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Originally Posted by prometheus
A ridiculous comparison. Croats have been living in Bosnia since long before Turks came, since 7th century. Later on they were conquered by Turks, some of them converted to Islam and got Turkified (only as regerds their religion and customs, but they retained the Croatian language).
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I think we can all agree the comparison of the England’s role in Ireland to the Turks role in the Balkans is of almost no value. The relationship between the Serbs, Croats and Bosnian Muslims is far closer to the Irish and British case. The frontier between the Roman Catholic world and the Eastern Orthodox world ran through your part of the Balkans in the same way that the frontier between the Protestant and Roman Catholic worlds runs through Ireland.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Octillion
A community that has been in Ireland for up to 400 years is not about to move out because they are not liked by some of their fellow denizens. Ulster Protestants are in Ireland to stay, whether the Nationalists like it or not, and as Unionists form an electoral and demographic majority in the northeast of the island. The fact is that Unionists as an electoral majority in the part of Ireland that they live in want to remain as part of the United Kingdom, that is within the Union (that is why they are called Unionists), regard themselves as British, quite rightly, and nothing but an electoral majority of Nationalists will end the Union between Northern Ireland and Great Britain. This, incidentally, is not likely to happen within your or my lifetimes. The Union is constitutionally legal and in statutory force, and Northern Ireland will remain a division of the United Kingdom while it is.
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It not an abstract argument for me at all, I have had this conversation with close relatives around the dinner table for years and I can tell you things are going in the right direction. More and more people can see that sharing a national government with the rest of the Irish people would be the best choice for northern Protestants. Tony Blair has done more for Irish unity than some of the men given monuments in Dublin!