The North’s political and religious leaders need to tackle head on the problem of sectarianism if they are to deliver the new inclusive society promised by the Good Friday Agreement, Northern Ireland Secretary Dr John Reid said today.
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As efforts to end the 12-week Holy Cross protest in North Belfast, Dr Reid told the Institute of Irish Studies in Liverpool that sectarianism was a "virus at the heart of Northern Ireland" .
"Sectarianism taints every aspect of life it touches," he said. "It blights and corrupts the very young people who are the key to Northern Ireland's future.
"I am well aware of the heroic efforts made by many individuals and organisations in Northern Ireland to combat sectarianism.
"On the other hand I never cease to be amazed by the lack of concerted political leadership behind these efforts. There seems to be a collective paralysis stemming from fear and a lack of shared vision.
"The truth is that without this shared vision of a society free from sectarianism, there will never be progress."
Dr Reid said there was an onus on church leaders to move beyond the limits of their own religious doctrines and promote a society which everyone could feel a part of.
In an address reflecting on Catholic unease towards the state and growing Protestant alienation, he said the province needed unionist and nationalist leaders to address the other community's concerns.
Catholics, he said, were now playing a greater role in the upper echelons of Northern Ireland society and exuding greater confidence but were still haunted by the negative experiences of the past.
Protestant fears were being fuelled by a belief that Catholic advancement was being achieved at the expense of their traditions, culture and way of life.
In the three and a half years since the Belfast Agreement, Dr Reid claimed too many people remained "locked in a barren struggle, pursuing a future which is a mirror of the past in which exclusion seems to be the principal motivation".
As someone who was involved in the setting of up of devolved government in Scotland, Dr Reid said as a Scot he was "intensely proud" to be British.
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He said the key to winning the devolution debate was persuading Scots that they could feel comfortable within the British family.
"What was absolutely clear was that undue emphasis on the symbols of Britishness was at best unnecessary and at worst damaging to the ability of my fellow Scots to feel at home in the United Kingdom."
Northern Ireland needed more leaders to share publicly a vision of a new society, he said.
"Another way of saying all this would be to argue that the real work of the Belfast Agreement has barely begun," he said.
"The Agreement was more than a series of events, with checks and balances. It was, as (the poet) Seamus Heaney put it, a covenant between the people of these islands whereby deep-rooted differences could become shared attributes rather than battle cries. It was a charter for diversity.
"If the Belfast Agreement is to move forward, Northern Ireland needs to hear urgently from those with the energy and commitment to lift their people beyond the present horizon to a time and place where co-operation and compassion replace suspicion and strife.
"If we can achieve that, then full implementation of the Agreement will finally have been achieved."
PA