All about countries
One thing that’s struck me since coming to live in Germany is the number of films being made, both fictional and non-fictional, about the time of the country’s reunification.
It’s clear that this Great Event still captures people’s imagination in Germany, and it’s probably fair to say that any country’s people will tend to define themselves in the context of their own historical highlights. From what I can see, Germany is still actively searching for self-definition. I imagine that films will keep being made, and the story retold in different ways, until the country is content enough with its identity to forget it, and move on to another set of worries.
Being Irish, but not much of an Irish historian, I wonder what Ireland’s last Great Event was. It could have been the Troubles. But people generally don’t seem to talk about that, even though the Good Friday Agreement happened more recently than the fall of the Berlin Wall.
It could have been the revolution and independence from Britain in the early 20th century, which is further into the past, but arguably a more significant event. Either way, I have a feeling it’s also not quite inside the public consciousness.
So how do we Irish define ourselves? What does the country want, and what does it stand for? I’m not sure, and I don’t think I would have known that even when I lived there. Thinking back, my impression is that we were content to live in the shadow of other, bigger countries, with the pervading assumption that they were all somehow better than us.
What’s changed since I left Ireland two years ago is that we’re now in the middle of another “Great” Event: the recession. Although it’s been sucking the life out of the country, we could be approaching a turning point where people are ready to redefine, or at least reaffirm, what it is to be Irish.
So I wonder, what will happen next?
1 year ago