IRA

we are all pleased to hear that the ira have called an end to it's armed struggle, preferring to use the ballot box rather than the bullet.
i remember back in the 70s/80s when their bombing campaign was going on, there were times when my mum (irish) was scared to go to work in case she was attacked for being irish. so i have sympathy for many asians who are likely to be target just because of the colour of their skin.

oddly the declaration of the ira does raises a whole heap of questions. tony blair has said that we cannot negotiate with terrorists - even though in the case of the ira we plainly have, and the result has been one we all want. peace, albeit an uneasy one. so can we sit down at a table with the current wave of radical fundamentalist terrorists?

personally i don't think we can. where the ira (and others like them) are fighting for a defined cause that can be resolved by talking, by compromise and negotiation. the radical fundamentalists are after wholesale change they do not want to compromise they want us to give up the freedoms we have (however much you may think that are not much they are more than we would have if the fundamentalists have their way...) and they want us to accept a way of life that does not exist, but is for them a utopia (a dystopia for the rest of us). for that reason alone we cannot negotiate a way out of this, at least not in the traditional sense.
perhaps the only way to do it is to isolate those who follow those beliefs, and hold those desires.

but in a cynical turn of mind, does anyone else think that the timing of the ira's announcement is one that is designed to distance themselves from the recent actions? have these radical fundamentalists done what no one else has done - given terrorism a bad name and so that the ira have had to give up the bullet for fear of losing any legitimacy?