Sir, - Dr. Philip McGarry takes me to task in very strident terms (letters, November 18th). He was responding to an article in The Irish Times in which a couple of sentences from a long interview I did in Reality magazine, on the subject of sectarianism, were quoted out of context.
I am surprised that someone of Dr McGarry's experience would launch an attack in such intemperate language without first reading the original source text. Had he done so, he would have discovered that I do not oppose integrated education. Quite the reverse, I support educational pluralism and parental choice and so frilly support those parents who choose integrated education and those who choose denominational education.
I do not, however, subscribe to the view, supported evidently by Dr. McGarry, that the forced, mandatory integration of all our schools, against the wishes of parents, is the answer to the poison of sectarianism in Northern Ireland. In a community where over 90 per cent of the population lives in denominationally segregated areas and where the cancer of sectarian conflict is a daily lived experience, the logistics of Dr. McGarry's forced integration scenario are accurately, I think, described as "quite dangerous" - the words I used in the interview.
Dr. McGarry deduces from a dozen words of mine, badly misconstrued, that the logical extension of my argument is that we should have two universities in Northern Ireland, one for Protestants and one for Catholics. The argument is so utterly daft it does not merit a response. However the logical extension of his own argument about forced integration as the answer to the "educational apartheid" in Northern Ireland is that he would not only forcibly integrate the schools, but also forcibly integrate housing. It doesn't take a genius to work out that this, too, could be described in a fairly understated way as "quite dangerous!"
A worse feature of Dr. McGarry's letter is his assertion that those who choose denominational education are not "genuinely committed to achieving a peaceful and shared society". This studied insult to those who have worked tirelessly within the denominational system to enhance mutual understanding is without a shred of merit.
Dr. McGarry claims to want "a school open to all comers including black, white, yellow, Catholic, Protestant, Jew, Hindu . ..". That description already fits many schools in the denominational as well as the integrated school sector. What he actually wants is a compulsory secular school system for all children. The real question is: what if the Jewish parent prefers a Jewish school, or the Muslim parent a Muslim school? How come Dr. McGarry believes he has the superior right to make choices for their children?
I look forward to a consensus based Northern Ireland where differences are respected, tolerated and maybe even celebrated, and where the existence of a spectrum of schools with differing ethos is a badge of genuine cultural pluralism. - Yours, etc.,
(Professor),
Bridge Street,
Rostrevor,
Co. Down.