tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19109033.post1593245651900165198..comments2024-03-24T08:26:00.732+00:00Comments on photopol: WAS ROGER CASEMENT A NAZI?Pólóhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08661092894104384856noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19109033.post-72572244018292004552016-06-12T11:43:40.017+01:002016-06-12T11:43:40.017+01:00Telling it like it was ...
Reflecting further on ...Telling it like it was ...<br /><br />Reflecting further on the incident referred to in the previous comment I was struck by this parallel between Albert Folens and Roger Casement.<br /><br />After Casement's conviction for treason there was some possibility that sufficient support might have been mustered for a plea for clemency and for avoiding the carrying out of the death sentence. But the British Establishment were determined to have their pound of flesh and so they circulated Casement's diaries which showed that he was a homosexual. This took the wind out of the sails of any attempt at an appeal for clemency. His reputation was ruined even among those for whom his “treason” was no reflection on him in the circumstances.<br /><br />Similarly, Albert Folens collaborated with the Germans in WW2, like Casement, for patriotic reasons. But his reputation was ruined by shifting the emphasis from his patriotism to his collaboration and right on to branding him a Nazi, as illustrated by my professional's immediate reaction to his name. RTÉ have much to be ashamed of in this regard and instead of gearing up for an act of repentance they have just recently endorsed the one remaining presenter of the two who dragged Folens posthumously through the mud.<br /><br />The reputations of two patriots assassinated, one from WWI and the other from WWII.<br /><br />It's a funny world.<br /><br />Is it any wonder I am a revisionist when it comes to history?<br />Pólóhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08661092894104384856noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19109033.post-41909504044344708702016-06-10T11:48:37.493+01:002016-06-10T11:48:37.493+01:00Today, in conversation with an intelligent profess...Today, in conversation with an intelligent professional, I mentioned Albert Folens in passing and in an educational context. “Oh, he was a Nazi, wasn't he” was the immediate reflex comment.<br /><br />This is the perverse legacy of Senan Molony and Cathal O'Shannon.<br /><br />Cathal is with his maker and will now know better.<br /><br />Senan Molony is still with us and shows no sign of repentance.<br /><br />No doubt, if challenged by St. Peter at the Pearly Gates, he will produce his evidence, him being, according to RTÉ, “an informed journalist and author of the highest integrity”. Pólóhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08661092894104384856noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19109033.post-83920246437917320222016-04-03T13:52:15.864+01:002016-04-03T13:52:15.864+01:00An excellent, thoughtful, and accurate addendum.
...An excellent, thoughtful, and accurate addendum.<br /><br />History is complicated, too complicated for some.Vivionnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19109033.post-48352615730924532432016-04-03T10:47:33.508+01:002016-04-03T10:47:33.508+01:00Albert Folens was a patriot.
Some people seem to...Albert Folens was a patriot. <br /><br />Some people seem to have serious difficulty understanding this. Part of the problem is that post-WWII, with all we know now, we live and think in a bipolar world. This is further complicated by our upbringing where we have inherited some admiration for things British (both despite and because of our colonial past) and in particular where we (I'm now over 70) were seduced by the Battler Brittons and the Matt Braddocks with their Spitfires and Mosquitos on the one hand and repelled by the despicable Hun on the other who effectively put the Mau Mau in the ha'penny place.<br /><br />This is not the environment in which Albert Folens was operating. To him, the British were foreigners who had run an empire every bit as cruel as any other. Nearer home his people were oppressed for a century by the nation state into which they had been sandwiched in 1830. The King of this same state had run a brutally extractive empire in the Congo whose brutalities had been exposed by the very same Roger Casement mentioned above. <br /><br />The Germans were offering some sort of independence to Flanders, which, if it came about, would not fulfil some vainglorious dream, but allow them to unite with their natural hinterland, the Netherlands, and preserve their culture and dignity which had been targeted by the Belgian state for extinction.<br /><br />So who were the good guys and who the bad guys in this scenario? Bit of a Hobson's choice really.<br /><br />We in Ireland have spent the last few months re-evaluating the events of 1916. We have been busy putting flesh on the cardboard figures of our youth, and to great effect. We can now empathise with most of them even if we do not agree with many. This is progress in human terms.<br /><br />Can we not now give Albert the same space and give over this one dimensional stereotyping with its simplistic appeal and only tenuous relationship with real history?<br /><br />And why should I care. Well, Albert was my first “French” teacher in school. He was an excellent teacher. He ran a tight ship but did not resort to the prevailing corporal punishment of the day, nor did he have to. He cared that his pupils should actually learn something and at the time of the flu epidemic went far beyond the call of the curriculum.<br /><br />And then there was my uncle who died on the Somme. A victim of British military incompetence and thinking he was fighting for poor little Catholic Belgium, when, in reality, he was just one of millions of pawns in a vast imperial struggle between corrupt powers. But once in, there was clearly no out. The choice would have been between a bullet in the back or one in the front.<br /><br />So life is full of personal dilemmas and it would be nice to see a bit of respect for people and how they dealt with them.Pólóhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08661092894104384856noreply@blogger.com