Good luck with the Peace Prize.
But you might find that the DUP and others won't move, and that a lot of the rest of Britain doesn't actually want them...

[Edited on Feb 07, 2005 by waldo]

But then you've just constructed another state with a permanent minority. The protestants can't go back to Britain because they never came from there. Their ancestors did 300 years ago but I don't see how thats relevant. Ulster is their home now.

Personally I dont see how it matters anymore what state they live in. 50 years ago when Ireland was aggresively Catholic perhaps. Britain lost its discriminatory anti-catholic laws even longer ago then that. No church has any real power in either state anymore and both countries are prosperous democracies. Have a vote now, stipulate that there wont be another vote for 20 years and then get on with life. If the Protestants dont like the fact that eventually the Catholics will be the majority they better get shagging. Surely everybody wins then?

Anyway if there was ever a better argument for the seperation of church and state I'd like to hear it.

luckyride

Portland, OR

May 2003

FEB 07, 2005 02:51 PM

from my emails:

SINN FEIN'S MESSENGER ROLE ABUSED SAYS ADAMS
02/05/05 10:10 EST

Sinn Fein's role as messengers for the IRA has been abused by the British and Irish governments, Mr Gerry Adams claimed today.

Mr Adams said today that the peace process remained a priority for the republican movement and he demanded a similar commitment from everybody else.

Speaking after an AGM of party members in Dublin, Mr Adams
said: "The electoral mandate of the Sinn Fein party has been ignored. We remain wedded to our peace strategy."

Mr Adams added that the "mishandling" of recent peace efforts has been "extremely damaging to the peace process".

He added: "They need to take their heads out of their asses for a start."

He added that there was an understandably "huge focus" on the IRA at the moment, but he urged everybody to adopt a sensitive approach on the road to peace.

"Sinn Fein is totally opposed to any return to conflict, we are totally wedded to our peace strategy. We resent greatly any suggestion to the contrary," Mr Adams told journalists in Dublin.

Mr Adams said the Irish and British governments needed to be less confrontational.

"Government ministers doing meetings with Sinn Fein which are businesslike meetings and then presenting them to the media as confrontational, as high-noon ... isn't helpful whatsoever," he said.

and

McGUINNESS TELLS IRA NOT TO BREAK CEASEFIRE
02/06/05 11:18 EST

Sinn Fein urged the IRA today not to return to violence after its withdrawal of its offer to put all its weapons beyond use.

"Sinn Fein is totally and absolutely opposed to any return to conflict," deputy leader Mr Martin McGuinness said today.

When pressed on whether he would "categorically" tell Republican paramilitaries and the IRA not to break the ceasefire, Mr McGuinness said he would tell all parties to avoid violence: "That is very strongly my position. Not just to people on the Republican side, but to people on the loyalist side, to undercover elements within the British military and to the British Army in South Armagh."

Efforts to forge a political settlement ground to a halt in December after a GBP £26.5 million bank heist which has been blamed on the IRA.

Last week the outlawed group withdrew a conditional offer to put its weapons beyond use, although the statement did not explicitly threaten to end its 1997 ceasefire.

Mr McGuinness said the political stalemate would not be broken by fresh unrest. "We believe the peace process is the best way forward."
__________________________________________________________

The Irish American Information Service is a non-profit organization providing up-to-the-minute political news from Ireland to the world.
The IAIS is funded entirely by your contributions. Please send your tax-deductable contributions to IAIS at the 907 F st NE, Washington DC 20002. You can visit us on the Web at http://www.iais.org

just sharing.

ps. the DUP can suck my dick. talk about fucking up the peace process.

[Edited on Feb 07, 2005 by luckyride]

darksphere

Vancouver, BC

January 2005

FEB 07, 2005 04:48 PM

bgrrrr said:

Done and done. Now will anyone have the courage to recognize the truth and suggest something like this? Probably not. Too bad, though. A Nobel Peace Prize awaits...

Dont be so ignorant.

franklychris

United Kingdom

January 2005

FEB 07, 2005 07:42 PM

bgrrrr said:
Please don't hate me for pointing out the only real solution: Prostetants go back to Britain. Just give them their country back and there would be no problems, eh?

Nice try, but no cigar. It's true that it would be best if the English hadn't so ruthlessly attacked the Irish catholics over the centuries and settled protestants on that land. However they did, and I have Northern Irish friends, both catholic and protestant, and believe me the Northern Irish protestants strongly feel that their national identity is Irish, and it so happens that they are Protestants they don't feel English, but Irish, and they wouldn't want to have a mass migration to the mainland, because thats not their home.

The answer to a peaceful future is to continue the ceasefire and the peace, so that children on raised to respect humankind, regardless of religion, race or colour. A peaceful future is ensured by good education of the future generations.

Akrasia

Ireland

August 2004

FEB 08, 2005 03:23 AM

I think the solution had already been reached but the Irish government and the DUP fucked it up.

Nationalism is a really stupid cause in this situation, A bunch of people fighting over which corrupt government gets to make their laws. In the past when catholics were institutionally oppressed by the state then there was something worth fighting for, but that cause should have been a fight to end oppression, not a fight to join another country that didn;t really want them anyway. (Ireland could never have afforded to support northern Ireland back then and we certainly couldn't have afforded to deal with the inevitable Unionist terrorism that would have resulted as the majority population in Northern Ireland would have percieved that they were conceeding too much to the minority.

The solution was to negotiate an end to violence, to get the terrorist organisations to disband. (Both Unionists and Nationalists) and to get the British Army off the streets of Northern ireland. The only way to negotiate such a peace would be for the state to completely emilinate discriminatory(sectarian) oppression of either side.

The IRA were about to end their war. This was a monumental step but it was thrown away.

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