An imperfect peace and the promise of a fresh start

Last weekend in Belfast, insults, bottles and bricks were hurled as a loyalist parade made its way past republican Ardoyne. Sadly, this is unlikely to be the last riot and commotion during the Orange marching season. The next bother could come as early as today, with another contested parade in west Belfast. But even if that passes off peacefully there are bound to be later clashes. There are, after all, more than 3,000 parades every summer.

Last weekend in Belfast, insults, bottles and bricks were hurled as a loyalist parade made its way past republican Ardoyne. Sadly, this is unlikely to be the last riot and commotion during the Orange marching season. The next bother could come as early as today, with another contested parade in west Belfast. But even if that passes off peacefully there are bound to be later clashes. There are, after all, more than 3,000 parades every summer.

Trouble has flared at them not for decades but for centuries, though the recent troubles have created deep reservoirs of bitterness. Yet now these ancient enmities co-exist with modern prosperity. Less than a mile away, Belfast city centre this week saw the opening of yet another major nightspot. This one is a new "Bolli Bar", offering champagne and cocktails. This is, in other words, a tale of two cities, though in fact nearly all Belfast life takes place somewhere in between. Most people neither quaff bubbly nor hurl bottles.

Vast stretches of the city are simply boring and commonplace. This includes former hotspots where tensions have lowered to the point where developers and new residents venture into areas that once they avoided with a shudder. And most of this has been made possible by the paramilitary ceasefires - republican and loyalist - declared a decade ago. Despite many flare-ups, the changed physical and psychological conditions have improved the city immeasurably. A large majority of the population can now get on with life without worrying about violence or intimidation, or the other scourges of paramilitarism. House prices are reasonable and living standards high.

But despite the huge strides, the peace is not perfect, since the large-scale conflict was called off without clear winners and the paramilitary groups are, though reduced in size and power, still out there. The peace process therefore needs a phase two. Phase one, the ceasefires, drastically reduced the death toll - last year saw just four violent deaths - but paramilitary structures remained intact. The IRA desisted from killing soldiers and police but kept on robbing banks and crushing the knees of alleged burglars or joyriders. London and Dublin, and most of Northern Ireland society, put up with that for arguably too long because the peace process was producing results on other fronts.

Phase two, which will entail getting rid of these remaining affronts to decency, is scheduled to begin sometime this summer, when the IRA is due to signal that its paramilitary activity will end and that it will comprehensively disarm. Such a statement will not be taken on trust: IRA pronouncements have been shifty and misleading in the past, and its actual statement will just be the start. Months will pass as the security services carry out the most exacting scrutiny of IRA activity. And the politics will begin again.

Maybe this year, maybe next, it should become obvious that the IRA's "armed struggle" is over. Then the push will be on to underpin the peace process with a stable political structure combining Unionists and republicans. Progress on these lines will not solve every marching problem, but it will provide the hope of giving Northern Ireland a fresh start.