Recently, a mostly thoughtful BBC Radio Ulster political discussion ended in a cliché which always drives me nuts: ‘This could only happen in Northern Ireland.’
Perhaps people who say this mean well. But it makes out that political/social problems here are kind of hereditarily incurable. It also encourages people to leave and never come back. And it’s oddly vain. (Just as we relish our weather complaints, as if nowhere else in the world has ever had a rainy day).
Worst of all: it couldn’t possibly be true.
Here I make a tenuous link with two terrific travel books I have just finished, by journalist Michael Booth. Scandinavia is the most tranquil and advanced place on earth. East Asia (minus the Korean division) is a mostly stable and peaceful place to be. They are not what we think of as ‘troubled’ regions.
But Booth’s travels show how these societies are full of historical resentments, hierarchies, insularity, dysfunction, contradictions, awful politicians, border disputes, cultural chauvinism, and petty prejudices; all much more dramatic in East Asia, of course, but even the Nordics have issues, and a history.
So, if we need a reminder, nothing can ‘only happen in Northern Ireland’. It’s not the worst place in the world.
Apart from the cycling infrastructure. The cycling infrastructure really is the worst.
David Mitchell 