Hillary comes as do the death threats

Today Northern Ireland is welcoming Hillary Clinton.

The first time she turned up death threats were a common occurrence to our elected representatives and other people who had got on the wrong side of the paramilitaries. Therefore it is with shame that all three levels of local representative today have announced that they have received death threats.

The Alliance MP for East Belfast Naomi Long spoke very calmly on The Nolan Show this morning. She was talking about those who had taken to the streets claiming that their rights were being chipped away at, but then came the telling statement:

"My right to life is also protected in law. But it is being played fast and loose with today"

 People claiming that they will fight for their rights while denying the right to live at home, or visit someone's own office is an attack on rights.

After Naomi the leader of the Sinn Féin group on Belfast City Council, Cllr Jim McVeigh, said that both he and North Belfast MLA Gerry Kelly has also received death threats.

The First Minister has this time reacted with alacrity in issuing a response:

"Such threats are an affront to democracy and an attack on us all. As someone who in the past has been visited many times by the police to be told of death threats issued against me, I know how difficult and testing a time this is.  My thoughts and prayers are very much with Naomi at this time and I would call upon all concerned not to allow themselves to be used by those who have very sinister motives.  Regardless of political difference, public representatives should not be attacked or threatened in anyway."

All death threats against the people's elected representatives are repugnant. They are an attack on our democracy as well as an attack on the people who voted for those representatives.

This morning the leader in The Belfast Telegraph appears on the front page under the headline "Today we all vote for the Alliance Party". Today we also stand for democracy, the rule of law and the right of our elected representatives to go about their business free of intimidation and threat. The ballot box and peaceful protest and discourse are where we should make out points.

We need to end the bullying on social media.

We need to end condemnations of the violence which end with a but. The but negates everything before it as it is given half heartedly.

It is time for a recall of Stormont. There has been a further escaltaion not a calming of the tension since yesterday. We the people of Northern Ireland cannot wait until Monday morning for our politicians to discuss this matter, there is a weekend in between and that is a bad time to leave things in limbo.

Hope Against Hope Against Violence

There are days that no matter which part of the UK you come from you hid your head in shame. For the English there are football and cricketing failures. For the Scots the general, annual malaise in most sports. But for the Northern Irish is usually comes some time in July as regular as clockwork.

Yesterday evening as the news started to break through of the annual trouble surrounding the marching I was wondering how bad can it get. Being somewhat closeted over in Scotland I went to bed hoping against hope once more that full scale civil unrest or war breaks out overnight.

You see in Northern Ireland shots being fired at the police and Molotov cocktails don't just exist in the world of Grand Theft Auto, oh no! They have long been an existence in reality for the youth growing up, even from the time before I could crawl.

On Saturday I blogged about 6 new style beacons that were lit on Sunday evening, beacons that were trying to recognise one part of the culture of the people and while not doing away with it bring it up to date for the modern age, bring it into harmony across the divides. But of course it is not the pyres that are lit at this time of year that are the most contentious issue it is the rights to march and the rights to not have sectarian triumphalism thrust down your throat if you don;t want it.

Of course there are signs of light on the marching issue, earlier in the week the First Minister Peter Robinson met with the residents' group leaders of the Garvaghy Road. Significant steps were made towards that 12 year stand off that often is the high or low light of the marching season. The nationalist residents said that the DUP leader was open minded and understood the residents' concerns.

Sinn Féin were also condemning the violence in the Ardoyne and Rasharkin yesterday, Gerry Kelly MLA saying:

'This evening’s actions expose very clearly the anti-peace process and sectarian agenda which feeds these factions. It has nothing whatever to do with Irish republicanism.'

'They [The Real IRA] chose to try and use the opportunity presented by this parade to further an agenda which has time and again been rejected by the republican community in Ardoyne and everywhere else.'

So looking at who is working together to forge a peace I am glad. The extreme edges of Northern Ireland society appear to be getting smaller. The majority wanting peace is getting bigger. However, that just makes the steps as Gerry said of an 'anti-peace process' all the more magnified as the people of Northern Ireland are striving for a greater normality than at any time in my lifetime.