i am utterly amazed at the complete lack of knowledge of northern ireland politics that is demonstarted on this board! You guys really need to get your facts straight!
i especially think the comments about the dup are completely out of order. they refuse to take part in a government with known terrorists that have not decomissioned their weapons. Would you like Osama bin Laden in your congress? because it is the same thing! the omagh bomb killed 29 people and two unborn babies, that was our september 11th, a huge number of people, never mind the other 2000 people killed by the ira over the past thirty years. now they have decided to go inot governemnt? the dup have made it clear that they will not go into governemnt untill there is clear evidence that their has been decommissioning, is that really too much to ask?
I would also like to welcome you to the board, britishstudent. Though immediately denegrating the collective knowledge of board members is not condusive to calm and rational discussion. I would also say that then going on to make factually incorrect inferences does not help build up your own credibility after such attacks.
The IRA have now decommissioned their weapons, this has been accepted by the British and Irish governments, moderate unionists, the independent monitoring commission, even loyalist paramilitaries. The DUP stands alone in its skepticism here.
It should also be noted that it was the Real IRA not the provisionals who carried out and accepted responsibility for the atrocity in Omagh. Nobody expects the DUP to sit in government with the Real IRA's political allies. Nobody places culpability for Omagh with the provisionals, including the DUP.
thanks for the welcome. i would agree with the points you have made, certainly things have chnaged in the last six months, but i am defending the dup's position over the past 8 years. The Good Friday agreement was a disaster, as people have come to realise, and their are certain aspects which are just unacceptable, and the unionist people have voted for the dup because of their opposition to the dup. Please note that they are not opposed to peace, but to an unfair agreement.
They can be classified as extreme, because they believe in a cause passionately, but hery are not violent!!
Paisley is represented in the media as a devil, he really isnt, he is a good working MP, who attends to the needs of all his constiuents, whether protestant, catholic or australian, and this is seen when a substantial number of catholics voted for him over the past 30 years. Paisley is not anti catholic, but anti catholism, what he believes to be the wrong teachings of the catholic church
The GFA resulted in peace which has brought stability to the North, to characterise it simply as a failure is simplistic and naive. Political issues now extend beyond mere tribalism, economic growth and recovery have occured raising their own issues. However clearly political progress has stalled. In the North progress has been made when it is an inclusive process, and stagnation and regression have resulted when people are excluded. The peoples representatives must find a way to work together, or no progress can be made. The mandate that both the DUP and SF have received cannot be ignored by either side.
I would grant that Paisley is a fine constituency MP, however I don't think that the media on these islands unfairly characterise him. His tendancy for extreme hyperbole, his loud and brash character, his comments on Catholicism, etc etc, inevitably lead to media focus. I do not believe the media paint an unfair picture of him, certainly no more than any other public figures.
