Diversity! Tolerance! Pluralism! These are the qualities which define the Peace Process. Republican lies down with unionist, loyalist with nationalist, alliance with women's coalition, and display mutual respect, compassion and regard. Unless, that is, you are a Catholic living in a Catholic area, in which case you toe the Sinn Fein line, and keep your head below the Peace Process parapet. Or Else.
"Or Else" is probably exemplified by deeds in Carrickmore and Omagh; it probably could be echoed in any other area which is militarily dominated by Sinn FeinIRA. "Or Else" promises naked intimidation and neo-fascism; and because everybody in the political establishments of Belfast, Dublin and London is determined to keep the great republican family basking on the sundeck of the "SS Good Friday Agreement" - at least, until it has docked at the port of decommissioning and the weapons are brought up from the hold - elected leaders are not complaining.
Violation of law
They should do. It is not the way of human nature to recoil from submission. Thugs are not conciliated by concessions, nor invading Danes by Danegelt. What is happening in Carrickmore is simply unacceptable; it is a violation of law, and decency and tolerance: it is a blatant resort to coercion and threats and is in direct contravention of the Good Friday Agreement, in letter and spirit.
Last week, a meeting between six local citizens of the Carrickmore Police Forum, including the parish priest, Monsignor Denis Faul, and two public health workers, with three police officers, in a small room in the Silverbirch Hotel in Omagh - of all places - was broken up by a Sinn Fein-led crowd of three dozen or so people. Sinn Fein members had been notified that the meeting was going to take place, and it was not "political" - its subjects were drunken driving, public health and the welfare of old people. This did not prevent Sinn Fein members from wrecking what they said was a "secret" gathering; nor did it prevent them from making threatening remarks to the civilians present; nor did it prevent them from distributing abusive pamphlets about an RUC officer, Sgt Philip Marshall, a hero in the aftermath of the Omagh bombing.
Nobody demands that Sinn Fein like the RUC. Nobody insists that its representatives attend meetings with RUC officers. Nobody insists that Sinn Fein accepts the RUC as it is. But people have a right to have meetings with policemen, unmolested by mobs. They have the right to talk to whomsoever they want and hold whatever opinions they want and enjoy the diversity and tolerance enshrined in the peace accord - have they not? Or must nationalists march to the Sinn Fein drum and boycott the RUC at all times and in all quarters - Or Else?
RUC escort
But was Brid Rodgers of the SDLP not recently escorted by RUC men who protected her from missiles with their own bodies? Are Sinn Fein members of the Executive to condemn her for permitting such physical proximity with the hated enemy? Are Sinn Fein gauleiters to supervise with whom we have contact? Or conversely, since two of the threatened in Omagh were public health workers discussing public health issues with fellow public servants, what will Bairbre de Brun do in future to protect the employees of her department?
The perfect and most elegant feature of this case is that one of the participants whose meeting was disrupted was none other than Monsignor Denis Faul, whose criticisms of the RUC have been consistently physically brave and morally honest for some 30 years. He is a man of law who believes in law and its impartial rule; he truly is one of the heroes of the Troubles. Not merely was his discussion broken up and were his associates threatened and abused, his parochial hall was subsequently invaded by a Sinn Feinled crowd of several hundred calling for his removal.
Ard-comhairle decision
Why? Because he doesn't support Sinn Fein? Since when has the ordinary ministry of any Irish church been a political office? Since when was the right to administer the sacraments a matter to be decided by the ard-comhairle of Sinn Fein? Since when did the priests or ministers of Ireland have to seek the consent of the political wing of a terrorist army to do the job for which they believe they have already received a divine vocation?
It was bad enough when the Catholic Church imposed its will on secular Ireland, but there was at least then a gathering at the common table of the Ten Commandments. There is of course no such shared board or text when the tablets from Mount Sinai meet the IRA's Green Book: the two match when parallel lines cross, and no sooner. So how much worse is it if the word of God is preached only by those who have received the endorsement of the Army Council of the IRA?
One republican in Carrickmore recently demanded in a newspaper that a local parish priest should simply represent the local "consensus". No doubt letter-writers to the Salem Argus or the Nuremberg Gazette said something similar when demagogues were contriving consensus against witch or Jew. They were following a perfect precedent; for did not Pilate accept it was preferable to bow before the authority of consensus rule than to face the dreaded alternative: Or Else?