Apartheid

white-ruled South Africa, linguistic genocide was almost achieved by the British oppressors,
with a little help through further anglification from the USA in latter times, but today the
indigenous language is enjoying a remarkable comeback. Several uprisings by the indigenous
were put down with brutal force throughout the period of British rule. But independence was
finally won in 1921 for most of the island, not least due to pressure on Britain from the USA,
where an Irish lobby had come to exert influence on foreign policy. 58
Similar to Israel/Palestine, there are still enormous unsolved issues which continue to
haunt Ireland. And the interethnic violence continues, mainly because of overdue British
sovereignty over the North, although it seems to have been contained significantly in recent
years. In the third part of this investigation, we will take a look at some of the lessons that can
be learned from peacemaking in Northern Ireland.
As for the differences, it is crucial to point out that Ireland under ethnicist English and
British rule was never independent of London. It was therefore always much more of a colony
or an oppressed province than a fully-fledged apartheid society. Northern Ireland, moreover,
still has a Protestant majority, although the Catholic portion is growing constantly and now
makes up around 43.8 per cent of the entire population, against 53.1 per cent Protestants. 59 As
mentioned above, Northern Ireland does correspond to the internationally recognized state of
Israel as well as the de facto Israel in this regard. The Palestinians with Israeli citizenship in
Israel, who resemble the Catholics in Northern Ireland, are also oppressed and they make up
19 per cent of the population, and their numbers are also growing. In Historic Palestine, non-
Jews will soon be a majority again. Yet, since the Palestinian state does not (yet) exist, since
the Irish are Christian, white and European, as opposed to the Palestinians, and since the
Palestinian minority with Israeli citizenship is in relative terms less than half that of the
Northern Irish Catholic one, the Irish are now in a much stronger position than the
Palestinians to make demands on their previous and present tormentors. The Palestinians,
however, have United Nations mandates for self-determination, restitution, and right of return,
which the Northern Irish Catholics, including descendants, lack. Most importantly, the
Northern Irish Catholics and their descendants still suffer ethnicist discrimination and
colonialist as well as apartheid violence, but not even nearly to the same extent that the
Palestinians do.
The Drug Dealers and Squatters of Hong Kong
During the first half of the 19 th century, the British Empire discovered a new means of
short-term profit-making: buying opium grown in British India, shipping it to eastern China,
and selling it there. There may also have been long-term calculations involving an induced
breakdown of society and government in China in the plans of the British elites. The Chinese
government resisted the British state drug dealers which resulted in two wars between China
and Britain, the so-called Opium Wars. Britain won these wars and aside from continuing its
profitable sale to Chinese people of opiates – the most addictive drugs known to mankind – it
gained strategically invaluable territory at the mouth of the Pearl River. British and American
drug dealers, traders, and merchants moved in on the conquered land, and the colony would
58 See Smedley: The Origins of Racism in England and Spain, 2003 (1993): 66f, quote: 67; N.N.: History of the
Conflict: A Sinn Féin Education Publication, 2006; N.N.: Factbox: Roots of the Northern Irish Conflict, July 9,
2002; Ericson: Reconciliation and the Search for a Shared Moral Landscape: An Exploration Based upon a Study
of Northern Ireland and South Africa, 2001; Fredrickson 1981: 13ff.
59 Richardson: Catholics Close Gap in N.Ireland Census, 2002. On the strong links and similarities between the
Irish Republican Army (IRA) and Palestinian militancy, see Roddy: Irish Jews – Sitting Shiva on a Dying Way?
2003. Apparently, Palestine under British colonial rule, supported in its undemocratic aspects by Zionists, was
frequently compared by the occupiers to Northern Ireland or ‘Ulster’, as some Protestants prefer to call it. See
Reynolds: Conspiracy on Palestine, 1941: 52, which refers to a Sir Ronald Storrs who calls Palestine ‘a Jewish
Ulster’, with the Jews in the role of the Protestants and the Palestinians in the role of the Catholics. See also
Reynolds: The Pawns in Palestine, 1941: 42; and N.N.: Editor’s Introduction: 5, all in N.N. (ed.): British
Imperialism & The Palestine Crisis, 1989.
51