"If everyone showed such tolerance, the problems would vanish."

On the contrary: if everyone showed such wilful and obtuse ignorance, the problems would only continue to be exacerbated.

There's a reason why South Africa needed a Truth and Reconciliation process. Acknowledging past wrongs and finding a way through them is one thing; sweeping them under the carpet and insisting that everyone should just get along, when one community still insists on their right to triumphalist celebrations of subjugation, is ridiculous.

mg is an American whose understanding of his/her own Irish-American St Patrick's Day celebrations are superficial and naive; his/her take on Orange marches are even more so. They cannot be understood by someone living in America who doesn't even engage with Irish American culture except on the most superficial and cliched level. Sorry.

Loz said: "The Orange marches are insulting and hurtful to Northern Irish Catholics as they are inextricably linked to the repression and subjugation of Catholics by Protestants in the North and they are inextricably linked to violence and humilation.

In this way they are comparable to the words Nigger and Paki, because those words were grown in the manure of racial violence and humiliation."

Spot on. And that's why, mg, you can't solve the problem by everyone just tooting on their flutes. If the KKK insisted on marching through Harlem, would you suggest that the black residents' response should be to chuck on hoods and put burning crosses on their own lawns?