TOM COOPER,
Sir, - The report by your Northern editor, Gerry Moriarty, on the campaign to create "Taig-free areas" in the North (The Irish Times, August 20th) is about more than painted kerbstones and pipe-bomb attacks on the Catholic community and their property, notably its churches and schools. What we are witnessing here is the collapse of a once powerful political monolith, as unionists are forced to treat their nationalist neighbours with equality of opportunity in the jobs market, a housing list based on need, not political affiliation, and a new political assembly based on inclusion rather than exclusion.
Of course, attempts to establish "Taig-free areas" are nothing new. From the Shankill Butchers in the 1970s to the murder of a Catholic newspaper journalist, Martin O'Hagan, last year, with atrocities such as Greysteel, Graham's bookies, the Quinn children in Ballymoney, etc. in between, Catholics of all ages and sexes were murdered without mercy by loyalist death squads, and in many cases, according to the leaked report by Sir John Stevens, the forces of law and order were involved in some of these murders with near impunity.
Legislation was introduced in Germany following the Holocaust to outlaw the anti-Jewish culture which remained after the second World War. Likewise, in the US similar legislation was introduced to outlaw discrimination against the black population there. Legislation outlawing the anti-Catholicism which is endemic in the North must be introduced immediately. If our communities value democracy and ordered society over anarchy and civil strife, then the cancer of sectarianism must be tackled and defeated for all our sakes.
The failure of mainstream unionism to confront the loyalist paramilitaries who are involved in creating these "Taig-free areas" is tantamount to complicity. It also renders them unfit for political office. - Yours, etc.,
TOM COOPER,
Templeogue,
Dublin 16.