A friend once told me about a holiday he spent with a family in Moscow many years ago. As they enjoyed drinks one evening, one of the elderly family members raised his glass and offered in a melancholy tone the following salutation: “A toast to children, who suffer through the mistakes of their parents.”
Hopefully our mistakes will not get passed onto the next generation like a replicating virus that no vaccine or mask seems able to prevent or heal. The potential for violence lies dormant, waiting for a catalyst to reawaken it.
All it takes is some reckless rhetoric by someone - often by politicians who feel the need to use inflammatory language to ensure their voter base see them as getting one over on their opponents and consolidating their potential for re-election.
Impressionable young people could end up believing it’s okay to resort to another cycle of violence - a new breed of killers on all sides, ending up dead or spending their lives in a prison cell. There has to be a better way.
We tend to generally live in our ‘own’ areas here. It’s a generational trait. The Troubles consolidated that divided mentality.
Despite what happened to my family, I prefer to walk both sides of the inappropriately named ‘peace walls’ that define us.
The person who murdered my brother John 33 years ago - and effectively my broken-hearted mum and dad - was a member of the IRA. So he probably lived or perhaps still lives in a predominantly Catholic neighbourhood on one side of our now famous tourist trail walls
It is possible I may have passed him on the street during one of my casual strolls in his neighbourhood. I wonder did he go home and raise a glass and toast his victory in killing the ice cream man, my brother John, that night in 1988? Does he continue to raise a glass of triumph on every anniversary and toast what he did?
Or has he, in his own aging years, come to realise that it was utterly futile and wrong? That his violence achieved nothing but heartache for those left behind to pick up the pieces of their shattered lives. Does he reflect on his own life that in hindsight he could have spent achieving so much more had he not chosen or was encouraged to choose the path of violence? And for what?
Hopefully those with the power to influence our young people consider the toast that old Russian man uttered. I hope they choose their words carefully in the months ahead. The right words can help us heal. The wrong words can perpetuate the pandemic of hurt and pain.
I raise my own glass as a reminder – “A toast to children, who shouldn’t have to suffer for our mistakes.”
GEORGE LARMOUR
(Author of ‘They Killed the Ice Cream Man), Belfast
Narrow view of human rights
It seems that Fr Patrick McCafferty – ‘Contributor shows a distinct lack of knowledge of the Catholic faith’ (July 16) – conflates faith and institutions, a classic Christian position. His response to my letter (July 6) is wrong on a number of counts. One, that Joe Biden promotes abortion. This is untrue. Two, that my use of the term “a woman’s right to choose” was a euphemism for some pro-abortion position. This is also wrong. This is because using this term is not, as he calls it, a strident promotion of abortion – it simply means that a woman should have the right to choose whether to terminate a pregnancy. I am aware of the Catholic Church’s position on abortion, Donum Vitae (The Gift of Life), but let me ask Fr McCafferty: how does he reconcile his absolutist position on abortion with his humanity, in respect of gang rape, sex trafficking, sexual exploitation of young girls and rape being used as a weapon of war, as in the former Yugoslavia? He goes on to say that people who promote abortion, procure and commit it, should repent. Does it then follow that those who stood by should also repent for the death of Savita Halappanavar, who lost her life in 2012 because she was told that she could not have an abortion as Ireland was a Catholic country? Should anyone really deny “a woman’s right to choose”? It also seems that Fr McCafferty’s definition of human rights is only seen through his narrow institutionalised religious prism.
Yes, I did describe the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, who indirectly threatened to withhold Holy Communion from President Biden, as old, largely white, celibate and entitled; this is simply accurate and factual. Or have I missed something?
Men and institutions have a role to play around the issue of abortion - that is to provide comfort, support and show some empathy for what is a monumental, torturous and possibly a life-changing decision. Finally, Fr McCafferty’s Church classifies women who have had an abortion as sinners, whatever the reason. To me this shows a lack of empathy, humanity and a complete lack of understanding of circumstances in which this decision is made. I suppose for a patriarchy that should come as no surprise.
SUNEIL SHARMA
Belfast BT8
God confers rights, not man
When people from Northern Ireland work in England, Scotland and Wales, we get racist abuse as being Irish b*******. When we get home we only ever are allowed to consider ourselves NI British.
The British people do not want us to claim equality with them and yet they use us to get a purchase in our country. For years we were not allowed to vote as the rest of the UK for either left or right, Tory or Labour.
We never got to say whether monarchists or republicans ruled. No-one ever asked us whether we wanted to have right-wing, British Tories in charge of our laws.
We notice that when we voted not to be British citizens and remain in the EU, the British Tory government and the EU and the loyalists of Northern Ireland conspired to neglect to obey what the majority of people wanted. Therefore, electoral defraud is in place and is allowed to go uncalled.
We in Northern Ireland will be expected to vote in a future border poll according to the Good Friday Agreement.
We have already spoken and been defrauded. A difference of category exists in this issue and it is as different as chalk from cheese, to call an artificial political veto a ‘right’.
God confers rights, not man.
GABRIELLE STEWART
Omagh,, Co Tyrone
Who is in charge of law and order?
It is amazing that Belfast City Council were advised by the police not to remove a pyre in Silverstream Crescent due to LVF and criminal elements apparently in the vicinity of this bonfire. Just what does this mean?
It comes down to this – who is supposed to be in charge of law and order within these six counties? The ongoing problem here is that this contentious situation occurs every Twelfth and will never be resolved while we have politicians at Stormont condoning such loutish behaviour. Legislation should be introduced that restricts the erection of all bonfires at no more that 12 feet high and 14 feet in circumference. This will remove any future need for councils or property owners having to consult with the police, and they will have a specific directive to follow. This should solve this ongoing problem, once and for all.
EDWARD MURPHY
Ballycastle, Co Antrim
