Nationalists endured too much humiliation
It is also grossly hypocritical of them. However, calls for the humiliation of republicans and nationalists is nothing new. When the nationalist community in the North asked for equal opportunity in jobs, housing and voting, Dr Paisley and his acolytes confronted them at Burntollet and humiliated them.
When nationalists sought protection from the Paisleyites, the ‘B’ Specials and RUC gladly obliged by siding with the forces of bigotry and intolerance and beat them off the streets, thereby inflicting further humiliation on them.
Throughout the Troubles, political unionism turned a blind eye to the random murder of innocent Catholics by loyalists as a weapon against the IRA.
All strands of unionism legitimised or made excuses for the blatant sectarian murders of human rights lawyers Pat Finucane and Rosemary Nelson, and for Bloody Sunday and the Dublin and Monaghan bombings.
It should be remembered that the IRA fought a political war, notwithstanding the fact that they were responsible for the largest number of civilians killed, whereas loyalist paramilitaries fought a sectarian war. The IRA killed people because of their politics, loyalists killed people because of their religion.
Apparently, Dr Paisley has yet to accept the new civic order which the Good Friday Agreement brought about, replacing the politics of exclusion with the politics of inclusion.
Tom Cooper
23 Delaford Lawn
Knocklyon
Dublin 16
