Since September 11th, events in Northern Ireland have faded out of view. Although the television crews have left the streets of north Belfast, the hatred seethes on, the riots remain and little girls are still mocked on their way to school. From the smouldering ruins of lower Manhattan, the belligerence must seem utterly contemptible. From our new perspective such violence and terrorism is harder than ever to endure.
For an international audience the situation had already appeared pathetic. For American audiences especially the shameful episode at Holy Cross Girls' School, 2001 must have seemed eerily similar to that at Central High School, Little Rock, Arkansas, 1957. There, following the ground-breaking decision of the US Supreme Court that racial segregation had no place in the fields of public education, nine African-American students faced the Arkansas National Guard and the violent threats of white protesters as they attempted to enter the school.
The comparison was so evident, no matter what spin extreme unionism could ever attempt, the association was made - the Catholics are like the blacks, the Protestants are like the whites. A similar connection was made between the IRA and the Colombian FARC following the capture of alleged militant-Republicans with Sinn FΘin links in the Colombian jungle. The alleged export of South Armagh barrack-buster technology to narcotic-trading FARC will have made armchair-republicans everywhere think twice about the real glory of the so-called revolution. The attack on the US will have deepened all of these reservations. In the aftermath of the recent atrocity, the eager resort to violence which characterises Northern Ireland must seem repugnant in the extreme.
For many Irish-Americans the emphasis has been placed so firmly upon Pearse's "dead generations" that the human cost of conflict to the living Irish has been forgotten. The reality of terrorism is that civilians die, brutally. The attack on the Twin Towers will hopefully have put an end to the sanitised armchair-republican vision of terrorist warfare, based upon schoolboy tales of Auxis, Tans and Crosley tenders. Many will be asking whether those who bombed Enniskillen, Omagh, Dublin and Monaghan are really so different from those who destroyed the Twin Towers.
In an effort to pre-empt the answer, Sinn FΘin rushed, with untypical speed, to condemn the attacks on the US and to offer their condolences to the bereaved and the injured.
Will they extend the same condemnation to all acts of terrorism in Ireland? Will they extend their condolences to the families of our garda∅ and Defence Forces killed by the IRA? Will they disavow the use of armed force for their ends and call on other groups such as ETA and FARC to do likewise? Will they finally disarm? Like their fellow ultra-nationalists in the UVF and the other loyalist groups the attack on New York raises many serious questions. For the majority of Irishmen and Irishwomen the only credible answer now is decommissioning.
In the face of growing sectarian violence it is surely time for some leadership from these groups; to decommission, to lead their followers into the process once and for all, to deal with the many injustices their communities experience through the medium of non-violence alone.
Many of the underlying causes of sectarian conflict still have to be dealt with: British military installations, especially in south Armagh, remain repressive; Protestant families in north Belfast remain concerned that they are being forced out of their traditional neighbourhoods; the policing and decommissioning issues remain unsolved.
In the months and years ahead as the attempts to build peace continue, the loss of John Hume will be severely felt by all. In the early 1990s it was John Hume's practical conviction that peace could be achieved, when everyone else seemed so jaded after 20 years of conflict, which started the peace process. It was he who was the very fulcrum of the process, the one who took the risks, who put aside the sacred cows, who spoke to Sinn FΘin and engaged the entire political spectrum in the negotiations. As taoisigh and prime ministers came and went, John Hume remained at the centre - never yielding, always patient. Hume-speak, the mantra of peace, is at the very core of the Belfast Agreement, including respect for diversity and the primacy of non-violence.
On the international stage now, as the world prepares for conflict in Afghanistan, statesmen in the mould of John Hume - whose sobering influence on the war-mongers and commitment to negotiate with respect with all parties - have never been so much in need.
More about John Hume and his loyal and brave lieutenant, SΘamus Mallon, on another occasion.
dandrews@irish-times.ie