Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id NAA03405 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-bounces@mmu.ac.uk); Tue, 18 Sep 2001 13:13:20 +0100 Message-ID: <3BA7395A.BBB70B8F@bioinf.man.ac.uk> Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 13:08:58 +0100 From: Chris Taylor <Christopher.Taylor@man.ac.uk> Organization: University of Manchester X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.77 [en] (Windows NT 5.0; U) X-Accept-Language: en To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Subject: Re: US Tragedy References: <F192LLVTnE9Q3uQIhNA00013b45@hotmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Sender: fmb-bounces@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> I'm wondering how this mess fits into the context of the history between
> British and Irish as in the bad treatment Irish may have endured over the
> years and more recently how the Catholics may have been discriminated
> against and gerrymandered in Northern Ireland and how much better
> Protestants such as Orangemen and UVF look when compared to the IRA or Sinn
> Fein, however loyal to the crown they may be. Educate an ignorant Yank on
> the history of the Troubles.
I think things are changing here. Everyone hated the Catholics in the
seventies and eighties, then in the ninities people were less sure; now
I think people (in Britain) dislike the Protestants more because they
seem more hard-nosed. I think given a choice now many of the British
would like to be rid of the lot of them (not that that's necessarily my
opinion). Most see the Orangemen as increasingly bizarre (bowler hats
and [to us] ancient history, especially the Boyne stuff), and they don't
do themselves any favours in the PR stakes, whereas Sinn Fein et al. are
quite media savvy now and let's face it, that is the battleground these
days.
I think the Orangemen are panicking in part because the RUC is no longer
'theirs' as such, whereas the Nationalists still have several flavours
of IRA going. The rest of us seem to have short memories about the bombs
and all that - I think in a bizarre way the pIRA now come across (to us)
as cuddly terorists compared to say, ETA or Bin Lid. Very British in a
(somewhat ironic) way - phoning to say "Excuse me, we were thinking of
blowing this up, would you mind moving". When the rIRA set off the bomb
at Omagh and (I think) cocked up the warning, people seemed more
outraged at the unprofessional/unsportsmanlike nature of it than at the
fact that they were bombing at all (that's an exaggeration but it's
almost true).
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Chris Taylor (chris@bioinf.man.ac.uk)
http://bioinf.man.ac.uk/ »people»chris
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