It is truly obscene in a society where more than 70 per cent of the population has just voted to live in peaceful accommodation, that whole communities can be reduced to abject fear by the actions of a network of bully-gangs. Northern Ireland has endured five nights of fire-bombing, of barricaded roads, of intimidation. It now faces into a weekend in which these terrors may be unleashed on an even wider scale and with a greater intensity.
Against all the odds, no-one has been killed so far. But the nightly statistics released by the authorities are appalling. Innumerable fire-bomb attacks have taken place with hundreds of men, women and children threatened in their homes or driven from them by sectarian mobs. Streets, and in one case an entire village, have been sealed off by organised thugs. The men and women of the RUC have taken a terrible hammering, with scores of officers injured doing their duty, protecting life and limb, while their families, in many instances, have been terrorised in their homes.
Only a small number of people, relative to the total population, is engaged in violence. The crisis is fuelled by the connivance of influential individuals and by larger, organised groups which at best remain silent, which at worst sponsor a supposed justification for the savagery of the street-mobs and the arsonists. The Orange Order proclaims its high principles, eschewing violence and no doubt many of its members hold these positions sincerely. But their spokesmen's attempts to portray themselves as existing on a planet wholly removed from what is taking place, are an insult to the intelligence. The malignancy at the core of the violence is their insistence that they will march where the local population does not want them. The shooting, the bombing, the burning are in support of that supremacist stance, unconvincingly presented as a plea for freedom of assembly.
Rabid intolerance is not confined to one side. Hardly less shameful than the sight of families fleeing their burning homes was the spectacle of a jeering nationalist crowd clawing at Seamus Mallon on Tuesday with calls of `traitor' and `sellout'. It might have been hoped, with the security forces showing firm resolution to stop the march, that the Garvaghy Road residents might capitalise upon their moral victory, while giving some consideration to the innocent who would otherwise suffer throughout Northern Ireland, by announcing that a token march might be allowed to proceed.
At this writing, the political leaders have not succeeded in finding a way of defusing the crisis before the coming marches on Monday next. The incoming executive, as represented by Mr Trimble and Mr Mallon, is divided. Mr Blair appears to have got nowhere with the Orangemen at Downing Street, insisting as he must, that the parade ban will not be lifted. The Government in Dublin is, perhaps not unwisely, saying little. Sinn Fein, which might have been expected to exercise some influence along the Garvaghy Road is either unwilling or unable. It is difficult to accept, if the party's highest echelons wished the residents to manifest a degree of flexibility while achieving a significant moral victory, that they could not do so. The 70 per cent plus who have voted for accommodation in Northern Ireland is effectively neutralised by the uncompromising instincts of the minority.
The politicians are still seeking a solution. It must be hoped they will succeed, for there is only a little time before Northern Ireland may be facing a damburst of hatred on a scale unknown for perhaps 30 years. And if they fail, it is essential that the security forces hold the line and enforce the rule of law. There must be no yielding to fascism and thuggery.