McGuinness oversteps the mark on parades
THE comments by Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness about the Orange Order are deeply worrying and come at a particularly sensitive time – just as the parading season reaches its most busy period.
Speaking at the annual Wolfe Tone commemoration at Bodenstown in Co Kildare yesterday, Mr McGuinness challenged the Order Order to “step forward and make its contribution to the peace process through stopping attempts to march through Catholic areas”.
He said the days of republicans stretching themselves and their communities to maintain calm in the face of sectarian provocation could not last forever.
Mr McGuinness and his colleagues in Sinn Fein have never come to grips with the importance of parading in the Protestant culture.
They fail to understand that the music and colour of the parades are a key part of the culture that unionists hold so dear.
Sinn Fein have also failed to recognise that the Orange Order and the other loyal orders have worked extremely hard to create more of a festival atmosphere around their parades.
They have also built up a strong relationship with the tourist authorities and other agencies to encourage more people to visit the Province and see the pageantry.
Over the years, Sinn Fein have supported protests against parades but there are concerns they no longer hold sway in some parts of Belfast and other areas of Northern Ireland.
Having brought people onto the streets in the past, they are clearly worried that they no longer have the control they once exercised. It is a bleak warning from the Sinn Fein man.
Mainstream republicans may have moved away from what they called the ‘armed struggle’, but they are engaged in a cultural war – and that is directed against Protestants and unionists.
Martin McGuinness has now gone on the record about what he thinks.
It is up to unionist politicians to have a very serious word with him and tell him he has overstepped the mark.
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Thursday 24 May 2012
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