Resources could best be spent tackling underlying causes of sectarianism

There's a hoary old story you often hear around the north of Ireland. It concerns Willie John, a die-hard Orangeman, lying on his death bed, surrounded by the district and county officers, who asked if he had a last wish. "Aye, get me the priest," he said. "I want to convert."

"Convert, Willie John? And you a proud Protestant and Orangeman all your life," they asked, in shock.

"Aye, convert," he replied. "Sure isn't it better that one of them dies than one of us."

Whether or not there ever was a Willie John, people with similarly bigoted mindsets are all too real and common in Northern Ireland society on both sides of the religious divide.

All summer we have seen the burning of Orange halls, Catholic churches, schools and other property owned and used by one side or the other. Yet again the now-routine July deadlock at Drumcree provoked scenes of confrontation, mindless hatred and more wanton destruction of property.

Over the last couple of weeks in north Belfast, Carrickfergus, Larne and elsewhere events have taken an even more ugly turn with premeditated tit-for-tat assaults on homes of Catholics and Protestants.

It is impossible to calculate the collateral fear and anxiety which has been caused, further destabilising communities already blighted by the stress, economic deprivation and ordeal of three decades of violence.

There are peripheral reasons for the present wave of discontent. Loyalists are fanning the flames for their own devious reasons as a power struggle between elements within the UDA intensifies and tensions with the UVF increase. Some hardline republican elements are also set to exploit the situation for their own anti-peace-process ends.

Yet the fundamental reason for the trouble is the innate sectarianism and bigotry, handed from generation to generation and now embedded like an incurable virus in the two main communities in Northern Ireland.

What is going on in north Belfast is its most naked manifestation. Yet its most damaging influences remain carefully hidden. Indeed, some of the most twisted minds belong not to those who take so mindlessly to the streets, but to more informed, calculating individuals who use their skills to deviously promote prejudices.

Many business people pay public lip service to equality but choose to engage only with their own. Many property transactions, the sale of dwellings, land and farms are all too often silently manipulated to prevent one of "the other sort" gaining a foothold in territory that would upset the religious balance.

You can see the rigid sectarian geography in Belfast where the peace lines mark the frontiers, but it is every bit as unbending in the rural areas where the hedges and fences conceal the invisible sectarian boundaries between townland and townland.

There is nothing new about the situation. Belfast has been steeped in a holy war for as long as the city has existed and sectarian clashes have taken place at the same locations for centuries. What is really shameful is the lack of resources being directed to cure the cause rather than smother the effects.

For 30 years, millions of pounds have been poured into security measures to deal with sustained civil disorder, much of it a direct result of the communal divisions. Last year alone the policing budget was £670 million; the British army's operations cost £512 million; prisons required £142 million; and £72 million was paid for compensation in one form or another.

No argument with that. Life and property must be protected. But at the same time community relations expenditure by central government only amounted to £5.15 million, with another £500,000 by the district councils.

If there is to be true reconciliation, leading to mature tolerance and respect for diversity, then we must teach new values, especially to our children. Yet out of an annual education budget of £1.3 billion only the paltry sum of £3.4 million is spent on specifically improving community relations.

The ill-fated power-sharing executive in 1974 had a minister for community relations with direct responsibility for the task. In the present administration it is merely piggybacked in the office of the First and Deputy First Ministers.

Surely we should have a highly-visible, voluble and proactive minister exclusively dedicated to this important task with the right to challenge practice and policy right across the administration and in every corner of community life?

Chris Ryder is a journalist based in Northern Ireland