In spite of Real IRA efforts, this is proving to be one of the most 'bread and butter' elections in modern Ulster history
The Real IRA's threat, made at an Easter Rising commemoration in Derry on Monday, to carry out further "executions" of police officers after the murder of Constable Ronan Kerr in Omagh this month may lead the unwary to think that nothing has really changed in Northern Ireland. That is, of course, what those who are addicted to republican violence want people to think. But the death this week of William Craig is a reminder of what a false claim it is.
No one who read Mr Craig's obituary can be in much doubt that he was a politician from a departed and unlamented epoch. It was he, as Stormont home affairs minister, whose sectarian ban of a civil rights march in Derry in 1968 triggered some of the earliest significant violence of the renewed Troubles. Four years later, having helped to drive two unionist leaders from power for being too ready to compromise with nationalists, Mr Craig and his Ulster Vanguard brought the politics of neo-nazism, though spiced with a touch of PG Wodehouse's Roderick Spode, back to Ireland, with Mr Craig inspecting lines of thousands of masked supporters and vowing to "liquidate the enemy".
Next Thursday, Northern Ireland voters are set to do something Mr Craig spent his career determined to prevent. This is the fourth Northern Ireland power-sharing assembly election, and the first to take place following a full term of devolved government. It seems likely to produce another term of once-improbable joint loyalist DUP and republican Sinn F�in government, with the two parties again consolidating their electoral holds on their respective communities. If the DUP's Peter Robinson becomes first minister again, as seems probable, the passing of the Craig era will be underscored. It was a young Mr Robinson who ended Mr Craig's career as a Westminster MP back in 1979.
In spite of Real IRA efforts, this is proving to be one of the most "bread and butter" elections in modern Ulster history. Many say it is simply boring ? a compliment of sorts. The border now rates only a single line in the DUP manifesto, yet the community divide still defines Northern Irish politics. Next week's election is, as usual, two parallel elections. Peace has brought no electoral thawing. Green bread and butter confronts orange bread and butter.
Nevertheless, according to a fascinating survey this week, many voters in Belfast and Derry have views that are closer to parties on the other side of the sectarian divide than to those on their "own" side. Most reacted with horror to the findings and pledged to stay in their own traditions. One day, perhaps, social class may become the new Ulster divide. But not this year. Much has changed. But the boundaries beloved of Mr Craig and the Real IRA still matter.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/apr/30/northern-ireland-so-near-yet-far
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