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Conference tallis::celt

Title:	Celt Notefile

Moderator:	TALLIS::DARCY

Created:	Wed Feb 19 1986
Last Modified:	Tue Jun 03 1997
Last Successful Update:	Fri Jun 06 1997
Number of topics:	1632
Total number of notes:	20523

1327.0. "Just my 2 cents worth" by SIOG::DPCS09::RUSSELL (Take Care Of Yourselves.) Tue Feb 08 1994 11:41

I'll be leaving DEc in two weeks. Before I go I would like say how much 
I've enjoyed this conference, mainly on a Read Only Basis.

I have a few points/questions to put to the readership/writership before
I leave;

1) How many of you actually live in Ireland?

2) How many of you actually live in Northern Ireland?

3) Given the answers to 1) and 2) above, why do you feel that
	your opinions are more valid than other opinions?



As a Southern Catholic, I am very quick to realise that my knowledge of
The North is limited. I have been across the border twice, on brief
shopping trips. Like most people with a bit of grey matter between their
ears, I can admit that I shouldnt be shouting my mouth off about something
that I know little of. With this in mind, I would like to ask; How is it
that the further away you get from N.I., the easier it seems to take up
sweeping positions on right or wrong, on who is victim or victimized?

The truth, as always suffers and dies in the face of political ideology.
There is no room for compromise. No guts to admit past malpractises.
No magnamity to accept the idea of a shared future.

All we are left with is old trodden ground, rehashed and revomited. 
And like old trodden ground, nothing shall grow there. The ground is
brutalised and barren. No seed of fruit shall hold there, for all is
swept away by the compacted bitterness and pride that is the food of
the Devil that stalks the land of Ulster.

Attitudes that emenate from ignorant people do NOTHING to assist
the healing, the attempt to traverse the icy ridge by a new path. 
We must ask ourselves, what agenda do we carry to this Notes Conference?
Are we here to cure, to nurture, to assist? Or are we here merely to 
reiterate stale words and old hatreds?

I often feel that we Irish are a strange people. All the Irish in the diaspora
caught up in the straight-jacket attitude of tunnel-vision Nationalism.
No dissension is allowed to brook that fortress. Its a nice easy World when
you can define problems in stark black and white, isnt it? Unfortunately, all 
is grey, and its hard to pick the facts from the lies. It seems that
the further an Irishman gets from Ireland, then the greener his skin 
becomes. 

Undoubtably, there was abuse of the Nationalist community in NI? Undoubtably
NI is a false state, created as it was under threat of invasion to the 
whole Island. But there is always cause and effect. Fear among the loyalist
people must have been rampant about a 32-county Ireland, especially when 
you consider the bloody War of Independence and the targetting of defenceless
Protestant and Loyalist families across the South and South-West of Ireland 
during that War? How many of the 'Big Houses' were burned and their occupants
terrorised? Granted they were rich families as such, but these attacks may have
been seen as an attack on Protestantism as opposed to an attack on wealth.

You see, we can all go back to any point in our history and say with 
total conviction; "Now THERE is where it all started to go wrong"....But
a Nationalist and a Loyalist will have completely different interpretations
on WHAT that point in history, and WHO was to blame.

Thus, I can see No value in blame and finger-pointing. I dont want to read
your views unless you have something constructive to say. Lack of trust 
is so endemic that negative articles only exacerbate the problem. 

Most of all, now, we need trust. We need people who will sit down and talk.
Who will sign a document and then agree to implement the contents of that
document. We need to pull on board all of those parties who desire peace, 
and whos actions and words prove that they desire it. We dont need to 
accomodate those who will not agree to work within the parameters of a
democratic society.

Good luck to you all.

*Tiger*

T.R	Title	User	Personal Name	Date	Lines
1327.1	Let's try to be positive	SIOG::DPSW04::poconnell		`Tue Feb 08 1994 12:13`	25
	Well said, Tiger I fear, however, that you will draw down the wrath of our greener brothers who are so completely informed on the subject that they do not need to listen! Good luck in your future career. I think that the 'diaspora' effect is common to many races, not just to the Irish. I would like to see a positive, forward looking approach to the problems of the island and its people where people recognise that hurt, wrong and injustice was inflicted by ALL sides (at one time or another), and moves on from there. People have claimed that the Declaration is ambiguous and requires clarification. Show me any statement between the extremes of 'I love you' and 'I hate you' which isn't ambiguous! Life, people and their beliefs are ambiguous, ambivalent and contradictory. The challenge we all face is the accomodation of all these conflicting views within ourselves and others. Good luck Pat
1327.2	Good note!	TOPDOC::AHERN	Dennis the Menace	`Tue Feb 08 1994 13:28`	5
	>I'll be leaving DEc in two weeks. Before I go I would like say how much >I've enjoyed this conference, mainly on a Read Only Basis. I think it's a damn shame you haven't written sooner.
1327.3	yet another 2 cents	ADISSW::SMYTH		`Tue Feb 08 1994 14:00`	42
	Tiger, some answers first: I've lived in the Republic of Ireland all my life until last September, except for an 8 Month period when I lived in California and a 9 month period in the Netherlands. I currently live in New Hampshire, a member of the diaspora thanks to the closure of GAO. I suppose I could be termed a Lapsed Catholic. I have visited the North on many occasions over the past 10 years and know a good number of people from there. >>Given the answers to 1) and 2) above, why do you feel that >> your opinions are more valid than other opinions? To answer this I suppose I have to examine why I started noting in CELT. The main answer to this was that when I first started reading CELT it was full of entries expounding extreme nationalist propaganda in a very, as you say, black & white and from afar stand-point. I began to respond to these in the hope that I could show that in the Republic of Ireland at least there is another viewpoint. I care little for the IRA and/or Sinn Fein or Loyalist extremists for that matter. I do know that much of the Nationalist cause has validity, but my view is that in the late eighties/nineties there is a peaceful democratic path for resolution of these problems and that resolution must take into account the Unionist majority in the North. My visits to the North have revealed in my opinion a huge middle ground on both sides of the religious divide that are more interested in a normal lifestyle and the economy than in any Nationalist/Unionist Ideology. This is often overlooked by the international media (including that of the South), who often only focus on the extremes (e.g. look at how much coverage John Hume got in New York last week as opposed to Gerry Adams). To say that your opinions are more valid than others would smack of the black & whiteness you ridicule in .0. So I won't claim any such thing. I just would like them to be considered before anybody makes an overall opinion for themselves. Joe.
1327.4	Farewell.	AYOV25::JDOOLEY		`Wed Feb 09 1994 07:40`	9
	I'd just like to use this note to wish Tadhg all the best in the future in his life after DEC. It is ironic that I find myself also leaving in two weeks time, given the fact that I received support and sympathy from people here and in other notesfiles who have, in the course of time, also found themselves being let go, with a lot less notice. Such is life in the uncertain nineties.
1327.5		KOALA::HOLOHAN		`Wed Feb 09 1994 11:00`	24
	re. .0 Let people draw their own conclusions from the facts presented. Let people read the reports of human rights activists, and independent human rights organizations, so they can make up their own minds. Let's be positive for an end to censorship, an end to human rights abuses, an end to state collusion with death squads, an end to jury-less trials, an end to oppressive legislation, and an end to tortured confessions. I don't live in Ireland or Northern Ireland. I've only lived in London, Rochester, Boston, Mexico City, and now New Hampshire. My opinions are no more valid than anothers, though I do tend to form them from the reports of independent human rights activists, human rights organizations, my own trips to Ireland and Britain, and my family and friends in both Ireland and Britain. I know that the human rights abuses reaped upon the nationalist community by the British is wrong. Mark
1327.6	Hmmm...	XSTACY::DROSS		`Wed Mar 09 1994 10:41`	10
	Religion. What a bummer eh? (sorry if it was said before, but it causes such despair / doom / destruction / despondancy / degredation / disaster and death that I thought it worth mentioning again). Power.
1327.7		NOVA::EASTLAND	I'm the NEA, NEH, NPR	`Wed Mar 09 1994 10:51`	3
	Brings joy and self-knowledge to many people too.
1327.8	Oh yeah? Well....	XSTACY::DROSS		`Fri Mar 11 1994 04:25`	18
	True. Very true. Or is it? "Joy" ..... yes, perhaps. "Self Knowledge" ..... in a sense. Don't get me wrong - if it makes you/them/us/me happy and/or fullfilled then I'm right behind it. Just why do people feel they have the right to stomp all over anyone who "unbelives"? C'mon - you know what I'm saying....