And a balance to the obscenity

from the Boston Herald:

Professor, peacemaker, penman, publican – Padraig O�Malley is many things to many people.

But today, the 64-year-old UMass-Boston professor is set to cement his status as one of the world�s top unsung peace brokers with the announcement of a historic agreement between warring Iraqi factions.

For the past 10 months, O�Malley has been the driving force behind bringing Shi�ite and Sunni parties together to thrash out a pact to ban militias from operating outside the law in Iraq.

�The move to bring people together and march without violence is his inspiration,� said Peter O�Malley, Padraig�s younger brother. �We grew up in Ireland, which was very fractious. So growing up in that atmosphere and, I would say, the influence of Martin Luther King inspired him.�

King�s inspiration, O�Malley said, pushed his brother to play crucial roles in forging peace deals in both Northern Ireland and South Africa.

The Iraqi agreement – described as a framework to allow further discussion between opposing Iraqis – was hammered out during privately funded reconciliation meetings in Helsinki, Finland, organized by O�Malley.

…

But away from the hotbed of violence, the native Dubliner has more modest roots in the heart of Cambridge where, in 1969, he and his brother opened the now landmark Irish bar, The Plough and Stars. They also co-founded poetry magazine Ploughshares.

Via qarrtsiluni