The second part of a two part tv series \”Bloodlands\” is now streaming after a wait of several years. A great cast (led by James Nesbitt and Victoria Smurfitt) and an intricate plot makes this unmissable. But also, I increasingly found, very hard to watch, for reasons it took a while to understand. Ostensibly the setting is Northern Island and the history of the \”Troubles\” (that curiously understated title) with its IRA and the Protestant militias and the RUC and the military and the links to American funding of the IRA. And at this level this is all well plotted and exciting and tense.
But I gradually came to realise that, whether the writer intended it of not, the real story (spoiler alert), and the aspect that agonised me, made me want to put my hands over my eyes and ears, is about what happens when an organisation has a traitor insider who damages with lies and evidence manipulation, a whole organisation which has a worthy program which is being subverted, made unworkable, ultimately almost destroyed by this insider who has access to all the information he needs to carry out his interference.
And I realised that I had experienced just this situation in the 1990s, and so cringed as the plot was revealed. I was reliving the horror of a secret insider trying to destroy your work.
[My story is told here: https://www.ginninderrapress.com.au/store.php?product/page/3057/David+Horton+%2F+Hammering+on+the+mind%27s+door]
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