This will probably get me in to trouble.
With respect to the parents of the Belfast stabbing victim... this isn't your tragedy alone.
It is yours, that's true, but it also belongs to every other father or mother who's sons and daughters walk those same streets.
It was your son... this time. But what happened to your son could have happened to any other son of Ireland, any other good hearted lad who might have stopped to help a stranger in the street might have been in the hospital bed your son now occupies.
So I respect your grief, and your privacy, but you don't get to tell the world how to respond when that world knows that it might have been them and that if nothing is done it will happen again... and again.
This IS about your son, that's true, but it's also about every future victim, identity currently unknown, who faces a similar fate, and those future victims are taking a stand to ensure they do not occupy the bed next to where your son is laying now.
To be clear I am not endorsing arson, vandalism, and the like, it has no place in legitimate protest movements, but what ALSO has no place is doing nothing in the face of barbarism and leaving a deadly problem unresolved.
I understand where these parents are coming from, but the truth is this isn't ONLY about their son, it's about ALL the sons, and all the families, and their grief though real and valid doesn't mean they can tell the rest of Ireland what they should or should not do.