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The paper suggests a framework for the comparative study of the situations in South Africa and Northern Ireland. It builds on John Rex's view of a race relations situation and compares both the overt practices of discrimination and also the inner perceptions and interpretations of the participants. One aim is to establish, for these two areas, whether the decisive causes of the intractable character of the conflicts lie in the economic and political conditions which obtain or in the way these situations are perceived and understood by the groups in them. Another aim is to suggest how the differences between South Africa and Northern Ireland - in both the practice of inequality and also in the racist or sectarian ideology used to justify it - might or might not make for a peaceful resolution of the conflicts.

A quiz about a watercolour painting of a natural scenery by Drummond Fish is presented.