Accommodation

Accommodation can refer to things like help, assistance, aid, obliging, indulgencing or it can mean making alterations to fit new cicumstances requiring adaption, adjustment, modification, reconciliation, fitting and harmonization.

When used in connection with our political stalemate I think it is a concept very worth consideration. Usually when people are in dispute the talk is of compromise. When the Whiterock parade was re-routed by the Parades Commission for the second tiome there was a hope that a compromise could be achieved but there is the fundamental difficulty with all compromises and that is that it looks for the middle ground and often means that no one is really ever happy with the solution and so it is no solution at all. We need a much more creative way to square the circle and create a much more long term solution. I think the idea of accomodation is a better way forward. If both sides start from the view of accommodating the other side the conclusions will be much better than the middle way- in the middle way both parties take up their negotiating positions which are not realistic positions at all but positions from which they can allow for movement. If I am willing to accommodate you then I will be looking for way to make us both happy.

How can the Loyalist accommodate the Nationalist and how can the Nationalist accommodate the Loyalist? To start with each will WANT to look at the problem from the other's point of view. To be able to do this they will have to take up positions to view the other side. Can we get to that place where we both want the best for the whole people? Can we get to the place where we are both willing to make changes to accommodate the other? To begin this proces of thought we will have to find ways of taking the heat out of the situation. What is it that adds heat for both sides?