The longer any online discussion goes on, the greater the probabilitythat someone will make a comparison involving Hitler or the Nazis.This maxim – known as ‘Godwin’s Law’ – is so widely accepted that ithas even made it into the Oxford English Dictionary. So today I wouldlike to propose an #indyref equivalent (but please don’t call […]
Scots rally ahead of independence referendum
Scotland’s Alex Salmond (L) and Alistair Darling (R) engage in a TV debate over independence [Getty Images] Coatbridge, Scotland – “Independence is forever. You can’t take it back if you don’t like it,” the lean, wiry-framed Jim Murphy proclaims on Main Street. About 60 people are congregated in a semi-circle in front of the Labour MP, who […]
Bosnia returnees still burying their dead
Twenty years after the war, mass graves containing the bodies of Bosniaks continue to be found [AP] Carakovo, Bosnia – Sudbin Music has a problem: He needs to bury 50 bodies. “Where can we put them?” Music, 40, wondered aloud as he stood on the edge of a graveyard in the northwestern Bosnian village of Carakovo. […]
Is Northern Ireland’s peace on the rocks?
Belfast – On Sunday morning, prominent Irish politician Gerry Adams woke alone in a cell in Antrim police station. By the following evening, the Sinn Fein president was stepping onto a podium at an election rally at the Devenish Centre, West Belfast as an 800-strong crowd chanted his name. Adams, who smiled widely, did not look […]
Protestants go for Gaelic in Northern Ireland
The majority of the 5,000 children in Irish-language education hail from nationalist areas [Reuters] Belfast, Northern Ireland – Seomra ranga – “classroom”, in Ireland’s indigenous language – reads a cardboard sign tacked onto a door. A little further down the hall, a leabharlann is filled with books. It is a very Irish scene, but in a very unlikely place: East Belfast Mission on […]