Does this count as another country?

Eoin took me up to Belfast for the weekend. The big event was on Sunday when I got a walking tour of the city with Eoin`s friend David. It was really interesting to hear about the history from a local´s point of view.

The tour started with Divis tour, a housing unit that was also a lookout center for the police. They had a vantage point which would allow them to see anyone coming to make trouble in the area. However it was possible for members of the UDA (a Loyalist para-military group) to throw Molotov cocktails at the houses of the Unionists-Catholics. He also showed me two plaques on the building dedicated to two people who were shot by random gunshots. In all these cases the police, from their lookout were never able to catch the perpetrators.

I was also taken to a number of memorial gardens which displayed the names of people who were killed by police actions or the UDA. It was significant to see how many people in various neighborhoods were affected.

There were several murals and we stopped at the several so important people like Bobby Sand, who refused to wear a prison uniform because he considered himself a political prisoner. This started the blanket strike where political prisoners were naked, wrapped only in a blanket. His famous quote was "the only way I´ll wear a prison uniform is if you nail it on my back."

I also was taken to an interface, it is the location where the Protestant and the Catholic neighborhoods meet. There is a huge wire wall erected in between to protect violence from spilling out from one neighborhood to the next. The houses had what to Americans would look like screen porches, but they were of chain-link fence. It was to stop Molotov cocktails from starting their houses on fire.

I also saw the a wall that documented the collusion between the police, the military, the government and the UDA. This gave evidence that the British government was secretly giving assistance to the UDA (the illegal militant group).

It´s not to hard to understand why there are such strong anti-British feelings amongst the Irish, and I was only seeing a small picture of the history.

Currently I´m in Berlin, but I will have to save my Berlin tales for another day, maybe towards the end of my stay. I think I have about four more days. Then it will be off to the Black Forest and then to Oktoberfest. Hopefully the pictures will be coming along soon.