Sad news came from Omagh in the North of Ireland this weekend that Ronan Kerr, a young policeman, died when he got in his car and a bomb beneath it exploded.
Kerr, a Catholic, was a member of the North's reconstituted Police Service of Northern Ireland, PSNI, which had replaced the infamous RUC. Only since the Good Friday Agreement of 1998 have Catholics been allowed to join the force. News reports attribute the bombing to republican dissidents who want to dissuade Catholics from joining up.
I have had the opportunity to photograph political murals in Belfast and Derry in the North of Ireland over the past eight years. To my eye, there is peace amid a still raw history. The political murals, such as the Derry mural above, tell that story vividly. Only days after my first visit to Derry, a car bomb was found in the city centre near where I had walked. There is still injustice that does not get reported.
There are still those who are dissatisfied with the Good Friday Agreement. Men and women who were imprisoned and/or on hunger strike have told me they wonder what it was all for if they haven't achieved a united Ireland.
But what I hear this morning on Irish radio is disgust with the cowardly act of killing a 25-year-old as he got in his car to go to work.
Hopefully there are ways for people to express their dissent in non-violent ways. There needs to be, in all fairness. Whoever committed this act has brought only widespread condemnation and the name of "terrorist" on themselves. What were they thinking?
