Madam, - Graham Gudgin writes (Opinion & Analysis, September 19th): "The deeper reality is that sectarian violence from loyalists will continue for the same reasons as it has since the 1840s". How very true. But he wishes to reassure these people using "talks between Orange and loyalists, on the one hand and the Irish Government and the SDLP on the other. . .to persuade the unionists that [ nationalists] present no real threat to their British identity."
This is a bit like saying that, because you are scared of flying, all your friends, enemies and relations should gather round and promise never to drag you on board an aeroplane. Unless the fear itself is addressed, the fear will persist. Maybe some of the psychologists that are experts in this phobia should be drawn into the peace process. - Yours, etc,
PAT McCAVANA, Dargle Road, Blackrock, Co Dublin.
Madam, - One must hope that responsible people in Dublin as well as in Stormont Castle will give careful thought to Graham Gudgin's article. Unionists were not unanimously in favour of the Belfast Agreement but a majority was prepared to trust the mood then of peace and reconciliation and to hope that the rather unconvincing arrangements for devolved government and the Assembly could be made to work. Some of us, indeed, thought that continuing progress in practical understanding might draw in the recalcitrant DUP.
All this was predicated on a general acceptance of the Union until people voted otherwise, preferably in a newly developed affinity of hearts and minds, and on the ending of Sinn Féin's preference for violence as its primary method of obtaining political ends. Sinn Féin - and I am afraid that we make no real distinction between it and the IRA - has so far failed, or deliberately refused, to declare practically and effectively for a more peaceful future; so that even if complete IRA disarmament (do you remember when it was thought that calling it "decommissioning" would change everything?) is announced tomorrow, many people will neither believe nor care.
The SDLP, seeing its votes going to the harder-line nationalist majority, felt unable to offer any of the flexibility which would have been needed anyway if progress was to be made under the agreement.
Of course there may well be a different nationalist slant on these past years, but I should be happy at least to kill the notion that unhappy unionists are all Orangemen wanting to go where we are not wanted or bigots burning schools and churches. - Yours, etc,
R G SMARTT, Malone Road, Belfast 9.