There is a peculiar symmetry about the Bloody Sunday inquiry into the killing by soldiers of unarmed demonstrators concluding just as the Israeli inquiry into the shooting of unarmed peace activists is set up. But there is another fascinating common factor – David Trimble.
Trimble opposed the Bloody Sunday inquiry from the start. This from the BBC in 1998:
But the Ulster Unionist leader, David Trimble, dismissed Mr Blair’s hope that an inquiry could be part of the healing process in Northern Ireland.
“Opening old wounds like this is likely to do more harm than good,” Mr Trimble said.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/51740.stm
This week Trimble has been reinforcing that opposition to the diminsihing numbers who will listen – his reason? He thinks it is wrong that any soldier should be treid for murdering unarmed people:
David Trimble, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate who led Protestants into Northern Ireland’s 1998 peace accord, told The Guardian newspaper he had long opposed the idea of a new Bloody Sunday inquiry because it would be certain to provide fresh ammunition for those seeking to convict or sue the soldiers involved.
Trimble was quoted as saying he advised then-
British prime minister Tony Blair not to throw out Widgery’s verdict, because “if you moved one millimeter from that conclusion, you were into the area of manslaughter, if not murder.”
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100611/ap_on_re_eu/eu_nireland_bloody_sunday
Why the Israelis would view Trimble as a good international frontman for their whitewash is blindingly obvious. Even more so when you consider that on the very day of the flotilla murders, David Trimble was in Paris chairing the glitzy launch of a new “Interrnational Friends of Israel” group.
It is therefore no surprise at all that it was that indefatigable – and extremely well remunerated – Friend of Israel, Tony Blair, who gave Netanyahu Trimble’s name as a safe pair of hands for the cover-up.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jun/14/eu-gaza-raid-inquiry
sandcrab, I rather think you exemplify the traits I described.
So political differences and civil unrest have nothing to do with the history of ethnic communities, then (despite what the rest of the world thinks). It’s just a numbers game to you. So if and when the demographic changes, as is happening, you and your ilk will have no problem with joining the Irish. Don’t think so. The NI state was gerrymandered to stack the voting numbers, and something similar could happen again.
The history lesson wasn’t arbitrary: it was an explanation of the current regional differences and engrained attitudes are as they are: the gaels and picts have nothing to do with it. And are you saying the Unionist community doesn’t harp back to the 17th century?? Where are you every 12th of July??
Thanks for relating your experiences. But I was talking about the people who were brought up attending Orange marches, chanting anti-Catholic slogans, singing bigoted songs. This took place even amongst communities populated with peace-loving churchgoers who didn’t think they were fascists. And most of them remain peace-loving churchgoers. They just don’t trust fenians, and would generally prefer not to mix with them, employ them, or sanction marriage with them, etc. Bigotry? What bigotry??
“Generations of the settler community were brought up to believe that the “fenians” or “taigs” were morally, culturally and genetically inferior; that the “devil danced around them”. Interfaith marriage, even amongst the wealthy political moderates, was not just discouraged but actively punished.”
Ill tell you that my mother rest her soul told me that things were ok before the bogside, she used to hitch hike all over ireland (with freinds including a couple of members of sein fein!) seeking out and writing down rare old folksongs. She said everyone, her protestant and catholic freinds used to come out to watch the silly Orange Men march. My family have never been landed or rich, most of the communities fighting were recently sprung poor workers in industries. She said there was little to no violence for most of the 60s and civil rights protests and movements at that time were improving what social and economic injustice there was, as there was between historical divides all round britain and europe.
It is just a damn shame what happened in the space of a few years, set Ulster back hundreds.
“Where are you every 12th of July??”
Actualy i tend to avoid that time, but i go watch a bonfire sometimes, and ive sat around a bonfire drinking with Catholic freinds before. Many of them are perfectly civil.
I know proddy chants and songs, and i know of feinian chants and songs too. A culture of rivalry and taunting does exist which some people take part in, some people are fanatical about and some will even kill and maim over.
But the modern culture of Ulster is the same as the South, and scotland and England etc. It’s a tv watching mortgaged aspirational consumerist culture, unfortunately, but at least we dont want to kill each other and steal each others stuff anymore.
Yes, every commentator would agree that the sectarian violence ramped up 40 years ago. But it didn’t start spontaneously; it was a reaction to institutional discrimination on a grand scale.
The Troubles were a huge setback for Ulster, stoking resentment to lethal levels. But Ulster has bounced back recently, and is farther forward than it was in the 60s; there is more equality, and bigotry appears to be waning. Economics has much to do with this, of course.
I’m not sure that Trimble has been carried along by this, though. He’s not as progressive as it’s made out (or as treacherous as some Unionists believe). He has instinctive sympathies with the Israelis (not to mention political and economic interests); much more so than with the Palestinians. But I’m sure he’ll strive to be objective (in his own eyes, at least).
I dont take much exception to your view nextus, except your partial history lesson. The other side of the story is that there is not a great many rich landed protestants in northern ireland either. Impoverished communities all over the place have been at each others throats for centuries, tit for tat. There are plenty of tails of injustice to go round. Its not been like Israel with the troops bombing, shooting and abusing people at a whim.
Troops serving in NI generaly tried to do the job and keep the head down. Harass them and they’ll harass you sometimes, sometimes they just have to take it.
A relative of mine, a policeman, was maimed in a bombing. He got taunted later by the same guys who did it, because there wasnt enough evidence to convict them. They werent scared of a shoot to kill policy or British brutality. They could taunt a policeman they maimed and not worry about consequence.
There was two sides to those troubles, the killers didnt help. ‘thats all.
“The other side of the story is that there is not a great many rich landed protestants in northern ireland either.”
– Except the farmers, of course. But you’re probably not talking about them.
“Its not been like Israel with the troops bombing, shooting and abusing people at a whim.”
– Err … you didn’t happen to notice the news the other day, did you? You know, the bit where the PM was apologising … ?
“Troops serving in NI generally tried to do the job and keep the head down.”
– More true of the mainland regiments than the home services like the UDR (U’ll Do Rightly’s). A pal joined up because he wanted to “hassle taigs”. I know very well what they were like: I saw it from the inside.
– Err … you didn’t happen to notice the news the other day, did you? You know, the bit where the PM was apologising … ?
I didnt, but i know how it goes, i never doubted the paras went berserk maybe. But that is one a few events.
The IDF do stuff like that routinely, without consequences.
Ok, about rich proddy farmers i dont know, maybe there are a dissproportionate amount of protestant farmers throughout Ulster, maybe there arent, who can says so?
“Troops serving in NI generally tried to do the job and keep the head down.”
– More true of the mainland regiments than the home services like the UDR (U’ll Do Rightly’s). A pal joined up because he wanted to “hassle taigs”. I know very well what they were like: I saw it from the inside.
Well he would have found his desire restricted by the police and lawcourts. When my second cousin couldnt even worry the guys who maimed and continued to hassle him after they got off. I dont think that was the situation in South Africa, that you could nearly kill a policeman and laugh at him over it later and be protected by the states freedom of speech.
sorry, typo -‘paras went berserk, maybe *under orders/on purpose*
“Ok, about rich proddy farmers i dont know, maybe there are a dissproportionate amount of protestant farmers throughout Ulster, maybe there arent, who can says so?”
– Yes, there are, and some of the estates are huge. The catholic-owned farms tend to be small-holdings and tenancies. The distribution varies massively across different regions. The farmers from either side mix fairly well at cattle markets, though there is often a simmering lack of trust.
“Well he would have found his desire restricted by the police and lawcourts.”
– Not so simple. The nationalist community would hardly approach them with a complaint. The RUC and the magistrates were as notorious for their bias as the UDR: they were drawn from the same community. Until recently, catholics were grossly under-represented in all of these state services.
If the platoon commander, NCOs or fellow squaddies aren’t happy with the behaviour, then it gets reported to the military police and could go to court martial. In practice a case of serious harassment would never go that far. It was more likely to prompt a stern warning for embarrassing the regiment.
I recognise the contrast you’re trying to make, but you’re overplaying it. There were many routine cases of routine abuses by the security services in NI, complete with state-sanctioned cover-ups. The IRA gained many recruits because they suffered beatings from the army and police, and didn’t have a voice to complain. And remember Castlereagh? The abuses that went on there were well documented. Similar things could happen in other barracks, but they weren’t talked about, for obvious reasons.
Conversely, while the Israeli army is brutally oppressive, it is not quite as gung-ho as you portray; they are very strict on internal discipline. The offensives, demolitions and other atrocities are ordered by the Knesset, and any deviation from orders is likely to result in an internal investigation (albeit biased). I know people who done national service there, and the patrols sound very similar to NI.
Thanks, sandcrab, for your honest reflection of the Ulster Protestant mindset. I know it very well, too, but it’s only when I had the chance to view it from a distance that I realised how blinkered it is. The people are good and righteous in general; but bigotry can lie dormant; it’s not hard to elicit declarations, even from churchgoers, that would make people outside that community blanch.
Nextus: I take on board and thank you for your comments. I have been uncomfortably aware that ive been overplaying it, somewhat.
I commented when Ulster Protestants where being singled out of for blame, perhaps their ancestors could be, who doesnt have guilty ancestors? nice for you maybe…
I feel guilty for consuming goods produced by slave labour, and not doing enough to help others, and not making the best of life.. Theres alot to be guilty about then and now, there is always alot to find blame for. We need to work to make things better, not fight.
I stand by the observation that the great majority of people in Ulster did want the paramilitary violence and most including plenty of Catholics did not even wish for a unified/united ireland.
To get anywhere near a democratic mandate for leaving the Union you have to deny protestant residents a vote on the matter. That is Apartheid. The right of self determination for the whole population was eventualy conceeded by republican leadership and the reason Ulster is still in the union is because the combined population still want it to be.
I challenge anyone to criticise or counter the life and times survey i linked: http://www.ark.ac.uk/nilt/ and i expect there are other studies documenting the same and consider this should be common knowledge to commentors on the recent history and present situation.
So Im testifying the fair character and peacewillingness of the general population of Ulster. Im much less sure of the peaceful wishes of the British secret services and actors in the Irish state im afraid.
Also, while im dreaming, 300 years ago, thats about 10 generations, i will have around a thousand ancestors from that time from who knows where? They all came from mars on the back of the renaissance. I just dont buy the idea that protestants dont have valid historical links to live in Ulster. I dont think its sound. Maybe i should get my DNA analysed or somethin..
“for your honest reflection of the Ulster Protestant mindset. I know it very well, too, but it’s only when I had the chance to view it from a distance that I realised how blinkered it is.”
Ive viewed it from a distance too and know it is blinkered. I think everyones mindeset is blinkered, but no moreso Unionists than Nationalists. No way, i couldnt say either side is more enlightened than the other.
The world is even more confusing without blinkers.
ok, best to you’
You’re right that the great majority did not want paramilitary violence, but the question was what to do about it. Fight back? For years, most Unionists favoured a brutal security clampdown, rather than paramilitary retaliation. While this may have prevented specific incidents, it ultimately stoked the underlying sentiments and inflamed the problem.
I wouldn’t quibble with the surveys. Northern Catholics have evolved a separate identity from Eire and many do not wish to be assimilated. Fionnuala O’Connor documented the various attitudes in her book “In Search of a State”. The principal “cause” for some protesters was freedom from oppression and political autonomy rather than a united Ireland.
Moreover, Eire would not necessarily be keen to embrace Ulster with all its attendant difficulties; they couldn’t afford it, for one thing.
Anyway, virtually everybody has now signed up for self-determination now, so I hope we can lay that gripe to rest. But it doesn’t make the prejudice go away. The voting patterns are still dictated by ethnocentric identity; in other countries, it tends to be economic policy that decides elections. Attitudes are maturing, though.
My point was rather about Trimble. He may represent political progress (= opportunism), but he also supports state supremacy, tough security force tactics against rebellious minorities, and resistance to concessions without preconditions. On pain of contradicting his own principles, he won’t accept Palestinian legitimacy until they stop fighting against Israeli oppression. In NI, he spoke in favour of heavy-handed security crackdowns merely on suspicion of unlawful activity. Join the dots to preview his report on the Mavi Marmara enquiry.
Yes, cultural blinkers are a feature of parochial societies, but usually it is just the merits of outsiders they are blind to, not those of the neighbours.
My sense is that the protestant community is still more intransigent and resolute, at least in rural areas, than the catholic community. But the emerging generation is showing more signs of inclusiveness, and long may it continue.
Best to you in return. Thanks for the chat.
sandcrab
Your constant resort to anecdotal evidence to support you point of view will not pass muster I’m afraid.
The Ulster Protestants secured and maintained their Orange state via the use of state-sanctioned violence by sectarian militias against the Northern Catholic population.
For sixty years they ran a repressive Orange state with security laws enforced indiscriminately against recalcitrant nationalists that S.African President Dr Vorster said he wished he had!
Unsurprisingly there were IRA campaigns in every decade after the 1930s. The legitimacy of the N.I.state was always in question. Gerrymandering,blatant discrimination in local government and housing-you simply can’t cite the general population’s will for peaceful co-existence ad infinitum and ignore this history.
Those who ignore and hope history will go away usually find it blows up in their faces. This is what happened to the Orange state in 1969. After the riots the previous October in Derry the state was losing control and the administration turned to Britain to prop them up.
Callaghan’s visit followed soon after and there was for a brief period a sense in the Catholic comunity that the Labour government had seen the state for what it was and was at last willing to remedy their grievevances.
This all fizzled out when the Tory administration took over in London. The Tories immediately began to implement the security crack-down against Catholics the Unionist leadership wanted.
The Falls curfew raids and the Army killings of Catholic civilians that occurred the same night were but the prelude to much darker days ahead.
The Bloody Sunday atrocity in 1972 was the logical outcome of the British- Unionist security crack-down and their position on the status of “Free Derry”.
On the Foyle and with its close proximity to the border the city with its majority but largely disenfranchised Catholic population was the Orange state’s achilles heel. This independent nationalist enclave simply could not be tolerated. It would have to be very visibly swept aside. Britain would have draw a line in the sand and demonstrate its willingness to enforce the Union militarily.
Bloody Sunday sent out a signal of British determination to enforce its colonial writ as it had done in Malaya and tens of other outposts post-WW2. It was now thought necessary to convince not just the Northern Catholic population but the government in Eire and the watching world to mind its own business.
While Cameron’s apology has been warmly received by families and friends of the Paras’ victims no-one has acknowledged that the killings had been authorised at the highest level of the Tory government. Heath was always deeply evasive as to his own culpability for the murders.
You seem to think this history must be forgotten and we should all look back to the days of the Orange state with a sense of nostalgia for the halcyon days of Protestant supremacy.
You’re burying your head in the sand Mr Crab!
Any argument that proceeds by willed amnesia, anecdote and the smearing of your opponents as “gay-bashers” and apologists for torture-is obviously deeply flawed.
It’s not a little reminiscent of the St Louis School of Disinformation and Israeli Propaganda with which we have all had to become so familiar since the invasion of the Hasbarat shills began!
When this guy,Crab refers to “you lot”
and ascribes all manner of base motivation to those who don’t agree with him he seems to lay bare all the insecurities and wish to censor and delete we have seen on this site in recent weeks.
People who know something about a topic-be it N.Ireland or the Middle East will make their case quite rationally and with a sense of tolerance and respect for the other point of view.
At the same time such people will undoubtedly find their patience tried by people who simply hide from the truth and self-evidently don’t know enough about the topic.
Paradoxically it seems to be people who pride themselves on their devotion to tolerance and “liberal causes” who demonstrate qualities that are quite the inverse of these they so loudly proclaim.
Thus if they are uncomfortable with certain topics they will anathematize their opponents-“anti-semites”, “homophobes”, or “conspiracy theorists”-seem to be the favourite smears here.
While I’ll freely admit to my predilection for the last mentioned foible the resort to the first two smears I generally regard as evidence of the weakness rather than strength of the opposing argument.
I’m against the Zio-fascism that exists among the Western elite and in Israel.
This is not “anti-semitism”. For the most part the Jewish supremacists are not semites at all. This is particularly the case in Israel itself where they are mainly Ashkenazi with no semite blood whatever.
As far as homophobia goes I’m not aware that Craig has even broached gay issues at all. Personally I simply couldn’t care less about anyone else’s sexual orientation-it’s British prurience at its worse.
Someone else’s religion is their business too. I don’t give a damn as long as they don’t try to ram it down my throat.
Holocaust fundamentalism like Islamic fundamentalism is a religion to which however I do take exception.
Try to ram either of those down my neck and I might get more than a bit impatient!
iara lee speaks at UN…part 1 of 4:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUTZWhQL22o
iara lee speaks at UN:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUTZWhQL22o
iara lee speaks at UN:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUTZWhQL22o
Quite agree,Apostate.
I too have endured the entirely false racism charge from our editor-in-chief,Obersturmfuhrer Murray himself!
Simply to challenge patent falsehoods like the Holocaust false-religion is to invoke the blanket censorship Orwell taught us is always employed to protect state-sponsored lies.
Nor can one draw attention to the Zionist banking cabal that controls the Fed and the Bank of England and central banking world-wide.
Verboten. Taboo. Unspeakable.
People as emotionally constipated as this are obviously the unwitting victims of Frankfurt,Freudian social engineering.
They went to university and were taught the Frankfurt School claptrap re-The Authoritarian Personality. They have been taught to pathologize any tendency towards group cohesiveness among members of the majority culture.
Frankfurt taught that worrying about a host nation’s concerns re-its demographic and cultural eclipse as a consequence of mass immigration is but an irrational psychopathological response to an entirely natural process.
Frankfurt dogma persists in universities today where the Humanities field is dominated by the prioritization of ethics and values and empirical science values are rejected.
Frankfurt actually dispensed with any pretense that social enquiry should be conducted according to some approximation at least to scientific standards. The whole enterprise was conducted according to the perceived cultural interests and priorities of the Frankfurters themselves.
Check out Kevin MacDonald’s deconstruction of the Frankfurt agenda in Chapter 5 of his Culture of Critique.
Next time you’re stigmatized as homophobic or anti-semitic remember these guys have been thoroughly brain-washed and are now getting far too old to challenge their self-delusions.
The falsehoods they invent about their perceived adversaries were programmed into them long ago by Frankfurt and Freud. They’ll take them with them to their graves!
RIP Frankfurters!
nextus thankyou for your chat – you are a proper good read!
Here’s a bit more of my rambling, ‘slainte
About the observation that protestant communities seem to be ‘still more intransigent and resolute’ than catholic ones, I know it is not an definitive statement, and to require empirical support might seem obstructive, but if it cannot be established with some method then it could just be a personal notion of stereotypes.
Statements can be as subjective and misleading as eg. ‘these hifi speakers sound great’ where our unconscious expectations affect our experience most, we can hear actual differences in the price-tags, differences which we cant detect without seeing them, you have to test speakers ‘blind’ if you want a pure measure and it is impossible to estimate about peoples characters securely in this way.
Basically when we refer to experience, and don’t test and depersonalise it (quite rigorously) the stereotypes which are so powerfully manipulatable by cultural actors can get reinforced.
I learned this nature of conscious knowing and thinking while experimenting with AI, maybe I’m feigning smartness or being nerdy here, but i could claim that’s why i declared i cant say which community has the ‘better’ character.
I know i did say the terrorists in Ulster had the ‘worst’ characters but would attach to that charge the fact that they did not act with a popular mandate supporting their destructive behaviour…
..anyway
When i joined this thread cursing the IRA instead of the Unionists who were being spoken of in purely negative terms, it produced a reaction to defend the IRA. The most common cultural stereotype outside of minority Unionist sympathy, is that IRA terror was a response to Unionists wrongs. That can be put forward but for the Unionists to take that on board their history and culture should be respected at the same time. Where sympathy/empathy is sought it needs to also be given.
I find the associations with Zionists are mismatched, even if self inflicted. They are as misleading as they are instructive, since Israel was established and maintained with severe violence on a scale not known in Ulster since centuries if ever: the Israeli state responds to low level paramilitary attacks with air-strikes, in military assaults kills hundreds of women and children a year, blockades economic goods and sponsors continued eviction and settlement of territory. This is not like Northern Ireland! If there is a winner in localised territorial feuds in Ulster it is as often the nationalists as it is the unionists. Although some of the lines of the conflicts are similar the timescales and proportions are very different.
Ulster protestants get charged with associations and a historical narrative that blatantly demeans their presence in the place where they are born and live today. I think even you nextus referred to Ulster protestants as ‘non-indigenous’ Doing that to anyone in the land of their parents home, regardless of who or where they are, will result in nothing but offense, unless the receiver is extremely magnanimous.
(What would most affect someones intransigence and resoluteness, would be their current circumstances and what is being put to them.)
For Ulster Protestants specifically, the historical charges seem dragged out to me, i am not aware of any great influx of settlers within living memory, the chosen most salient invasion having occurred 300 years ago.
I can call to the defence of my existence here, the ancient displacement of the Scotti to the north of the island and Scotland, the shared sea of the north east of the island and the south west of Scotland (kingdom of Dalriada) Movement of culture and people crossing the sea during ancient times, and the middle ages, and the dynamic competitive movements with religious strife all over Europe at the times at which the most referenced plantations in Ulster occurred.
Modern analysis of mitochondrial DNA do seem to show certain genetic strains located in just ulster and Scotland now which where located throughout ireland before the Celts arrived. Ancient history seems to me to have the potential to marry Irish identities in the north and south, because as was previously ignored by romantic authors, the Celtic lineage which is held so dearly was one which entered in the south, and the pre-existent britonic tribes remained more-so in the north travelling over the small sea, between it and Scotland where Iona and Ailsa Craig reside.
Now those with a crystallized cultural narrative of alien displacement can read my ideas here and say, that it is just fantasy, but i think that imagination is the substance which identity is made of, what is important is the character which it inspires. No good will come from summoning unnecessary foes and feeling hard done by for decades and centuries after battles and competitions. No good will come from charging protestants that their identity is encompassed by an account of 300 year old trespass.
The protestants after all are a minority in the whole of the island, as the Scots would be if England decided that it had some historical and geographical right to rule there. What difference does historical outlook make to territorial claims? If historians found they erred and had to make revisions, how should that affect relations today? To me it is all fiction, whether it resembles the true past or not. What is more sure, is what living people can recall, but even that can change.
“No good will come from charging protestants that their identity is encompassed by an account of 300 year old trespass”
– I think the history lesson is a useful rejoinder for the community leaders who stake their cultural identity, and their right to dominate society, on the Battle of the Boyne, which is the whole point of the Orange Order. Such traditions instil blatant bigotry in otherwise innocent, well-meaning people. Trimble is an exemplar of the type, as was Molyneaux before him. But they’re a dying breed.
A growing proportion of the educated business class can’t be bothered with that nonsense anymore; political opinions are increasingly based on economics and social policy. There has also been a realisation amongst the grassroots that they have been led into conflict by a myth; the progressive leader David Ervine realised this, and argued that we should be focusing on economic divisions. That doesn’t mean consolidating the status quo, which itself is a product of discrimination and inequality.
The Ulster Protestant community has diverged from their Scots ancestry, just as Northern Catholics are distinct from those in the Free State. Unfortunately, while each group still looks to those remote origins for their core identity, the differences will manifest as divisions. The solution is to stop identifying with historical movements and foreign nationalities, and to focus on the here and now. Ulster should have the confidence to strike its own path and forge its own identity.
I wish there was representative term for the combined nationality: “Northern Irish” is awkward and distorting, but what’s the alternative: “Ulsterian”?
The Ulster-Scots identity is a recent invention designed to counter the rise of the Irish identity amongst the nationalist community. ‘Ullans’ (or Ulster brogue) is being pitched as a separate language, when it’s just a dialect distinguished by ignorance of grammar and spelling; serious linguists regard it contrivance, a risible effort to compete with Gaelic. Each of these movements is insidiously attempting to pin the respective cultures to historical events and remote governments, and thereby resist integration. This is not the way forward. It only points back.
So yes, if you’re genuinely willing to give up the traditional allegiance to overseas communities, to stop harking back to historical tribalism, and to combat cultural and sectarian discrimination, then there is hope for a progressive future. The logic entails abandoning the political position is known as “Unionism”. Are you prepared to forsake that? What about the others in your community??
It’s an important question. The future for the people of Northern Ireland depends on it. The nationalists would have to match the commitment by yielding their allegiance to ancient Hibernian myths, theocratic rule, and historical grudges. I think they’ve made a lot progress in that direction, and are now pushing for social inclusion. I hope the Ulster Protestant community can put aside their traditional bigotry and join them.
sandcrab
Mitochondrial DNA?
What kind of “nerdy smartness” is that?
You and I know you’re a complete charlatan!
You’re pretending you’ve studied the topic when it’s patently clear you’re bull-shitting.
You sound like some cerebrally- challenged undergraduate trying to curry favour with your “Postmodern Studies” prof. by dancing around like some kind of intellectual fan-dancer using appropriately abstruse impenetrable language.
Horse-shite!
You’re not fooling anyone apart from the Next guy with whom you’re spending time each night whispering sweet-nothings.
It is quite clear you’re doing everything in your limited intellectual power to obscure British geo-political strategy from the conflicts in the Middle East and Ireland.
Your purpose is to absolve the elites who helped create both the Orange State and Israel from direct responsibility for the enmities and hatreds they stirred up deliberately in order to achieve their long-term objectives.
Typically you attach pious and holier- than-thou statements re-reconciliation to your vacuuous rambling.
Check out your own DNA before you pontificate supercilliously about other people’s!
You my friend have been OUTED!
P.S.Please OUTED as a reference to your sexuality about which-you might be disappointed to know-I couldn’t give a damn!
Of course when you think about it, if we transpose the Northern Ireland fraca with the Israel/Palestinian issue then we should have embargo’d NI until the population gave in… restricted food et al.
Way to go Mr Trimble…there are jobs for the like of you and mr Blair…(uckwits)
Agreed anon.
Hi Nextus.
Hi Nextus. I think that Unionist leaders, having possessed sufficient numbers, have mostly staked ‘their right to dominate’ on that criteria rather that the battle of the boyne and i don’t accept that their stories are just all ‘nonsense’. Thats the kind of aspersion which doesn’t need to be part of the lesson, it reads to me as a little leak of bigotry.
But i did take some of your history lesson and have to admit my memory is much refreshed if not enlightened 🙂 It is a poignant tale to me, the image of a densely wooded and sparsely populated, most Gaelic corner of Ireland, fought over and settled by English and Scottish arrivals in the 17th century from which most protestant ancestry in Ulster would seem to originate today.
I can see how you find justification of your ‘non indigenous’ label from this time, but it is a misleading label as the arrivals came over a small sea bridge which culture and population had been passing over for millenia. This is not non-indigenous in the same respect of European settlers to Australia, Americas and Africa etc where they where separated by thousands of miles and thousands of years of contact. I question to what extent the norths catholics are indigenous in a fair application of these terms, observing the south hosted the arrival of the Celts to the ‘pre-indigenous’ Britons. Also what can 10 generations of even repressed inter mating do to the distinction? Well you are nextus, but i don’t accept the use of the term here.
“So yes, if you’re genuinely willing to give up the traditional allegiance to overseas communities, to stop harking back to historical tribalism, and to combat cultural and sectarian discrimination, then there is hope for a progressive future.
These criteria for success are extraneous, we are separated from the mainland Britain by the smallest stretch of a small sea, and our modern language and interests skip as easily over it as they drive down south.
Societies harking back to historical scenes can exist mildly like they do elsewhere. Parades are just fares when they are simply tolerated by those not wishing to attend and dodgy parents don’t send kids from all over to riot. The idea that wanting to walk down some streets a couple of times a year while dressed up fluting or piping and drumming, is too much an offense to bear for someone else’s tradition is twisted to me.
All we need is tolerance owing to well established civil rights in ulster/Britain/Europe. Less characterisation, lack of support for violence, should allow cultures coexist and merge without brutality. Its about not going out of your way to be offended and offend back.
The logic entails abandoning the political position is known as “Unionism”. Are you prepared to forsake that? What about the others in your community??”
You would be surprised about me. Ive spoken for the community as a lost sheep, your guess would be better than mine.
sandcrab
Are you on something?
You are sounding more and more like some old LP from the 60s where the needle’s got stuck on “All You Need Is Love!”
This is empty rhetoric from someone who is obviously a bigot and has convinced himself he can hide the fact.
Sorry people here are a little bit more discerning than that. We worked out you’re no Martin Luther King!
You also seem to have deluded yourself into believing that you can convince people you know something re-Ireland.
Analysis and understanding do not usually result from the anecdote and impressionistic verbiage in which you specialize.
Your position on the parades issue gives you away for a start.
The contentious parades are the ones where Protestants insist on parading their political supremacy over their Catholic neighbours in places like Drumcree are they not?
David Trimble used Drumcree as a photo-shoot in which he could star as someone who had taken a stand on the “Protestant Right To March”.
Like the Unionists who consistently used “Flags and Emblems” legislation to ban any form of public demonstration of nationalist sentiment had some kind of monopoly on maintaining citizens’ liberties?
Get real!
The only parade of public sentiment in N.Ireland which you would allow would be one of Protestant supremacy.
Throughout the period of the “Troubles” no nationalist parades even contemplated venturing near “Unionist territory”.
Ever heard of the AOH demanding the right to march down the Shankill?
You’re a “born-again” plonker sandcrab and we’ve worked out where you’re coming from.
The game’s up. You’re only deluding yourself now.
Please don’t persist in insulting our intelligence!
You’re a “born-again” plonker sandcrab and we’ve worked out where you’re coming from.
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You have massive issues with your unconcious expectations by the way. Keep churning out pages of ridicule and your apocalypse manifesto with your pal/sockpuppets why dont you :p
sandcrab
You’ve got the market on PC language covered with phrases like “you have massive issues” etc.
Massive issues with…….er..let me guess is it “anti-semitism”, “Holocaust denial”, gay issues, “globalisation”, or environemntalism?
Or is it some other elite-driven agit-prop brainless dingbats like you peddle to make yourselves feel good?
When it comes to intellectual debate you ain’t at the races!
You’re shit and you know you are!