NATIONAL PARADOXES

Relative life is ever paradoxical, and certainly the fact of Catholic France being a republic and Protestant Britain a constitutional monarchy is not the least paradoxical of relativities! For if the Kingdom leads to the Church and the State to the Centre, then it seems to me that the Liberal State is aligned with Protestantism, that Protestantism and Republicanism go together, as in America, where they constitute two sides of a neutron absolutism, the wavicle and particle sides respectively - Protestantism being, in origin, a meditative (intellectual) as opposed to a visionary religion but, understandably, not a particularly advanced one, since Christianity is ever relative.

Nevertheless, one perceives within this Republican/Protestant dichotomy a crude absolutism, whereas the older nations like Britain and France are more relative, and in the most paradoxical kind of way - Britain a Protestant Kingdom and France a Catholic Republic, the one evincing a neutron-wavicle/proton-particle dichotomy, the other ... a proton-wavicle/neutron-particle dichotomy, each effectively the opposite of the other, both of them mutually repellent, the British relativity more extremist than the French, there being no atomic contiguity between proton particles and neutron wavicles, the Kingdom and Protestantism, which flank the Catholic/Republican dichotomy or, if you prefer, compromise of the French.

Thus while the Catholic Church/Republican State dualism is paradoxical enough, the Kingdom State/Protestant Church dualism is even more so, and to the point of absurdity. Are not the British the most paradoxical people on earth? And not simply with regard to politics and religion, the Liberal State and the Catholic Church co-existing with the Monarchic Kingdom and the Protestant Church, but ... in their sense of nationality as well? For is not an Englishman also a Briton, whilst a Briton may also be a Scotsman or a Welshman, and each of these may be British or Scotch, Welsh or British, depending on the occasion - the English themselves British and English by turns, never British when playing the Scots at football or rugby, never English when competing in the Olympic Games.

Yet, as if that weren't paradoxical enough, there is a further complication where Northern Ireland is concerned, which at the time of writing [1984-85] still forms part of the United Kingdom (of Great Britain and Northern Ireland) but is distinct from Great Britain, appertaining not to the British island but to the Irish one, which, paradoxically, is part of the British Isles. For like the British, the Irish, particularly in the North of Ireland, are also divided ... between Northern Irish nationality and British and/or Irish identity, not to mention between Protestant Loyalism and Catholic Republicanism, a division within a division which has been the source, traditionally, of bitter conflict.

While the Ulster Protestant may be entitled to U.K. nationality, he is doubtfully British. And while the Ulster Catholic may technically be a U.K. citizen, he is definitely Irish and in favour, more often than not, of Irish citizenship within a republican, though not necessarily Sinn Fein, context. And yet both of them are Northern Irish, albeit in different degrees, the Protestant more Northern Irish, because loyal to Britain, than the Catholic who, paradoxically, is more Irish - indeed, in favour of Irish unity between all Catholics. Perhaps this is the paradox of paradoxes?