WELL, here we are now in June of another year. The marching and bonfire seasons are upon us once more, with absolutely nothing done to help heal our divisions, but plenty done to aid progression of it.
Last week, much was said online and in our media about Sinn Féin's John Finucane attending a commemoration of IRA volunteers. The week before, UDA flags went up outside a shopping centre and the PSNI training centre in Belfast.
In the weeks to come, people will mark 'their territory' with flags, band parades and bonfires will be celebrated or condemned depending on what 'side' you're on, tensions will rise with the temperature and social media discourse will descend into sectarian mud-slinging matches.
There will be news stories about band parades dedicated to paramilitary killers, sectarian songs sung and the awful displays of hate that will bedeck our bonfires will cause the usual outrage.
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But nothing will change. It's the way it is, it is the way it always has been, it is the way it will always be.
Last year, the year before and every year before that there was a lot of hurt caused due to signs, slogans and symbols placed on bonfires, on both the republican and loyalist sides. Has there been anything done to address it? No. So it will be the same this year.
People will continue to idolise murderers, on all sides, because nothing is done to address that. People will continue to hurt the other community with hatred because nothing is ever done to address that.
So we keep calm and carry on. That's our motto. It's always been this way, we've always done this. Why change now? How can it be wrong when so many support it? When generations of our communities have done it? What about 'themmuns'? They do it. If they do it, we're going to do it too and you're not allowed to challenge it.
We normalise hate and hurt and pass it down to the next generation, so they can pass it down to the next one. That's what we're great at. We have become totally immune to any sense that our actions could possibly hurt other human beings. We stand firm because we believe we are right in our actions, and refuse to even entertain the notion that they could cause harm.
Perhaps it's because I understand something of trauma, I know on some level what this salt-in-the-wound, raw, gnawing feeling of having your face rubbed in your pain feels like. Thankfully I didn't lose anyone I loved in the Troubles, so a victim's family's pain would of course be so much greater, but I was involved in an incident where I witnessed a young woman losing her life, where the gunman who fired the shots could have taken any of our lives; could have taken me from my children.
When I watch rallies in support of this group, and see people coming on to the streets and clapping, cheering and celebrating those who did that, I genuinely feel physically sick. The sight of it and every person standing there clapping batters my mental health, bruises my soul and crushes my spirit. It takes me a while to feel normal again.
That's me somewhat removed from a traumatic event. I can only imagine the sheer depth of pain and turmoil celebrations, commemorations, marches, bonfire 'humour' and rallies cause to those who had to bury a loved one and feel their loss every single day. Every year, the build-up to the event would be an ordeal to endure, never being able to move on.
I would hate it if my actions did that to another human being. But yet some relish in causing that pain. I'll never understand it, or how it is allowed to fester.
When people come here to visit, they brand us the most friendly people in the world. And we are. But some of us could well be doing with exercising our empathy muscles every now and then, putting ourselves in the places of others, thinking about how our actions impact on those around us, and teaching our children the same so that we can still hold on to hope that the next generation can salvage something of this place.
