The Other View

Issue No.2 Autumn 2000

Dear Editor

I welcome this joint production of the 'Other View' and the wide range of subjects covered in the first edition. I see this as a positive contribution to widening the general political debate within a particular constituency, which will be of benefit to all. Such a magazine provides a forum for encountering difference through dialogue and allows co-operation, friendship and understanding to develop without sacrifice of principle, where before there was only enmity and hatred.

It advances the possibility of seeking to change society by non-violent means. For the former paramilitaries and ex-prisoners this means a personal transformation of outlook and a commitment to political activity. This must also include an end to punishment beatings and other unacceptable anti-social activities.

One of the tragedies of the past thirty wasted years is that it has been the working class foot soldiers from each community who have fought each other with relentless bitterness, in response to the propaganda of some politicians on both sides. Instead of endlessly raking over the past and continuing to attribute blame (to others of course, never to ourselves) it is more useful to pose the question "where do we go from here, in a way that will be inclusive of all sections of the community, including the former paramilitaries?"

The present experiment in consensus government under the Belfast Agreement, despite its weaknesses, will allow the politics of accommodation to develop and build a new self-confidence in the community. The challenge to Sinn Fein, the PUP or the UDP is to build a non-sectarian radical labour movement to replace the empty confrontational politics of unionist versus nationalist. All of us need the opportunity to break out our prejudices. I hope the 'Other View' will continue to assist that process.

Tommy McKearney damns ecumenism and other 'contact events' with faint praise and says that such activities have had little effect. As someone who has been doing ecumenism since 1966, it is my view that the situation on the ground would have been much worse without such necessary activities, which have contributed positively to breaking down the barriers of suspicion, fear, etc and helped to promote mutual understanding and the healing process. Is not your magazine itself a kind of secular ecumenism?

Mervyn Kingston

Rev. Mervyn Kingston is Rector of Creggan
(Crossmaglen) County Armagh and Ballymascanlan and Rathcor, County Louth.

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