Author: gfick

At the beginning of the semester, I knew absolutely nothing about Irish history, the Troubles, or even the state of Ireland today. After reading so many Irish texts about the Troubles and reflecting on American texts about things that were much more familiar to me, I think there is something to be said about the universality of the human experience all around the world. It seems that people in such different circumstances, with varying motives and experiences all went through similar emotions and came to similar realizations.

All of the movements described in the texts we have read, despite making enormous progress in some cases, failed to reach their idealistic and lofty goals. There comes a sense of frustration in all of the texts– frustration when things have not been progressing quickly enough, frustration with a system designed for some to fail, and frustration with being ignored and silenced. However, this anger is also met with hope for a government and a society that is fair and equal for all, which drives them to continue the fight. Without hope for a better future driving these movements, they would fall into indifference and helplessness, accepting the fact that things will never change. The fact that anger and frustration partners so clearly with hope in almost all of the texts we have read demonstrates a desire for a better society, a better life, and a better future that is present in all of us.

If I have learned one thing from reading about these movements from very different parts of the world, it is that change is extremely difficult to bring about, but it is possible with hope, persistence, and passion. These people like Martin Luther King Jr., Huey P. Newton, Eamonn McCann, Bernadette Devlin, and many more made our world what it is today not only by their actions, but by sharing their ideals and their stories in writing. They demonstrated persistence and passion for their cause, and they managed to make a change in a system so resistant to it.

When reflecting on the themes found throughout all of the literature we have read up until this week, what really resonated with me was the frustration expressed by the authors. This frustration was not directed at any one thing, and seemed to be an overall feeling of the era. This struck a chord with me, as I feel the sentiment is very similar to the overall feeling of our time right now. I think that this feeling might have come from the absurd amount of time it actually takes to make substantive change. Sometimes it can feel that one is fighting so hard and continuing to push forward but not moving at all. Although many of the people we have read about are famous for making change, it took so long for them to accomplish each thing that the frustration is completely understandable. While reading the platform of the Black Panther Party, the language used and the principles being fought for are almost identical to what the movement is trying to accomplish today. Overall, it seems as though our society has progressed by leaps and bounds since the time all of this literature was written; but, looking more closely, one would think that in the 50 or so years that have passed since the Civil Rights movement that our country would have fixed a lot more than they have.

The same applies to the Irish texts we have seen. The Catholics and Protestants have been at odds since before 1916, and as Eamonn McCann shared with us, not too much has changed, aside from being less violent today. Justice for Bloody Sunday has never been served, and the communities of Northern Ireland are still pretty segregated.

I think that the overall frustration found in all of the texts is the same thing we see today– people do not want to wait centuries for progress. It seems that the system is extremely hard to change, which results in a general feeling of helplessness, frustration, and anger directed at nothing specific.

After reading and discussing Mojo Mickybo this week, I definitely gained more of an emotional sense of what went on in Northern Ireland during “The Troubles.” By writing about problems through the eyes of children, Owen McCafferty criticizes Northern Ireland’s culture of violence and division. The portrayal of these young boys’ loss of innocence makes the audience realize the profound impacts of violence and hate that perpetuate society. People tend to see children as universally innocent and deserving of no harm, no matter where they come from or to what group they identify. McCafferty uses this human tendency to demonstrate how the violence and hate perpetuated by the adults in kids’ lives affects how children think, act, and feel. He implies that hate is not a natural human tendency, but is taught to us through socialization. The boys live in a world filled with childlike wonder even though they are surrounded by violence and war. At the end, when the boys are no longer friends, McCafferty shows how there is no hope for unity and friendship among groups as long as the societies that they are living in teach them to hate one another. 

When reading this text, I made the connection to how it is common for young people now to generalize all old people as racist. We mostly attribute it to the generation in which they were born, where they were taught the racism and hate in their households, schools, and other communities growing up. The fact that kids in America now seem to have less racial prejudice than their elders shows that prejudice is not a natural human tendency but taught by society. So although there is still much work to be done in terms of racism in America, today’s children show that there is hope, as long as we try our best to not teach them hate and prejudice.

After reading and discussing this week, what really stuck with me was the dichotomy between the good of the group and individual survival. In both The Informer and Uptight, one character, out of desperation, chose to sacrifice another in the movement for money. Their willingness to give up on the movement for money to survive and start a new life demonstrates the desperation that poverty creates. Guilt over the deaths of their friends has an interesting effect on both of these characters, though. Although they both originally intended to use the money to get out of their current situation and start a new life with their significant others, they both use the money to get drunk and cause chaos throughout the night. At the end, they both claim that they had no idea what they were doing, and did not know the effects of their actions. Both still want to be accepted back into the group and try to be loyal to the movement, even after their mistake.

The behavior of the characters in both The Informer and Uptight elucidates the inner conflict between the individual and the good of the group that seems to exist in all movements. Movements are born out of chronic problems within a society, and economic issues are usually always a factor. One of these movements’ goals was to end the cycle of extreme poverty and economic inequality in these communities, but the poverty that they were fighting drives some of the members to act out of desperation.  The members are loyal to the movement and are willing to do so many things to be accepted back into the group, but they also give up on it when they are offered a way out of their poverty and problems. Most of all, I think these works  perfectly demonstrate that individual need will always take priority over the human desire to be accepted and belong to a group with a greater cause.

Throughout all the different events and eras of history, the one thing that remains consistent is human behavior. In this class, we have already recognized a lot of patterns between 1968 and 2020, but the one that stands out the most is the inherent tendency of humans to be selfish.

This can be demonstrated by the hypocrisy that we have talked about in the lives of ‘68ers, where they were fighting for a movement that seemed so unselfish, all the while using it to make their own autobiographies more interesting. Once they grew up and became the age they told themselves never to trust, many of them selfishly changed from fighting for their ideals to going into politics and becoming a very influential part of the system they had previously tried so hard to take down. While this does not describe all ‘68ers, it is a pattern that can be noticed in many of their behavior. Similarly, during all of the protests and social media campaigns of 2020, I have personally seen many people use the movement for personal gain, particularly looking for praise from others on social media. Many do not actually care about the people they seem to be fighting for; rather, they care about how people will look back on them and being on the “right side of history.” 

Another prime example of this tendency is the discussion we had about the “white slavery” argument and the pattern that it seems to be used so much more during times where black Americans have been demanding equality. We are all at the center of our own narrative, so a lot of people try to relate to the hundreds of years of African American oppression in the U.S. by convincing themselves that their ancestors went through something similar. Many people cannot handle not being able to understand the suffering of black Americans and having little to no attention on themselves, so their way of trying to relate to the movement or take back attention is to bring up the “white slavery” argument.

The actions of protesters in ‘68 as well as 2020 show that selfish motives do not always result in bad outcomes. They can motivate people to do the right thing and fight for real change, but the common theme amongst everyone is that they do the things that they think will benefit themselves (or their legacy) in the long run. I think that this human tendency is the main cause of history repeating itself over and over, and I wonder what it would take to ever change it.