A New Challenge To Northern Ireland
The following is a modified version of a comment I recently posted at A Tangled Web. Looking back at the comment, I realised that it pretty much sums up my approach to the political situation in Northern Ireland.
It’s a shame that people lack the discipline to tear themselves away from the age old arguments of Nationalism and Unionism.
At it’s most simple, our ‘conflict’ is a turf war, but whose turf? Not yours or mine. Few of us will ever own more than the four walls we live in.
This is your challenge: forget the past, enjoy your life. Your country (UK or Eire) only knows your name whenever it comes to tax and the law. Your nationality is only an accident of birth.
What do you think?
I disagree
I am an Irish Republican and firmly believe that a United Ireland is benifical to all the people of Ireland.
Hopefully Chris, you’re misunderstanding me. My point is that we are born without prejudices and preconceptions. We are born without national identity or culture.
People acquire these ideas (rightly or wrongly) during their upbringing, and rigidly set their compasses by them. Worse still, they allow themselves to be blinkered by them.
The “challenge” I am speaking of is reassessing the obsession with taking sides and realising that life’s too short to wallow in divisive politics. We should be enjoying our lives instead.
I believe the challenge is for people to have the liberty and freedom to pursue their lives, look after their families free from the threat of terrorism. In Northern Ireland, that threat has been magnified primarily by Government’s seeking to parlez with the gangsters. It’s hard to “enjoy live” when you’re being mowed down - check with those who travel on the London Underground.
People of goodwill will wish to make their arguments in a peaceful and mannerly way. But one cannot compromise with evil in order to have a happy life. And that is the bottom line.
Mr. Levee,
It’s a positive day for this island by any measure. Ignore the begrudgers, the dead-enders, the cynics - more than anything we need new ways of thinking.
Levee
It would be nice to be at peace at home and you are right about the government But… As long as those around us whether in the name of Allah or in the wearin of the green chose to lob bullits an bombs The only choice we have is to fight for their exicution.
The method of the fight seems to be the real Battle
Yesterday had the potential to make a real difference to politics here where the appeal, benefits, material advantage, etc, of Irish unification/the Union can be argued without recourse to threat, bullying or, in time, constant reference to past hurts that people caused in their pursuit or defence of these political beliefs.
“It’s a positive day for the island” when mass murderers walk free from justice?. Good cannot come from evil, from appeasement - no matter how deluded some people are prepared to be. We have to defeat the evil in our midst and I’m afraid that is asking too much from some people.
It would seem that at least some of the evil people have given up. You can characterise that as you wish, the most appropriate reflection seems to me that those who opposed the IRA have in fact, been vindicated.
Instead of complaining about murderers walking free, it might be more productive to work towards the remaining paramilitaries giving up their weapons and pledging to peaceful means.
If you wanted them all shot dead, even the mass murderers, that simply isnt going to happen at the moment. It appears that some people are going to have a very hard time dealing with peace.
Folks. I know it’s damned hard to put the past behind us, but we’ve got to try.
Thank you all for your comments (whatever your perspective).
David Vance obviously does not appreciate the complexity of the Northern Irish ?problem?. To say that ?one cannot compromise with evil in order to live a happy life? is a gross oversimplification of a multifaceted political issue. To use the rhetoric of ?terror? is to avoid the issue and its origins, a typical black and white view often perpetuated by the British and Americans in order to justify the unjustifiable. Only when they are at fault (for example with the de Menezes killing or the Gibraltar killings) do they see different shades of grey. Labelling a person ?evil? does not negate the responsibility placed on governments to manage the origins, characterizations and manifestations of terrorism, any other approach is doomed to failure, and this failure will lead to deaths.