The Troubles (A Fan-Comic)

Green Shadow and Siren work in Northern Ireland to fight for more peaceful coexistence between Protestants and Catholics in the modern world!

This is an IRA comic book I've been working on for a long time and couldn't retire without offering to WritersCafe. Because I'm from India originally and have family members who were deeply involved in the Indian struggle for independence from British colonialism, I became interested in Irish politics as a peaceful protestor and democracy advocate of Protestant-Catholic coexistence in Northern Ireland after reading much stimulating literature in college in the USA. I hope you find this political optimism comic both dioramic...and non-denominational. Thanks so much,

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The Easter Rising was over, and Ireland won Dublin for itself but lost Belfast and Northern Ireland was partitioned and given to the British government. The IRA (Irish Republican Army) evolved into many forms, devoted to winning Belfast back and ousting the British Protestant majority from Northern Ireland. No one knew how this would be achieved, aside from militant action and guerrilla warfare. Meanwhile, the British policy was to criminalize this radical rhetoric as purely terrorist ideology.

Over the years, many different kinds of radical individuals were recruited by the differing factions and branches of the IRA. While Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams worked tirelessly to promote legal and political negotiations between Irish Catholics and British Protestants in Northern Ireland, IRA 'sentinels' became the land war agents of what was to be called serious 'troubles' between two very different cultures/peoples. These IRA sentinels were like angels of anarchy.

Ajay Satan, an Algerian-American descendant of an FLN revolutionary who was involved in the movement to eradicate French colonial rule in Algeria, became a secret North American underground operative of the P-IRA (Provisional Irish Republican Army) in the late 20th Century. Ajay Satan was given the field-alias Green Shadow and was responsible for gathering black market funds and munitions and organizing teams to strike at British officers exiting various social spaces in areas in Northern Ireland and executing them. Green Shadow and his cohorts became known as the 'Dark' IRA (D-IRA).

There were folk-tales and stories from centuries about Irish rebellions against undesirable British rule. British Protestants had colonized Ireland centuries ago and made life for the suppressed Irish Catholics in Ireland and Northern Ireland generally unsatisfactory and in many cases downright oppressive. There were civil rights, unemployment, and street irritation matters and stories of policemen threatening young Irish Catholic men who were having difficulty finding employment. This was what was characterized as 'ages of depression' tales.

While there were strong cases or organized and proud Irish stands against undesirable British governance, these colorful rebellions throughout the centuries leading to the new millennium leaded to general failure. All these rebellions succeeded in doing was delivering home the message that there was a sociocultural dissatisfaction with British Protestant rule in Ireland. Nevertheless, these rebellions produced a great deal of fantastic artworks.

As the new millennium approached, and the Irish Catholic minority in Northern Ireland sought more equal access to commerce and media in the age of globalized capitalism and technology and Internet, the P-IRA (Provisional IRA) and various factional agents and sentinels such as Ajay Satan (Green Shadow) of the Dark IRA (D-IRA) worked to make life for British police and military generally displeasing and disquieting. There was an assassination attempt on British PM Margaret Thatcher in 1984, and soon folk-tales and movies emerged celebrating this Irish Catholic plea for greater independence in Belfast. How would journalism be shaped?

The Irish struggle did indeed create lots of forms of storytelling and comic book art. The purpose was to persuade Parliament and the UN that the IRA and its various branches and factions and 'editions' were not comprised of terrorists but rather of freedom-fighters interested in more rights for the Irish Catholic minority in Northern Ireland. This sort of campfire dialogue was vital for democratic free-speech but would have to be met by serious leaders invested in serious intelligent negotiations.

As Ivy League students involved in modern democratic politics took up involvement in student publications and neo-liberal journals in North America and Europe, media resources such as Adobe Pagemaker and Trellix became symbolic of social space and media use of democratic rhetoric. Circulating and digitizing and mass-distributing this type of democratic or Utopian rhetoric was akin to creating a new pulpit for reform and political debate. This was both art and life and both media and politics.

Neo-liberals and figures in America involved with social work and new age politics were considered key media figures and stars in this arena of pro-democratic exchange in civilization developing its whole interest in media and technology and Internet and global communications. The Irish Catholic minority in Northern Ireland didn't want to be left behind in this awesome wave of populace-driven social space pageantry!

Ajay Satan (Green Shadow) was joined by a savvy female P-IRA (Provisional Irish Republican Army) sentinel named Shelbye Collins who went by the IRA field-alias Siren. As Green Shadow and Siren became an underground duo in the world of Northern Ireland initiatives designed to undermine restrictions to media by the British Protestant majority in Belfast, Sinn Fein argued that such underground work symbolized a modern global interest in pure democratic change. If Green Shadow and his new female associate Siren were to be considered legitimate freedom-fighters, they'd have to find ways to present themselves as intelligent pro-Irish deities!

Of course, many people around the world were familiar with the fact that Irish Catholics were displeased with British rule in Ireland and then in Northern Ireland. There were countless articles and speeches and videos and even movies in the 20th Century describing this terrible trouble between Protestants and Catholics in Europe. This scarred the prestige of the otherwise magnificent British Empire. How would journalism be shaped?

What was needed was a more focused media spotlight on the pedestrian daydreams involved with the general lifestyle strains created by imagination differences between Protestants and Catholics seeking to co-exist peacefully somehow in Northern Ireland. Where was the society causality?

Youngsters and students were encouraged to study more political literature and watch more news and refrain from abusing the media access and Internet resources to just indulge in graphic magazine image collections and pornography. Students were encouraged to consider ways to link and connect new age consumerism and media with democratic views on the rights of all religious groups to celebrate this new age of explosive dollars!

As long as IRA sentinels and self-proclaimed 'responsible terrorists' were considered dangerous fanatics, individuals such as Green Shadow and Siren would never be considered as agents of democratic ideals. They'd never be likened to Sinn Fein leaders such as Gerry Adams who basked in the spotlight of peaceful political debates in Parliament. They'd never be considered as anything more as underworld strangers. This was the sad truth!

Even Green Shadow and Siren didn't want Irish youngsters to pick up guns instead of toys and books. They wanted Irish youngsters and students to find entertaining and stimulating access to media and Internet and toys and consumer items and fashionable goods in the modern world. Their cause was to promote the future and not die in the past.

As Americans celebrated St. Patrick's Day with colorful parades commemorating the Irish holiday and Catholic culture, Green Shadow and Siren worked in Northern Ireland to find ways to end undesirable Parliamentary policies on the streets of Belfast. This was a cause to make Protestant-Catholic relations in the world more...dioramic.

While U.S. President Donald Trump dealt with criticisms from Palestine that America was not stopping the corruption of Israel, Green Shadow and Siren worked to ensure more democratic dealings between Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland in a time of utterly incredible religious and political networking.

Because computers were so vital, tech-schools in America such as CalTech represented a Western investment in modernism and imagination. Irish Catholics in Northern Ireland didn't want to feel like they were somehow limited admidst all this sociointellectual human storytelling.

Green Shadow and Siren meanwhile continued to inspire more comic book stories about creative new ways to envision Protestant-Catholic coexistence and an end to the need and demand for urban violence and continental worry.

Would modernism be a time of weaponry and machinery or a time of media and journalism and video-games promoting nonviolence and political inventiveness?

If the IRA's members were to be taken seriously, American politicians would have to address the root causes of this incompatibility between Protestants and Catholics.

Green Shadow and Siren decided to use a Transformers (Hasbro) A.I. female robot named Greenlight in some underground publications about the characterization of heroic characters in anti-fascism storytelling. Would the IRA be categorized as demonic maniacs or desperate campers?

When U.S. Presidents John F. Kennedy and Bill Clinton got involved in Belfast politics and befriended various Sinn Fein members such as Gerry Adams, the world began to find more daylight in the modern troubles between Protestants and Catholics. Suddenly, there was more visionary thinking about shared fortunes in the emerging world of globalized capitalism!

AJAY SATAN (GREEN SHADOW): If the Catholics in Ireland are to feel more at home in Belfast, and the Catholics in Northern Ireland are to feel more at home in Belfast, there has to be more creative storytelling about the ways Protestants and Catholics can find ways to share dollars in this new era of great expectations.

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"Money is everything" (Ecclesiastes)