THE dramatic impact of disputes about parades, this summer and last, indicates that for the people of Northern Ireland these are deeply significant matters.
There are two contesting rights: one, the right to walk without hindrance in your own country, to demonstrate publicly and proudly your birthright and heritage and two, the right to live peacefully in your own home without being invaded each year by an unsympathetic and aggressive neighbour.
For those directly involved these are important enough, but their real significance lies in the evidence they provide of the continuing sense of insecurity and fear felt by both sides. In normal times, unionists and nationalists know there can be no ultimate winner in this contest, and so the unease can be sublimated. But at moments of crisis and emotional provocation the fear becomes stronger than the understanding.
The sequence of events, meetings, statements and exhortations leading up to the parades in Derry on Saturday presents a perfect example of the effects of these unresolved fears on both communities, and their consequent inability to unravel confusion.
Normally thoughtful and balanced people are unable to deal calmly with their sense of being unfairly treated (there are of course exceptions). If the other side appears to gain an advantage (Orangemen get down Garvaghy Road, or the Apprentice Boys are banned from the walls) all sense of accommodation and generosity instantly disappears.
Unionists spokesmen, some normally reflective, spoke on television on Wednesday evening with visceral passion of betrayal and outrage, and of the adamantine need to resist, even though by now we know the terrible consequences of such resistance.
No one spoke of give and take maybe yesterday or tomorrow, but not now. After Garvaghy many respected nationalists spoke in a similar way.
Few seemed prepared to test the transformative power of Seamus Heaney's brave admonition. "You must walk on air against your better judgement."
It may seem self evident to say there are two sides in Northern Ireland, both with grievances and rights, memories and fears. It is this enduring duality that must be acknowledged and respected in every situation if there is to be any possible way forward.
The great achievement for each individual, therefore, especially when emotions are high, is to keep a firm grip on this central truth. Clearly the force of events like Drumcree, or the bombing at Canary Wharf, moves people back into their emotional bolt holes, and produces unbalanced, one dimensional understandings.
Suddenly, voices are raised, people are angry, only one set of grievances is visible and there is a rush to the soft option of tribal adherence. Such responses are, of course, understandable but invariably counter productive.
Even if it were possible and I do not believe it is to produce a cold factual analysis which demonstrates that all evil is on one side and all virtue on the other, such a project would achieve very little. Any way forward must act on the assumption that there is right on both sides, and that, in some magical way, this circle must be squared.
The conflict continues because a great many people on both sides are not content with existing arrangements. For this reason it is wrong and somehow self indulgent to place too much emphasis on the IBA, the UVF, British intransigence or Dublin interference.
In particular, paramilitary groups and their violence are symptoms of the wider underlying discontent, and are, at different times, proxies for all the rest of the anxious and bewildered people.
The perpetrators of violence can only exist with the consent of the people, and for much of the time both peoples are alienated each in their own way.
The existence of Catholic alienation and its causes are well known and accepted, and they have rightly played an important role in much political and social and economic development. But there is also a mirror image Protestant alienation of a profound and depressive kind, and the search for balance and accommodation must accept the reality and validity of this.
In the winter of 1993, a small pilot study of Protestant alienation was carried out at the Centre lord the Study of Conflict, and provides evidence that there exists among Protestants in Northern Ireland a genuine and widespread feeling of and uncertainty.
At its heart this alienation reflects a perception that the social and constitutional bulwarks for Protestants are being steadily and persistently eroded, and many experience a sense of loss, hurt and depression.
One said. "Protestants are suspicious of change, frightened of the unknown. They constantly test the small print, looking for the hidden agenda. They do not appreciate that all change brings with it a cost."
There is a sense that in some way a "contract" between Britain and the Ulster Protestants has been unilaterally broken. This notion of a contract has profound resonance because of its links to religious models of "covenant" which subconsciously influence the language and ideology of many Northern Ireland Protestants a language and ideology with its roots in 16th and 17th century reformation theology.
It is important to emphasise that although perceptions need not be accurate, it is none the less clear that Protestant alienation is profoundly dysfunctional, a barrier to confidence and clear thinking and one explanation for apparent intransigence.
For example, it will perhaps surprise some to know that many Protestants believe their communities are disadvantaged in respect of government investment, grants and projects, that they are poorly served in terms of local leadership and that they are not skilled interfacing with government in respect of promoting local investment and resource provision.
Such feelings and perceptions must be understood, especially when things are at their worst. It is a simple and easy response to demonise either side and to simplify what is always a complex mixture of emotions and fears. The hope is that issues like parades can in the future be approached with an acknowledgment that both sides are right and that each must therefore give something more up.