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From: mmt@dciem.UUCP (Martin Taylor)
Newsgroups: net.nlang.celts
Subject: Does Pro-Celtic mean anti-English?
Message-ID: <561@dciem.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 16-Dec-83 17:47:14 EST
Article-I.D.: dciem.561
Posted: Fri Dec 16 17:47:14 1983
Date-Received: Fri, 16-Dec-83 19:59:28 EST
Organization: D.C.I.E.M., Toronto, Canada
Lines: 49

The Celtic cultures have indeed been among the glories of Western
civilization, and they are far too little known to others. I hope
net.nlang.celts does something to redress this lack. But a part of
it seems to be devoted not to explaining, questioning, or glorifying
Celtic language and culture, but rather to extraordinary attacks
on the English. It's unnecessary and irrelevant. (Yes, I know about
the 'n' key, but some of the things I have seen come close to
the category of spreading hate literature, which is illegal in Canada).

A couple of weeks ago, I sent out a survey on history teaching
that emphasized the bias people perceived in what they had been
taught, and the amount of history taught about other people and
cultures. I have a few responses, but none from Ireland or other
Celtic regions. I suspect that the biases are similar there to those
that seem to exist in other regions. In other words, the opponents
of the Irish (or the English, US, French ...) were probably not as bad as
you were taught to believe, and your own ancestors not as good.

In my history classes in England and Scotland, I was taught that
the English history in Ireland was largely shameful, and that Cromwell's
reign of terror in particular was so ferocious that the Irish remember
it after 300 years. But the English also suffered under Cromwell, and
thought so highly of him that his body was dug up and publicly displayed
after the Restoration. Ireland had been a bloody playground for English
nobles seeking power or fame (or being sent into effective exile) for
a long time before that, so certainly the English had a lot to be
blamed for.

But the Potato Famine of the 19th century is a different story. Nowadays
it is often given by biologists as a perfect example of what happens
when you reduce genetic diversity in a staple crop. It is a warning
as to what may happen to large portions of the world's wheat. In no
way can it be likened to the Ukranian famine that was caused by Stalin's
deliberate removal of food from the region of its production, or to
Hitler's massacre of the Jews (and Slavs). Again, some of the apparent
cruelty of the way the Famine was dealt with can be better understood
as the cruelty of Aristocrats to peasants rather than of English to
Irish. They behaved much the same way in England, too, some of them.

As for the Northern Irish being English and being repatriated there,
I think few Americans can claim as much ancestry on this continent
as they can in the Irish Island. The Government of Eire repudiates
the IRA and cooperates with the UK Government in trying to stop the
terrorism. Things could be better, but hate propaganda won't make
them so.
-- 

Martin Taylor
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