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Aye missed it on the hard border not reinstated post-Brexit. “Never was” and “mid-90s” (2005 was the last of the military checkpoints; literally not before 1998, the late-90s) is incongruous though!

Gonna skip over the Sin Féin thing? Gonna skip over the systematic displacement and oppression that led to the Troubles that then led to the Good Friday agreement? The resistance does not use bombs anymore, but they still resist

And you skipped the “filled with pro-Brit nationalists for centuries and stoked pro-Brit nationalism for centuries so that the oppressed cannot get a majority”. Orange parades could have been banned easily

Do you see parallels with displacement in the Crimea or the West Bank? How much time does the oppressor need to displace the original populous for it to become “well you can’t kick them out, they live there!” A hundred years probably passes the bar, that’s how it works in the US at least.

Clearly, the Good Friday agreement is the best off-road possible to avoid more bloodshed from either side after centuries of distain and oppression of the Irish. An agreement that was forced onto the British gov by systematic resistance for decades. They don’t get a “everything’s great, the British in modern times should be lauded” after an armed resistance forced the international community put enough pressure on the British government to make them offer an agreement to end their colonization.

Indeed, the Brits could have just relinquished them over and set up a de-colonization program for extreme British nationalists who didn’t want to be Irish. The main thing to pull from derry girls is that in spite of it all most there just want to live, and just creating a unified Ireland would end it there and then. But the British nationalists might start bombing then, so yeah Good Friday slow roll with continued resistance to British rule is the way to go - but it has not ended that pain, only prolonged.

Anyway it’s clear to me that the sentiment

While I normally don’t give the Brits much credit, gotta say NI is not being held in the UK against its collective will. Your imagined cruel English oppressor holding on to land by force, opposing the will of the local population, is out of date in the 21st century.

is not in good faith. It is not out of date, just because the British military isn’t shooting people there anymore doesn’t mean it’s hunky-dory. (hunky-derry? Hehehh)

This speaks to the systemic racism issues present in the US, which parallel the Irish experience in Northern Ireland to an extent. Because minorities were red-lined for decades and denied access to various privileges, now that they mostly aren’t (https://virginiamercury.com/2024/06/06/black-womans-bid-to-buy-virginia-beach-home-faces-illegal-barrier-echoes-of-the-past/ comes to mind) do we declare success? It is once more clear to me that we do not just get out the banner once the paper is signed, but rather continue to make noise to ensure we’re always moving towards removing barriers that discriminate and oppress. E.g., the 1964 and ‘65 civil and voting rights acts required by law that minority discrimination and oppression is abolished - by 1990 was that systemic discrimination and oppression gone? Nop. By 2024 is that systemic discrimination and oppression gone? Nopppp

“please don’t talk to me as if I’m british” is doing the most btw