Please enable JavaScript.
Coggle requires JavaScript to display documents.
To what extent did the 1968 protests express both political and cultural…
To what extent did the 1968 protests express both political and cultural demands for
change? Discuss in relation to a 1968 protest movement in any one national context.
-- Northern Ireland
-
-
Cultural demands
Cultural demands for reform are less present in the mainstream protests in Northern Ireland, instead the idealistic dream of an end to sectarian cultural devides seem most promient on the far left.
The Connolly Association (a nationalist, socialist organisation) believed that full civil rights would lead to a cultural shift away from sectarianism (Prince, 2006, p858).
With this logic protests organised by elements of the People's Democracy group (a student protest group) (Prince, 2006, p870) in December 1968 planned a march across NI. However, the realities of the sectarian divides were shown to students when defences against the RUC were erected by the Catholic community not the working class (Prince, 2006, p874).
Although other organisations were non-sectarian (such as the Citizens' Action Committee) (Lavin, 1968, p534), they were still focused on political change and civil rights, instead of inacting a grand cultural shift.
It could be argued that the broad shift of the civil rights movement away from secterian issues to political issues (Bosi, 2008, p257) marked a cultural deminesion to the movement, but this was short lived and secterian devides were never truly broken down.
Conclusion
Northern Ireland, lack much of the world saw the break out of large scale protests againsts the establishment.
The protests in Northern Ireland were highly focused on the political issues of the day in particular the issues of civil rights.
There were small attempts to move the cultural state of the region, but this was not the mainstream objectives of the movement.
The importance of the political over the cultural can be seen in the impact of the 1968 protests in Northern Ireland, the firm division of the area into secterian camps and the starting of the Troubles (Prince, 2006, p852).