Peace process or just a ceasefire?

[eskrimador]

A caller to Nolan got me thinking there (ok, this is his idea). While those in the peace industry are turning a tidy penny and bombs and shootings are now an unusual event, is there any real process towards real and lasting peace?

The inertia was short lived with tokenism being the currency of the time but we have republicans and loyalists running around left, right and centre, more often than not, known to locals and police alike, and the hate nurturing paranoia is still being fed to the children that have no knowledge of the dark days.

As my ma would have said, is it it all fur coat and no knickers?

[vaudeville]

There's alot of truth in this story, nearly 10 years old.



IAN PAISLEY'S Catholic-hating DUP came top of the poll in last week's assembly elections.

The crisis is a product of the way in which the peace process has been conceived.

Instead of being based on drawing Protestants and Catholics together, it is based on the assumption the British used in order to rule Ireland for centuries.

This is the assumption that there is an intrinsic divide between people who identify with opposition to British rule and a minority who were promised marginal advantages simply because they were Protestant.

This division underlay the 100 percent Unionist state that ran Northern Ireland from 1921 until 1972.

It is taken for granted in the Good Friday agreement which marked the beginning of the peace process.

So even though two thirds of the population voted for parties committed to continuing the peace process it has been paralysed by the vote for Ian Paisley's party.

Regrettably what many see as the most radical party in Northern Ireland, Sinn Fein, has also accepted the division between Protestants and Catholics

Class divide key issue in Northern Ireland|6Dec03|Socialist Worker

[gweedo prophet]

Good thread!

I think we are in the process of establishing peace.

On the republican side the groups intent on violence have very little support; micro groups is a decent description of them and I don't say that to score points politically. Certainly in Belfast the CIRA and RIRA have evaporated into a cloud of criminality; while OnH has hardly shown itself capable of mounting a serious campaign.. Even RNU and IRSP insist an armed campaign is pointless and would not garner popular support in the republican community.

If someone had told me not so many years ago that loyalists were going to stop murdering Catholics I would not have believed them. I know we had that brutal incident in the Village, but I'm talking about the loyalist campaign in my neck of the woods in north Belfast and across the six counties where catholics were killed on a depressingly regular basis. That there was the motivation and discipline to end this is something that continues to surprise me.

I very much doubt we are destined to become the land of milk and honey; but I see very little appetite for a return to slaughter.

[Castle Ray]

A caller to Nolan got me thinking there (ok, this is his idea). While those in the peace industry are turning a tidy penny and bombs and shootings are now an unusual event, is there any real process towards real and lasting peace?

The inertia was short lived with tokenism being the currency of the time but we have republicans and loyalists running around left, right and centre, more often than not, known to locals and police alike, and the hate nurturing paranoia is still being fed to the children that have no knowledge of the dark days.

As my ma would have said, is it it all fur coat and no knickers?

The "peace process" has concluded. Paramilitary remnants will still be involved in crime and want to maintain a power-base but criminal activity and gangersterism is evident in every part of the world. NI is now no different from other places. There will always be futile republican attacks in NI carried out by fantatical loons and there will probably be a certain amount of futile sectarian attacks too. But there will be no "peace process" to deal with these issues as they are small-scale criminal actions that need dealt with by the law and there will be some community relations activity too to try to be seen to do something.

[daniels]

A caller to Nolan got me thinking there (ok, this is his idea). While those in the peace industry are turning a tidy penny and bombs and shootings are now an unusual event, is there any real process towards real and lasting peace?The inertia was short lived with tokenism being the currency of the time but we have republicans and loyalists running around left, right and centre, more often than not, known to locals and police alike, and the hate nurturing paranoia is still being fed to the children that have no knowledge of the dark days.
As my ma would have said, is it it all fur coat and no knickers?

I suppose David Dunseith must have considered this before making the exasperated comment that this place would take fifty years to get the sectarian poison out of it's body politic, and with the peace lines increasing instead of reduced, in number since the 'bloody peace process' as bertie Ahern called it.

[between the bridges]

lets hope you are wrong esk! but history tells us otherwise.....

they spoil and burn and beare away as fit occasion serve,
and think the greater ill they do, the greater praise they deserve,
they pass not for the poor mans cry, nor respect his tears
but rather joy to see the fire, to flashe about his ears.
to see both flames and smouldering smoke, to dusk the christall skyes.
next to their pray, therein I say, their second glory lyes

john derrick image of ireland 1581

An armed company of the kerne, carrying halberds and pikes and led by a piper, attack and burn a farmhouse and drive off the horses and cattle

[eskrimador]

The "peace process" has concluded. Paramilitary remnants will still be involved in crime and want to maintain a power-base but criminal activity and gangersterism is evident in every part of the world. NI is now no different from other places. There will always be futile republican attacks in NI carried out by fantatical loons and there will probably be a certain amount of futile sectarian attacks too. But there will be no "peace process" to deal with these issues as they are small-scale criminal actions that need dealt with by the law and there will be some community relations activity too to try to be seen to do something.

You can destroy every weapon in the world but it won't make a difference, it's minds that need to be awoken to have real peace.

This summer we had one side of the divide (it matters not which) complaining about the other as if they were living in the lap of luxury. It's an old tactic that can only work so long as there is not broad intermingling between the communities.

Again, I would point out how the sectarian card was played during the outdoor relief strike in the face of the 2 communities coming together.

Look at a NI party's manifesto online and then go and look at a GB party's one. The former's are sparse of content because they neither have nor need real content.

[DavidCaldwell]

We all need to do our bit. One small suggestion - we show more restraint in our comments here and avoid divisive rows. Some suggestions:
- Assume good faith in the other posters
- Accept that people of different views believe that they are reasonable and morally justified just as sincerely we believe that about ourselves
- If we read something we believe is very wrong, the first presumption should be that it is an error or bad phrasing, rather than a lie or evidence of stupidity
- No insults
- A Government program for the encouragement of the use of Filipino down-lighters in all flats in the greater Belfast area

[UlickO]

The GFA cements division in the community so it was only ever going to be an interim settlement (ceasefire) until we figure out the lasting shape of this island. In the long term, the north as it is now isn't sustainable economically or socially. Those who think it is are only fooling themselves.

[Castle Ray]

The UK is sustainable and NI is as sustainable as any peripheral region within the UK. We need to move beyond the institutionalised sectarian makeup of our regional assembly and towards better representation and administration. That doesn't mean a change in constitutional position, although that discussion can be had and proposals made, but it will be decided by the people of NI not the NI Executive.