Great Quotes III: Source and Context are Key

[Traitorfish]

"Believing that the British Government has no right in Ireland, never had any right in Ireland, and never can have any right in Ireland, the presence, in any one generation of Irishmen, of even a respectable minority, ready to die to affirm that truth, makes that Government for ever a usurpation and a crime against human progress.

I personally thank God that I have lived to see the day when thousands of Irish men and boys, and hundreds of Irish women and girls, were ready to affirm that truth, and to attest it with their lives if need be."

Final Statement of James Connolly, May 9th, 1916.

 

[Mouthwash]

That seems remarkably, dare I say, ethno-nationalist for someone like you.

 

[Traitorfish]

That seems remarkably, dare I say, ethno-nationalist for someone like you.

That's fair, but Connolly's nationalism was more nuanced than most of his contemporaries.

 

[Mouthwash]

The only thing I can read out of that quote is "get off mah land."

 

[cardgame]

I think most people would take 'ethno-nationalism' aka sovereignty over might-makes-right imperialism any day.

 

[Mouthwash]

There was less barrel-bombing in the Middle East when the Ottomans controlled it.

 

[Arakhor]

There weren't any Internet trolls then either.

 

[Kozmos]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_revolutions_and_rebellions

'Ottoman' search results: 25 matches.

 

[Flying Pig]

There was less barrel-bombing in the Middle East when the Ottomans controlled it.

There was also a genocide in Armenia when the Ottomans controlled it.

 

[Hygro]

well we can wrap that one up

 

[Mouthwash]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_revolutions_and_rebellions

'Ottoman' search results: 25 matches.

How did you search for a keyword?

 

[Hygro]

cmd-f?

 

[Kozmos]

Control-F. There are maybe 2 that could be rolled into one. So 23 or thereabout. Multi-ethnic empires are hard. Unless you are Genghis Khan.

 

[Traitorfish]

The only thing I can read out of that quote is "get off mah land."

Well, yes, essentially.

Tierra y libertad, y'know?

 

[MagisterCultuum]

The quote, without further context, could of course be anarchist too though. Declaring that one government cannot have any right in Ireland does not imply that any other government could, there or elsewhere.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

Without a government there is no Ireland. Just an island.

 

[Traitorfish]

Without a government there is no Ireland. Just an island.

Ireland was a distinct legal jurisdiction within the United Kingdom, and parliament frequently legislated for Ireland as a distinct entity, most famously by withholding (and threatening to introduce) conscription when it was already in force in the rest of the country. If there was no such thing as "Ireland" in 1916, it seems to have escaped all contending parties.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

Dafuq? I said without government and you reference a government....

 

[Traitorfish]

Dafuq? I said without government and you reference a government....

I took "a government" to mean "an independent government". Probably I overlooked Magister's post.

 

[Mouthwash]

"If you want a glimpse of what a post-human future would be like, read Homer."
-John Gray