Actually the Northern Ireland conflict is about Secessionists vs. Crown-Loyalists. Religion became the focus after English and Scottish settlers were given land in Ulster. By that point the vast majority of England and Scotland were Protestant, while Ireland remained Catholic. So a persons religion became one of the main identifying factors in Northern Ireland as to whether they were Secessionists or loyal to the Crown.
Yes you are right. Its nothing to do with the schism and the English split from the Catholic church. That was uneventful in the UK. Theyre just called Orange marches for no reason and dont have anything to do with any hate between Protestant and Catholic.
What do the seccessionists want? Why? how many protestants want to become part of Ireland again?
Stop pretending prime motivators are non issues, when these sorts of issues have driven most of human history.
There is a huge battle between Shia and Sunni to this day. Saudis and co are always worrying about Iranian plots and suspicuous of their shia population. Syria is close tooooooooo....... Iran! So What happened? Well, the saudis and co wanted Assad and co out, so they funded, and paid, and supplied weapons to anyone who was willing to take up arms against Assad.
And the leader of an armed movement wanted military men? quell surprise. That doesnt mean that the Iraqi army makes up even a significant minority of Isis.
What are the main reasons that these former Iraqi military men and such are angry? Because their group, which held an iron grip on Iraq, is now second fiddle to people they consider heretics. They dont like the shias. The basis of Saddams reign, he got support in the Iran Iraq was from sunni sates because he was fighting shia.
During the main split between protestant and catholic, the dutch and spanish were colonisiing the world at the time. They accepted most things that they encountered, sure they were bastards. But there were never more basterdly, when they encountered christian heretics. Being a protestant when the catholics were in charge or vica versa was a death sentence. This blood bath created secularism in Europe.
There were questions from many in the US when Kennedy was running for president, a Catholic?! Would he follow the consitution or the pope?!
Humans can be evil to one another, but we are never more evil then when we see similiarities in our enemies. The Germans detested the Jews because they were getting too German, too integrated, too much like them. The best selling book in Germany before anyone had heard of Hitler was about Jewish blood contaminating Germany.
I come from Yugoslavia. The only difference between a Croat, a Serb and a Bosnian is religion, yet its the basis for ethnic cleansing, and the past isnt this long forgotton thing for text books. The Serbs who committed genocide in Bosnia were invoking the Turkish invaders and memories of that horrible past. When the Croats set up their fascist state in world war 2, they had a phrase, convert a third, kill a third, deport a third, in regards to their Serbian population. The difference between a Croat and a Serb? Which flavour of Christian they were.
Religion and nationalism are prime movers. History isnt forgotton.
It is important to know what motivates people, and that means understanding history, and no pretending that it didnt exist until the US decided it wanted oil in the middle east. Haliburton.