There are times when one picture really does tell you more than a thousand words. For that reason I wish part of this space could be used to show you Ian Waldie's photograph of the Belfast baby who beamed out from the front page of one of the British newspapers last Sunday.
This was the kind of infant you see in commercials for Pampers - chubby pink cheeks, huge green eyes, sticking-out ears and a gurgling grin. You could almost smell the soap and Johnson's baby powder. Around his neck he wore a white bib. Printed on it was the Red Hand of Ulster and the words "Born to Walk the Garvaghy Road - No Surrender!"
What does the photograph tell us? First, it's a reminder of the black humour which has always characterised both sides in the North, the acrid wit of the graffiti sprayed on to walls in the Shankill and the Falls - but there's a bleak side to it. The parents of this infant presumably feel enraged at what they see as a campaign to stop the Orange Order from marching along its traditional routes, but do they really want a future for their gorgeous baby which means that in 15 or 20 years, he will be out fighting the old sectarian battles?
When I arrived in Derry last week, there was an almost palpable sense of dread about what might happen during the weekend ahead. The announcement, made late on Thursday night, that the Orange Order had decided to re-route a whole series of marches was greeted at first with complete disbelief. This was followed by huge euphoria, rather similar to what followed Tony Blair's election victory in Britain. Most people appreciated how difficult the decision must have been for the Orange Order and were grateful for it.
However, there was also a much less positive response, a grudging suspicion about the Orangemen's motives and resentment that nationalists might somehow find themselves wrong footed by it. Why did they do it? What did they expect to get out of it? What were they promised? All the same questions, probably, as unionists asked when the IRA called its ceasefire and the triumphal motorcades blared along the Falls.
The disaster which might have pushed Northern Ireland to the abyss last weekend did not take place and for that we must be grateful. We have been given a breathing space which could allow the politicians to recapture the initiative, but that is all. There had been hopes that the decision taken by the Orange Order might be matched by a similar generosity on the other side, that the build-up of sectarian tension might be put into reverse.
That didn't happen. With the exception of Newtownbutler, where a compromise was agreed between the local Orange Order and residents, there were protests in other nationalist areas which stopped a number of small marches.
In Derry, where the main parade had already been re-routed to Limavady, hundreds of nationalist youths gathered in the Diamond on Saturday evening in the hope of confronting local Orangemen returning to the Fountain, the small Protestant enclave which is all that is left to unionists in the Maiden City.
Few people in Derry expect there will be a compromise which will allow the Apprentice Boys to walk the walls next month. On the contrary, they fear there will be a repetition of the anger and recrimination of last year. Yet this is a city where nationalist leaders have paid lip service to the idea of partnership and inclusiveness and boasted that Derry could show its unionist minority the kind of generosity that would be the norm in a united Ireland.
One nationalist woman, ashamed of the gulf between the words and the reality, told me she hoped the Apprentice Boys would announce a decision not to march and give as their reason that it was patently clear its Protestant citizens were no longer welcome in Derry. "That would put it up to them as republicans," she said angrily, but such comments are rare in Derry these days, at least in public.
This tribal introspection, the lack of willingness in either community even to try and understand how a given situation must feel to the other, is very evident in Twelve Days in July, a one-hour documentary to be shown on Channel 4 on Mon day. The Derry film-maker Margo Harkin had access to the Portadown First District Orange Lodge and to the residents of the Garvaghy Road as both sides prepared themselves for Drumcree 3.
The fly-on-the-wall camera shows them at first open to rational discussion, talking reflectively about the significance of the Orange marches and what should be done. Then, as the crisis approaches, attitudes snap inexorably back into sectarian mistrust. It gives a fair dent to the notion that peace can be built from the grassroots up.
I am not in any way denigrating the work which is done by individuals and groups trying to build bridges across the divide. They help to keep the hope of a better future alive, but they cannot create the political structures necessary to enable both communities to work together for a lasting peace. That is a task for politicians.
At the moment, the British government is showing the kind of leadership required in its continuing efforts to bring about a new IRA ceasefire and Sinn Fein's admission to talks. Sinn Fein, for its part, should recognise that considerable risks have already been taken by Tony Blair and the pressures which the decommissioning argument have put on David Trimble.
A great deal is riding on David Trimble's courage and his political skills. The decision taken by the leadership of the Orange Order, in a situation of great difficulty, must help him.
He knows there have been great gains for the reputation of the order at home and abroad, and that there are very many people within the broader unionist community who hope the decision will encourage a greater political moderation and willingness to compromise.
However, the Ulster Unionist leader is also under pressure from disaffected members of the Orange Order and from the other unionist parties to reject any notions of compromise on decommissioning. It would greatly help now if Irish nationalism, from the Government of this State through to Sinn Fein, were to demonstrate a greater understanding of these problems. A new IRA ceasefire would be the most obvious and desirable way to move the situation forward.
We will know within the next few weeks what the prospects are for peace in Northern Ireland. If the IRA decides to allow Sinn Fein to enter negotiations, if David Trimble accepts that peace is better served by sitting down than by walking out, we will be into a quite new era.
Very big "ifs", but even if neither of these things happens, we have been reminded by Robert Saulters and his colleagues that there is a quality of leadership in Northern Ireland which offers real hope for the future.