Death threats stiffened my resolve for politics...
Intimidation just proved that change was needed says Long
FORMER Justice Minister in the North Naomi Long has revealed how her first death threat made her even more determined to continue in politics.
The Alliance Party leader said rather than make her want to abandon the career path she was on, the intimidation spurred her on to use her voice and speak up for the people she represented.
Ms Long opened up about the dangers she faces and did while Justice Minister and then her party’s Justice spokesperson up until last month, when she handed the role back to Stewart Dickson in a frontbench reshuffle.
Speaking to Joe Duffy on tonight’s episode of The Meaning Of Life, she said: “I was only in politics a year when I got my first death threat and we made a conscious choice.
“We sat and we chewed it over as a family and I said to Michael [her husband], ‘Look we got involved in politics because we wanted to change things and this to me is proof that change is needed.’
“So far from from deterring me from continuing, it stiffened my resolve because I felt the fact there were still people out there who thought because they disagreed with the decision I made that they could threaten my life or tell me to leave Belfast or not to go to work or I’d be shot and those sort of things.
“I was just like, ‘I’m not going to bow down to that sort of pressure, I’m going to stand up for what I believe in, I’m going to do what I think is right’.
“I’m happy if people disagree with me but I’m not going to let them direct what I do, what I say.
“And it’s not comfortable but then I don’t think life is meant to be comfortable. You never change from a comfortable place. It’s always uncomfortable when you are making changes.”
But when asked if she was ever frightened by the threats, she added: “It’s a hard one, frightened, I suppose unnerved by the hatred.
“When I see things like my posters being burned on bonfires and so on, hung by the neck as an effigy, myself, Michelle O’neill and Mary Lou on a bonfire, all women of course, it’s unnerving to think that someone went to the trouble of making a fake me to hang it by the neck on a bonfire and burn it, that level of hatred I don’t think I can really relate to if I’m being honest.
“I might disagree with people, I might not like what they do but I don’t understand that hatred. It can be quite disconcerting.”
But she added: “We still have paramilitarism in our communities, we still have intimidation, we still have those threats but I know loads of people who have to live with that day in and day out in their communities that are controlled by those organisations. “I feel a duty to them to speak up on their behalf. I have a privileged position in that I have a voice and they don’t.”
Ms Long also spoke of how her cancer diagnosis in 2016 made her cherish life even more. “When you get a cancer diagnosis you reflect.
“I always say to people you can’t see the scar because I have my watch over it but every time I see my watch I remember how precious time is.”
The Meaning Of Life airs on RTE One tonight at 10.30pm.
I might disagree with people but I don’t understand the hatred NAOMI LONG ALLIANCE PARTY