sunday, it was the British that had “colonized” Ireland 800 + years ago and it was the British, and their Unionist lackeys that persecuted the Republicans.