Don't knock self interest. Define what it is in detail, and you will likely have a basis for co-operation. Our red mist in the eyes zero sum politics rarely gets that far. It harks back to a past when possession of a field mattered, rather than a globally competitive high value added economy where co-operation between suppliers must be seamless and corruption or partisanship risks the whole enterprise. Post CAP reform the title of agricultural land is more a concern for bank lenders and sectarian gossips than for entrepreneurs.

Aquifer has a very strong point (but is it not a slightly different take on the consistent marxist line that the fervent nationalism of both hues has blinded the reality of the common cause of the working class? Although - that always seemed a bit patronising.)

I think Northern Ireland is in a race against time - everywhere else in the west the idea of traditional neighbourhood community bonds are breaking down as individuals and families become atomised into homogenous bland consumers of the same (mostly bad) international TV, music, fashion, food, politics and sport.

We've bucked the trend somewhat to date - we still cling on to our traditional church-going, music, parades, sectarianism and paramilitaries - but they're all definitely on the slide! Belfast is becoming more like every other boring European city every day.

I think this is the root cause of a growing sense of bewilderment here in Northern Ireland - particularly in the working class loyalist communities who are faced with the disintegration of their neighbourhoods and who are interpretating it as some sort of republican agenda.

Is it not just globalisation putting them through the mill?

Nestor

Good point on Globalisation and the tendency to blame change on "the ould enemy" rather than bigger forces so far beyond our control that even Don Quixote wouldn't charge against them.

Globalisation killed off the heavy engineering industry which supported so much of Protestant working class Belfast (used to work in it myself). but it's easier and somehow more comforting to blame "themmuns" who have done slightly better over the same time (NB: not my personal viewpoint) than to recognise that all your hopes, aspirations and best efforts count don't matter one damn in the face of cheap labour from China, India etc..

Sad fact is that our much trumpeted recent successes in attracting low-end "added value" jobs such as call centres (and even to an extent some software development companies which are further up the food chain) will almost certainly follow heavy engineering to the East in the next 10 years.

5 years ago at a software trade show I was acosted by a Sri Lankan businessman who had connections with that countries main Microsoft training provider. He said he could put 100 fully certified software engineers onto a project for me at 1 months notice and he even offered that resource on a no win/no fee basis - I didn't like the product they delivered I could just walk away.

Fact is Globalisation has only just begun to screw the NI economy and textiles & engineering are only a foretaste of what's to come.

But don't worry, Invest NI will save us ............ (er, O Sh*t!)

My Branch of East Belfast UUP used to meet in an Orange Hall and we couldn't always get it on teh nights we wanted because it was hired out that night to an Irish Dance Class.

baldrick: Sad fact is that our much trumpeted recent successes in attracting low-end "added value" jobs such as call centres (and even to an extent some software development companies which are further up the food chain) will almost certainly follow heavy engineering to the East in the next 10 years.

We're so far back that it's starting to seem laughable rather than depressing. Yes, the call centre jobs will go - are going - and, yes, so too are the software and electronic engineering jobs (the ones which haven't even really arrived yet and which Invest NI put so much faith it).

I read recently that Palo Alto - in the heart of California's silicon valley - has started losing such jobs in large numbers to India, Korea and China and that investors there won't even consider a project unless there's a partnership with one of these countries. (They can't imagine a hi-tech project will make money without cheap skills and labour from the Far East.

The Apple Ipod was more or less coded and engineered (and completely built) in the Far East. It was merely 'designed' and marketed in California by Apple (although the concept of 'design' is rather lose - I think Apple chose the colour).

As it stands we will have a hell of a job catching up with silicon valley - but already the game has moved to a new level.

Thank god for the Bru....

Is loyalist anger misdirected? If the shipyard jobs went to South Korea, should we not have had a mob wearing Ranger T-shirts protesting in Seoul instead of east Belfast?

Design: River Path Associates Comments: Big Blog Co Powered: Movable Type 3.15 Copyright © 2003 Sluggerotoole.com All rights reserved.