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You can find the current article at its original source at http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/oct/19/brexit-tolerant-brtain-known-northern-ireland-peace
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| Brexit has disfigured the tolerant Britain I’ve known | Brexit has disfigured the tolerant Britain I’ve known |
| (about 4 hours later) | |
| I am an Irish citizen. I am the child of Northern Irish parents. My husband is a British citizen and so is my daughter. I am 40 years old, and for 20 of those years I’ve lived in Britain. I was born here, raised and educated in Ireland; went to college here, spent my 20s here, then the first part of my 30s there. I’m here again, and I hope to stay. Ireland runs through my blood. It makes me the writer I am. English may be my first language but it was Ireland that taught me how to make it sing, and Northern Ireland that never lets me forget there are two sides to every tale. | I am an Irish citizen. I am the child of Northern Irish parents. My husband is a British citizen and so is my daughter. I am 40 years old, and for 20 of those years I’ve lived in Britain. I was born here, raised and educated in Ireland; went to college here, spent my 20s here, then the first part of my 30s there. I’m here again, and I hope to stay. Ireland runs through my blood. It makes me the writer I am. English may be my first language but it was Ireland that taught me how to make it sing, and Northern Ireland that never lets me forget there are two sides to every tale. |
| But if Ireland made me, Britain showed me how I wanted to live. The Britain I’ve always known was one that constantly struggled against the fear of opening itself to “the other”. It made room for the distances between people, between cultures, religions and traditions; it allowed for opposing positions; it strove to be true to its complex, jigsawed past. | But if Ireland made me, Britain showed me how I wanted to live. The Britain I’ve always known was one that constantly struggled against the fear of opening itself to “the other”. It made room for the distances between people, between cultures, religions and traditions; it allowed for opposing positions; it strove to be true to its complex, jigsawed past. |
| Not that its opposite wasn’t present in the shadows. Racism has always been a dangerous canker, kneejerk suspicion of foreigners a wearisome truth. I have occasionally despaired at the basic uninterest in the histories of nations who have been wholly altered by British imperialism and colonialism. I find the absence of any sense of fellowship with, or historical responsibility towards, the populations of these countries pretty infuriating. But I thought, and still want to think, that British society aimed for a higher standard – that in its heart it despised displays of littleness and penalised those who indulged in them, whoever they were. Yet here we are, all the same, utterly changed by whatever limped out into reality on 23 June and sure of nothing more than the rapidity with which that familiar Britain, along with its ideals, is being forced through the looking glass. | |
| It is for this wholesale purge of inclusive values that I most object to Brexit. The European Union, whatever its faults, and burdensome bureaucracy, represents a new way for nations to function together. It was forged to overcome the rank, jingoist nationalism that wreaked such havoc across the continent and the world in the 20th century, subjecting its population to previously unimaginable sufferings. Its purpose was to lead us to a place where such horrors would become unimaginable once more. | It is for this wholesale purge of inclusive values that I most object to Brexit. The European Union, whatever its faults, and burdensome bureaucracy, represents a new way for nations to function together. It was forged to overcome the rank, jingoist nationalism that wreaked such havoc across the continent and the world in the 20th century, subjecting its population to previously unimaginable sufferings. Its purpose was to lead us to a place where such horrors would become unimaginable once more. |
| Surely no small measure of its success is that war between Britain and Germany, or any other EU country, seems inconceivable to us now. In the light of this Brexit is all the more illogical. | Surely no small measure of its success is that war between Britain and Germany, or any other EU country, seems inconceivable to us now. In the light of this Brexit is all the more illogical. |
| Where is either side’s concern for the people of Northern Ireland? | Where is either side’s concern for the people of Northern Ireland? |
| Why has the British population, which shows such reverence for the memory of those who sacrificed their lives in the world wars, turned its back on a union founded to ensure that the peace those deaths paid for be guarded and strengthened for successive generations? | Why has the British population, which shows such reverence for the memory of those who sacrificed their lives in the world wars, turned its back on a union founded to ensure that the peace those deaths paid for be guarded and strengthened for successive generations? |
| I come from a country where the ravages of historical division, and the sectarian violence that inevitably follows, are not such a distant memory. The paramilitary organisations of Northern Ireland are largely quiet now, but the structures that have allowed for this transformation are still febrile. | I come from a country where the ravages of historical division, and the sectarian violence that inevitably follows, are not such a distant memory. The paramilitary organisations of Northern Ireland are largely quiet now, but the structures that have allowed for this transformation are still febrile. |
| Irish, British and Northern Irish politicians have worked tirelessly for peace, for years, in order to provide Northern Ireland’s wounded communities with a chance to move beyond the hurt of their divided histories. Those communities themselves have sacrificed much so their future generations may be free of the poisonous cycle of violence and terror. That this delicate, hard-won and harder-maintained web of hope has been so carelessly, thoughtlessly jeopardised by a handful of bloviating careerists unashamed to fan fear and division in British society in order to achieve their personal ambitions is a disgrace they will forever bear. | Irish, British and Northern Irish politicians have worked tirelessly for peace, for years, in order to provide Northern Ireland’s wounded communities with a chance to move beyond the hurt of their divided histories. Those communities themselves have sacrificed much so their future generations may be free of the poisonous cycle of violence and terror. That this delicate, hard-won and harder-maintained web of hope has been so carelessly, thoughtlessly jeopardised by a handful of bloviating careerists unashamed to fan fear and division in British society in order to achieve their personal ambitions is a disgrace they will forever bear. |
| Pandora’s box is open now, though, and how can the fragile peace withstand the demands from both right and left for unthinking adherence to uncompromisable principles when compromise is the very life blood of peace? And where is either side’s concern for the people of Northern Ireland? Who is fighting for their right to live without the threat of violence? They are entitled to expect the British and Irish governments to do everything possible to support peace. Creating the toxic political environment that has allowed Brexit to become future fact is an almost unquantifiable failure to do so. There was also more than an echo of imperialisms past in the initial batting away of serious questions about what the re-introduction of border controls with Europe would mean for Northern Ireland. The more recent attempt to shift responsibility for finding a solution on to the Irish government and the EU smacks of nothing more than a desperate attempt at self-justification from those who rushed headlong into voting for Brexit without serious consideration of what the consequences would be for the non-English members of the UK. | Pandora’s box is open now, though, and how can the fragile peace withstand the demands from both right and left for unthinking adherence to uncompromisable principles when compromise is the very life blood of peace? And where is either side’s concern for the people of Northern Ireland? Who is fighting for their right to live without the threat of violence? They are entitled to expect the British and Irish governments to do everything possible to support peace. Creating the toxic political environment that has allowed Brexit to become future fact is an almost unquantifiable failure to do so. There was also more than an echo of imperialisms past in the initial batting away of serious questions about what the re-introduction of border controls with Europe would mean for Northern Ireland. The more recent attempt to shift responsibility for finding a solution on to the Irish government and the EU smacks of nothing more than a desperate attempt at self-justification from those who rushed headlong into voting for Brexit without serious consideration of what the consequences would be for the non-English members of the UK. |
| But if history has taught British politicians nothing, they should at least remember that the people of Northern Ireland, on all sides, have no tradition of lying down and taking whatever scraps Westminster doles out. The Brexiteers’ reliance on hazy, emotive grandstanding won’t solve the problems facing Northern Ireland, and the gravity of what it may unleash means there can be little relish in pointing out that fact. | But if history has taught British politicians nothing, they should at least remember that the people of Northern Ireland, on all sides, have no tradition of lying down and taking whatever scraps Westminster doles out. The Brexiteers’ reliance on hazy, emotive grandstanding won’t solve the problems facing Northern Ireland, and the gravity of what it may unleash means there can be little relish in pointing out that fact. |
| Instead, I wonder how many ways there are to describe heartbreak? The Britain I’ve known is disfiguring itself, and soon it will not even remember what it looked like – while both Irelands of my youth, having struggled for so long to make a mirror in which all citizens may recognise themselves, are left waiting for the hammer to fall. | Instead, I wonder how many ways there are to describe heartbreak? The Britain I’ve known is disfiguring itself, and soon it will not even remember what it looked like – while both Irelands of my youth, having struggled for so long to make a mirror in which all citizens may recognise themselves, are left waiting for the hammer to fall. |
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