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Almost two decades into the peace process, widespread terrorist violence should not still be seen as normality

Michael McGibbon and wife Joanne McGibbon Expand

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Michael McGibbon and wife Joanne McGibbon

Michael McGibbon and wife Joanne McGibbon

Michael McGibbon and wife Joanne McGibbon

Editor's Viewpoint

What is a normal society? That is the question everyone in Northern Ireland should be asking themselves today after reading our shocking report on the level of paramilitary activity that still exists 18 years after the signing of the Good Friday Agreement.

That agreement was hailed as the foundation of the peace process that would deliver a new Northern Ireland. Of course, the legacy of the past would make the transition from near civil war to peaceful coexistence an incremental process, but have we come as far as would reasonably have been expected?

It is only two weeks since Michael McGibbon bled to death in a Belfast alley after being shot in the legs by dissident republicans. He was the 22nd person to be killed by paramilitaries, both loyalist and republican, in the past decade.

In the same period, terrorists carried out more than 1,000 bomb and gun attacks, nearly 800 'punishment' attacks and forced almost 4,000 people from their homes. Does that read like normality to you?

Only in a society that endured horrendous violence in the recent past would this level of paramilitary activity be seen as progress. We have a skewed vision of normality.

Much has been made in recent months about next week's Assembly elections being the first in which the Good Friday generation are able to vote. Surely we hoped that they would now live in a more progressive, more self-assured and more peaceful society?

Most paramilitary activity takes place in their strongholds in working class Catholic and Protestant districts. Do we, or our policy-making politicians, really care about the toxin of terrorism as long as it doesn't impinge on the wider public space or challenge the distorted image that is often sold of a peaceful Northern Ireland?

This lacklustre election campaign has been notable for its shameful lack of any mention of the ongoing terrorism or how to deal with the legacy of the past - the two massive stumbling blocks to creating the province we all really desire.

Belfast Telegraph

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