REUNITING AFTER ANOTHER KIND OF SECTARIAN VIOLENCE. Northern Ireland has at last found peace, as Protestant and Catholic leaders met yesterday to take oaths of office to share power in the government. Ted Kennedy said he hoped they could teach the world how to “put aside the bomb and bullet.” But the important thing to remember is that this is finally peace after hundreds of years of violence. As Shankar Vedantam pointed out in his column yesterday, civil wars last longer and take more lives than any other kind of conflict. Although Ian Paisley and Martin McGuinness may be able to give us hope that one day sectarian violence can lead to peace, it’s a long and arduous process.
— Kay Steiger