There are those who will argue that the dissidents are now practising what the Provos preached.

And there are those who can remember the very organised and orchestrated nature of rioting in Ardoyne when the IRA had a grip on that area.

What has happened in recent days is not new, except that different people are pulling the strings, this time for different reasons.

This is about something bigger than marching — it is about the peace process itself.

The politics have changed — Sinn Fein is in government with the DUP.

Policing has changed — republicans are on the different boards that are part of the new post-Patten accountability structure.

Soon, Sinn Fein will have a voice and a say in appointing the new Chief Constable.

That is how much things have changed.

But in all of this the marching question has not yet been answered.

There are still problems over walking and talking and still that difficult and dangerous place where parades and protests meet.

Gerry Adams has suggested a meeting with the leadership of the Orange Order, and Gerry Kelly wants them to move “unilaterally” and walk away from Ardoyne.

For as long as that march follows its current route there will be somebody on the republican side to pull the strings, to create and re-create the scenes of recent nights.

This is the reality.

Some wonder why Gerry Kelly, Bobby Storey, Sean Murray and others cannot change things, cannot step in and make things better.

I watched some of them intervene in 2004 and save the lives of soldiers cornered by a crowd of rioters.

That was the year before the IRA formally ended its armed campaign and decommissioned.

The dissidents know that the IRA has left the stage — and they are trying to take its place, playing on an old issue and picking at an old wound.

For mainstream republicans to change things would mean the IRA having to assert its authority by confronting the dissidents. How would that read in an IMC report?

How would it play politically?

We all know the answers to those questions — and so do the dissidents.

That is why they can so easily turn Ardoyne into their playground, why they can create the violence of recent nights.

They want to portray policing as old policing, and they also know a reaction from mainstream republicans could damage the peace process.

This July the marching issue is still being discussed in terms of sides, and the dissidents want to keep it that way.

It gives them something to play on and to play with.

The challenge for the peace process is to change that and to take this issue away from the dissidents.