Trevor Ringland: We tried conflict before and it didn't work - perhaps Portadown can show how things can be different
A letter from Trevor Ringland:
The Orange Order’s legal challenge to the Parades Commission over Drumcree prompted some depressing reactions.
In fact, the intolerance and heightened rhetoric it exposed may have done us a favour. It highlighted the work that remains to be done on repairing and rebuilding relationships that were destroyed by the unnecessary violence in our past.
The original dispute over the march at Garvaghy Road caused overreactions on both sides which eventually resulted in tragic consequences. Once extremist positions took hold they prevented any compromise, even though many on both sides were happy to have a negotiated solution.
I am particularly aware that that was the position for the residents of the Garvaghy Road, and the Orange Order in Portadown is aware of that too.
Professor Pete Shirlow once said, “A problem with some people in Northern Ireland is that too many fail to appreciate the future can be different from the past.”
What could a different future mean for the Drumcree dispute?
The parade commemorates the Battle of the Somme, which saw British and Irish die side by side. The choice of music and the way the march is conducted should reflect the solemnity of remembering these events.
Perhaps it could include a stop half-way down the road, where both Orangemen and residents meet and take a moment to remember both the first world war dead, and the innocent victims from Portadown who died during the Troubles.
One of the most moving events of the 20th century was the Christmas Truce of 1914, when soldiers at the Western Front came together to share food and stories, or play football in no-man’s land.
Ultimately, though, they got or were forced by their leaders to get back into the trenches and kept fighting for nearly four more years, at a terrible human cost.
In Northern Ireland, that is not necessary. We have made enormous progress since 1998. We are actually doing well as a society and we should appreciate that.
Remember that the Northern Ireland Life and Times survey suggested that 79% of people here were happy enough with the place we share. Only 5% were adamant that they were not.
We tried conflict and hatred before and most of my generation regard that choice as a tragedy. There is and always was an alternative.
Perhaps Portadown can show how things can be different in their part of our shared home place?
Trevor Ringland, Bangor