Riots in Belfast

How long? How long must we sing this song?

A mob of around 700 people have taken to the streets of Belfast in a new wave of loyalist rioting, police said.

Ireland, both parts of it, is a place near to my heart. I spent time there working with grassroots politicians and community leaders from both sides of the conflict. I was fresh out of college and still full of that youthful idealism that comes with a good education, and everything I saw there gave me hope for the world. I saw women forgiving men who had been responsible for the deaths of their sons. I saw once bitter enemies singing drinking songs over countless pints of Guinness in the pubs of Dublin. I saw many tears, but what I saw most was hope for the future.

A couple of years earlier, I had been in Belfast when the peace treaty was signed. As I was walking around the empty streets on Easter Sunday, the silence that leaked from the closed shops and restaurants was oddly comforting, as if it were a reflection of better times to come.

The times have been mostly good. I hope this is just a case of indigestion on the island. As Colcom says, the orange they are waving in the streets is the color of terror. May the hatemongers burn in hell.