Back in harness . . .

Just back from a week off and began with a pretty busy day yesterday.

Leading the news, of course, was the petrol bomb attack on the home of Sinn Fein MLA Mitchel McLaughlin in the Bogside. It seems that in response Sinn Fein are now ramping up the public pressure on the 32CSM and the Real IRA, asking the 32CSM to condemn these attacks and the Real IRA to withdraw the threat to Sinn Fein members.

There was always the very real danger of a serious split in republicanism as Sinn Fein moved further into the peace process and away from the territory of armed struggle. What's been remarkable is the success the party had in preparing the ground and its constituency, bringing so many people along on what was by no means an easy journey, and minimising the opposition. It's another example of how communication is key in any process of change - all those statements, discussions, private and public meetings which were held along the way.

However, it's often the case in times of major change that there's a vacuum created before new arrangements bed down. We see it in newspapers, which are under threat from other media channels - particularly, it's suggested, the internet - yet nobody seems to have discovered a way for these channels to pay journalists to actually collect the news (we could by back to paying for news sites soon, but will it work?). The policing of 'nationalist/republican' areas is another case in point. The Provisional IRA are off the scene, but there's a question mark about how the PSNI can fill that gap, in the short term at least. That leaves an opening for bored and disaffected young people for a start - witness some of the stuff happening in the Bogside - and also for those who would pose as the new defenders of the community.

Sinn Fein's strength has been its presence at grassroots level in these areas so the 'hearts and minds' stuff that we used to hear about so much has moved house . .

We're living in interesting times (check out http://web.archive.org/web/20070110191145/hawk.fab2.albany.edu/sidebar/sidebar.htm)



Eric Frank Russell, who's to blame.