PEACE IS OBSTRUCTED BY POLITICAL RANCOUR
Peace is obstructed by political rancour
AN exhibition being staged this week in the City Hall Belfast tells the story of some of the many victims of the suffering in Northern Ireland. Titled The cost of the Troubles, one of its aims is to make us think of the terrible price which too many people have had to pay in terms of human suffering in Northern Ireland during the past 30 years.
The continuous and deserved publicity about Omagh, even to the switching- on of the Christmas lights last week by Daniel O'Donnell is a reminder to us all of the horror wantonly visited on that blameless little town on August 15 last. Omagh should not, and will not, be forgotten.
But what of the many other victims whose stories briefly made a headline and then they fell into oblivion? Their stories are largely forgotten, but their suffering still carries on. Therefore the exhibition at the City Hall is a timely reminder to all of us that we should not forget the weight of collective suffering by so any people in our midst. It is ghastly.
In the current climate of political rancour and points-scoring it would be easy to forget the suffering that underpins the attempts by so many people to reach a peace settlement, and which made the vast majority of people on this island vote for the Good Friday Agreement, the row over de-commissioning and the delay over the formation of the New Executive and cross-border bodies, and the familiar bellowing at the DUP annual conference last weekend, is part of the same old pattern of rancour which has passed for politics here for the past 30 years.
The Good Friday Agreement is a brilliant example of the compromise of real-politic but it is perhaps too radical and sophisticated for those who can see only Orange or Green. Two good friends of mine who move extensively in grass roots circles in Loyalist and Republican areas tell me that each side has an ingrained sense of unfairness, which blinds them to progressive thinking.
The Loyalists think that everything is going the Republicans' way, which it isn't. Equally the Republicans think that the quite justified Loyalist (and Unionist) insistence on de-commissioning is only another ploy to delay the implementation of the Agreement. Both in their narrowness are refusing to see the radical wood for the sectarian trees, and a sheer lack of goodwill all round may seriously endanger the Agreement. And so they resort to the old excuse of "unfairness", allied to a belief that "the other side " is winning everything.
They also forget that the majority of ordinary people are fed up with violence, and that they do not wish to return to the bad old ways. And if the hard-liners on each side really believe that the other side is winning, then the Agreement is not half-bad. I have little sympathy when a sense of unfairness is used as an excuse for refusing, on both sides, to budge an inch.
The real sense of unfairness which angers and moves me is the total unfairness to the innocent people who have lost relatives, life and limbs because we cannot agree to live together as civilised human beings. Thirty years on, the equation is still starkly simple-continued cries of No Surrender on both sides will lead to more war. And without agreement at Stormont and elsewhere, there will be yet more Omaghs, and more Enniskillens. Is that what you really want? Or have you had enough of blood, murder and tears?
AN exhibition being staged this week in the City Hall Belfast tells the story of some of the many victims of the suffering in Northern Ireland. Titled The cost of the Troubles, one of its aims is to make us think of the terrible price which too many people have had to pay in terms of human suffering in Northern Ireland during the past 30 years.
The continuous and deserved publicity about Omagh, even to the switching- on of the Christmas lights last week by Daniel O'Donnell is a reminder to us all of the horror wantonly visited on that blameless little town on August 15 last. Omagh should not, and will not, be forgotten.
But what of the many other victims whose stories briefly made a headline and then they fell into oblivion? Their stories are largely forgotten, but their suffering still carries on. Therefore the exhibition at the City Hall is a timely reminder to all of us that we should not forget the weight of collective suffering by so any people in our midst. It is ghastly.
In the current climate of political rancour and points-scoring it would be easy to forget the suffering that underpins the attempts by so many people to reach a peace settlement, and which made the vast majority of people on this island vote for the Good Friday Agreement, the row over de-commissioning and the delay over the formation of the New Executive and cross-border bodies, and the familiar bellowing at the DUP annual conference last weekend, is part of the same old pattern of rancour which has passed for politics here for the past 30 years.
The Good Friday Agreement is a brilliant example of the compromise of real-politic but it is perhaps too radical and sophisticated for those who can see only Orange or Green. Two good friends of mine who move extensively in grass roots circles in Loyalist and Republican areas tell me that each side has an ingrained sense of unfairness, which blinds them to progressive thinking.
The Loyalists think that everything is going the Republicans' way, which it isn't. Equally the Republicans think that the quite justified Loyalist (and Unionist) insistence on de-commissioning is only another ploy to delay the implementation of the Agreement. Both in their narrowness are refusing to see the radical wood for the sectarian trees, and a sheer lack of goodwill all round may seriously endanger the Agreement. And so they resort to the old excuse of "unfairness", allied to a belief that "the other side " is winning everything.
They also forget that the majority of ordinary people are fed up with violence, and that they do not wish to return to the bad old ways. And if the hard-liners on each side really believe that the other side is winning, then the Agreement is not half-bad. I have little sympathy when a sense of unfairness is used as an excuse for refusing, on both sides, to budge an inch.
The real sense of unfairness which angers and moves me is the total unfairness to the innocent people who have lost relatives, life and limbs because we cannot agree to live together as civilised human beings. Thirty years on, the equation is still starkly simple-continued cries of No Surrender on both sides will lead to more war. And without agreement at Stormont and elsewhere, there will be yet more Omaghs, and more Enniskillens. Is that what you really want? Or have you had enough of blood, murder and tears?
Further Information
Publisher: NEWS LETTER
Ref: NL/141
Published Date: 02-Dec-98
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