Irish political priorities

national | miscellaneous | news report Thursday August 22, 2002 14:58 by Jenny Butler

remembering what's what...

folks, I would like to appeal for comments on what I see as a weird twist of priorities amongst many Irish people campaigning for social justice around the country. I just read an article on the An Phoblacht site at http://www.irlnet.com/aprn/current/news/15stud.html - It's about a young Catholic student being beaten to death because of his religion. This is Alabama and it's only a few hrs from Dublin. I realise the importance of reclaim the streets, the earth summit work, travellers and refugee rights, racism work, sustainable development etc. etc BUT - are brothers and sisters are under daily attack. It seems we have been collectively brainwashed to consider 'the north' as an unsolvable problem that we must leave up to the champagne politicians of all sides. Do we really care about the North. Has anybody even bothered to travel there. It seems many in the 26 counties can't even name