How's this for some good news?:
The Irish Republican Army dissidents who shocked Northern Ireland this week by killing two British soldiers and a policeman within a 48-hour period have made no secret of their ambition to ignite a new wave of sectarian bloodletting.But as formerly sworn enemies filed into a provincial church on Friday to mourn as one, the funeral of the slain policeman provided the latest and most powerful demonstration of the ways in which the province's people and its leaders have united against a return to the violence that racked Northern Ireland for 30 years.
Rallies that drew thousands to silent vigils this week in Belfast and other major towns across the north, and dozens of interviews across the province, suggested that the old antagonists -- Roman Catholics and Protestants, nationalists seeking a united Ireland and Unionists committed to keeping Ulster a part of Britain -- remain determined to settle their future in peace.
The relative prosperity that peace has brought, the respite from the anguished cycle of killings and revenge, has built a constituency for the power-sharing government in Belfast. That arrangement, which has worked awkwardly but steadily for 22 months, has given practical form to the reconciliation envisaged in the Good Friday agreement of 1998, which was brokered by the United States.
As much as it was a farewell to the police officer slain on Monday night, Constable Stephen Carroll, the funeral on Friday served, just as much, as a memorial for the two British soldiers killed as they picked up pizzas outside their base in the town of Antrim on Saturday night.
The melancholy of the occasion was captured in the laments played by the lone bagpiper who marched ahead of Mr. Carroll's black hearse, as it passed through streets lined with thousands of Catholic and Protestant townspeople in the town of Banbridge, 30 miles southwest of Belfast. But more powerful still was the mood of resolve and defiance evident among the 1,000 mourners in St. Therese Catholic Church.
Some who were there said that never in Ireland's modern history had there been quite such an improbable gathering of old foes.
Veterans of the Irish Republican Army, spearhead for nearly a century of the drive for the reunification of Ireland, were arrayed in the pews alongside loyalists still pledged to keep Ulster part of Britain.
Politicians and police commanders from both sides of the border sat together, and Anglican and Roman Catholic priests stood beside each other before the altar. Old adversaries wept together, especially when a choir sang an ethereal version of "Amazing Grace," a hymn sung often during the funerals of the 3,700 people killed during "the Troubles," as people in Ireland called the decades of sectarian struggle.
Tears in my eyes reading this. God bless and keep those good Catholic and Protestant souls, and come to their aid. Blessed are the peacemakers...
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Northern Ireland needs to continue to stay united against the return of "The Troubles". The gathering of "former enemies' for the funeral is a good start, and hopefully will discourage the IRA dissidents from trying yet again. Seeing that their wonton killing of the 2 soldiers didn't start an immediate fight again, should tell them something!
People have engaged in mass protest against IRA violence going back nearly a century. In each case the men with guns cared not a whit. The only thing that had made them malleable was violence. Loyalist violence, targeted by British intelligence, that grabbed Adams and McGuinness by the scruff of the neck. Violence by the government of Eire with men like O'Higgins, Cosgrave, de Valera and Lemass who weren't afraid to smash the IRA. Then people will be permitted to live in relative peace.
Geoff G, the Good Friday Agreement is actually serving as a model for other parts of the world seeking to bring disparate groups to the negotiation table. Martin McGuinness chaired meetings in Iraq that led to the Helsinki Agreement, an underreported event that brought together Sunni and Shia leaders (see BBC: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/northern_ireland/6977190.stm ).
McGuinness has also traveled to Sri Lanka at the request of the Initiative for Political and Conflict Transformation to facilitate peace negotiations between the government and the Tamil Tigers
(see The Independent, http://www.independent.ie/national-news/mcguinness-on-peace-mission-visit-to-sri-lanka-118162.html ), and Sinn Féin has made several visits to the Basque region pursuading the ETA to renounce violence and support the peace process, as the IRA has done.
And the one person who dosesn't get nearly enough credit for his hard work towards peace is Gerry Adams; he initiated talks between himself and John Hume in the 1980s, as well as back-channel ceasefire negotiations with the IRA. His priest, Fr. Alex Reid, helped Adams get the support from the Catholic hierarchy to develop some of his ideas for conflict resolution, which eventually led to meetings between the Catholic and Protestant clergy, as well as the paramilitary groups.
Gerry Adams deserves a Nobel Prize for his work, though they'll never give it to him. Adams wrote an article once, specifically addressing supporters' concerns about his being excluded from the Nobel Prize shared by John Hume and David Trimble, saying that we were the only ones upset by his being excluded, and that peace in Northern Ireland was reward enough for him.
If it were me, I'd be hopping mad that I did all that work for no recognition, but then again, I'm not on the same spiritual level as Gerry Adams. He's truly one of a kind.
Wow, you can be so upbeat about Ireland continuing to reject en masse the violence that festered there so long.
But you'll still deny that the people of Iraq are on their way to the same outcome. They have consistently rejected violence and religious extremism when they have the chance to guide their government. And you still call Iraq a failure and a 'stupid war', to paraphrase.
Iraq will be the first middle eastern state with a large Arab and Muslim population that has rejected the wild incendiaries of fundamentalist tyrannies around them. This is WORLD CHANGING, whether you acknowledge or not. While amazing and a triumph of peace overy violence, the defeat of violence in Ireland was not.
But you'll still deny that the people of Iraq are on their way to the same outcome. They have consistently rejected violence and religious extremism when they have the chance to guide their government. And you still call Iraq a failure and a 'stupid war', to paraphrase.
Nobody has gone broke betting against mans better nature. The odds are still that Iraq will devolve into feuding, quasi independent sub states with a healthy dose of fanatical religious hatred thrown in for good measure. The "Sunni Awakening" is merely biding time for us to leave(and they haven't made a secret of that...) as to get ready for the next phase of the war against the Shiite heretics.
To be continued ab absurdem.
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