Blaming unincorporated organisations which have no legal remedy against slander and libel is a lot safer than naming individuals and having to face them in court. Politicians use the paramilitaries as scapegoats to cover up their abject failure to establish a just, equitable and peaceful society in which all citizens can enjoy a life free from crime and deviant behaviour. Many church people, including some clergy, use the paramilitaries as scapegoats to cover up their failure to build a bridge between a world of hurting humanity and the love and compassion of a healing Saviour. Locked away in their holy huddles and spiritual bunkers they have lost the significance of incarnational theology and forgotten the true meaning of kenosis. Whatever the faults of paramilitarism may be and there are many they ought not to be used as the scapegoats for society's ills or as a cover for the failure of civil society to address its own problems.
Social problems are our problems.
It is time to stop passing the buck. Billy Mitchell Billy Mitchell is a member of the Corrymeela Community.