“Cross Community Assassination Attempts On Police Show How Far We’ve Come”

AS PART of WWN’s Voices series, we give a platform to people we really shouldn’t. This week is the turn of Deanie Morris, Loyalist criminal who believes the fact people with roots in paramilitary groups on both sides of the divide came together to conspire to murder a PSNI detective is proof Northern Ireland has made great strides.

“We can’t take the progress we’ve made as a society since the GFA for granted, so-called Loyalists and Republicans standing side by side to plot a murder – that might have been the utopian future we voted for back then, but if we’re being honest few of us thought it was possible. Recent news proves the doubters wrong.

It’s important to note as demographics change, and Nationalists become the dominant demographic group which translated into recent record showings in elections they could invoke a Catholic supremacy, but this latest incident shows Republicans are not excluding Loyalists and vice versa. In fact, they are coming together, something our politicians sitting out Stormont could learn a thing or two from.

Who is charged with attempted murder, who exactly planned it and who was contracted – focusing on these details is missing the point, isn’t claiming superiority and ownership of things what got us into this mess in the first place? Cross community cooperation of any kind should be celebrated and championed.

I’m old in the tooth but if a No Surrender hard chaw like myself can see the shimmering silver lining of hope in this, we all should.

If drug gangs from across the divide masquerading as community protectors can come together for a common cause, surely, it’s time to integrate our schools?

Let’s grasp this moment and realise we achieve more together than we do apart.”