v Economic Changes in the North Gerry OShea A hundred years ago the economy in Belfast and its hinterland was booming led by shipbuilding and the burgeoning linen industry. With help from the English establishment, these industries were controlled by the Protestant community in Northern Ireland. Employment for Catholics was largely confined to lower-paying jobs; papists were deemed lazy and unreliable. Loyalists believed that their dominance of industry was further proof of the superiority of their religion. God was on their side. From their perspective, Catholics, subservient to the Vatican, lacked ambition and industriousness. They pointed to Dublin, a city in the economic doldrums where a good job in Guinness’ brewery – owned by a Protestant family – was a prized possession. Edward Carson, the top Unionist leader, boasted that the new six-county statelet with a clear Protestant majority would “guarantee power in perpetuity” to loyalists. All this balderdash talk a
The Big Lie Gerry OShea In a conversation last year between China’s President Xi and President Biden, the Chinese leader commented that democratic systems of government are crumbling while autocracies are on the rise. Communist countries always stress the need for long-term economic planning which they claim is essential for coherent and workable policymaking. It is an age-old argument used by kings and sultans throughout the centuries. From their perspective, allowing parliaments or courts to provide a check on the leader only results in prevarication and confusion. Disregard for the rule of law and for the importance of human rights characterizes all autocratic regimes. Think of the Uyghur people, a Muslim sect who comprise a majority of the 19 million inhabitants of the Chinese province of Turkestan. About one million Uyghurs have been imprisoned and tortured, including forced sterilization, because they refuse to give up their religious beliefs and custom