THE
HYDE PARK / REGENT PARK BOMBS
'Horror
is a figment of our reality - Reality is a figment of our horror.' So declared Annie Anxiety on the sleeve of her Barbed Wire Halo
single. Nothing could be as real as an IRA bomb, however, and nothing
could be more real than two IRA bombs going off at the same time and
on Tuesday 20th July 1982, the horror of that particular reality
arrived.
As
members of the Queen's Household Cavalry rode through Hyde Park in
London, a nail bomb planted in a nearby car was detonated causing
instant death, carnage and devastation. Four soldiers and seven
Cavalry horses died and a further twenty-seven people were injured,
seventeen of them civilians. Mangled bodies, dead horses, severed
limbs and blood was everywhere.
Less
than two hours later over at Regents Park, a second bomb hidden
beneath a bandstand was detonated just as the Royal Green Jackets
Band were playing to an appreciative audience. Six band members were
killed and a further twenty-four injured, many of them extremely
seriously. Here also, blood was everywhere with children being
splattered with bits of the bandsmen's bodies along with fragments of
mangled musical instruments.
On
claiming responsibility for the bombings the IRA issued a statement
neatly echoing Thatcher's sentiments regarding the Falklands: 'The
Irish people have sovereign and national rights which no Task or
occupational force can put down.'
Whilst
all news reports on the Falklands war had been heavily sanitised and
all details of the carnage there censored, the horrific violence of
the IRA's action was reported on and displayed in full across the
television and newspapers. Whilst support for the Falklands war had
been actively encouraged and depicted as honourable and heroic, the
IRA's action was outrightly condemned and depicted as criminal.
Setting
aside all questions of semantics, whether it be abroad or at home on
the streets of London it was clear that all war was fucked.
And as Crass were so persistently stating: 'Fight
war not wars. Destroy power not people. 1,
2, 3, 4 - WE DON'T WANT YOUR FUCKING WAR!'
How
could anyone disagree with this?
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