First Derry Minister looksforward to the New year ahead

How appropriate these words are for Derry/Londonderry at the commencement of 2011. The liberating impact of Lord Saville’s Bloody Sunday conclusions, disseminated to a world audience by Prime Minister Cameron last June, undeniably brought about a wind of change, which has the potential to positively impact every citizen living in Ireland’s fourth city and Northern Ireland’s second.

For far too long we have been quick to spot the moat in the eyes of someone on the ‘other side,’ which suggests the “other side” is totally to blame for everything and ‘our side’ is not! The truth is we are all human and therefore all flawed, whether we classify ourselves to be Catholic, Protestant, Unionist, Loyalist, Nationalist or Republican and shocking as it may be, if the roles had been reversed, any one of us could have been the aggressor rather than the victim!

Nobel Laureate John Hume was so right to repeatedly declare during the worst of the ‘Troubles’ how we were all in fact part of the problem. Somewhat reassuringly it follows, that if we are all part of the problem, then we can all be part of the solution. Herein resides a ray of hope for the fractured citizens of Derry/Londonderry.

This city is standing on the threshold of something hitherto perceived to be the insubstantial substance of dreams. The door to a bright brand new day is at long last starting to open. We do not need to continue living as enemies and strangers in the same city. We can and must start to move towards each other, recognising that we are in fact brothers and sisters within the same human family. Moreover, just as a mother and her child are strangely bound together by the pain of birth, so Roman Catholics and Protestants throughout this great historic city of Derry/Londonderry who have gone through rough times and who have been badly hurt, they can set about building a better shared future, much more effectively, than people who have been forever experiencing cloudless skies and trouble-free living.

In the air raid on Coventry in November 1940, only 30 of the 100 buildings in the city centre were left undamaged. During the re-building, the remains of the old cathedral were linked with the new in such a way that the old and the new became one entity. The end of the old year and the beginning of the new is a time for linking together our memories of the past and our hopes for the future so that we can make the present really worth living.

The time is surely right for all of us, regardless of our religious/political labels to forsake the fears, prejudices and suspicions that for too long have kept us ensconced within well-understood comfort zones of separation and poor relations.

Good relations must of necessity surface to the top of every citizen’s agenda.

The start of a brand new year, which offers all of us the chance to begin all over again, is surely the right time for each of us to do what we can to make our city a better place, a friendlier place and a safer place for everyone.

Rev Dr David Latimer