There are two articles I thought I'd bring to people's attention. The first is an African-American perspective on N. Ireland, the second compares the situation facing organized labor in N. Ireland with that facing their brothers and sisters in Israel/Palestine.
The first is here.
The second is here.
For various reasons I'm not posting this in the comments section of that post (the second one), but I thought I'd post it here.
Anyway, here are my thoughts on the second one:
1. I have supported the cease-fire from the beginning, and have been, on average, fairly hostile to organizations not on cease-fire. My thoughts on that are about 2/3 down this post. They really should be on cease-fire. (I also supported the other moves for peace by the IRA, but do not feel strongly that other republican paramilitaries need to follow them).
2. The recent republican violence was not sectarian, although I would concede that the % of republican paramilitaries who are not on cease-fire today that are sectarian is probably a little higher than it was looking at republican paramilitaries 1970-997. Also, I define "sectarian" by referring to bigotry, not the fact that republicans are overwhelmingly Catholic- if it can't be described as anti-Catholic or anti-Protestant, it isn't sectarian (sometimes I might refer to sectarian DIVISONS, but that doesn't mean that everyone involved is a bigot (earlier I was a little lazy and used the word "sectarianISM" three times which has now been changed to "sectarian divisons"- that's not quite what I'm complaining about with people saying sectarian when they don't mean bigoted, and has now been made more accurate). The thing is, although I don't have the greatest record of clarifying this, when people refer to republican violence IN GENERAL as sectarian, it intentionally or otherwise gives the mis-leading impression that it's anti-Protestant, and it almost never is. My thoughts on sectarianism among republicans are here (about 1/2 the way down that post). UPDATE 12/10/11 Some info on my ACTIONS that are against anti-Protetsant sectariansm, see this.
The current republican violence is not sectarian, possibly less sectarian than what we saw on average 1970-97. I mean, the only local member of the security forces killed was CATHOLIC, and it was more likely he'd be a Catholic than it was 1970-97, and it was ridicuously more likely he'd be a nationalist than it was 1970-97 (I'm not sure if the officer did identify as nationalist, but until about 8 years ago it would have been almost impossible a Catholic member of the police would be Nationalist).
It's stupidity, not sectarianism, that's motivating these people.
3. I'm glad to hear that comparing the IRA with Hamas is being dismissed as the nonsense that it is.
No comments:
Post a Comment