| Identifying the true
obstacles to peace
By Joe Horgan
When will it ever be enough? Independent observers, the trust of
two governments, a stated order to all volunteers to desist from any military
activity or any activity contrary to peace, an actual peace that lengthens
year by year?
Enough? No. Now they want photographs. Perhaps Paisley wants souvenirs
or something.
It is almost farcical to think that the end of such an historic conflict
should founder over a few Polaroids and it may well prove to be just another
by-pass on a road that is only going one, inevitable way.
There can surely be no turning back now. Whatever the posturing of the
different groups, with each attempting to immerse themselves in a political
system with the other side whilst retaining their fundamental credentials,
this is surely the end game.
Whatever the future holds, and it is hard to imagine a truly gun-free,
sectarian-free North of Ireland whilst even one renegade, recalcitrant
Loyalist or Republican smoulders with discontent, there is surely little
chance of a return to the dark days of the 1970s or 80s.
What continues to be strange, though, is the shared analysis that the
situation receives. Leaving aside for a moment the workings of Unionism,
here in the Republic there continues to be a shared media outlook that
questions the integrity and credibility of Northern Republicans.
Now I would not like to give a misleading image, Republican opinion is
represented here; Danny Morrison, once Publicity Director for Sinn Féin,
writes regularly for a national newspaper giving a Republican slant to
events and a number of journalists would treat Republicanism sympathetically.
But the general, serious media culture is undeniably hostile. You can
almost feel a sense of revulsion amongst many journalists for those despicable
working-class terrorists from Belfast and Derry. Respectable, middle-class
Unionists are far more to their liking.
Now we all of us have a shared horror at the many atrocities carried out
by the IRA, the many horrors perpetrated in the name of liberty or the
freedom of the Irish people.
But beyond this there is a clear antipathy towards the very existence
of those Northern Republicans that hints at something deeper.
It is almost as if the havoc wreaked by the IRA was deemed to be as much
a threat to order and security by the establishment in the south as it
was in Britain or the North.
This seems far from the perception by Unionists that this State was secretly
sympathetic towards Republicanism.
Somewhere in there lies the truth and whilst there may have been some
residual attachment to the idea of a united Ireland and concern about
the condition of Northern Irish Catholics, the commercial classes of this
State were as horrified by the terraced street rioters of Belfast and
Derry as any Unionist burgher.
The media unfortunately then just reflect these respectable concerns rather
than investigate or interrogate. So it remains that it is always Republican
intentions that are questioned most.
It is always surprising to see how little relative questioning there is
of Unionism, how little examination there is of how far Unionism has travelled
compared to Republicanism.
Even the sight and sound of Ian Paisley parading as the great democrat
is never put in the historical context of the lack of democracy in the
North that was one of the precipitating factors of the Troubles.
Indeed some basic acknowledgement of the root causes of the conflict,
of the injustice that was inherent in the North, can never be omitted
if the situation is to be analysed truthfully. The North and its sectarian
construct cannot be avoided as a contributory factor in the rise of the
Provisional IRA. That is a matter of historical record.
For Unionism to portray itself as a bastion of democratic ideals holding
out against terrorism and criminality is at best disingenuous and at worst
a lie.
It has had to travel towards the acceptance of democracy and the idea
of an inclusive society in the same way as the IRA has. The question should
be one of just how far has it travelled down this road?
Is this latest stumbling block not a clear example of this? Even Tony
Blair has stated that it is not a good negotiating tactic to try to humiliate
your opponent. The path of conflict resolution does not lie that way.
Indeed you could be forgiven for thinking that Unionists are still acting
as if they are letting Republicans into ‘their’ set-up, ‘their’
establishment, ‘their state’. Perhaps I am a hotbed of Irish
Catholic prejudices, but the only people I ever see talking about an inclusive
society, an agreed country, a genuine ethos of conciliation and co-operation
are Republicans.
Unionists, by contrast, still look as if they want triumphalism, victory
and defeat, surrender. Are we still in croppy lie down territory? Just
whose mindset remains unreformed, just whose culture is hanging on to
the old blind certainties and hatreds?
If Gerry Adams is talking of an inclusive future with IRA guns still silent
and Ian Paisley is talking of Republicans being humiliated and wearing
sack cloth and ashes who then is the stumbling block to peace?
On a Radio Ulster hone-in during the week a man whose wife and father-in-law
were killed in the IRA’s bombing of the Shankill Road came on air.
Now here was someone who had suffered, who had lost his loved ones, who
knew about things far worse than humiliation. He said that if anyone should
be wearing sackcloth and ashes it should be Ian Paisley for denying the
North such an historic deal. And he said that out of unimaginable pain.
But after all, if the future of the northern corner of this country is
handed over to those who wish to cooperate and integrate and not those
who wish to humiliate, what’s left for an old bigot to do?
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