Alliance stands against 'serial sectarianism'

9.07.46pm BST (GMT +0100) Sat 29th Jul 2006

Yvonne Boyle, Alliance Party Chair, has supported the role of the arts in addressing serial sectarianism. Speaking at the close of the recent John Hewitt Summer School in Armagh: 'Finding the Nation: New Entities & New Identities', she said:

'This week's integrated Summer School has again shown that the arts can lead people to consider new perspectives.

'Young people adopting the restricted view of Sinn Fein uncritically or becoming carbon copies of the DUP elders, with sometimes even greater rigidity of views, does nothing to prevent sectarian attitudes being reproduced again and again.

'The learning gleaned from 35 years hard-earned cross-community awareness needs to be protected and handed down through story tellers, writers and freedom of speech and imagination. The reward is the building of an integrated society through political agreement and the lessening of the destructive effects of poisonous and distorted thinking on our culture and economy.

ENDS