Suicides in Ardoyne

antrim | miscellaneous | feature Friday February 20, 2004 19:58 by Aine - Belfast

INLA Punishment Beatings Blamed for Rash of Suicides

.

A Debate on Punishment Beatings has broken out on the Indymedia Ireland Newswire as a result of a contribution from an INLA supporter rubbishing the connetion made in the media between INLA punishment beatings and suicides. This is one contribution to the ongoing debate from 'Aine' in Belfast.

"The young people involved in anti-social (not always criminal) behaviour are victims as well as the people affected by their behaviour. All are victims but surely the question is not who is the most worthy victim but how to stop young people engaging in this kind of unacceptable behaviour? Contrary to what has been said on this thread, there is NO evidence (apart from what we hear from apologists for punishment beatings) that working class communities WANT such attacks on their young people. I work with young people through a community group in a working class part of Catholic West Belfast and, honestly, people do want something done but ALL of them want something positive that will stop the young people getting in trouble in the first place.

Why is it that all the punishment attacks are in working class areas? Are better off kids better behaved? Of course not, but they are less likely to be on the streets, more likely to have their own rooms with computers etc and have the money to go to the cinema, leisure centres etc.

Something has to be done is the response from Tony Blair, David Blunkett and INLA apologists - especially the IRSP. So, they bring in Anti Social Behaviour Orders that can include Housing Benefit being cut if a family member is involved in anti-social behaviour - so leading to more poverty and more pressure on the youngster to steal to put food on the table if his mother is a lone parent. If people in the IRSP used as much energy seeking funding for youth projects or objecting to the fact that 16-17 year olds around here have NO income - their parents do not get a brass farthing towards their upkeep if they are not in full-time education or training - there would be a lot less crime and anti-social behaviour.

Of course, in spite of all the talk of people like me being middle-class for defending these young people's right not to be brutalised [I earn £13,500 a year and live in that middle-class paradise called Poleglass] the reality is that the so-called 'leaders' of the IRSP would not know what it means to be poor. Some of them have VERY middle class jobs and incomes and probably cannot imagine the stress faced by the families these young people come from."

Other Relevant Links
Slugger O'Toole Debate on Same Subject
Article on Ardoyne Suicides from An Phoblacht/Republican News

ORIGINAL STORY FROM JOSEPHINE:

The recent mainstream media smear campaign against the INLA, blaming them for the recent spurt of suicides in North belfast, is shallow, tabloid sensationalism at its speculative worst, as if the INLA are responsible for the atrocious living, social and economic conditions in republican working class areas of North Belfast.

The facts of the matter are it is the british state, who are responsible through, british state elitist bigotry against the working class republican poor.

British state educational and institutional discrimination against the working class republican communities. In terms of provision of recreational, social, economic funding and employment opportunities.

Throughout the educational system the working class are discriminated against in terms of the educational institutions providing working class or poor pupils with equality of eductional opportunity.

Poor children cannot afford private tuition in order to enable them to pass the 11+ and gain entry into Grammar schools which offers superior and intensive educational teaching and facilities. So Poor or working class children are shunted into the secondary educational system with its lack of funding, and inferior tuition and facilities.

This is one way the british state denies working class/poor children equality of educational opportunity, as secondary schools through limited funding, cannot make available or offer the same level of courses, teaching or facilities as Grammar schools.

The system through the 11+ teaches us that the children of the rich, and well to do, are cleverer than children of the poor, which is a LIE. The children of the rich are not intellectually superior or cleverer than a working class child living in Ardoyne, it is just that a rich child's family can afford to pay for additional private tuition in order to pass the 11+. So a rich child who passes the 11+, will gain entry to the superior grammar school system and gain access to all the privileges, educational and career opportunities that go with it, to achieve qualifications which will enable them to go on to university and gain empolyment easily.

A poor/or working class child going to secondary educaitonal school will have to struggle with lack of text books, teachers and facilities, the courses on offer will be inferior to that offered in Grammar schools.

It is only a tiny minority of working class/poor children who manage to go on to vocational and economic sucess, despite the lack of educational opportunities provided at secondary school, and most of these have had to endure low pay, low status work, for many years.

As Nelson Mandela use to say, in the township shanty towns of capetown, educational success was the only escape and way out for slum kids from living the shanty towns.

For our working class, poor who are condemned to a second rate secondary education system which is substandard to that in third world countries, there is really no hope, and no way out of the spiralling council estates.

Is it any wonder that the 75% of the prison population are dyslexic adults, whose special needs as children were not addressed or met throughout their school days.
Children with special needs are disfranchised by the educational system which fails to incorporate the simplest of adaptions to be inclusive in terms of providing these children with equality of educaitonal opportunities.

These children end up marginalised adults/youths, hanging around street corners, and engaging in anti social activities and crime, because of having no qualifications and a no employment prospects.

Children with special needs are not backward, they are not intellectually inferior to their classroom peers, they only require teaching and classroom resources to be adapted to include and allow them to participate on an equal footing with their classroom peers.

Similarly poor/working class children are not intellectually inferior to rich children. Working class children only need equality of access to the same intensive teaching, educational facilities and courses offered to the Grammar school children of the rich.

Working class young people in North belfast not only have to contend with having a lack of educational and employment opportunities, they also have to endure, the turmoil and upheaval of rioting, intercommunal sectarian violence, social economic deprivation and grinding poverty. With lack of employment, economic, edcucational and social prospects is it any wonder, people turn to topping themselves.