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About LinkBacksWhat if the nation decided freely that it wanted to be free from Great Britain?Originally Posted by Earnest
...well?
What if the nation decided freely that it wanted to be free from Great Britain?
...well?
Europa Conventus Delenda Est
Yes, of course. But if the nation decides that, without a consensus in all parts of the country, don't deceive yourself that its decision will come into operation. And don't deceive yourself that Britain will not come to the aid of those who wish to remain in the United Kingdom.
Why would anyone want a united Ireland if it required a tight military grip over those who did not agree to it? And remember that a government which has to impose a tight military grip will impose it over everyone. That's the nature of states.
Well you can't justify the current setup on the basis of what the Irish Nation supposedly voted on in 1998 and then say they havn't the right to now decide something else.
It would seem that you are suggesting that Might is Right then?
Europa Conventus Delenda Est
Oh, they've a right to do it all right. I have a right to walk down the street holding hands with my boyfriend. But I don't do it because it's unwise.
There will always be dissenting political minorities within self-declared states. That fact, however, cannot rightly be used to deny aggrieved peoples their rights of self-determination.
Of course there should be criteria for nationhood. It would be, without such criteria, impossible for states anywhere to function as workable entities. If no nationhood criteria existed, actually, a self-declared state of, say, one farmer in Kansas would have as much theoretical standing as a group like the Kurds.
The particulars in Ireland were such that the Ulster Protestants probably had the right to opt out of an independent Ireland. However, it was equally true that the nationalists of Ulster, to the degree that they were sufficiently geographically distinct, had the right to opt out of British Ulster.
A territorial claim against a homogeneously Protestant state, a state that couldn’t have (because of the absence of large numbers of Catholics) functioned as an instrument of sectarianism, wouldn’t have been politically/ideologically sustainable. No, it was the decision of the British to include so many Catholic areas in the new state that provided life-support to the Dublin politicians’ bogus unification aspiration.
It matters not that British and Irish fought side by side in the muddy trenches of the Great War oligarchic holocaust; it only matters that the two-nation solution in Ireland was undone by a badly drawn border and institutionalized sectarianism.
Last edited by T.S. Gracchus; 20th April 2009 at 10:28 PM.
A historical truth taken out of context can be as deceptive as an outright fabrication.
'The particulars in Ireland were such that the Ulster Protestants probably had the right to opt out of an independent Ireland'
The trouble with that kind of argument was/is that if one religious/ethnic minority in Ireland has that right then what's to stop another from claiming the same right?
Europa Conventus Delenda Est
What, like Cork declaring itself independent?
The politics of the day created Northern Ireland. And it is an aspect that now has broad consensus on the island. This is what makes the IT opinion piece somewhat strange. It seems like an odd mix of the Aubane Historical Society (traditional republicanism) and Keven Myers (Comonwealth). And neither are know for well-researched historical concepts.
"The thing that always annoyed me about traditional Irish historiography was the paradox of its Anglocentrism. People are now prepared, I think, to confront the possibility that many Irish problems are, in a sense, indigenous to the Irish situation." Roy Foster (1989).
Well I was thinking of some of our more recent arrivals actually.What, like Cork declaring itself independent?
The politics of the day created Northern Ireland. And it is an aspect that now has broad consensus on the island. This is what makes the IT opinion piece somewhat strange. It seems like an odd mix of the Aubane Historical Society (traditional republicanism) and Keven Myers (Comonwealth). And neither are know for well-researched historical concepts.
Europa Conventus Delenda Est
Well, I wasn't.
"The thing that always annoyed me about traditional Irish historiography was the paradox of its Anglocentrism. People are now prepared, I think, to confront the possibility that many Irish problems are, in a sense, indigenous to the Irish situation." Roy Foster (1989).
You should.
Europa Conventus Delenda Est
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