"If one were to suggest that Protestants and Catholics would be educated at separate universities it would be manifestly absurd, yet we continue to tolerate the idea that at primary and secondary level our children are educated separately."It's a pronouncement that will cause as much consternation amongst a large element of the DUP's own support as any other section of the "community", so it is a courageous statement from Robinson.
No one sane argues it is the sole panacea to eliminating sectarianism from Northern Ireland. However, the recognition that our children being educated together (irrespective of creed, class, or national identity) should be a target to aim for is surely one of the most fundamental first steps needed towards achieving that goal.
6 comments:
As with many things in life, the timing is instructive. Protestants/unionists are dipping below 50% politically so now they need catholic converts to the Protestant/unionist/state/northern Ireland is a country not just six counties way of thinking.
Oh, I know let's educate their kids with ours and we can all be one happy family together here in Norn Iron.
DuineEile
"Oh, I know let's educate their kids with ours and we can all be one happy family together here in Norn Iron"
...as opposed to:
"Oh I know let’s keep our kids pure and separated from the Hun whilst we outbreed them into a United Ireland"
Poor old WolfeTone must be spinning his grave when he hears the segregationalists who every year go down to Bodenstown to spout hypocritical nonsense about uniting:
" Protestant, Catholic and Dissenter under the common name of Irishmen”
If you don’t even want to unite with their kids then...
Fair point.
Everybody wants unity. The unionists want it within NI, where the hope to keep control. The nationalists want it in Ireland, where they believe it should have been all along.
No need to bite my head off. Peter Robinson made the comment, not me. I just think the timing is instructive.
DuineEile
"Oh, I know let's educate their kids with ours and we can all be one happy family together here in Norn Iron."
It was that argument that actually really saddened me and caused the initial OTT response.Would you also argue that Irish Unity is dependent on the continuing segregation of residential areas, workplaces, sports and leisure pursuits. If not, why not?
Why is it then imperative that kids are kept separate? What exactly do you think is taught in state schools that is so damaging to both the Catholic faith and it seems, now by extension, Irish Unity?
Robinson, a DUP leader, has said he believes in children of all denominations being taught together as a worthwhile principle to aim for. If that principle is agreed to as a worthwhile one, then everything else can be worked on, negotiated.
The fact that Irish nationalism en masse, without exception, has refused to move outside the communal bunker to even acknowledge the worthwhile nature of that principle is profoundly depressing.
If Robinson with this one statement is making your movement look reactionary then you know you've got serious problems.
Frankly, as an agnostic and borderline atheist, I don't care one whit for Church schools. My point is that Robinson is a bigot, leading a party of bigots, and that this is not a call he would have made twenty or thirty years ago, because unionist numbers were more secure then.
He is not supporting integrated education, he is supporting bringing catholic, and by extension nationalist, children into British ethos, British state schools.
"Frankly, as an agnostic and borderline atheist, I don't care one whit for Church schools."
Then, we are at one there.
"My point is that Robinson is a bigot, leading a party of bigots, and that this is not a call he would have made twenty or thirty years ago, because unionist numbers were more secure then."
Do you mean "Unionist" numbers or "protestant" numbers? If it's the former then only a Border Poll will prove if you're right and strangely enough Irish nationalists are running scared of demanding one of those.
So, we're not talking about segregating children on religious grounds but on national identity?
Do you know that a BNP have a similar policy for the UK, children with British identity should be kept separate from those of Asian/African etc? Is that justifiable?
And is Irish Unity really dependent on keeping "catholic" children separate from "protestant" children?
"He is not supporting integrated education, he is supporting bringing catholic, and by extension nationalist, children into British ethos, British state schools."
What are British "ethos" schools? How differently is maths, for example, taught in a school with a "British" ethos and one with an "Irish" one? "Catholic" schools are already British state schools in NI already, whether you like it or not, they follow almost the same curriculum as the State ones elsewhere in the Uk and are (largely) financed by the UK taxpayer. So, brings us back to the point I made in the last comment- what is it about protestant children that so frightens Irish nationalism and the Catholic church?
In a perfect world, parents wouldn't be indoctrinating their children from birth into their faith. Faith would be a private and personal choice to make. In that world, schools would be completely secular open to all faiths and none. I'm as sure as I can be that is not what Robinson is after, I also suspect his motives.
But if the end result is that all children are educated together irrespective of creed, colour or "national identity" I really don't care about the "means" used.
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