[haroos]

well i'm from israel, the only country in the world whose legitimacy is questioned by so-called liberals.
so you can't expect me to be overly critical of israel.
as far as foreign relations, peace and war, i am 100% behind my country and can tolerate very few critical opinions.
this antagonism comes with being criticized by countries who greet terrorists as dear friends, and democratic israel as an antagonist nation.

that being said, there are things that need improving on all fronts.

[Terez]

haroos, on 19 July 2010 - 03:57 PM, said:

well i'm from israel, the only country in the world whose legitimacy is questioned by so-called liberals.
so you can't expect me to be overly critical of israel.
as far as foreign relations, peace and war, i am 100% behind my country and can tolerate very few critical opinions.
this antagonism comes with being criticized by countries who greet terrorists as dear friends, and democratic israel as an antagonist nation.

that being said, there are things that need improving on all fronts.

Well, if you have grievances about how Israel is being treated on the world stage, then this is probably a good thread in which to do air those (diplomatically, of course), as we've got Cougar laying down the law early in the thread about being nice and stuff. By all means, go into as much detail as you like; the purpose of the thread is so that we can learn about each other. As for my own backwoods and relatively uneducated opinion about Israel....I'm not so sure the creation of the country in the first place...or second place, or third place, or however many times it's been...was the greatest idea, or was gone about in the best way. But that's in the past, and impossible to change now, for better or worse. Sometimes, I feel like the Israeli leadership takes advantage of the Israel Can Do No Wrong attitude of many Westerners, the sympathy that remains for the dark history of the Jews, etc. But at the same time, I'm not really informed enough to have too many opinions about it, and I certainly don't bear any ill will toward anyone from Israel. I think most people here would say the same (though I can think of a at least one exception). I would love to hear what you have to say on the subject.

[Bestemoor]

But some of us are of the opinion that people who wish to "fully support" the actions of the israeli government are quite ..yeah.

We wouldnt "be polite" and wouldnt wish to "learn from eachother" if some sudanese defended the militia there, or a talibani quoted the qu`ran for justification for locking up women. Same thing. Sorry.

But thats just my "opinion".

[Terez]

Well, it's easy enough to respectfully disagree with something.

[Skorz]

Hi, great tread. Its very interesting to hear peoples personal views of their countries. Certainly shows how our various education systems highlight the achievements of our various countries and glosses over our not so pleasant histories.

Me, I'm from Ireland, the republic of. As a people we have changed dramatically in the last twenty years or so. We became wealthier than ever before in our history and unfortunately suffered a form of cultural nouveau riche. For a while you could get an orange mocha frappuccino in any corner shop. This wealth came from a massive building boom which saw massive development throughout the country, with the price of homes trebleing in less than ten years. Everyone was working hard, taking out big morgages to pay for these over inflated houses and enjoying an affluent lifestyle. The party couldn't last and with the world wide recession everyone went home. The hangover is proving difficult but we are starting to find ourselves again.

By ourselves, I mean our greatest skill. Our ability to start a conversation with just about anyone and just enjoy the conversation with them. Granted much of these conversations take place in a pub, where some social lubrication is available but I would hazard a guess that anyone who visits here would notice a relaxed welcoming atmosphere. We do drink though not as much as you might think. We don't all like Guinness though it has its good pints. And some of us even prefer not to drink at all.

Historically, our recent history (200 hundred odd years) has been dominated by our relationship with england. The main items people remember these days are the famine, the war of independence and the troubles in the North. We were a troublesome colony to put it mildly.
The famine started in 1845 and within five years half of the 8million people in the country were dead or had left. We had food, just not allowed access as the empire needed it. A terrible waste.
The war of independence was really a guerilla war where the Irish fought the British establishment in Ireland. The reprisals by the Black and Tans(Brittish Forces) are well remembered.
The North is awfully complex. Loyalists wished, and still do as far as i know, to stay with Britian. Nationalist wished to join Ireland. We are thought about the crimes against the nationalists such as internment, gerrymandering and abuse of civil liberties. Refugee camps existed in Ireland in the 70's. I have no doubt that the loyalist population also suffered greatly during those years.

Today I think most of us dislike the memory of British rule but have no problem with the British people, after all they weren't the ones around a hundred years when a lot of this happened. Which is why we can happily go for a drink with english people but still can't find it in our hearts to support their sports teams.

Politically, our politicians all seem to be centre right and to be honest, pretty useless. Same as many countries I think. Education is free right up to degree level so many of us are well educated, which allows us to enjoy many a good book. It also means that most of our economy is high tech computing and pharmaceuticals (apparently the way to go). We make viagra you know.

I think/hope most of us are nowadays confident in being Irish and are proud of our culture and history.

Some amusing odd little bits.
Everyone in the world who speaks Latin these days does so with an Irish accent. Some monks a couple of hundred years ago reintroduced it to Europe
We drink more tea than any other nation, per head of population that is.

Cougar, on 14 July 2010 - 10:54 AM, said:

I'd leave a story that perfectly illustrates my country to you all: a few weeks ago I was watching England vs Algeria in the soccer (see I'm being culturally sensitive) I was with 2 people from the Irish Free State, a guy from Northern Ireland, 3 English people and a half US/English guy.

We haven't been called the Irish Free State since 1949.

This post has been edited by Skorz: 19 July 2010 - 11:10 PM

[Puck]

Mmh, let's see if I can come up with something informative..

I was born and partly raised in Ukraine, of which my opinion is quite divided due to me being a child while I lived there and mostly not understanding what was going on around me.
First of all, since I often encounter people who don't have a clue where to put it geographically: Ukraine is the second largest country in Eastern Europe and is bordered by Russia, Belarus, Poland, Romania and a couple of other countries. The Autonomous Republic of Crimea also belongs to it. The capital ans also largest city is Kiev. It's devided into 24 provinces and two cities with some kind of ambiguos status, these cities being Kiev and Sevastopol. It occupies an area of 603,628 sq km [or 233,090 sq mi] with a population of roughly 46 million people.
Ukraine has quite the history of being conquered, depending on the time period by Mongols, Russia and Poland after starting out as the largest and most powerful state in Europe in the 10th/11th centuries. It also was the foundation of the Russian Empire, which resulted in identity issues up until these days. Just look anywhere on the internet where Russians and Ukrainians meet [like youtube] and you'll see that even now most can't decide on whether the Russians are brethren or enemies. The enmity mostly goes back to Stalin's forced famine [which is recognized as an act of genocide by the Ukrainian government] on Ukrainian peasants in order to finance the industrialisation in the 1930s. The oppression of the Ukrainian language and culture during the Soviet era also helped.
Ukraine today could be say to be divided into a western part, an eastern part and a southern part. Although Ukrainian is the official language, Russian as a second language is known to most parts of the population and is spoken especially in the eastern and southern more than Ukrainian. I'm from a rural town near Kharkiv, the second largest city, in eatern Ukraine and had to actually learn Ukrainian when I first went to school because I was only used to speaking Russian, which we were prohibited at school. But that was after Ukraine declared it's independance from the Soviet Union in 1991, which caused the beginning of what I'd call a drastic re-Ukrainiazation [yes, that word exists]; at schools and universaties one would face punishments for speaking Russian [I was at school back then and my brother was attending the university], everything had to be said and written in Ukrainian, so people who were born and raised during the Soviet era faced some troubles when confronted with a languages they barely knew. Because, yes, Ukrainian is different from Russian, though there are similar words; today Russian is taught as the second language in Ukrainian schools, only after which comes English. The two languages even use different alphabets, even though most latters are the same, there are others which look the same but sound differently as well as letters which are only in one or the other alphabet.
But language is a tricky thing nowadays in Ukraine. And it's also a pet peeve of mine, because I listen to quite a few Ukrainian bands and cringe everytime I hear a Russian word pronounced in a Ukrainian manner and thus becoming a 'Ukrainian' word. For example, love means lyubov' in Russian, but kohannya in Ukrainian. I can't help but cringe when I hear lyubyma which is supposed to mean [a female] beloved but is basically neither Russian [which would be lyubimaya] nor Ukrainian [which would be kohanna; instead it's a made up word for the sake of sounding Ukrainian, because Ukrainian musicially are basically forced to write Ukrainian lyrics but most don't know proper Ukrainian because the language has been partly wiped out/forgotten and the government is trying to resurrect it. I agree, that it's a good thing, because I think that Ukrainian is a beautiful language and there's of course the cultural identity which comes with it, but it's being forced and that results in massive cringing and desperate laughter. Like I was walking past a store with my cousin talking about this very issue last time I visited him and I honestly don't remember what said store was called but I certainly remember my counsin pointing it out and both of us not knowing whether to laugh or to cry. Helpful on the other hand I find to be that Russian movies shown on TV a dubbed Ukrainian. But it's the wrong mixture of helping and forcing which leaves a sour taste regarding this matter.
Geographically put, the farther you go west, the more Ukrainian speaking people you encounter, the east and south speak mostly Russian. The west is sais to be influenced by Europe, the east by Russia and the south to be the culturally most diverse part of the country due to access to the sea and having been conquered and influenced by the Turks.
A great part of the country is ripe with poverty and corruption. Propaganda says it's getting better, but my brother lives there and says it's not. If you're lucky and/or living in a rural area AND can spare the time to do so, you grow your own vegetables in your garden and if you're really lucky you have some stock, chicken or cows or goats or something. This is especially common in rural areas and the only way to get some meat and vegetables into your menu nowadays. Being a university professor and senior researcher my brother can't afford meat and rarely vegetables. His salary has been cut by 50% in 2009 and he's lucky to have a job. At least he doesn't need to pay rent, which is uncommon anyway. While in western countries people usually buy houses, but rarely flats, buying is very common further east. Renting flats is considered a waste of money and frowned upon.
Speaking of money: it's all that matters. You can buy everything. Seriously. Although education is said to be free for all citizens, that's basically bullsh*t. You don't pay studying fees. But you also don't need to bother to show up to exams regardness of how smart you are or how well you do in your studies, unless you can present a certain amount of money. On the other hand, you can be a total dumbass as long as you pay. I admit that based on the opportunities to learn I was tossing the idea around in my mind to study in Ukraine, especially since the art colleges are considered really good and I have Ukrainian nationality, but I seriously couldn't affort it even with the opportunity to live at my brother's place for free. Funnily enough, I attend a private university in Germany. So much about free education. Ah, well, I wouldn't fit in with the general crowd anyway. For some as of yet unresolved mystery I have european features despite being of mostly Ukrainian and to a small part [through my grandfather] Kazhakian ancestry. I stand out looking foreign despite being native. And while you're in no way despised when you're foreign, you're rather regarded as an easy target to get money out of by the general population. Another negative point about me is that I don't care about looks. You see, you may have nothing to eat in the fridge but you'd better look up to date and like you're going to an upper-class party even if you're just buying bread. Ukrainian girls may be known for being beautiful, but believe me, you've never encountered girls so much concerned about their looks and money over anything else. And then they stumble home on their high heels over roads with broken asphalt, if there is any asphalt and the roads aren't just dusty paked earth ridden with stones to houses that consist of two rooms lacking a bathroom or/and kitchen. Yes, that happens. There's a huge and for me incomprehensible gap in the understanding of what is thought to be absolutely needed and what really is needed. The corrupt government doesn't help much. Well, not at all.
That said, there aren't just negative sides to this country. Ukraine has beautiful landscapes, which consist mostly of plains/steppes and plateaus, crossed by rivers, on which you can travel for days in a small boat encountering only really small villages or without encountering civilization entirely. Most of the people are friendly and would give whatever they have how little it may be to treat a guest properly, especially in the more rural than urban areas. Of which there are many, since the huge cities are far in between. There are also the Carpathian Mountains and the Crimea penninsula, which are said to be worth a visit. I've been planning to go there for a couple of years now but everytime I had to cancel But I've been to Odessa
Well, as for religion, a huge percent [according to wikipedia 62%] of the population are atheists, and most of those who do belong to a church belong to any of the three major local church bodies of Eastern Orthodox Christianity, which is pretty close to the Catholic Church but not quite the same. Should you even have the opportunity, I recommend visiting one of these churches, just for the architecture and interior décor. That's pretty much the only reason I ever go there. All the gold and ornaments and icons and everything are overwhelming in their beauty. But beware, it's asked to cover your head/hair with a hat or piece of cloth, especially if you're female. Also, it's been required for a very long time that women wear skirts to church. But nowadays you can get away without skirts or with - as exercised by many young women nowadays - very very short skirts or trousers as long as you cover your head.

Well, that was quite the novel I wrote there
But it'll get longer, because while I'm at it, I might as well write further. Thirteen years ago my mom and I moved to Germany. We had relatives here. Currently I live in the most densely populated area of Germany, the so called Rhine-Ruhr region, which is named after the rivers Rhine [German Rhein] and Ruhr, and lies entirely within the state of North Rhine-Westphalia. As you may or may not know, [I cite wikipedia due to laziness] "with 81.8 million inhabitants in January 2010, Germany is the most populated country located entirely in Europe, has the largest population among member states of the European Union, and it is also home to the third-largest number of international migrants worldwide." There's a lot to say about how great Germany is, just read wikipedia, "world's fourth largest economy by nominal GDP" and stuff. A fact is, that living in Germany and being of German natinality makes you hesitant to voice that you're proud of your country even the slightest bit due to the country's history in the first half of the 20th century. That said, not too many people are proud anyway. Wikipedia says "The country has developed a high standard of living and established a comprehensive system of social security.", which is all nice and stuff, but the every day opinion is, that there's quite a lot of insecurity. There a high rate of inemployment [and is even higher in the east od Germany than in the west] and a lot of insecurity and clinging to the job one has as long as possible. Taxes are rising, higher education [like university] is NOT free [and in school, if you want to be with the cool kids you'd better not have good marks, unless you're attending a Gymnasium and have wealthy parents who can pay for private lessons], some people fear to visit a doctor because they don't have the money [although there is an insurance nearly everyone has by default, that doesn't mean much]. But could be worse, I guess. Sad is, that the Abitur, basically the exams that enable one to got to university and were originally established for pupils who aim to go to university instead of going into a job right after school, isn't worth the paper it's printed on these days. An example: for a special subject-bound Abitur I had to do a year of internship at a company related to my subject. There were two of us pupils doind an internship at the theatre I was at. There was an offer for a job [with three years of education during work] at the theatre's tailoring department, which I declined because I had still a year to go until my Abitur and wanted to go to uni, but the guy working with me applied. He got the job, but later we found out they hadn't even invited applicants who didn't hold an Abitur certificate and he got the job only because he already had worked nearly one year without payment [internship] there. remember what I said about the Abitur originally only being needed to attend uni?
Anyway, for my liking many Germans are overly bureaucratic, for every little question one needs to fill like a hundred forms and send them back and forth. And Germans love beer. the little town I live in is known for it's brewery and nothing else. I can't say much about the average German, though, because the people I mostly associate with are as crazy and out of the norm as I am and thus no good examples. I also don't usually associate with people my age ever since I entered school here. I just don't fit in anywhere.
Germany has quite a few dialects all over the place, and although all Germans speak so called High German, when you travel from one region to another, you'd hear the different dialects in everyday speech and some are quite hard to understand.

Well, that was a long post.. Maybe anyone will read it anyway, or maybe not.. But I'm honestly too lazy to rewrite it to be shorter atm, and too tired

This post has been edited by Puck: 19 July 2010 - 11:36 PM

[Mentalist]

hehe... it's funny, I had a noel written about UA as well, but then I pressed some random button and Chrome took me to an old screen, and my novel got ruined with me not wanting to re-write it. I've gotta give Puck respect for doing it for me. She covered all the major points, pretty much (them being history, language, geography and politics), so I guess i'll just expand a bit about MY neck of the woods, which happens to be the direct opposite of hers--since I'm form the Western part.

SO, I was born and bred in the city of L'viv, the one and only "City of the Lion". It was founded by Prince Danylo of Halych in 1256, so it recently celebrated its 750th anniversary, making it one of the oldest cities in Ukraine, that's still retaining a status of a major city. It was named after his son Lev (Leo) to celebrate Lev's marriage to the daughter of the Hungarian king Bela IV. Prince Danylo himself was a huge figure in those days, since he managed to prevent major rape and pillage of his lands (which composed like a quarter of present-day Ukraine) by the Tartar-Mongols (well, limit it, anyway). He also got to keep the nominal control over the totally destroyed Kiev, and got recognition from the great Batu-Khan as superior among all the Ruthenian Princes. His major competitor was Alexandr Nevskii of Novgorod, so at that point Russian and Ukrainian histories kinda part ways for a long while. Danylo even got himself crowned as King, by the Pope, no less, but since it was with the support of the West, it didn't mean THAT much.
Anywho, long story short, L'viv became the capital of the principality, untill it the dynasty burned out, and the whole thing got absorbed into the Poland by Casimir the Great, whom Gothos mentioned. From that point on, Poles owned the city for a long while, so long that most would still claim it was theirs, forgetting who founded it and whatnot. anyhow, we (Halychany as we call ourselves), were part of poland for a very long time. Khmelnytskyy came close to giving us independence in the 1600s, when the more Eastern parts that were close to the frontiers rebelled, and started a massive Cossack-Polish war for Ukrainian independence, which then turned into a Poland vs Sweden vs Russia, vs Transylvania, with the cossacks mentioned as a footnote under Khmelnytskyy. suffice it to say, we got screwed from that, and Russia ended up grabbing half of Ukraine form Poland in the process (everything east of the Dnipro river) as an "autonomous, self-governing territory", which then got screwed over, its rights abolished, and the people turned into serfs, thank you Catherine the second (few Ukrainians would ever call her "the Great"), but that's an aside. my own neck of the woods was never even close to that, so we were firmly part of poland until Russia and Prussia decided to partition Poland the first time, and then Austria-Hungary jumped in on that, and apropriated the territory around L'viv, as well as the Bukovina duchy, that's now split b/w Ukraine and Romania. so, they took over and called the place "Galizien" in their German manner. they gave entire city a neo-classical look (did I mention that our main square is an architectural wonder and protected by UNESCO? you should definitely visit, though the service might be pretty atrocious (we'll get better for the Euros, I swear fervently hope)), so that it looks almost exactly like Vienna. they also gave us a chair in the Polish Universities for the Ukrainian language, taught us about democracy, and generally fostered Ukrainian nationalism, to try to offset the growing resentment from the Poles. things were looking up, especially when they decided to abolish serfdom.
then came WWI, where they set a whole bunch of Ukrainians in the Austrian army east to fight Ukrainians in the Russian army. it didn't go very well. then both empires kinda collapsed, we had all kinds of struggles for Independence (Ukraine had something like 15 governments in those 4 years), one of them--the most stable, German-backed one led by Het'man Skoropadsky actually united for a short time the entirety of the Ukrainian-speaking lands, but hen the next one sold Western Ukraine down the river to the Poles, in exchange for their support against the Soviets (we did that A LOT throughout history). Suffice it to say, Poland ended up grabbing back Halychyna, as well as Volyn', which is north of us, and was previously part of Tsarist Russia for a while. since then, them and us get lumped around in history as "Western Ukraine", because as a package deal we got passed around many times throughout WWII. by being part of oland we avoided Holodomor--the whole artificial hunger thing Stalin had going on just east of the Zbruch (the border river) in the '30s. Then came WWII. we fought against everyone, trying to get independence again, allying with everyone who promised it. Some people listened to Hitler, some massacred Poles, others were Partizans for the Soviets, others were killing both Germans and the Reds--history gets really complicated, with each family being different. my Grandma's oldest brother was in the Polish army when WW2 happened, for example.

suffice it to say, in the end we ended up as part of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. they say that when Stalin was talking to Poles over the final post-war borders, they tried to argue by saying L'viv was never part of the Russian Empire. his rebuttal: "That is true, it never was. But Warsaw was". that ended the debate. to cement this, they had the so-called "Wisla action" in the 50's where they did a major population exchange to send all Ukrainians to Ukraine and Poles to Poland. things kinda simmered down after that, although our nationalism was still strong unlike the rest of the country and we produced a large portion of dissidents in the 60s, and 70s. we also started the "Rukh" party, which eventually sorta kinda led to our independence, though it's got nothing on the Popular fronts of the Baltics, for example.
Since independence, we've had both good and bad things, with L'viv becoming kind of a centre, both culttural and symbolic of the Ukrainian identity, as opposed to the Russian Identity. much of the political history of the 90s consisted of trying to impose this identity on the Russian-speaking, mostly industrial and Sovietized people of the East, to their growing resentment. this ended up in the now-infamous "Orange revolution" of 2004, which we sort of thought we won, but nothing really changed. People often say that we (Halychyna) are too different and don't belong with the rest and should secede, etc. but people have been saying Ukraine will split along those lines for 19 years now, and it still hasn't happened.

whew, that was quite a lecture. moving on, to more neutral topics.
Western Ukrainians are generally much more rural with stronger ties to the countryside. a lot of the population's desperately poor, but eveyone's surviving somehow. subsistence farming is huge--not enough to make a profit, but enough to survive. People are generally very friendly and open, especially in the Carpathian mountains, which are beautiful, and very famous for the numerous mineral water springs--in fact, it is the only place in the world that boasts ALL types of mineral waters in the same general area! definitely a place worth visiting. It is also the origin of our very own main river, the Dnister--a great and majestic river that flows from the Carpathians to the Black Sea, and has a lot of cool spots on it for those who love canoes.kayaks/etc.

Sports: we are big on soccer. make that we are VERY big on soccer (or rather, "futbol"). in fact, i's about the only thing that can unite the West and Eastern Ukrainians and have them all singing the natonal anthem. major teams are Dynamo Kyiv and Shakhtar Donetsk. my own team Karpaty L'viv used to be up there, but then they had a big scandal in politics, leading to them being booted out of the Top league, then clawing their way back and resuming their number 6 or so spot in the league.

Music: Western Ukraine produces a lot of the finest and original music that doesn't sound like a knockoff imitation of Russian pop singers. there are a ton of young bands from all over that love to experiment and try somehting new. then they become big, move to Kyiv, become mainstream and start to sound like Russian pop knockoffs. Sad, but true, most bands can pull off one or 2 good albums, then they become trash.

that being said, I wanna try to end this on a good note, so I'll just talk a bit more about my own city. It is quite unique in Ukraine (hell, it was one of those "unique cultural centres" in the USSR!), and despite the best efforts of our well-intentioned government to erase this, it still retains a certain air around it. Sure, it has lost a lot of its tolerance (the population is entirely bilingual, which makes it ridiculously easy for us to learn other slavic languages--in general, Ukrainians tend to pick up languages quickly, because from birth most of us are exposed to two similar, but distinct languages), but nonetheless it retains a look and feel of a European city, with a lot of what that entitles.

oh hell, I wrote more than Puck, didn't I? ah well, I'll write about where I live in Canada some other time.

[Cougar]

Skorz, on 19 July 2010 - 08:49 PM, said:

Cougar, on 14 July 2010 - 10:54 AM, said:

I'd leave a story that perfectly illustrates my country to you all: a few weeks ago I was watching England vs Algeria in the soccer (see I'm being culturally sensitive) I was with 2 people from the Irish Free State, a guy from Northern Ireland, 3 English people and a half US/English guy.

We haven't been called the Irish Free State since 1949.

First, I know, I'm a historian and it's a historians gag I share with my mates from Ireland. It's really a piss take (along with calling Wales an occupied territory). However, whilst you may be de facto a republic, as the passage below illustrates for very complex reasons (unless this has changed this year) Ireland is very much not a de jure republic at all. It isn't the Free State though either.

It's from a lecture by Ivana Bacik given last year. The rest is interesting reading, although it's more of a critique of the Irish system in general I think.

Quote

Contrary to popular view, the name of this State is not ‘the Republic of Ireland’, nor could it be. Nowhere in the text of our Constitution, Bunreacht na hÉireann, is the word ‘republic’ used – because in 1937, when the Constitution was adopted, Ireland was not a republic. The Irish Free State was still legally in existence, so reference to any legal basis for the State was studiously avoided in the text.



In July 1945, in what became known as the ‘Dictionary Republic’ speech, Taoiseach Éamon de Valera argued in the Dáil that the Free State was a republic in everything but name. Claiming that this was obvious on the facts, he observed trenchantly:



‘The State is what it is, not what I say or think it is. How a particular State is to be classified politically is a matter not to be settled by the ipse dixit of any person but by observation of the State's institutions and an examination of its fundamental laws.…look up any standard book of reference and get .. any definition of a republic or any description of what a republic is and judge whether our State does not possess every characteristic mark by which a republic can be distinguished or recognised. We are a democracy with the ultimate sovereign power resting with the people—a representative democracy with the various organs of State functioning under a written Constitution, with the executive authority controlled by Parliament, with an independent judiciary functioning under the Constitution and the law, and with a Head of State directly elected by the people for a definite term of office..’



Thus the view was taken that the new Constitution created what was to all intents and purposes a republic. However, this view may be contested, given the obvious divergence of the Irish State from the secular principles upon which French republicanism is modelled, as evidenced by the theocratic influences obvious in the language of the Preamble and fundamental rights Articles.



De Valera’s flexible approach to definitional difficulties might well deserve the description ‘an Irish solution to an Irish problem.’ But his verbal acrobatics have had a longlasting legacy. Article 4 of the Irish Constitution still declares, simply: ‘The name of the State is Éire, or in the English language, Ireland.’



Even after the Constitution was adopted, for some years the Irish State continued its membership of the British Commonwealth. It was only in 1948 that the Republic of Ireland Act was passed, section 2 of which states: ‘It is hereby declared that the description of the State shall be the Republic of Ireland’. Ironically, it was not Fianna Fáil - the republican party - which introduced this Act, but a Government led by Taoiseach John A. Costello of Fine Gael.



The new Taoiseach announced his intention to declare the State a Republic at a press conference in Canada on 7^th September 1948, after winning an election that after 16 years finally saw Fianna Fáil out of office. The Republic of Ireland Act was formally inaugurated on 18^th April (Easter Monday) 1949 and was presented as an almost technical legislative measure. As the Taoiseach said during the second stage of the Bill:



‘[It]..will put beyond all doubt dispute and controversy our international status and our constitutional position. It will also, we hope and sincerely believe, end all that crescendo of bitterness which has been poisoning our country for the past 25 or 26 years, and it will also enable us to do that which, from the discussions which have already taken place in Dáil Éireann on the Bill, is the earnest hope of all Parties in this Parliament, improve our relations not merely with Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, but particularly with our nearest neighbour and best customer, Great Britain.’



In other words, the basis for the status of the Irish Republic is statutory and not constitutional. Notably, this ‘description’ of the State as a Republic does not change the name of the State, which as we know from Article 4 of the Constitution is simply ‘Ireland.’ Thus, since 1937 and even since 1948, the official name for the State is just that - ‘Ireland’.



This difference between the name of the State, and its description, has led to various legal difficulties. In 1989, for example, in the Ellis case, Judge Walsh condemned the UK courts for referring in extradition warrants to ‘the Republic of Ireland’.He said that if foreign courts issue warrants in English, they must refer to the State according to its name in English – that is, ‘Ireland’ - in accordance with Article 4. Further, he ruled that warrants which did not comply with this requirement should be returned to Britain for rectification by the courts there.



This persisting distinction between the name and description of our State is confusing and unwieldy, which may be one reason why the expert Constitution Review Group recommended in 1996 that, to simplify matters, the English language text of Article 4 should be amended to read ‘The name of the State is Ireland’ with the Irish language text to declare ‘Éire is ainm don Stát.’This obvious step has not yet been taken, and in any case would still not confer constitutional status upon the description of Ireland as a republic. Thus, the legal status of Ireland as a republic is unrecognised constitutionally.



The question however may be asked, whether this anomaly matters in practice, since Ireland is de facto a republic, whatever the legal name or description of the State as it appears in the Constitution.



The answer is that the failure of the Constitution to identify the legal status of the State might be forgiven as a merely formal omission, but unfortunately it reflects a more basic truth; that our status as a republic is contestable, for a number of reasons.

[Skorz]

Apologies if any offence caused Cougar, I didn't know you were a historian or having a private joke.
Just my pedantic self coming out, I suppose. As regards the constitution,its a bit of a mess alright.

[powermad]

well for one thing, nobody in Ireland takes ivana bacik seriously, she is a lecturer in trinity college. at least we can say we were never conqured by the Roman Empire, they took one look at us and said " hibernia" or to be more accurate to cold and wet for us plus the locals are too wild speaking an unknown language. the land of Irelands history goes back a LONG TIME, there are parts of the country where humans were living in mud huts and halling hundred tons boulders around the land hundreds of years before the egyptians had built the first pyramid. we were a very silly people for a long time, more willing to fight amongst ourselves than fight invaders. but look at us now a country of about 5 million people including immigrants we have certanly left our mark on the world with a figure of around 70 million people of Irish decent spread accross this planet. yes we do drink but as what was said not as much as people think any more basically due to the price of alcohol in pubs "outrageous" has sprung to mind a lot recently. there are times when i love my country and my city Dublin but then there our times when i look at its dirty streets with constant beggars looking for money to buy drugs all the time and i start tpo feel resentment to Ireland and feel like i don't want to be irish. yes the potato famine was a terrible thing to happen, as was said already there was food but we wern't allowed to eat it as it was needed for the british people. there is recoreded evidence from scholars going to diferent parts of the country and seeing dogs with fat stomachs where they have eaten the famine victims after they died of hunger

well i will leave it at that for the time being..

[Furion]

I just want to point out real quick to the OP that Guyana is in South America. The African country is Ghana.

[Terez]

Thanks. My geography is decent enough that I didn't feel the need to consult maps (and I'm American so I don't have maps anyway), but I am pretty weak on the third world countries.

Edited to add a link, as per my own suggestion.

This post has been edited by Terez: 21 July 2010 - 09:54 AM

[Gothos]

@Mentalist - regarding Akcja Wisła... over here the story goes that it was largely tied to an attempt to end hostilities between us and UPA that saw many villages outright massacred Srebrenica-style in the years following WWII. Many Ukrainians were sent over to Pomerania and surrounding areas, which have a large ukrainian population to this day. The operation is thought to be largely successful, as removing ground and support for UPA quickly ended the hostilities.

[Cougar]

Regardless of whether you take her seriously or not Powermad, and I for one have seen her speak and have collegues who know her from her occasional forays over to UCD, and find nothing particularly irksome from an academic point of view. You can't really argue with what she says - she isn't presenting, at least in the section I quoted, opinion, it's just legal technicalities and, so far as I'm concerned, nothing more than a point of interest and a little historio-political in-joke of sorts.

However, and apologies for this to everyone who could not give a fuck about Ireland, GB and nationalism, the sentiment:

Quote

the land of Irelands history goes back a LONG TIME, there are parts of the country where humans were living in mud huts and halling hundred tons boulders around the land hundreds of years before the egyptians had built the first pyramid

whilst interestingly worded to not say 'Ireland'(either by design or fluke, apologies to Powermad, I don't know him well enough to call that) reminds me of the dangers of using history to fuel nationalism. Ireland as we conceive of it now is a tremendously recent concept, as are most, if not all, 'nation states' or however you want to classify them (I'm certainly not restricting this criticism to Ireland, it could equally be said of England, Britain or anywhere else, but it's Ireland were talking here which is as convenient as anything). The idea that Ireland has existed in any coherent form in antiquity is ludicrous, it so happens that we have reached a point in history where something called 'Ireland' is conceived of as a nation. It's based on some elements of shared history and is a product of a sort of mass delusion and a selective reading of the past. For anyone to suggest that this has any mythical precedent or, worse a racial/ethnic basis is a dangerous game which can lead to racism, sectarianism and discrimination. There were, for instance plenty of people in Ireland (I know at least one who was a relative of a colleague) who were born as part of the Union, fought for Britain during WW1 for example and could never conceive of their primary identity as anything other than British. Were they wrong because the country they were born in ceased to exist?

To put it another way in c.600AD, some historians now argue there was a concept of 'Yr Hen Ogledd' or 'the Old North' in which the peope we now call the Welsh viewed the kingdoms of modern Wales along with southern Scotland and Northern England as a very real and contiguous community, what if this idea had survived unchallenged by the incursions of the Saxons and Normans (amongst others). It is no less valid than England or Ireland are as concepts, no less real and has as much basis as any territorial distinction. No doubt they had debates then about driving out other groups who were making incursions into their territory. What if after the Norman invasion of Ireland there are no rebellions of means and the place is managed fairly with a content population? Does that then invalidate the idea of Ireland? These are obviously rhetorical (not to mention somewhat fatuous) questions to illustrate the truly arbitrary nature of nationalist sentiment.

I'm all for people constructing a coherent identity, but to do it by suggesting some ancient concept of Irishness (which powermad didn't) or Englishness (as Nick Griffin constantly tries to do) is irritating as hell and has no basis in the past.

70-80 million is the size of the people who claim Irish decent, ie: Americans who once owned a Wolfhound and Canadians who like Guinness.

[Terez]

Cougar, on 21 July 2010 - 10:21 AM, said:

However, and apologies for this to everyone who could not give a fuck about Ireland, GB and nationalism...

I stared at this for a little while wondering what George Bush (either one) had to do with it. Then I read the post, hoping for clarification, and only after doing that did I realize what you actually meant.

[Cougar]

Ah, right. Should probably have said 'UK' or somesuch.

[Terez]

LOL, no you were fine, since you were actually talking about Great Britain; I'm just a stupid American that can't see past the the fence around my yard.

[Mentalist]

Gothos, on 21 July 2010 - 09:07 AM, said:

@Mentalist - regarding Akcja Wisła... over here the story goes that it was largely tied to an attempt to end hostilities between us and UPA that saw many villages outright massacred Srebrenica-style in the years following WWII. Many Ukrainians were sent over to Pomerania and surrounding areas, which have a large ukrainian population to this day. The operation is thought to be largely successful, as removing ground and support for UPA quickly ended the hostilities.

UPA is one of those super-touchy subjects I prefer to avoid, tbh. its always hard ot argue, since in majority of cases, the leadership of UPA conceived of one idea, but the actual field groups would do somehting totally different in whatever way suited them. Suffice it to say, when they drew the borders in 1945, a small chunk of uki-speaking population got left over in poland (Lemkowscina, PoSanya and Chelmiwschina), and people there would naturally oppose that, same as the Poles left over in Lviv, Ternopil and Volyn' would cause problems and demand cultural autonomy. population exchange was used to quell that, and then those Ukis that STILL remained in poland got moved to the new lands to the West.

Edit: not to mention that Wisla was only made possible with the help of the Soviets, for whom UPA was a much bigger headache.

This post has been edited by Mentalist: 21 July 2010 - 01:43 PM

[maro]

Cougar, on 21 July 2010 - 10:21 AM, said:

To put it another way in c.600AD, some historians now argue there was a concept of 'Yr Hen Ogledd' or 'the Old North' in which the peope we now call the Welsh viewed the kingdoms of modern Wales along with southern Scotland and Northern England as a very real and contiguous community, what if this idea had survived unchallenged by the incursions of the Saxons and Normans (amongst others).

Old King Cole indeed.