Riots in North - A threat to the peace we all demand

THE dissident republicans who orchestrated the rioting in the North on Monday night are putting all of the progress made, through tortuous negotiations and considerable concessions made over decades by everyone involved, in great jeopardy.

Those who, by insisting on marching where they are not welcome, give this minuscule but terribly dangerous minority the oxygen of opportunity they need to survive. It may not be easy to concede something imagined an age-old right but in the scheme of things, and for the sake of what tomorrow could be, rerouting a parade seems a price worth paying.

We are just one moment of tragedy, one nasty accident away from turning street riots into a nascent terror campaign. If just one rioter is badly injured or, God forbid, killed, then they will almost immediately be used as a catalyst for an intensification of dissident activity and recruitment. Inevitably, this awful development would be echoed amongst Loyalist extremists and the whole horrible, destructive, not to mention anti-democratic, tit-for-tat, merry-go-round might start all over again. More lost generations, more wasted years which would inevitably end with today’s dissidents, like every other group of “dissidents” before them, eventually coming to the table to belatedly join the democratic process.