Wednesday 11 February 2015

unionists and publicans

Writing for the Spectator, columnist Mary Dejevsky has found a more apt, although much more uncomfortable, analogy for the tension and territorial integrity that’s no rarified metaphor or theoretical matter triangulated among Russia, Ukraine and the Crimean peninsula.
Rather than resorting to popular but inhibiting comparisons to Nazi aggression or Czarist Russia, Dejevsky suggests a more contemporary parallel to another triad composed of Ireland and Britain and the creation of Northern Ireland. The correlation is of course not a perfect fit either, history being untidy, but I believe that by avoiding abstractions that strip away civility and humanity and making matters more personal (the UK certainly would not have tolerated any meddling in these internal affairs), one is better outfitted with the vocabulary to talk about matters, even if the received-language is already chilling enough in one direction.