World View: The dismantling of British army watchtowers in south Armagh is a poignant symbol that one of Europe's most intractable conflicts may finally be coming to an end, writes Jamie Smyth.
The Troubles cost about 3,600 lives and divided Northern Ireland's people along sectarian lines. For more than 30 years a very small minority from the biggest two communities, who happen to share very similar ethnic and cultural values, battled for control of working-class areas and the political agenda in Northern Ireland.
The conflict, much of which was caught on camera and broadcast around the world, was often portrayed in the media as Catholic versus Protestant.
Religion was pushed centre-stage in the drama unfolding on our television screens as, for the sake of simplicity, broadcasters and news media focused on the most vocal actors who dominated a handful of sectarian flashpoints in Belfast, Derry or Portadown.
Ironically, the removal of army watchtowers and barbed wire in Northern Ireland comes at a time when Britain is implementing one of the biggest security operations in its history to counter a new and potentially more deadly terrorist threat.
The new enemy, which has been widely dubbed in the media as "Islamic terrorism", brings the terrifying threat of suicide bombings to Britain and Europe for the first time in its history.
Clearly, it presents a major challenge to society and government. It also presents a challenge for the media, which will play a critical role in reflecting, analysing and ultimately shaping people's views on this new terrorism.
"Islamist", "Islamic fundamentalism", "Islamic terrorism" and "Muslim fanatics" are now the common currency of journalists.
The explicit link between Islam and terrorism is not surprising given the personal beliefs that the suicide bomber holds. Indeed, it has the sanction of the US government's 9/11 national commission on the terrorist attacks on the US, which labelled it not just as "terrorism," a generic evil, but a threat posed by "Islamist terrorism". But is it right to link directly religion with terrorism in this manner?
The danger of these labels is that they stick and cause people to jump to ill-founded conclusions. For example, several newspapers falsely labelled an Irish-born victim of an IRA bomb in London in 1996 during the Troubles as a bomber. It took two days for the man, who suffered head, leg and shoulder injuries, to be declared an innocent victim.
The implication was that if you were Irish in London and got caught up in an explosion, you were probably a bomber.
This stereotyping of faiths and ethnic groups by the media was a key theme of a recent conference organised by the Asia-Europe Foundation following the terrorist attacks in London.
A critical issue raised at the conference was how to report accurately and sensitively at a time of huge public anxiety surrounding the bombings.
For example, in Indonesia, a country where media coverage of religious groups or events has sparked rioting, the media must grapple with how they should report attacks on religious communities.
The public has a right to know that these attacks are taking place, yet publicising them can exacerbate the situation.
Until recently the media in the Netherlands tended to shy away from reporting the crimes of immigrant street gangs for fear of being labelled racist.
Political correctness determined that these crimes were reported without any reference to the gangs that perpetrated them, according to one Dutch conference speaker.
These international examples illustrate the difficulty of reporting on interfaith and ethnic issues in a balanced and responsible manner.
If a lesson can be drawn from them, it is that the media have a duty to report all issues that face society. However, they must do so in a manner that does not stereotype particular faiths or communities.
In Britain, where religious hate crimes - most directed against Muslims - jumped sixfold in the three weeks following the attacks on July 7th, there is a need for responsible journalism that focuses on the wider Islamic community.
But as coverage of the Northern Ireland conflict proved over the years, the media have increasingly become characterised by snappy soundbites rather than rigorous analysis.
In this environment an inflammatory speech by Ian Paisley or Gerry Adams makes much better "copy" than a call for a period of "calm and reflection" by local churchmen, moderate politicians or representatives of the business community.
For years issues such as health and education in Northern Ireland hardly mattered. A scuffle on the Shankill or Falls, often stage-managed by the local paramilitaries, made better TV footage than bed shortages or 11-plus exams.
As a cub reporter at the annual "media fest" in Drumcree, I witnessed first hand the propaganda machines of the republicans and the DUP crank into gear to dominate the news agenda. Traversing both sides of the razorwire to get "the real story" didn't need much journalistic ingenuity, much to my surprise.
The year I attended, the Orange Order laid on bacon and eggs for the press in the morning while Sinn Féin provided tea and biscuits in the afternoon. Both sides pushed forward their victims to the waiting press pack with heartbreaking tales of ethnic cleansing, pipe bombs, bereavements and murder.
Living on such a regular diet of sectarian atrocities beamed into the living room, is it any wonder that people now live more segregated lives than ever in Northern Ireland?
Or that the more moderate political parties, such as the Alliance Party, Ulster Unionist Party and SDLP, have haemorrhaged support among voters?
This is the danger now facing the media in its response to the terrorist attacks in July.
Labelling particular areas in Luton as "al-Qaeda Street", as the Daily Mail did in headlines in the aftermath of the London bombing, or directing huge media focus on a handful of fanatics will only create a distorted image of Islam.
This will only serve to isolate the Muslim community and has the potential to lead to the same sectarian divisions that are seen in Northern Ireland today.