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I'd argue it depends what you mean by appeasement. Back home significant concessions were made to Catholics including dismantling and replacing the entire police force with one that had 50% Catholics ( an over representation), quotas in government jobs etc. Parades commissions to limit where Unionists could march and much more.
Is that appeasement or is it recognizing that building trust with a group that has actually been oppressed requires steps if you actually want a chance at building a lasting peace after?
What is appeasement and what are concessions to make up for real discrimination from government entities?
Northern Ireland certainly isn't perfect now by a long shot but its certainly better than it was for both Protestants and Catholics. It isn't a zero sum enterprise.
Black people aren't going anywhere. They can be treated as an enemy (appeasement or defeat) or they can be treated as a part of the polity that must be somehow reintegrated or else long term stability is a massive risk.
There was a time I felt about Catholics that many people seem to feel about black communities. But time and experience has taught me I was wrong. Rapprochement is possible even with violent history. It does not have to be oppositional.
All the things you mention are appeasement.
As long as black people can obtain more by refusing to consider rapproachment and instead using past grievances (and present ones, real or imagined) to successfully demand continued special treatment, they will. I am not sure racial rapproachment is even possible; Jefferson may have been half-right when he said white people would never accept black people and black people would never forgive white people. But even if he wasn't, it sure won't be accomplished by white politicans and activists acting as if white people deserve disapprobation from black people.
Then peace is never going to be possible in your paradigm. I prefer one that concretely offers that hope, and has shown that it can deliver.
Peace is possible, but it requires that black people give up their grievances. If they will not, then it is not; white people yielding more will not help.
Sure, but that is a step by step process and at a population level not so easy. People do not just give up their grievances. But they can be put in a position where other things are more valuable. Self-interest is the only cure that sticks I think. As Catholics became wealthier, were given the opportunities to make up for those they had been denied, became more aware that the government bodies that had specifically oppressed them were now more responsive to them, all of a sudden support for the IRA began to disappear.
Until Sinn Fein itself decided the way forward had to be through democracy, as support for violence was drying up. But you can't keep things the same and think that is going to work. It clearly hasn't.
Hell, they didn't even have to actually make things equitable, they just had to say they were going to try and make some good faith efforts. As the Catholic Middle class began to rise, that did the rest.
All the recent steps have been backwards. What we're doing isn't working.
Certainly not if it's in their interests to hold on to them.
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