There has been a lot of trouble in Northern Ireland recently, with the worst riots in years. It seems to be quieting down lately, thank goodness. All the important folks are OK, which is the main thing, although just about everyone here who has been trying to live their normal life has been disrupted by the blocked roads. (And I got some paint splattered on my car.)
I don't normally talk about politics in this blog - I leave it to the likes of Ed to point out all the absurdities. In fact I don't normally talk about politics at all - it's too inflammatory a subject in this country, and there are just too many nutters. Folks from different countries just don't understand what's going on here, and at times even people here haven't much of a clue either. And nutters generally will make life painful for you if your opinion doesn't agree with theirs.
But here goes. Ostensibly the trouble lately has been over a parade that was banned. Now, it seems to me that the banning of the parade was pretty stupid, and in fact it seems to me that wanting to parade there at all was equally stupid, but really I don't think the rioting has much to do with the parade at all. It's just the catalyst, the spark that started it. It was going to happen anyway.
The most useful comment I've heard was someone on the radio saying something like "It's like it's 1969 again, only this time it's the loyalists instead of the republicans." He was saying that loyalists were bringing violence to the streets because they felt as disenfranchised as republicans did at the start of the troubles. (Does that mean we have another 25 years of this to look forward to?) His point of view was that he's seen many changes to the detriment of his community, but none to benefit it, and that it's not really much of a compromise if only one side gives ground. This BBC News article takes much the same view.
The cynic in me says the real reason is even simpler than that, though. There's a maxim in business - "Whatever gets rewarded gets done." It's a pretty useful phrase, and handy for pointing out why nobody bothers with some important work things. It applies here too. Even bystanders looking at the troubles have seen that, rightly or wrongly, the IRA have succeeded in changing some things. There have been further concessions tied to their decommissioning. But if the violence the IRA perpetrated gets rewarded, can anyone really be surprised if it begets further violence?
I continue to think that there's really a middle ground of 90% of the population of this country who just want to live their lives as normally as possible, and there are two 5%s (one 5% loyalist, one 5% republican) on the two extremes who are Just Plain Nuts and want to spend their time fighting. Most of the time I can't tell these two 5%s apart.
