Despite the lurch backwards in Ardoyne, behind the rioting the North's politicians and officials are working to resolve problems. The critical task, writes Dan Keenan, is to stop people feeling threatened and defeated
There have been bigger, deadlier and more protracted riots than that which flared in Ardoyne on Wednesday, reports of which got nowhere near the front pages and prompted no dramatic coverage on Sky News. But this riot was different.
How it started is not the point. Whether or not two people had an argument over a memorial to a murdered man which rapidly descended into anarchy is hardly new. Spats become riots in other places, too.
Why this outbreak of violence should be deemed so important is because it happened in north Belfast. It is this area of the city, and indeed the North, which has suffered most since 1969. Its cheek-by-jowl network of nationalist and unionist communities endures - perhaps facilitates - latent sectarian tension. The deprivation in parts is as endemic as it is predictable. It co-exists alongside the comfortable affluence of the Antrim and Somerton Roads, home to judges and bishops.
In short, north Belfast is a political, social and economic morass.
For the North's power-sharing Executive, it symbolises the problem which must be addressed if "normal" politics is to be seen to be worth it. If north Belfast cannot be changed, then the new political system will be held to be deficient.
It is no accident that as Wednesday's street argument became, thanks to nuclear-reaction rapidity, an all-out pitched battle, Stormont's recently appointed Executive Liaison Officer was meeting the Concerned Residents of Upper Ardoyne. For behind the grim scenes, the devolved government has been working collectively to sort out north Belfast. According to a senior Stormont official, there is now an idea in place which had been missing for 20 years, namely a realistic assessment of the area's needs and an integrated cross-departmental plan to meet them.
At the top of the pyramid are Messrs Trimble and Durkan. They have taken to heart the symbolism of their joint office and what newly acquired political gravitas they have. They are seeking to convince the neglected and aggrieved of north Belfast that the corner has been turned. They strive to make the point that political action is the vehicle to the progress which three decades of sectarian violence wrecked.
Prompted to act by the 12-week confrontation between Ardoyne Catholics and Glenbryn Protestants on the road to Holy Cross girls' school, and that blast bomb last September which seemed to echo around the northern hemisphere, the First and Deputy First Ministers vowed to enable change.
To back up the fine words with action, work began at the second tier of government. Government departments have lined up to announce initiatives.
The DUP's Nigel Dodds, working hand in glove with the Housing Executive, has revealed expensive plans for housing improvement, new-build and industrial development.
Sinn Féin's Martin McGuinness has financed an education support programme which supplies schools with additional youth and community workers.
The Economic Development Minister, Sir Reg Empey, continues on the overseas marketing trail, trying to counter the revived rolling news network image of a city in seeming unending street conflict. Since November he's been to China, the US and Canada, and a further trip to New York is planned.
At street level, the North Belfast Community Action Project, chaired by a former Presbyterian moderator, the Rev John Dunlop, was established. There is also a Community Forum. However, it is here, at the base of the pyramid, that things are most dicey.
What all those who are working for change in Ardoyne cannot alter is the inescapable reality that some people hate each other. From the community activist to David Trimble and at all points in between, the depressing truth is that intolerance cannot be legislated out of existence.
The blast-bomber can destroy more quickly than Sir Reg Empey can build, and no amount of tourist board PR genius or cash can erase the scenes of Wednesday's violence or the untold damage it does to both reputation and prospects.
However, while hatred proves enduring and resilient to those who wish it away, the causes of that hatred can be and are being addressed. It is here that hope lies.
Inspiration often comes from unexpected quarters, and the US State Department under a Republican administration falls into that category. The director of policy planning at the State Department, signalling Washington's intention to help foster greater understanding of unionists and their perceived plight, went out of his way on Wednesday to criticise despondency and pessimism.
In a speech aimed at Ireland but delivered in New York, Richard Haass stated a certain truth in saying: "The reality is that there is no separating the future of one community from that of the other."
He echoed a feeling shared in parts of Whitehall that there is no good reason for so many in the North to believe the glass of peaceful politics is half-empty since so much has been achieved since Good Friday 1998.
Yet for many unionists that is precisely how they see it. Unable to tear themselves away from the zero-sum-game notion of politics, they see a growing, confident and successful nationalist community which is gaining politically and numerically and in a swaggering manner.
They contrast this with the losses they feel, the "concessions granted" and the inescapable fact that where once they dominated they now merely share. Unionist politics - once a monolith - has fragmented, and the loyalist paramilitaries feud among themselves.
Set against that background, striking out at parents and children going to school through "our area" conforms to some form of base logic. People can do anything when cornered.
So, the task ahead is not so much to stop people hating as it is to stop them feeling threatened and defeated. The DUP MP, Gregory Campbell, said on Tuesday: "The present system increases nationalist and republican confidence because it offers them progress . . . Unionists need convincing that an agreement is capable of addressing unionist concerns and grievances."
He is in tune (though surely not deliberately) with the Secretary of State. Dr John Reid stated in his "cold place for unionists" speech in November: "Unionists worry about what the future holds, whether they will be able to feel at home for much longer in the land that they love."
Whether this Secretary of State, this British government and this Northern Ireland Executive, working together with support and encouragement from the Bush administration, can address this key concern, remains to be seen.
As for north Belfast itself with its disparate band of Assembly members, duty falls on all of them - from Billy Hutchinson of the Progressive Unionist Party to Gerry Kelly of Sinn Féin - to find the answer.
• Dan Keenan is Northern News Editor of The Irish Times