NI bonfires WTF

@poly The group you refer too is now a minority (and not too big a one) if my mid-Ulster raised, Protestant in-laws are anything to go by. They are scathing of the DUP and it’s political naïveté and they all have Irish passports now. It’s effectively a “done deal” for them.

They don’t give a shit about brexit or politics (non religious) , they just hate catholics.

Actually, I reckon you have that mostly back to front!
They might dress it up as a hate for “catholicism” or celebrating the triumphs of “protestants in the past” but there’s so little between the ideologies of Catholics and Protestants (especially hardcore NI protestants!) today compared to the differences with the atheists and the other religions than it makes absolutely no sense. This is tribalism, based on deep-seated fueds that have run for hundreds of years. Its very much about the politics of NI, which resemble nothing of the politics of Britain; links to religion in those politics are strong but by and large they are not the fuel for the fire. Brexit exacerbates those politics.

The marching and the sectarian divide spills into lowland Scotland too. I’ve never met a single catholic or protestant who could explain their dislike for the other on the basis of religion – it has always been about politics, football, terrorism, history (probably mistold), flag-waving nationalism, and a bizarre obsession with a 95-year-old woman who lives in a fancy house in London. The fact it has sweet FA to do with religion maybe even clearer in Scotland as church attendances are so low, but I assure you that for the vast majority it has nothing really to do with “Hating Catholics” (probably just as well for the new king of the union flag wavers is apparently Catholic!) although that might be an easy lazy label to throw at people who support reunification, and when the rest of the UK wakes up to that, and realises that the divide there is about a special type of politics and how people on both sides of that divide are treated not just by the otherside but by their supposed allies elsewhere in the London then they’ll maybe be able to get on with working out the mess that the Union is rapidly becoming.

However, I’d be amazed if without some change in UK position, there isn’t a growing interest in Unification even amongst traditional “catholic haters”!

UK governments have contributed to the division there for decades

Erm, this shit show has been going on for over 300years. “The Troubles” are a UK media term to describe the chaos since the 60s but it’s been a mess for an awful long time.

Northwind Full Member
Ah but just imagine the size of the hedgehog in there

Dinsdale!

Poly – which school did you go to 😉

My solution? deport all the ulster protestants back to west coast scotland and all the west coast catholics back to Ulster.

My solution? deport all the ulster protestants back to west coast scotland and all the west coast catholics back to Ulster.

Send them back to where they came from?

@ElShalimo out by more than a factor of 2! 1170 was when it all kicked off and it went downhill from there.

TJ is right. It worked really well in India

TJ is right. It worked really well in India

Pah!

Mere collateral damage (>1m dead, I believe).

As long as it is happening to ‘someone else somewhere else’ then meh.

Or so the mentality of the Brexiteer goes.

And don’t for one second think that the English Nationalists who still have a boner for Brexit regard NI as part of ‘us’.

@Sandwich – I said “over 300years” so I’m still correct 😜

We’ll not be falling out over this though will we??

@ElShalimo – depends, are you Protestant or Catholic 😀

Poly – which school did you go to 😉

I went to a school in Glasgow where pupils literally used to nick cutlery from the school canteen to go and fight the “other” school in the local park at lunchtimes – it was them and us, religion was not the main factor and I’m sure those sort of battles would have happened whatever label was used to define the schools. The fact we continue to segregate schools is outrageous as it simply fuels the sectarianism – but I’m of the belief that the vast majority of that is NOT about true religious hatred, and is just idiot tribalism, and people asking that question on the west of Scotland in 2021 are not trying to discriminate against Catholics, but looking for people “like them”.

Send them back to where they came from?

I don’t think TJ was being serious!

I wasn’t either, I don’t think for a minute that’s where he was going with that.

I think TJ would be on thin ice if he was arguing for deporting quarrelsome people back to their ancestral homelands…

poly
Free Member
The fact we continue to segregate schools is outrageous as it simply fuels the sectarianism

Never does take long for someone to bring up this utter nonsense.

Hows that nonsense? 🤔

Well the argument is that faith schools cause bigotry. I went to a faith school, never got taught a bigoted thing in it. It’s really not my fault if people hate me cause of the school I attended.

I thought the point was more that it would make it likely you only had friends of the same denomination as you, not that the schools had bigotry on the curriculum.

Thanks MCTD, I missed that, very good. I was talking to a builder out there during the troubles (double security front door/porch etc) and he explained although he was having to pay tributes to both sides, it was tax deductible!

I didn’t believe my mate’s brother when he mentioned paying cash so that his business wouldn’t be burned down (large business in ballymena, if from there you’d know it ), especially so when he said it was done with the knowledge that he could claim it back as a legitimate business expense – the thought of such a state sanctioned protection racket is absurd yet it still goes on.

Pay us money or we’ll burn your business then if you still don’t pay we’ll burn your house then if you still don’t pay we’ll shoot you.

I thought the point was more that it would make it likely you only had friends of the same denomination as you

Yup, this is what I feel as well having been ‘lucky’ enough to attend tim and proddy schools

grum
Free Member
I thought the point was more that it would make it likely you only had friends of the same denomination as you, not that the schools had bigotry on the curriculum.

Well naw, I would happily come home and play fitba and whatever else with every body else in the scheme I lived in. 😆 We don’t live in an apartheid country. Bit different story in the north though when you’ve got peacewalls, entirely separate communities and the like, but those are not the result of schools.

Well the argument is that faith schools cause bigotry

No its not. Its that segregated schools do nothing to prevent it and help to further-entrench established points of view by simple virtue of teaching you from day 1, you are not the same. It does not matter if that school is segregated on the basis of faith, sex, skin colour, language, skull size, wealth or anything else the act of segregation enforces that you’re different.

I went to a faith school, never got taught a bigoted thing in it

Did you somehow go through your entire education at a school with a selective admissions policy based on faith without ever learning why you were allowed to go and someone else wasn’t?

There’s no selective admissions policy for catholic schools.

If schools are the problem. Why don’t catholic schools cause issues in England for example?

Because all we have to do to get in is pretend to go to church for a couple of weeks, then we forget about religion for the rest of our lives 😉

And the Church of England isn’t so much a religion as the box you tick that says ‘none of the above’

So no different than up here then.

There’s no selective admissions policy for catholic schools.

If you’re talking GB, my experience was that our local Catholic school was selective, contained some throwback bullying staff and was deeply hypocritical.

We (My family) are “nominally” CofE which is the difference between GB and NI. The NI Catholic schools didn’t tend to have any CofI pupils. Truly mixed schools were few and far between when Mrs Sandwich was at school there.

@ElShalimo no worries, I learned something researching my answer!

So no different than up here then.

Less flags, probably.

Sandwich
Full Member

If you’re talking GB

My experience is limited to Scotland.

Well the argument is that faith schools cause bigotry.

That’s not what I said. They fuel it – and I don’t place the blame for that directly with the faiths and certainly not with the schools. But the idea that the school you go to is determined by the religion of your parents* is bonkers. It means that people from a very young age realise they are different from others (for better or worse). It means that people who go to the non-faith school get far less contact with people from the religions who go to the faith schools and thus create a less diverse experience.

Imagine if we had a school system that encouraged kids of a particular skin colour to a different school from the rest – then even if those kids were thriving (or possibly doing slightly better) you’d hardly be surprised if you never seem to get rid of conflict between the different groups.

I went to a faith school, never got taught a bigoted thing in it.

That may be true, it may even be true of almost all faith schools. In fact, it’s probably even true for almost all non-faith schools. But what we learn at school is not just what’s taught by the school.

It’s really not my fault if people hate me cause of the school I attended.

Nobody has ever suggested it’s the fault of the pupils.

Its the fault of a system/government which has both allowed the Church of Scotland to have far too much involvement in the non-denominational schools and the fault of all the Churches for being complicit in it.

*Lets not pretend that at 5 you have any choice in your own religion.

You’ll believe what you believe I guess. You are wrong though.

I think TJ would be on thin ice if he was arguing for deporting quarrelsome people back to their ancestral homelands…

Oops

I went to school in Glasgow and IMO there is no doubt that the sectarian divide in schools led to tribalism and “othering” a long time ago now tho

My experience is limited to Scotland.

Then why are you commenting on NI schools?

One wonders why they ever tried to desegregate schools in Jim Crowe-era USA.

I think they should put faith schools on the pyre, after all they cause all these problems. I remember my Catholic school lessons, it was how to despatch a Protestant silently, how to destabilise families of other creeds etc. It was deffo a training ground for hatred, terrorism and general nastiness

🤦

Actually that’s wrong, it’s just that place I did my GCSEs and made friends at

But what we learn at school is not just what’s taught by the school.

This is a such a valid point and one that can’t be overestimated.

My experience of a faith based school is much more limited – I lasted 3 days in one as a trainee teacher in the 90’s. I was assigned to it by the university along with my friend Hitesh, a hindu.

Day one introduced to the headmaster in his study. He took 1 look at Hits and said ‘Well, I’m guessing you are not a Catholic?’ and then to me ‘And you son?’. I explained I was an atheist.

Day 2, introduced to the tutor group we were meant to be working with and the tutor (who we had not met until 10 seconds before outside the room) said words to the effect (in a joke, no joke tone) – “Now Mr X here is a Hindu and Mr Convert there is a sneaky atheist so careful what you say boys and watch out for them trying to ‘turn you’.”

Day 3 – a 1 hour morning assembly with a sermon about how lucky the boys were to be born (born I note, not chosen to be obvs) catholics and how amazeballs god was and how you’d have to be a muppet to not see this. Lots of meaningful glances in our direction from the stage.

That was enough for us, we clearly weren’t welcome. So back to the uni and got ourselves reassigned. Teacher training is hard enough as it is without that shit too. Would the kids have had the nuance to pick up on this going on – no idea. But as an institution, it can do one.