propaganda!

Rating: 1/10 (19 January 2013)

Bloody Sunday is about the shootings dead of 14 civil rights marchers by the British army in derry during the conflict in NI. 90% of those killed in the conflict were killed by paramilitaries. However film-makers have decided to make a film about one of the few atrocities committed by the security forces.
The film is co-produced by an IRA sympathiser called Don Mullan. He has described the IRA campaign as a reaction to the violence of the state.
The propaganda line put forward by this film is that the nationalist community tried peaceful means for achieving civil rights but were just met by state violence and that the British crushed NICRA (as the CRM was called).
This contradicts with the facts. In order to get the viewer to believe this the film tells a number of lies 1. Ivan cooper says at the beginning of the film that there were no reforms introduced prior to 1972. This is a flat out lie. Loads of reforms had been introduced beginning in 1968. One man, one vote had been introduced, the B specials had been abolished for example.
2. Ivan cooper says at the end of the film that the civil rights movement had been destroyed. This is a flat out lie also. NICRA disbanded voluntarily in the early 1980's. The viewer is therefore misled into believing that there were no longer any peaceful alternatives to violence.
The film is extremely anti-British. One piece of anti-British hate-mongering is the message at the end that those who planned the operation were honoured by the queen. It is true that two of the senior officers in charge of the operation were later honoured by the queen. However no one who carried out any of the shootings or ordered any killings were honoured by the queen.
Do not believe the lies in this film. The brits were working on setting up a power-sharing arrangement at the time. What was planned was an arrest operation not a massacre as is implied by this film. Everyone of NICRA's demands were introduced by 1975. There were other options available to nationalists other than violence, contrary to the lies in this film!