Ian Paisley of hardline Democratic Unionist Party will be sworn in as the assembly's first minister and Martin McGuinness of Sinn Fein will be his deputy. http://edition.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/europe/05/08/northern.ireland/index.html New Government swearing in process underway Will this alliance survive, and if so for how long? Comments please :-
Some people are very forgiving. I couldn't piss on McGuinness knowing that he and his IRA mates were running round shooting members of the British Army and RUC 20 years ago.
Irish politics are so embarrassing. We're like some sort of enclave of the third world, out of place in the first world. I am going to start telling people that I'm Swiss. Only in a place as screwed up as Ireland could a power-sharing arrangement like this be seen as progress. This isn't integration, which leads to long-term peace. This is power-sharing, just like Fatah and Hamas -- and likely to be just as (un)successful. The Protestants get to run the finance, economy, environment and culture portfolios and the Catholics get to run education, regional development and agriculture. How many Protestant families will pull their children out of public school when Sinn Fein starts rewriting the history curriculum?
Do not be so harsh, the guns and the bombs have gone for now, embrasse the peace and work with it, not against it. If people believe it will fail from the start, it will. Seeing McGuinness and Paisley laughing together and then seeing the contrast from footage of the NEVER, NEVER, NEVER speach of Paisley plus McGuiness and Adams carying a cofin, I know which I would prefer. Sure it may have been stage managed but its better than the bomb and the bullet politics NI has had to endure for so long before.