The first thing that struck me upon entering the West Bank city of Nablus was not the poverty or the violence but rather the sheer natural beauty of the city's setting, nestled in a valley.
It seemed only right that Palestine, as a land over which two peoples struggle, should be a physically beautiful country. Other conflict zones like Ireland, Lebanon and the Balkans are also pleasing on the eye.
The wistful side of me likes to think that men would no more fight over an ugly country than they would over an ugly woman. Who would come to blows for Belgium?
Conflict itself is far from beautiful, but it is creative. I started to think today of all the names for my country which have been created by the conflict. Often to use one of these terms rather than another is to make a political statement. Thus, unionists live in "Ulster", nationalists live in "the north" and republicans live on another planet where black is white.
So here, in the order they come into my head, are the different names for Northern Ireland:
Ulster, The North, The North of Ireland, The Six Counties, The Occupied Six Counties, The Wee Six, The Black North, Norn Iron, Our Wee Ulster, The Statelet, The Sectarian Statelet, Sicily Without The Sunshine, Ireland's Ashtray, Britain's Vietnam, Ireland's Quebec, John Bull's Political Slum, "a bloody awful country", The Promised Land, Land of My Skull...