Nazi IRA man's statue beheaded

[emad]

Times
By David Lister

THE Irish Republic has been forced to confront the legacy of its neutrality during the Second World War after anti-fascists attacked a memorial to a pro-Nazi IRA leader.

A statue to Sean Russell, who died on board a German U-boat in 1940, was left headless after an attack by youths in Fairview Park in Dublin.

As the group that looks after the statue admitted that it is almost certainly beyond repair, the Simon Wiesenthal Centre in Paris called for it to be left unrestored as an enduring symbol of Ireland’s “shame”.

Shimon Samuels, director for international affairs at the centre, the world’s largest Jewish human rights organisation, told The Times: “It’s a blot on the history of Ireland, but blots have to see the public light.”

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-1437478,00.html

[SweetLeftFoot]

1. Sean Russell

Wasn't a Nazi. He was an IRA man ascribing to the old idea that "my enemies enemy is my friend".

The Times needs to get its facts straight too. Russell was an armed opponent of the Irish Free State as it was in his time and would view the current Irish Republic as illegitimate.

[mrfrapp]

6. Mispreresentation

The Times never said he was a Nazi, it said he was pro-Nazi.

[SweetLeftFoot]

9. He wasn't even pro-Nazi

He used to hang out with Fran k Ryan, who fought on the Republican side in Spain. Russell just wanted guns from the Nazis.

[Bridget Burke]

2. Are you objecting to the damage to the statue?

A replacement will be made--I'm sure they're accepting contributions.

[Name removed]

5. Deleted message

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[Anarcho-Socialist]

10. It's up to her what she believes, we're all here because we share

Democratic values and find Bush* to be intolerable. Personally, I don't equate an anti-IRA stance with an anti-Irish one. In the Republic of Ireland itself, the provisional-IRA is very disliked.

[Englander]

3. Not LBN;this happened two weeks ago;

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1382163,00.html

Henry McDonald
Sunday January 2, 2005
The Observer

An unnamed group in Dublin claimed responsibility last night for vandalising the statue of an IRA leader linked to the Nazis in the Second World War.

The group said it had severed the head and right arm of the statue in Dublin's Fairview Park in memory of the victims of the Holocaust.
They said that as Europe prepares to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi death camps, they could no longer tolerate a statue in honour of Sean Russell.

>snip
It is understood the vandalism took place between late Thursday night and the early hours of New Year's Eve. There has been no sign of either the head or the arm of the statue.

[Name removed]

4. Deleted message

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[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

11. WOW! Search by Author, here I go! (nt)

[Name removed]

7. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[emad]

8. Not my worry but the press is having a good day.

[bin.dare]

12. "enduring symbol of Ireland’s “shame”". --- FU

I don't care if it is from the Simon Wiesenthal Centre or not, that an entire country, an entire population of that country, gets painted with the same brush of shame is vile racism. FU

we went through this shite about Russell a couple of weeks ago, do we really need to rehash it again?
What the fuck is it anyway about the Times and the Telegraph that they must regularly conjure up shite about Ireland and the Irish? Geez.

[MADem]

13. The real shame in Ireland

...was the British boot on their neck for so many years, the famine that killed so many when no one would help, the tenement farms razed to the ground, the export of their greatest asset, their citizenry, the abrogation of religious and civil liberties during the troubles....

But I say tear the statue down and put one up of someone else. It's just metal or stone, or whatever--a repository for bird poop, as they all are.