Courageous invitation a challenge to Paisley

national | rights, freedoms and repression | other press Tuesday May 16, 2006 19:01 by Susan McKay

Susan McKay Irish News May 16 2006 www.irishnews.com

This story is referred to at:
http://www.indymedia.ie/article/76019

Michael McIlveen was just 15 when he was beaten to death by loyalists in Ballymena 10 days ago. His mother, Gina, has invited her MP, the Reverend Ian Paisley, to her son's funeral. This is a gesture which is as breathtakingly generous as Gordon Wilson's when he forgave the IRA after it murdered his daughter Marie in 1987. Gina McIlveen has asked the elected leader of the majority of the Protestant people to be by her side as she buries her son, murdered by Protestants because he was a Catholic. The invitation is courageous. It also contains a challenge. She is asking the DUP to show respect.

Cartoon with McKay story Irish News May 16 2006

Paisley offered sympathy to the family and condemned the murder but he also made excuses for it. The UDA recently claimed that republicans had broken a deal under which the UDA mural overlooking the Catholic church in Harryville and other sectarian emblems would be removed in exchange for the removal of tricolours from nationalist estates. Speaking after Michael's murder, Paisley said: "There's problems in Ballymena when people don't keep their word." Last summer, Ian Paisley jnr predicted trouble if a republican parade was allowed in the town. Loyalists were intimidating and burning Catholics out of local villages at the time and this campaign escalated.

There is a shocking level of sectarian violence in Ballymena and the UDA is behind much of it, enlisting teenagers into its Ulster Young Militants, filling their heads with hatred and sending them out to fight. The UDA's quasi-political spokesmen condemned Michael's murder and called on the SDLP and Sinn Fein to combat an "evil, evil campaign" in the nationalist community. This is presumably a reference to the existence of a small number of Real IRA supporters in Ballymena. Paisley is once again endorsing the loyalist paramilitary analysis - loyalist violence is defensive, a reaction to provocation.

Michael was three when the IRA called its ceasefire. Months later, the loyalist paramilitaries followed, expressing remorse the murders of innocents. He was seven when the Good Friday Agreement was signed. Now he is dead, his brief life ended by atavistic sectarian bigots. His community has endured the agony of waiting for his body to be released for his funeral. Gina McIlveen and her family are dealing with their own shattering grief while helping Michael's young friends, who knew him as Mickybo, to express their heartbreak at vigils and prayer meetings. They have thanked Protestant friends for their solidarity. Michael's 16-year-old sister Jodie has helped the PSNI distribute leaflets asking for those with information to give it to the police. The family has been thrust into a role of leadership and has taken on that responsibility.

Meanwhile, Paisley's party marched into Stormont yesterday only to reiterate its refusal to share power with those democratically elected to represent the community to which Michael belonged. North Antrim is Paisley's heartland - and in its capital, Ballymena, his party ruthlessly dominates the council, holding all positions of power and refusing to share them with nationalists. A tentative 'good relations' policy launched by the mayor after the sectarian violence last year foundered when some DUP councillors opposed it.

Sinn Fein's Martin McGuinness was right when he said that this refusal to share power "is at one end of the scale which ends up with a young Catholic lying dead on the street". The SDLP's Sean Farren was right to criticise the secretary of state for his ludicrous praise for Paisley's courage. "For 40 years he has deliberately set out to sabotage any attempt at political progress and any inclination in unionism towards reconciliation," Mr Farren said, adding that courage from Paisley is precisely what is now needed. Unionism needs to take responsibility for loyalism and to tell the paramilitaries, "The war is over." Paisley must lead his people to peace.

The principal of Michael's school, Catherine Magee, said last week that her biggest challenge was to give his schoolfriends a sense of purpose and belief in the future. She said that a lot of them were asking, "what does anything matter now that Michael is gone?" The north's politicians need to answer these young people.

Most of the victims of the Troubles came from working-class areas like the one where Michael lived - those areas are still blighted.

They need immediate investment, with long-term support structures for youth work and community development.

Mickybo's generation is paying a high price for a conflict in which they played no part. Paisley needs to have the humility to listen to Gina McIlveen.

Irish Times piece by Mckay
http://www.indymedia.ie/article/76018
Indymedia discussionon this topic
http://www.indymedia.ie/article/76019