Talk to walk
THE Apprentice Boys of Derry this week rejected face-to-face talks with the Bogside Residents' Group to try and reach a compromise over next week's contentious Relief of Derry parade along the city's walls.
Barring an uncharacteristic outbreak of tolerance and compromise by the loyalists at a meeting chaired by Derry City traders as An Phoblacht goes to print on Wednesday night, the Apprentice Boys' intransigence sets the stage for a stand-off if not outright conflict.
Last weekend, Portadown Orange Order spokesperson David Jones warned that, if the Orangemen don't get their way on the Garvaghy Road, then violence will break out.
Patience among Orange Order supporters is ``wearing thin'', Jones said.
Ratcheting up the fear factor just ahead of Tony Blair's troubleshooter, Jonathan Powell, flying in to meet Orange chiefs on Wednesday, Jones said:
``There will come a point where some people will say to us that all legitimate means of protest have been exhausted to no avail.''
You cannot be a member of the Orange Order if you are a Catholic. Even if you are a `good Protestant' but you're married to a Catholic, the Orange Order will keep you out. You're tainted. The Apprentice Boys and the Royal Black Preceptory are no less intolerant.
The inescapable conclusion is that the loyal orders are anti-Catholic; they are sectarian.
Crown forces curfews and saturation of nationalist areas for loyal order marches are oppressive. The taunts and physical violence visited upon nationalists by loyalist marchers and bands is yet another cogent argument for nationalists to oppose loyalist triumphalism on their doorsteps.
If the loyal orders honestly want to resolve the issue of contentious parades then the loyal orders will have to meet representative residents' groups face to face for direct talks. This nonsense of `proximity talks' through third parties scurrying to and fro between delegations holed up in different parts of the same building is not only a childish ploy, it is unproductive.
The sooner they sit down with residents the sooner, the sooner a resolution can be reached.
Stop stonewalling - start talking.
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