Letter: History has the capacity to teach us so much - we should learn from it
A letter from Cliff Maxwell:
The political tsunami blowing in America could build, make its way here and signal all change.
What seemed set in stone was uprooted and washed away, and the liberal left, exposed, look vulnerable. They don’t seem important anymore, and offer no guarantee for a safe harbour, where you can anchor and tie up.
Once kingmakers, they’re now in the mix like everyone else.
American liberals have their disciples in the unionist community, and I wonder how this shipwreck will affect them.
We have been impacted by woke culture for years promoted by the Alliance Party that was sympathetic to Irish culture.
We can only hope that a change of mind in America will shape public opinion here, and break the nonsense of the liberal mould, and effect change.
We Ulster Scots suffer from the same malaise affecting America - the gradual erosion of conservative values and its impact on our culture.
An increasing number in the Protestant community enjoy the romance of being Irish, and promote that culture. Not content with that, they pour scorn on ours.
This parasite has eaten into the body politic, and reduced it to a cadaver. Political rigor mortis is setting in.
Our fathers made sacrifices for us and built our state from nothing, against all the odds it survived.
It survived because people were loyal, tenacious, and hard-working. With the passage of time those qualities have been eroded, undermined, and passed into history.
Their children, with no deep conviction, come cheap, and will sell their soul to survive.
We need to be careful, and find leaders. If the American Revolution takes root and spreads, people will commit, and take advantage - they follow success, and leaders emerge to harness it; it’s a flag of convenience.
They will crawl out from under their rocks to champion our cause and exercise considerable influence; they thrive on that, and need to be watched.
Most have the herd instinct and run with it, blindly; others, with an eye for the main chance, seize the moment to build a power base.
History has the capacity to teach us so much, and we should learn from it. That we don’t is the measure of our ignorance, and our tragedy.
Clive Maxwell, Bleary