On a recent trip to Belfast/Northern Ireland I wanted to find out who is really to be accepted as being a progressive force up there. The Left has generally supported those pro-catholics, who are working for a united Ireland as a part of a national liberation struggle from London rule. I decided to interview representatives of progressive parties on either side on the issues that socialists should really care about -- social issues -- to see how different they really are in their day-to-day politics in these current times of peace.

So far I've written the first two parts -- interviews with Paul Maskey of Sinn Fein (  http://johanneswilm.org/index.php/item/155 ) and Hugh Smyth of the Progressive Unionist Party (  http://johanneswilm.org/index.php/item/152 ). You can go read the interviews for yourself, but so far no conclusion has been drawn.

That will happen tomorrow, in my third installment on Northern Irish politics, on  http://www.johanneswilm.org.