Home Rule Begins in Northern Ireland Once More
Northern Ireland has for years been ruled from England. There have been several attempts to come to a compromise solution to let Northern Ireland rule itself since the Good Friday agreements. It appears that finally home rule is about to begin again there.
This is good news, not only because home rule is beginning again, but because both sides are expressing hope that it will work this time. Both Ian Paisley and Martin McGuinness have said they believe the bloodshed over the territory has come to a close. However, this bright spot on another conflict coming to a close was overshadowed by the press inserting their politics into the story.
The conflict is not or has never been about religion. Ever. Yet the press continues to write on the conflict in terms of a fight against Catholics and Protestants. A few details would be helpful.
For many years, the British exerted complete control over Ireland. In 1921 the Irish Free State was formed free of British control. However, this territory did not include what is now called Northern Ireland. Many Irish believe that those territories rightly belong to Ireland as they were taken from them by the British centuries ago. Since that time, the nationalists had fought against the unionists to gain control over Northern Ireland.
Ireland is basically a Catholic country; England is obviously Protestant under the Church of England. The two nations have obvious religious identities. However, because a nation has a religious identity does not mean that every action that nation performs finds its origins in religion. The nationalists believe Northern Ireland is theirs (Ireland), the unions believe it belongs to them (England). The basis for those arguments have no support or recourse to religion.
The attempts to make the conflict (or hopefully the former conflict) about religion is politically driven by ideologues who want to paint religion as nothing but causing wars, devastation and destruction. It is disheartening, to say the least, that the so-called objective media has fully-throatedly adopted the propaganda of the anti-theists.
That said, I’m hopeful like other bloggers that the conflict is over.
One can sincerely hope this holds - we’ll see, but Scotland now is toying with the idea of self-rule as well. Can the United Kingdom hold together?
Comment by Douglas V. Gibbs | May 12, 2007