From: newt@dcs.glasgow.ac.uk (Michael Steven Newton)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.british,alt.politics.british,soc.culture.celtic
Subject: Re: Is there any need for that struggle(Re: Irish Rejects Associated (IRA))
Date: 15 Oct 92 09:23:34 GMT
Organization: Glasgow University Computing Science Dept.


  Well, Gerhard, you certainly touched on the relevant issues.  The fighting
  in Northern Ireland is *not* about religion - it is about culture and
  sovereignty, and language is *always* closely associated with culture.
  Language is the verbal incarnation of culture, and culture is the
  lifeblood of language.

  The English, trying to keep the people of Ireland from forming a cohesive
  group, have tried to keep this a religious divide.  Most people in the
  States, and probably in Britain too, think this is all about religion,
  and it is the way that the divide eminates most often.

  Yet there are many times through history when the Protestants have
  actually been on the side of Ireland's independence.

bosch@rz.uni-karlsruhe.de (Gerhard Bosch) writes:

>I assume that the people are not very religious, the protestants and the
>catholics. Just go the a service on Sunday morning a you will see in most
>countries empty churches. I guess that a century ago, there was still trouble
>having the wrong religion, but today the people should be more tolerant. 
>Already the Pope started talking with the protestants. I don't think these
>differences in Religion are very relevant. 

  Yes, you're right.  But by the English trying to brainwash people with
  the formula "Protestant = Unionist", they can try to keep the conflict
  going until the desire for sovereignty is eroded away.

>On the other hand is my life much different, if I'm a citizen of Ireland or 
>a citizen of the UK ? I can't make out any differences. I usually assume
>that the common people just want to have peace, because they are only 
>influenced by an unemployment program of the goverment, but not by a
>global goal of the goverment.

  Yes, I don't think the common people revel in killing their neighbors.
  If you look at the situation in South Africa, the way that DeClerk's
  gov't has underhandedly tried to undermine the ANC and play nasty
  tricks on the people to continue apartied (sic), the parallels are
  remarkable.  You'd think that the English were giving him consultants.

>usually in the difficulty to write the ideal german language. Sometimes I have
>to ask me collegue from the north, which might be the correct formulation
>of a sentence, because in the south the sentences are structured in a different
>way. But it's possible to life with that restriction.

  "Ideal" german language = language of the ruling class, right?  As
  always, power, culture and language go hand in hand, and those who are
  in power force their languyage and culture down the throats of their
  population.

>Coming back to the beginning, I such a stage of development I hope the problem
>of North Ireland is solved by itself, because there should be a border between
>the people up there. At that state there is no need to have Nationalists and
>Unionists.

  I wish this was true.  But the English government has no only political
  and economic control of the place,  which they are not willing to release,
  but there is no way to resist their efforts.  If only there were some way
  to embarass them at an international level - like in the US.  But the
  conservative leaders of gov't in the US and Britain are so closely
  interdependent, this seems like something that, unfortunately, wouldn't
  happen.  The US might impose sanctions on SOuth Africa for aparteid,
  but I couldn't imagine them doing it to Britain...

  -- mn