OPINION
Invasion of the Mercs was affront to unionist sensitivity
From IRISH TIMES December 16th, 1999
In the early days of the talks that led to the Belfast Agreement, a leading
Protestant churchman said to me: "We've been invited to the ball and it is right that we should go. The problem for our folk is that all that we can see on offer is Irish music and Irish dancing."
His folk are unlikely to have been made to feel more at ease by the images
that appeared on television on Monday, yet there were obvious ways that
the ceremonies in Armagh could have helped to mollify the suspicions that
still exist. It is a great pity, for example, that the organisers did not
take a leaf out of the book used by Nigel Dodds and Peter Robinson and offer
a gesture of recognition to the victims of the conflict.
One of the most powerful elements of David Trimble's speech to the Ulster
Unionist Council was his reference to people, like Robert Bradford's widow,
who have suffered dreadful personal loss and still support a peace process
which offers the hope of reconciliation between the two communities. If
the Government does not understand the need for public discretion in these
early months, then perhaps some pressure should be put on it by the other
partners in the peace process.
The new Northern Ireland Secretary has been described, often pejoratively,
as the "Sultan of Spin" but there is no doubting Peter Mandelson's presentational
skills and, in his early weeks in the job, his success in offering reassurance
to the unionist community. There are other problems facing this new Executive
as well as the most serious one of decommissioning. People need to be shown
that the implementation of the Belfast Agreement does not threaten anybody.
If we are to have more of these "historic occasions", it is important that
they should be managed with more sensitivity to the needs of both communities
in Northern Ireland |
