Perhaps the history of Northern Ireland is such, that we must be patient. Still, it is amazing that in this day and age, in Britain, such a case of segregation exists.
One day recently in south Belfast a Catholic priest told a room full of Protestants that they were "like the Nazis". At about the same time in north Belfast a group of loyalists picketing a service at a cemetery threatened Catholic mourners that they would "dig up your graves". Sectarianism, the force that fuelled more than three decades of bloodshed in Northern Ireland, hasn't vanished with the coming of peace.
Support for moderate parties has evaporated and David Trimble and John Hume, never a happy match but at least able to sit in a room together, have given way to Ian Paisley and Gerry Adams.I don't expect non-Britons to understand, but this made me almost piss myself laughing! Ok, I'd had a few too many glasses of Chardonay...
I wonder how many staunch supporters of bombing the shit out of innocent Arabs a long long way away would agree with tax-payers' money being spent on segregation within these beautiful isles...
I expect tomorrow, when I wake up with a hangover, I will regret my naivety...
|