Martin McGuinness Quotes
We have to govern by treating every single citizen equally.
McGuinness, Martin. First and Deputy First Minister Address. Belfast Telegraph, Independent News & Media, 11 May 2007, p. 2.
The power structure of England and the English administrators of South Africa were strong advocates of racial equality at the beginning of the 19th century. They insisted on equal administration of law. However the Boer white population could think of nothing more absurd. In a sense the Boers were much like the Southern Whites at the same time. The South African government however could not enforce its equality policies in the rural area – the majority of South Africa at the time. When democracy and self rule came to South Africa, the racially moderating force of the English was minimized and the majority of South Africans wanted a racially segregated society. Apartheid resulted.
The Prime Minister had begun his career as a proponent of apartheid, but by 1990 had reversed course.
James Martin Pacelli McGuinness was an Irish republican Sinn Féin politician and a former leader within the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA). McGuinness was the deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland from May 2007 to January 2017 and was the MP for Mid Ulster from 1997 until his resignation in 2013. Like all Sinn Féin MPs, McGuinness abstained from participation in the Westminster Parliament. Following the St Andrews Agreement and the Assembly election in 2007, he became deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland on 8 May 2007, with the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) leader Ian Paisley becoming First Minister. On 5 June 2008, he was re-appointed as deputy First Minister to serve alongside Peter Robinson, who succeeded Paisley as First Minister. McGuinness previously served as Minister of Education in the Northern Ireland Executive between 1999 and 2002. He was Sinn Féin's candidate for President of Ireland in the 2011 election.
