You would need a degree in international affairs to keep up with cultural developments here. Gerry Adams has added another dimension to the whole business when he said in a recent speech in the US that he considered unionism had an ‘Afrikaner’ wing with which it was hard to do business.

Having pondered Adams’ speech, I think we should be grateful to him for opening up another them/us scenario. Personally, I was getting a little bored with that whole nationalist/Palestinian and unionist/Israeli thing. It is so passé. Adams’s speech means that we can look forward to a new set of competing flags on our lamp-posts.

Hopefully, the bright colours of South Africa will lift our spirits in a way in which those horrid Middle Eastern ones never did. Admittedly, most people here will not know what an Afrikaner flag actually looks like — and I suspect that is true even of unionism’s Afrikaner wing — but no doubt as soon as the unionists rub the Afrikaner flag into Sinn Fein’s face they will let us know about it. Then we can all pick our sides for the traditional cultural céilí of dancing with the wrong foot and drumming with the wrong hand.

Of course, parity of disesteem demands that if unionism has an Afrikaner wing then republicans must have a cultural match. This means that unionist politicians can now refer to the Provos having a ‘Zulu’ wing with a penchant for leather thongs, bare bums and hurling sticks instead of stabbing spears. Expect unionist parties to run Michael Caine look-alikes in scarlet tunics in the forthcoming European elections and party political broadcasts with dire warnings about ‘Republic’s Drift’ and ‘Zulu Fein Dawn’.

However, what the cultural gods give with one hand, they take away with another. With Sinn Fein moving the cultural debate into a Afrikaner/Zulu scenario, then where does that leave more traditional cultural references? Let us spare a thought for the poor old Apaches and Comanche’s of my youth who have been decommissioned. No longer can one refer to someone as being a ‘right Comanche’ or slur an area as being full of Apaches. Ah, those were innocent days.

Cowboys and Indians was a much simpler game to play. Not that any of us have anything against Indians. Some of our best friends are Indians — and some of our biggest cowboys hold political office.

Bring our economy to book

It is depressing to realise that there are so few books written here that look to the future and offer a manifesto that might better our situation. Not so down South.

Two academics in the Republic, Finbarr Bradley and James J Kennelly, have co-authored Capitalising on Culture, Competing on Difference: Innovation; Learning and a Sense of Place in a Globalising Ireland.

They argue that tangible resources — such as money and technology — must be combined with intangible human resources — imagination; inspiration; intuition; self-confidence and self-knowledge — to achieve economic success in the Republic. They argue that “to achieve a successful learning society, public policy and its implementing institutions must be guided by a coherent approach founded on distinctiveness, difference, national identity, systems thinking and environmental sustainability. By marrying in this way the global with the local, and services with sustainability, Ireland has the opportunity to forge a unique development path, a model to be proud of and one that others countries might emulate.”

They stress that language — including the Irish language — offers a creative spark: “If handled properly, a rich dynamic, vibrant Irish society, North and South, influenced by recent immigrants, is most likely to emerge from creative interaction between the various language traditions on the island.” I am not aware of anything in a similar vein here.

The Republic’s Taoiseach Brian Cowen gave the book the thumbs up when he launched it.

But is our society being left behind once again by the failure to offer some forward thinking?