Why has Professor Colin Harvey of Queen’s University ignited such hatred from some unionists and loyalists? The clue is in his title and the name of the place where he works.
If Colin Harvey were an ordinary guy, a Joe Soap, his enthusiasm for a border poll could be dismissed. Only nineteenth-century romantics and psychopathic Sinn Féiners come out with this sort of tripe, claiming that Northern Ireland is not an admirable state in its foundation and over the hundred years since. Head-bangers, sectarian nuts – those are the kind of people who want a border poll and a vote which takes Northern Ireland out of the UK and makes it part of an all-island, all-Ireland state. You’d have to be stupid, mad and bad to want such a thing. And uneducated.
But Colin Harvey, in his work and his words, contradicts all that. He is clearly a highly-educated, highly-intelligent man. He occupies a post in Queen’s that is of some eminence. He is articulate and courteous. And he speaks out on matter of human rights.
For some unionists, that is too much. Because there is a danger that a lot of other people will look at and listen to Harvey and say to themselves “If this guy has studied the question of a border poll, if he’s looked at the possible benefits of a different constitutional arrangement, there may well be something in it. Must give it some consideration myself.”
In other words, Harvey’s thinking may filter into the minds of others and give them similar ideas. And before you can say “Fucking fenians!”, his ideas will have spread and others will start speaking out. And before you know it, we could be carried on the wave of their words and thoughts to a border poll that might spell an end to our stateen.
Seen like that, Colin Harvey is an existential threat to the weary not-an-inch clichés and stale thinking that unionism’s forefathers held dear. Such men as Harvey are dangerous.
On the other hand, if you think Colin Harvey is courageous and a clear thinker, maybe you should hurry to Twitter or Facebook or whatever social media platform you use and express your admiration of and solidarity with a decent and courageous man.
I have to say that I was not familiar with Colin Harvey or what he said that was so dangerous as I was on holiday. I presume he favours a united Ireland. Nothing strange in that so the fact that people of a unionist disposition are incensed could mean that he is from a unionist background. The equivalent of a self hateing jew.
self hating Jew? No, but if he was one hed be an all loving one.
No, I don’t think. he is from a unionist background, Ray…
Pesky fenians getting above their station… The Brysonian Institute is working tirelessly to threaten, undermine and ridicule this free thinking, expert… without sucess.because of their politcal ineptitude.
The only excuse for a border in Ireland is in the heads of people steeped in sectarianism or those influenced by such people. Something of the same thinking inspired Brexit more recently. We live on an island roughly 330 miles long and 170 miles wide, speak the same language and are culturally very. Similar. We need to wise up.