|
Joe Horgan
AS A complete outsider it is hard to judge just what kind of society the
one in the North of Ireland actually is. It is difficult to know whether or
not the place is actually fairly ordinary with just a few headline-making
incidents. Perhaps all the friction simply involves a few areas and a few
people and just occasionally spills out and engulfs the wider community. Or
maybe it truly is a deeply disturbed place where the norms of social living,
that most of us on this island and the next one take for granted, do not
exist.
I suspect only those who live or have lived there could truly know the
answer. As represented by its politics though, the north appears as divided,
duplicitous and disturbed as ever.
By the route of some torturous reasoning Sinn Féin is now arguing that
everyone actively involved in the conflict should have the slate wiped
clean, with the exception of those in the pay of the British state.
A leading Sinn Féiner argued this so cogently on the radio recently that I
almost ending up agreeing with him until the basic injustice of such a
policy became clear. How can one set of combatants really be differentiated
from any other if a lasting peace is to be maintained? How are those of the
Unionist tradition supposed to accept an amnesty for IRA gunmen and bombers
if the same is not extended to members of the British security forces?
Is Sinn Féin really suggesting that members of the security forces, who I
have no doubt committed murder and caused death, should still be held
accountable but those who bombed working class Birmingham pubs shouldn’t?
Where is the parity of esteem there? Where is the truth and reconciliation
in that? Now it will take far finer minds than mine to navigate a path that
leads to peace and truth as part of really ending the conflict. Perhaps a
lasting resolution of all that pain is impossible. But if nothing else it is
obvious that all those involved in the peace process owe all those lives
wasted and cut short far more than the clever semantics and moral tap
dancing Sinn Féin are displaying. If nothing else, Republicans have proved
themselves to be far too politically cute to believe this notion could ever
be acceptable. Fair enough if they are just involved in political
manoeuvring, but as someone who quite often agrees with what they say it is
also clear at times like this why they leave a bad taste in so many mouths.
Unfortunately you can always rely on the Unionists to carry on their part in
displaying, to the ignorant outsider, the province’s politics and society as
the land that time forgot. As Sinn Féin participation in the Policing Board
continues to remain a missing piece in the jigsaw of peace, a slow drip feed
of Catholics into the PSNI has begun.
Whatever your opinion, it seems clear that a police force that really does
draw from the different communities has to be a prerequisite towards
institutional normality. In these circumstances it was recently revealed
that a Catholic police graduate wore an old IRA medal awarded to a member of
his family at his passing out ceremony. Under internal police rules recruits
are allowed to wear medals awarded to family members and this medal was one
of those distributed by the Irish State to those who took part in the War of
Independence. With weary predictability, Unionists reacted with almost
staged horror at such a revelation. They demanded an investigation into how
such a thing had occurred, even though they must have known that it was
permitted within the rules.
Unionists declared the recruit’s medal deeply offensive. Quite beyond me. Is
Unionist philosophy such that they can see no legitimacy in any expression
of Irish Nationalism? Would they argue that Ireland under direct British
rule was a fairer and more humanely just political entity than an Irish
state under Irish rule? Are they just bad historians? Or are they knee-jerk
bigots frothing with sectarianism at the mention of tricolours or Irish
identity?
Those of us who aren’t from there just don’t know, but as an outsider
looking in, surely they all prefer the peace. Surely we can assume that
much. And surely they can all find something better to do with it than this. | 