<HTML><FONT FACE=arial,helvetica><FONT SIZE=2>I would certainly not dispute James' contention that the religious/ethnic
<BR>conflict in Northern Ireland was generated, in an entirely self-conscious and
<BR>deliberate way, by British imperialism. Britain did this often, as did the
<BR>other European imperial powers. In many, but not all, places one finds
<BR>horrific ethnic conflict today, from Rwanda to Sri Lanka, one can find
<BR>imperial policies at their root. There are, of course, exceptions; Russia's
<BR>brutal war against Chechyna, for example, can not be reasonably blamed on the
<BR>machinations of European imperialism -- great Russian chauvinism has managed
<BR>that all on its own. I also believe that the Israel-Palestine conflict
<BR>departs considerably from this paradigm; for example, support for the
<BR>establishment of Israel, for example, was even stronger from the USSR than
<BR>the US.
<BR>
<BR>But the ethnic antagonisms created by European imperialism do not simply
<BR>disappear once they stop being promoted by the imperial power whose interests
<BR>they no longer serve. They have a life of their own: once Pandora's box is
<BR>opened, the evil spirits can not so easily be put back to rest. Whatever
<BR>British imperial interests in Ireland might be today, they have long since
<BR>stopped being served by maintaining the northern six counties as part of the
<BR>UK [indeed, the northern six counties have become the economic backwater of
<BR>the island, in no small part because of the sectarian conflict], much less by
<BR>having Protestants and Catholics in those counties at each other's throats.
<BR>Nothing would make the successive Tory and Labor governments of the last
<BR>thirty years happier than to no longer have a Northern Ireland problem. Yet
<BR>the sectarian feuding and bloodletting continues, and even grows in its
<BR>ferocity and irrationality. Throwing bombs at little children going to school
<BR>is a new low, even in Northern Ireland.
<BR>
<BR>I disagree with James that the mistake of the peace process is that it
<BR>"grant[s] political recognition to the populations only as representatives of
<BR>their competing ethnicities. Consequently they tend to exacerbate ethnic
<BR>conflict rather than healing it." Whatever their origin, those competing
<BR>religious and ethnic identities are now deeply rooted in the culture and
<BR>society, and can not be simply transcended. Just as an end to racism
<BR>requires, if you will, a recognition that the oppressed race has been called
<BR>into being by its oppression, and programs that undo the lasting legacy and
<BR>damage of that oppression, it will not be possible to bring peace to Northern
<BR>Ireland without a solution that specifically accords to the Catholic
<BR>population the full array of rights and powers that have historically been
<BR>denied to them. You can not heal a wound if you do not acknowledge its
<BR>existence.
<BR>
<BR>
<BR>James Heartfield:
<BR><BLOCKQUOTE TYPE=CITE style="BORDER-LEFT: #0000ff 2px solid; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px">Leo's confusion arises because he assumes that ethnic antagonisms come first
<BR>and the political process responds to them afterwards. That's why he can
<BR>assume that the political process is simply trying to solve the already
<BR>extant ethnic conflict.
<BR>
<BR>But as a rule ethnic conflicts only persist where there is something to
<BR>fight for. In both Israel and Ulster, sponsor nations (the US and the UK
<BR>respectively) fostered the supremacist groups, through financial, military,
<BR>political and diplomatic support.
<BR>
<BR>If Israel had not been economically subsidised and diplomatically supported
<BR>Zionism would have petered out after the war, like all the other attempts
<BR>to create a Jewish state in Argentina or Uganda.
<BR>
<BR>Similarly, the Protestants of Ulster were not necessarily driven by
<BR>sectarian hatred. On the contrary, the British government spent vast
<BR>amounts of money subsidising the employment of nearly a quarter of them in
<BR>the sectarian security forces. The Loyalists' meek acceptance of
<BR>power-sharing with Sinn Fein indicates that it is the UK that is pulling
<BR>the strings.
<BR>
<BR>The problem with the so-called peace-processes is that both grant political
<BR>recognition to the populations only as representatives of their competing
<BR>ethnicities. Consequently they tend to exacerbate ethnic conflict rather
<BR>than healing it.
<BR>
<BR>In Palestine, this has become explicit, as the Israeli's have assumed that
<BR>it is all-or-nothing and adopted a strategy of not another inch.
<BR>
<BR>In northern Ireland it is less obvious, but in fact the ethnic division of
<BR>the province is more explicit now than it was ten years ago. Nobody has
<BR>driven the protestants into the sea, but they have all moved out the towns
<BR>into the suburbs to put more distance between them and the nationalists.
<BR>While paramilitary operations on the Republican side have been reduced to
<BR>'police operations' against dissidents, spontaneous sectarian attacks on
<BR>Catholics and Protestants have carried on.
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<BR>
<BR>Leo Casey
<BR>United Federation of Teachers
<BR>260 Park Avenue South
<BR>New York, New York 10010-7272 (212-598-6869)
<BR>
<BR>Power concedes nothing without a demand.
<BR>It never has, and it never will.
<BR>If there is no struggle, there is no progress.
<BR>Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation are men who
<BR>want crops without plowing the ground. They want rain without thunder and
<BR>lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its waters.
<BR><P ALIGN=CENTER>-- Frederick Douglass --
<BR>
<BR>
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