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Saville Commission Bloody Sunday Report Helps Heal Northern Ireland

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Anyone can create violence -- as the "Real" IRA shows us (or the remnants of Loyalist paramilitaries responsible for the Bobby Moffett murder this May), it's dead easy to kill someone or set a bomb. What's really hard and painstaking and slow is peace. The Saville Inquiry is a long-overdue, necessary step. People can and do change, but they need to have their stories -- all stories, from all sides -- told, recognized and respected. Now, NI must find a way to recognize and honor other victims, from the fish shop on the Shankill to the Omagh dead. There should be no "hierarchy of victims" -- all deserve some kind of justice, if only to have their experiences honored. I think NI should begin talking about a truth commission that goes from Bloody Sunday to the Good Friday accords...

Robin Kirk of NC 7:11AM June 30, 2010

This Irish issue has a long and complex history. It is certainly not reducible to a mere religious conflict. There are issues of rich and poor, settler colonialism vs. nationalism and the desire to unite northern with southern Ireland over Britain's historic imperialist occupation. Religion at this point provides the language and identity reference points for the struggle, but it is not the struggle itself.

steve of IL 7:19PM June 29, 2010

"The Irish Troubles" & all other holy wars prove there is death & destruction in chronic competition to switch church benefactors from one faith to another. Let us talk about the MONEY connection between missionary work & bloody holy wars. If preaching were free, nobody would care which faith anyone had. But churches work hard to attract converts who will pay the huge lifetime ten per cent tithe, plus special fees & costs of church school. Clerics preach against "materialism" but possessions are as materialistic as anything can be. All churches admit they intend to make everybody in the world join their faith. That's what seminaries exist for..to condition clerics to go after the dollar value of every conception that lives to become a tither. An aborted conception has no dollar value to a cleric & that's why Ban-Abortion Pro-Life exists.. to force women to produce ongoing generations of believers to replace those who die or lose faith. Thanks for this topic, Mary Kate, so I as a freethinker can comment from my viewpoint. I regret all the misery caused by religious competition. Let's try free preaching for a while?

aura dawn veirs of CA 3:16PM June 29, 2010