To cringe at the phrase "England isn't England anymore"

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Said by a friend.

Another one sounded off about Easter Eggs now being called Chocolate Eggs so not to offend people because it was on the news!

Argh!

Of course everyone knows the IRA were fighting to bring the planet under Catholic rule, duh!

I don't think the new threat we face is religious, sorry. I think like all terrorism angry young men have been manipulated by others to achieve certain goals. Control of a state in the middle east, control of their resources.

I think one of the reasons that the west has become targets is the fighting a war by proxy which is going on within Syria, and the failure to establish a functioning state in Iraq after the fall of Sadam Hussein. With an added large added element of secterianism as Iranian backed forces fight the Saudi backed ISIS.

The angry young men are motivated by tales of the dead innocents, and of many other things.

In the same way I don't really think the IRA was religious, but a cloak that they wraped themselves in to explain their actions.

You could equally argue that part of ISIS's motivation is Sectarian. Being a Shia Muslim in an ISIS controlled area is a death sentence.

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Earlier you called the IRA religious terrorists so which is it? Also it wasn't even a "cloak they wrapped themselves in". Religion had nothing to do with their stated aims ffs.

And ISIS absolutely has to do with religion and their fundamental interpretation of the Koran. The clue is in their name

The whole situation that has give rises to ISIS is about geopolitical power in the ME, oil, corrupt regimes protecting their cushy positions, Russia flexing it's muscles and so much more. To just link it to religion is missing a much bigger picture.

Given rise

I say it all the time for many different reasons.

I think there are far more Easter egg hunts and Easter activities than there were when I was a child in the 70's and 80's. There is certainly far more Easter chocolate.

But if you can simplify down isis to religious terrorists, you can do the same to the IRA. The issues are far too complex to boil down to someone fighting under a religious banner, but if you are going to do it for one you can do it to the other.

Also religion did have a part to play in it. People in NI would tell you of objectives of.moving all the protestants back to England or.Scotland. yes it's a sect within a religion but still to do with religion..

The angry young men are motivated by tales of the dead innocents, and of many other things.

So then they go and murder and rape thousands of other innocents. Wow, that's really logical.

They were sectarian. Big difference.

Just waving a flag for DustyAntique. She's right.

Argh but to be sectarian it has to be part of a religion, due to them belonging to different sects of it.

I wasn't excusing or giving logic to terror btw, the way that people are manipulated into it is easy to see though. Look at the reactions of people after 9/11 lots of people were keen to go to war, I think lots of others see things happening in other places and then kind find a reason? Or an outlet for their anger

"But if you can simplify down isis to religious terrorists, you can do the same to the IRA. The issues are far too complex to boil down to someone fighting under a religious banner, but if you are going to do it for one you can do it to the other."

The goal of ISIS is the establishment of an Islamic caliphate. They kill people because they aren't Muslims, they kill people who are Muslims but who do not follow their kind of Islam. Religion is central to their organisation.

I'm pretty sure the IRA didn't want the expulsion of Protestants from Northern Ireland. They wanted the British government and army out. Bit of a difference. Let's not forget also there was another side in that conflict. I've never heard anyone attempt to label loyalist groups as Protestant terrorists.

I think there are far more Easter egg hunts and Easter activities than there were when I was a child in the 70's and 80's. There is certainly far more Easter chocolate.

Most definitely Merrymouse. I remember in the mid 70s my mother sending my father out with the dog to buy an emergency egg for an unexpected visitor on Easter Sunday - we were a Godless family so weren't at church.

She stalled for ages and he eventually returned with an extravagantly-priced measly Milky Bar egg from the only shop that was open. She peeled the price sticker off and handed it over with a fixed smile. When the person had left she yelled at my dad for embarrassing her and coming back with such a piss-poor, yet expensive effort. He'd walked the poor dog's bloody feet off but he called her and they limped off to the pub together to ignore my mum's roast lamb.

They loved each other really

I seem to remember the fact that the IRA were Catholic was mentioned often in the media.

The forcing out of protestants was a thing though, talking land back etc etc. It's not the same but definitely has a religious element.

Anyway... I don't think we are going to agree. I also think that the larger media causes more fear because we hear about things from further afield.

And is it not the media which changes things overall? We have become more homogeneous as TV, radio etc became more.common. local traditions changing, a more mobile population etc?

The world isn't the world any more. It has always changed, every single second.

I do think things have changed ALOT recently.
Good and bad.
How can you can deny that?

For example: Lots of Easter stuff - banners and yellow stuff and more festival and crafty stuff in all the shops, like turning it into an American festival.

Telling my boys how I write essays by going to the library and getting 7 textbooks and skim reading them all.

Those 2 examples are not related to the immigration issue others have referred to.

But I'm just making a point. Things sure have changed.

I don't think the OP was arguing that things haven't changed, just that change doesn't necessarily mean "England isn't England anymore".

I just don 't think things have changed for the worse due to immigration, which was alluded to above.

Things never stay the same, if it did we'd still be in caves, things have changed at an exponential rate since about the mid 19th century, and maybe thats why thing are changing socially too.

Very few people are in the local community their grandparents grew up in, where as you may have been further back in the past.

You move people from their roots and they start to go along with traditions that appear to be popular, or ones that everyone else just joins in with. For example many towns in my native NE used to engage in Shrove Tuesday football, but only Sedgefield does it now.

Traditions change and die out with the population.

Not far from Wembley, augusta - and it was the adults whose faces were covered, not the children's.

I just don't think things have changed for the worse due to immigration, which what was alluded to above

But that's the problem, some people do and as someone alluded to on the first page or so, who are you to dictate what defines change for that person?

Some people obviously have problems, some of them are obviously wrong, some are right and some are more nuanced.

Where I grew up saw a large influx of Eastern Europeans, they have integrated and welcomed into the community, but any concern that they had initially was met with accusations of little englanders or lazy British workers, in the next breath those same respondents would lament zero hour contracts and low wages without any sense of joined up thinking, you think that hasn't seen a short term impact in the community and could be seen as a bad thing, even just a little bit?

Whilst I don't agree with this letter, here is someone else who doesn't agree with you, when you don't live in these areas who are you to say if things haven't changed for the worse?

www.thestar.co.uk/news/your-say/letters-multicultural-integration-hasn-t-worked-in-sheffield-1-7821427

I don't think that England has got worse. They beat Germany the other day, and they're doing ok tonight too.