Knocking Down The Maze
The independent unionist MEP Jim Allister has responded to my Inside Politics interview with Martin McGuinness, in which the Deputy First Minister argued that delisting and demolishing the buildings where the IRA hunger strikes took place would be "ludicrous". Mr McGuinness argued that creating an interpretative centre at the Maze was a project of international importance in an era when local politicians are trying to share their experience of conflict resolution with other parts of the world (on which subject the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs has just funded a 25 million euro a year conflict resolution unit).
Predictably Jim Allister isn't impressed with the Deputy First Minister's argument that any Maze centre would not glorify the IRA hunger strikers. He claims it would salute and enhance their memory just as the heritage centre at Conlig in County Down salutes the memory of the soldiers who fought at the Somme.
Jim Allister wants the Maze buildings delisted and swiftly demolished. Sinn Fein's Paul Butler reckons this would run "totally contrary to everything that we are trying to do in terms of attracting people to our country to learn from what is clearly a whole new experience for us."
How come this argument never happened when the demolition workers moved in to take apart those iconic army watch towers on the border, which would surely have been a mecca for tourists?
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Good point about the watch towers. Is the surviving H-block an old loyalist or republican kennel?
Sinn Fein's Paul Butler reckons this would run "totally contrary to everything that we are trying to do in terms of attracting people to our country to learn from what is clearly a whole new experience for us."
Yes, very worthy sentiments, but why does such an interpretative/conflict resolution, or whatever it's to be called, centre have to be based at the Maze?
Apart from a certain small segment of Irish America, I'll bet the vast majority of potential tourists to NI will never have even heard of the H-blocks or the Maze.
Build the centre by all means, but do it in a neutral setting where the true story of the Troubles may be examined without any risk of political interference.
Again I ask why give Jim allister time? He is a waste of time.
Lazy journalism again Mark. Your argument doesn't hold much water. Didn't Sinn Fein seek to retain the Andersonstown RUC barracks as a community centre and hostel for overseas visitors? Maybe I am wrong.
If there is to be any preservation of anything at the maze, it should for the victims of the troubles, not the purportrators. [excuse my spelling].
Plus, Paul Butler having spent 15 years in the Maze, i would think he'd never want to see it again.