My parents were Irish,English so I'm always caught in the middle. It's obvious that many English people are inclined to ignore the opium trade or the famine and

My parents were Irish,English so I'm always caught in the middle. It's obvious that many English people are inclined to ignore the opium trade or the famine and think about bits of history that make them feel good. I'd just mention that almost nobody is without skeletons in their national closet of one kind of another - probably less bad. I am 50 and my understanding has changed over time. Like every teenager I wanted to be proud of who I was but fortunately being a mongrel creates a note of discord in one's head - who to be proud of? The need to feel proud is a driver of all sorts of shit. We shouldn't feel ever more than a little proud or proud of what we personally have done but I'm not even sure of that. It's always a simplification. One should not have to call on history to respect oneself. Irish people made use of the Empire too and went to the colonies to seek their fortunes. My dad was one. I was born in one and saw the recent Irish immigrants behaviour - they were a mixed bag like everyone else. Most were sort of ok and one or two were atrocious but not more or less than anyone else. As a gross over-simplification, I think history is about people conquering other people and building larger and larger groups which become kingdoms then nations then empires or federations or unions. I get this feeling that it's mathematical. Whoever can organise on a large scale will absorb whoever is smaller. So if we want to have a reasonable future, we must learn to organise on a large scale with negotiation and rules/laws so that someone can't absorb us by doing it the violent way.