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Belfast. When you look at the kerbs in some streets of Belfast you can see that they have different colours. One street has white-blue-red stripes and the other green-white-gold stripes.
One stands for the Union Jack and the other for the Republic of Ireland.
These includes the aspects of the Northern Ireland conflict.
Protestants versus Catholics it is - but not in a religious war. In this conflict, Catholicism and Protestantism signify nothing other than the will to define oneself either as a subject of the Republic of Ireland or of Britain.
The Protestant majority, who feel loyalty to Britain, fight for Ulster\'s permanent membership in the \"United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.\" They defend their rights as genuine Britons when they treat the Catholic Irish.
The disadvantaged Catholics are the nationalistic. Their political will is for the Irish to have their own state, which has already been established in the southern part of the island.
The northern society of Ireland is now divided into two communities. These two communities wants to build up two different governments in the same territory .
Both refer to the self-determination of the nation.
Today the conflict is not a religious conflict but a fight between two groups over the dominate of the society.
Typical for these conflicts are the lack of willing to do something like a compromise and the inclination to violence.
The conflict had his beginning before the time of the "Troubles" (the conflict is called "Troubles" since 1969).
Let's take a look at the history.
Northern Ireland belongs to the United kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
It includes six of the nine provinces Ulster. In the north-east live mostly the Protestants and in the west the Catholics. The Protestants took Britain\'s dividing line through Ireland - divided self- determination for the 26 Catholic counties in the South and their own six in the North.
The bigger towns are mostly divided into Protestant and Catholics blocks.
When we look at the two communities we find out that they are different in many ways.
The "Unionists" and the "Loyal" are anti-Irish, anti-Catholic and against the English monarchy. The "Nationalists" and the "Republics" wants to have a United Ireland.
In the 12. centuries the Protestants from England and Scotland settled down mainly in the northern part of the country and began to suppress the Irish Catholics. (Irish language was forbidden etc.). The "Plantation of Ulster" attracted settlers from all classes, many of them smallholders or artisans.
The Protestants had been granted privileges like better jobs, better housing, better schools etc. . This had split the religious lines.
The pattern of settlement meant that the Protestant settlers lived in close proximity to the Irish Catholics who were cleared to the geographical margins but not exterminated.
The territory contained two groups who differed in political allegiance, religious practise and cultural values. One group believed that their land had been stolen, while the other was in a constant state apprehension.
In the year 1921 Ireland got the independence from Britain. (only the southern twenty-six countries). At this time a ferocious civil war was waged between those who were prepared to accept the partition into northern part and a southern independent of England and those who insisted on total independence of the entire island. The new state of Northern Ireland had an in-build Protestant majority and acquired its own parliament within the United Kingdom. During the civil war Britain feels called upon to establish order.
But one thing is certain: Britain was not uninvolved in the emergence of its tricky pacification problem. It laid the foundations itself by creating the political unit of Ulster.
During the 1960's a civil rights movement began to campaign for a more equitable access to political power, social provision and cultural recognition. Politics spilled onto the street.
In 1969 British troops arrive on streets of Northern Ireland to quell Protestant-Catholic violence but the situation escalated.
Many in the Catholic population saw the army as their protectors. For more militant nationalists, the introduction of the army restored the traditional republican symbol of oppression - British troops on Irish soil.
By early 1970 the IRA (Irish Republican Army) had started its campaign of violence against the army. They used young men who were ready to use violence in their struggle for a united Ireland.
By 1972 it was clear that the local Northern Ireland government was unable to handle the situation. They put Ulster under \"direct government by London\".
In a clash known as Bloody Sunday, British soldiers shoot and kill 13 participants in a Catholic civil rights march in Londonderry.
Under the pressure of strikes by protestant workers, the power-sharing agreement negotiate by London and Dublin collapsed.
Imprisoned IRA member Bobby Sand began a hunger strike to demand political status for IRA prison. (1981)
During the time there were a lot of bombs exploding. Many people died or were injured.
In 1985 The British government went over the heads of the people of Northern Ireland and reached an agreement with the Republic of Ireland.
The Anglo-Irish Agreement gave the Irish government a consultative role in Northern Ireland's affairs.
New legislation was introduced to deal with religious imbalances in education and employment.
By the mid-1990's, more than 3500 people had been killed.
In 1990 Sir Peter Brooke authorised secret contact with the IRA in order to find the conditions under which republican would consider calling a ceasefire.
1993 the British and Irish government published the Downing Street Declaration.
Between 1974 and the ceasefire of 1994 there were seven attempts to reach a political and constitutional settlement. They all included an element of power sharing between Catholics and Protestants.
In February 1996, the IRA resumed their war of liberation with bombings in England. In June, the Protestants again announced their \"marching season,\" the traditional victory marches through Catholic districts. The - Protestant - police at first prohibited the marches or suggested less provocative alternative routes to the marchers and blocked the street through the Catholic district in Portadown.
The Irish government recognised the existence of the state of Northern Ireland for the first time.
It accepted the "principle of consent", that Northern Ireland should remain part of the United Kingdom while a majority there wished it.
At last a ceasefire was agreed.
The civil service, particularly the police, are still almost one hundred percent in Protestant hands. The two sections of the population still live in separate cities and districts (the Catholics in the poorer ones). Unemployment - already quite a bit higher in Ulster than on the \"mainland\" - is still twice as high among Catholics as among Protestants.
The \"peace process\" in Northern Ireland will take its course. Unless of course the people on the island of Ireland actually think of asking themselves what they would get anyway from being the most loyal subjects of Britain or Ireland
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