This Serves No Purpose

[Duncer]

ttp://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-
20382477


Despite fitting into the wide raging Loyalist/Unionist/Protestant voter demographcic, I can see no purpose being served by this sport of polemic.....

I am no fan of the blessed Martin, and I know more about him than most, but we have moved on, (I hope).This sort of emotive over exaggerative talk only serve to wideni divides.

[NOX]

It's not useful I will agree on that, and I am very much pro peace process, which would not have happened at all but for strenuous efforts on the part of all concerned including 'blessed Martin'. It's got to be said though that you will never keep all of the people happy all of the time and that if there truly is to be peace then we need to allow people to express their 'opinions' without hinderance but also without allowing it to agitate and escalate. I personally thought it was an error to return Marion McGlinchey to prison for effectively holding up a bit of cardboard with something written on it that Westminster didn't like, equally I think it will be an error if we pay too much heed to hard line Unionists hell bent on derailing the fragile peace we have managed to establish because socially the north is moving on- people polled now had far less issue with ' 'mixed' marriages than they did 20 years ago for example and tourists wander about where once the army prowled around. Those that want to take us back to the bad old days do so either because they are too young to remember them or because they have their own agendas which will have little or nothing to do with any sort of belief, honour or integrity.

[Duncer]

"I think it will be an error if we pay too much heed to hard line Unionists hell bent on derailing the fragile peace we have managed to establish because socially the north is moving on- people polled now had far less issue with ' 'mixed' marriages than they did 20 years ago for example and tourists wander about where once the army prowled around."

Agree entirely NOX, but there were, and are, hard liners on both sides, and still are. Don't know if I agree about mixed marriages though, Caroline is now 27 and my granddaughter, Erin, is five. I guess Therera and I were bucking conventions, despite her republican upbringing and my quasi loyalist backgroud.

[Duncer]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/...hern-ireland-20382477

NOX, while being no fan of the blessed Martin, this was the article my original saracstic dig pertaine to.....

We have a long way to go, but we have taken steps......

[NOX]

I read the article last night before my original response and to be honest I think small steps is all we can take. You can't erase a whole history overnight, much of it within personal experience and living memory of those involved. It's one thing to forgive and forget the events of hundreds of years ago it's quite another to forget what has happened to those you love within your own lifetime, and I think people underestimate the colossal effort it has taken the people of the north to do so on both sides, because we are good at our violence and our civil war, we know exactly how to go about it, retaliating ever more visciously against the latest slight until in some areas (mine included) there was hardly a shred of normality and the focus of even small children was on the 'opposition'.
You can't dismantle that overnight, and in many ways nor should you, because otherwise there is no incentive not to return to it. much like the ?holocaust I think it needs to be remembered and carefully guarded against without giving the hardliners the power to disrupt by attributing them too much attention. It's a very hard balancing act and one I'm pleased to say we seem to be accomplishing fairly well given the circumstances. The fact that some don't like the men in power is irrelevant, they are necessary to get the job done and nothing would have been accomplished without them. No good talking to the oily rag, you need to get the mechanic involved so to speak.
I married a Jewish girl once in the UK and my entire perspective switched about lots of things ( although she is very much of the Republican persuasion) but with regards to ' mixed' marriages I was reading a whole article about it the other day and statistically people of the north are now very much more tolerant of the idea generally. This isn't the link for the article I read originally but it gives pretty much the same info:)
http://www.guardian.c...ences.northernireland