The violent unrest that has caused so much damage in the UK has not in fact happened across the UK. It has almost been exclusively confined to England.

True, violent riots also took place in Belfast, Northern Ireland, but, interestingly enough, even there they were largely perpetrated by British loyalists, along with a few far-right extremists from Dublin.

The counter-protestors were seemingly mostly drawn from Northern Ireland’s Catholic community.

At least up until now, Scotland and Wales have remained peaceful. When considering why this is the case, we might look at how the English are positioned within the United Kingdom.

After all the mess has been cleared from the streets, it would be advisable for the government and society as a whole, to have a debate about what “England” and “Englishness” stand for in a Union profoundly divided by rising nationalism and in a world where Britannia no longer rules the waves.

  • dirtybeerglass [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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    4 months ago

    Northern Irish protestants are English.

    Ulster was settled by English and Scots 400 years go, so if that is English to you fair enough. I can only hope your education wasn’t expensive.

    • ProfessorOwl_PhD [any]@hexbear.net
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      4 months ago

      You don’t belong here, reactionary. Would you tell First Nations Americans that the white Europeans occupying their lands are real Americans, representative of them? Do you tell Palestinians that their occupiers are Palestinians?

      Like I don’t understand why you’d bring such an obviously ignorant take to the table - do you genuinely know nothing of why it’s Ireland and Northern Ireland? Do you know nothing of the Troubles? Do you think the violence and ethnoreligious lines just disappeared when the good Friday agreement was signed? Do you not know about them because your education was inexpensive?

      • dirtybeerglass [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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        4 months ago

        I think you’ve forgotten what the article is about and perhaps in anger, entered into a bit of performative leftism.

        If you want to argue against my position that the article is claptrap, hand picked for a welsh audience, let’s go.

        If you want to get into a fight, as you seem determined so to do, over broader and unrelated topics like colonialism and imperialism, there are plenty of people who will indulge you, but I will not.

        • ProfessorOwl_PhD [any]@hexbear.net
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          4 months ago

          Your position is based on your assumption that unionists in northern Ireland are representative of Irish people rather than English people, despite an ongoing race war over their englishness. Catholic and protestant communities are still walled off from each other to maintain the relative peace. The idea that imperialism and colonialism are some unimportant detail of the past is preposterous, they’re ongoing issues that make up the core of northern Irish politics.