Matthew on 12/3/2009 at 13:25
Quote Posted by DDL
yeah, it's kinda a case of catholic and protestant no longer really meaning an actual religious leaning, but meaning more of a blunt easily identifiable label for 'who you hate' (or not, obviously).
Unfortunately.
Loads of my relatives would still be massively upset if you started dating someone from 'the other side' or 'one of them'.
demagogue on 12/3/2009 at 17:43
Yeah, that's what's so hard to understand from an American perspective. Half the people in my "Protestant" Church growing up were "Catholic", and we'd go to "Catholic" services with friends all the time, and nobody ever seemed to raise any eyebrows over it. The flip-side of America being so "religious" is how fantastically watered down and civic it all is.
You could understand it if it had roots in really deep political differences, but most of the rest of the middle class world abandoned the tribal-hatred game long ago. That's why I want to believe there are deeper things involved, too.
Starrfall on 12/3/2009 at 19:38
Yeah, the closest thing we've seen was probably the Morman war, and that was a billion years ago and was really small-scale and hardly anyone knows about it anyways.
This is all highly conjectural but I get the vague impression that generally the fringe IRA groups are becoming more like run-of-the-mill gangs and the rest are following Sinn Fein into working in the system instead of against it. I don't know what the current political issues are in Northern Ireland but it seems that pretty soon you're going to have a generational divide between people for whom "the troubles" were real and people for whom "the troubles" are things their parents talk about. And it seems that as the old guard die off, the crime might stay but the ideological underpinnings will fade and they'll become more interested in avoiding the attention of authorities than they are in getting it by killing a few once in a while.
Kyloe on 12/3/2009 at 19:46
Quote Posted by Rogue Keeper
Kyloe, are these diferencies between West Berliners and East Berliners, by extension former Western Germans and former East Germans still so hot, nearly 20 years after unification of Germany? I mean, you are one nation that was only politically divided, but still you share the same cultural backround for hundreds of years back.
Bear in mind that there was no Germany as a single nation until 1871. We live in a federal state with lots of local authorities. Berlin is not comparable with Paris or London in that respect. It's not the financial center (that's Frankfurt), it's not the important sea harbour (that's Hamburg), it's not the place for IT excellence (that's Munich). It is now the hottest place for the media industry, but Cologne is a strong competitor.
If it had not been the front line for the Cold War, it would still have been a divided country after WWII. After all, a united Germany was a nightmare to its european neighbours.
This federal character should explain, why Germany was a champion of european unification. Stand together on the big issues, but stay sovereign in education, culture, religion, etc.
Macha on 12/3/2009 at 21:39
Again, I don't claim to know the whole history of Ireland. However, I do believe I can answer some of your questions. It has nothing to do with religion. Catholic or Protestant, sure its nearly the same thing. Its identification. This all really kicked off back at the time of the plantation when imperialistic Britain decided to teach us rough Irishmen a lesson by conquering us in the sense of taking land and giving it to nobles. And dig this bit, the natives had to pay rent for their own land. Now the Scotsmen and the English that were 'planted' in Ireland and put in charge of the land were protestant while all the native, celtic Irishmen were catholic. Thats why you always hear catholic vs. protestant, it's really native vs. invader.
Its reductionist for me to analyse the 'troubles' in a post this small but the reason that sticks out for me is catholics were treated like shit for ages. Two equal men with equal jobs yet the man who was protestant was getting paid a higher wage. The majority of lower class were catholic here for a long time.
Northern Ireland is quite a strange place, but being raised here I didn't notice until I started going to different countries. Most of the schools are segregated. For instance I'm a catholic and I attend a 'Christian Brothers School' except thats code for just catholics. Sixteen years of my life went by before I had experienced social mixing with someone who was protestant. Now thats not delibrate, my parents are cool people and don't dig any kind of discrimination but if you go to a segregated school then it's just how it is. But one year on and one of my dearest friends (my drummer) is from the 'other side' but it doesn't phase us. We laugh about it and make fun of each other. I think my generation will change but its all about how you're brought up and where.
I think we have the right to a United Ireland and it confuses me why Britain doesn't hand it back to the people. But as I mentioned earlier, history has proven that violence sure don't help things. Everytime I think about this or discuss it with some cool people like you guys I can't help but hear John Lennon's voice, 'Imagine...'
Mucca on 12/3/2009 at 21:49
Quote Posted by Macha
I think we have the right to a United Ireland and it confuses me why Britain doesn't hand it back to the people.
What makes you think the south would be interested in such a thing? The general consensus down there is much like your own - Northern Ireland is quite a strange place.
SubJeff on 13/3/2009 at 08:09
A significant proportion of the Northern population wouldn't want that either.
DDL on 13/3/2009 at 09:21
And after all, is it still native vs invader after all this time?
There's only so long invaders can remain as such before they become natives through sheer weight of time. Look at america... :)
hexhunter on 13/3/2009 at 10:06
I have to admit that the Victorian, even Tudor racism and conquer-all mentality started the Troubles, but those people are long dead, and those attitudes are not what we want to be represented by.
I am fairly sure it just ended up being a small sect of Catholic's versus a small sect of Protestants, and you can blame both sides because both churches have been terrible at making moral judgements that most of us find extremely easy.
So while it isn't about scripture vs scripture (obviously, both sides follow the same book) it would have been over a long time ago without the religious extremists.
Brian The Dog on 13/3/2009 at 12:53
This is all about politics and land, rather than religion. The two sides happen to be mainly protestant and catholic, and the two get intermingled in reporting circles with loyalist and republican. The latter is probably a better description since the IRA wanted a united Republican Ireland, not a catholic country with any government. The people they killed were Protestants, true, but they were killed for their political views, not their religion.
But yes, the people who did the murders left the IRA since they did not like the fact that the IRA went down the political road and officially gave up violence. As such, they are hated by the IRA as well as by the Loyalists.
