A Warning From History

NEWS FROM THE CELTIC LEAGUE

When Phil Gawne made a statement some months ago about freeing up more land for development Mec Vannin not surprisingly reminded him of the historic statement made by himself and others when the were indicted and convicted for their part in FSFO campaign.

The statement carried in the press was called ‘WHY they did it’ and it set out in some detail the reasons they felt compelled to take direct action.

I didn’t pay much attention after it was resurrected some months ago but after writing the recent historic item on Manninee Dooie I thought I would look at it again and see were there any parallels with that earlier period.

I found something different. The words that jumped out at me were:

“Our protests at the changes taking place here took the illegal form they did because at the time, we could see no possible other ways of drawing attention to the loss of Manxness in Mann.”

They went on to criticise Mec Vannin at the time as defunct and said letters were being written to the press ‘but no political debate was occurring or being stimulated’.

Well as this all occurred in the late eighties it is difficult to check on-line if the assertion about Mec Vannin is a fair one but fortunately issues of Carn are on line and these generally report in the national section what the national movements were up to.

Certainly in the latter part of the eighties there were concerns being articulated MANX FAMILIES HOMELESS IN MANX ‘BOOM’ (that’s from Autumn 1988) in addition Mec Vannin pushed a resolution on immigration through the League AGM that year and the next issue has another article entitled HOUSING CRISIS.

So it seems that throughout the eighties there was a concern amongst both organised (and unorganised) nationalists but as the FSFO members correctly put it ‘no political debate was occurring’. Essentially the main stream Manx media ignored the signs

Actually history repeated itself because in the early 1970s nationalists tried to get their message across and the media for the most part ignored them. A spate of burning and daubing occurred then as well.

The government seems set on rolling out another round of so called growth which actually means increasing the population. The Chamber of Commerce make no secret of their desire to see 1000 extra workers a year for several years. They get copious air time on the radio and print space in the media (as do government) to put their views across.

The counter view (and a lot of people don’t share the Govt/Chambers rosy vision of the future) gets little or no media coverage.

That’s fair enough but when houses start to burn or roads get daubed don’t blame nationalists blame the media. In the absence of debate something has to fill the vacuum and we know what has happened in the past!

BERNARD MOFFATT

Issued by: The Celtic News

10/09/15

THE CELTIC LEAGUE INFORMATION SERVICE.

The Celtic League established in 1961 has branches in the six Celtic Countries. It promotes cooperation between the countries and campaigns on a range of political, cultural and environmental matters. It highlights human rights abuse, military activity and socio-economic issues

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