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'It
might seem that Northern Ireland's experiment with
power-sharing is always hanging by a thread [and]
permanently on the brink of the abyss', says BBC Ireland
correspondent Kevin Connolly. 'But this time, let
there be no mistake - the thread is thinner and the
abyss a little deeper.' (1)
This
argument has been doing the rounds: that the latest
revelations to rock Northern Ireland, involving Sinn
Fein officials allegedly passing sensitive government
information from inside the Northern Ireland Assembly
to the IRA, are the real thing - the crisis that could
finally push Northern Ireland from troubled peace
back to plain old Troubles.
'Even
the little boy who cried wolf saw a wolf eventually',
writes Jonathan Freedland in the UK Guardian. 'And
that's what Belfast detects just now.' (2)
Does
the 'spying scandal' really spell disaster for Northern
Ireland's 'fragile peace'? If Sinn Fein members have
been amassing secret government documents and memos
- allegedly including transcripts of telephone chats
between UK prime minister Tony Blair and US president
George W Bush (3) - they aren't alone. Sinn Fein deputy
leader Martin McGuinness has a point when he says
that Ian Paisley's Democratic Unionist Party 'has
leaked more government documents than I've had hot
dinners' (4).
Even
if Sinn Fein passed information to the IRA, this isn't
likely to be the bombshell that many claim it is.
Guardian journalist Roy Greenslade asks: 'Does it
really matter a damn if the IRA knows…the name
of every serving prison officer, every policeman's
address, every ministerial security briefing? It hasn't
done anything about it and, most importantly, isn't
remotely likely to.' (5) 'So what?', wrote one Irish
commentator when he heard of the spying scandal. 'Today's
IRA is more likely to issue an apology than a death
threat.'
Far
more striking than the spying scandal itself has been
the reaction to it. The response to Northern Ireland's
self-induced political crises has become as predictable
as the crises themselves. Whether it's IRA decommissioning,
Orange parades, the release of political prisoners
or spying allegations, every issue has had its turn
in apparently pushing the peace process 'closer to
collapse' or to 'the edge of the abyss' or 'beyond
hope'.
The
BBC's Kevin Connolly is right to say that Northern
Ireland always seems to be 'permanently on the brink
of the abyss' - because every crisis, however small,
gets blown out of proportion as a sign of Northern
Ireland's potential descent into violence (6).
In
response to the spying scandal, one journalist claims
that the 'men of violence could fill the gap left
by the suspension of the Assembly', raising the prospect
of 'widespread conflict'. Another claims that the
'underlying violence' in Northern Irish politics could
burst through if the Assembly collapses, as if Northern
Ireland could return to all-out war any minute now.
Such
claims show how many people think that not much has
changed in Northern Ireland. They talk of a 'shaky
peace' that could be easily shattered by burgeoning
tensions between nationalists and Unionists, or a
resurgence of 'tribal hatreds' between Northern Ireland's
divided communities, as if people in Northern Ireland
are mystically driven by forces from history and only
kept in check by the peace process.
In
reality, the events of the past week show just how
much Northern Ireland's political landscape has shifted
during 10 years of peace process. Far from signalling
a return to the Troubles, the fallout from the spying
scandal captures the exhaustion of both nationalism
and Unionism, and the lack of political principle
at the heart of the peace process.
Consider
Sinn Fein's response to the British government's threats
to suspend the Assembly. The republican movement once
claimed to be the 'legitimate government' of Ireland
whose aim was to get British forces out of the Six
Counties. Now Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams has
called on Tony Blair to use the 'hands of history'
and to act as the 'guarantor of the Good Friday Agreement',
the 1998 document that set up the Northern Ireland
Assembly. 'Blair has been good on the issue', says
Adams. 'And the job of the British government is to
minimise [any] damage.' (7)
This
from a man and a movement who once rejected the British
government's right to determine what should or shouldn't
happen in Irish affairs. Forget wild claims about
republicans going back to war with British and Unionist
forces - the republican movement now effectively accepts
its position as just another political party representing
Northern Ireland's Catholic minority in the peace
process.
For
their part, Unionist leaders have ditched any talk
of the Union. Unionist parties may have cut their
teeth by defending the link between Britain and Northern
Ireland against the threat posed by republicans -
but now that no such threat exists, Unionists often
seem to lack any kind of defining mission. Like Sinn
Fein, all Ulster Unionist leader and First Minister
David Trimble could say in the wake of the spying
scandal was that 'we must defend' the Good Friday
Agreement (8).
This
is the Agreement that grants the Dublin government
a measure of influence in Northern Irish affairs,
something that would have been anathema to Unionists
of old. Indeed, one way that Trimble is trying to
'resolve the current crisis' is by holding emergency
talks with Irish prime minister Bertie Ahern about
'Northern Ireland's immediate future' - capturing
how Unionists have ditched many of their founding
principles about Northern Ireland's British status.
Even
the police raid on Sinn Fein's offices showed that
much has changed. It may have looked like old-fashioned
Northern Ireland making a comeback - with a largely
Unionist-backed and Protestant police force storming
Irish republicans' offices and showing scant regard
for anyone's rights. And indeed, Sinn Fein was quick
to describe it as 'an attack on all Irish nationalists',
with Gerry Adams saying that 'we refuse to be second-class
citizens'.
But
even this raid was swiftly followed by a bumbling
apology from the Police Service of Northern Ireland's
new man-in-charge Hugh Orde, who said he was sorry
for the 'public nature' of the raid and any heavy-handedness.
The fact that the raid was widely condemned shows
that Unionist forces may still be technically capable
of pulling off such acts - but they don't politically
get away with them anymore.
Yet
many still many interpret events in Northern Ireland
through the prism of the past - comparing every crisis
to the start of the Troubles in 1969 or to the events
of 1921 that led to the founding of the Northern Ireland
state. Reading recent events in this way means that
many miss what is new about the peace process.
It
is the changes wrought by the peace process that make
Northern Ireland's new institutions so unstable. With
its aim of containing the conflict rather than resolving
it, the peace process draws the political parties
into a dialogue without resolving any big political
questions or fundamental differences. The conflict
is no longer a political one over sovereignty and
the right to rule, but has been reduced to little
more than a squabble over cultural heritage, cultural
difference and cultural respect.
Where
Unionists and nationalists once clashed over the question
of whether Northern Ireland was Irish or British,
now they are more likely to get worked up about the
right to have their street signs in their own language
or about getting 'recognition' for their past suffering
or about the shade of green of the police force's
uniforms.
The
political clash between Irish nationalism and Unionism
has been reduced to little more than shadow boxing,
with the consequence that nothing of political substance
is ever thrashed out or resolved. The end result is
not the 'new, remade Ireland' envisioned by Tony Blair
and Bertie Ahern when they launched the Good Friday
Agreement in 1998, but a petty Ireland where even
ordinary politics becomes difficult to pursue.
Gesture
politics has replaced real politics in Northern Ireland.
Everything from the decommissioning of IRA arms to
the timing and loudness of Orange parades becomes
about 'sending a message' to the 'other community'.
Even the calls for the IRA to stand down and disband
are largely a demand for some kind of gesture from
the republican movement, as most people are aware
that the IRA has little intention of carrying out
violent acts or going back to war.
It
is these shifts that make institutions like the Assembly
so susceptible to bickering, petty clashes and collapse
- resulting in government by crisis, rather than government
by vision. It also means that there is no alternative
to the peace process. As each side ditch their old
principles and commit themselves to little more than
'forwarding the peace process', it becomes increasingly
difficult for parties or politicians to make any independent
political statements or to have any distinctive policies.
The
true nature of the Assembly was unwittingly captured
by Trimble in his speech to the Conservative Party
conference on 9 October 2002. Calling on Blair to
chuck Sinn Fein out of the Assembly rather than suspend
the whole thing, Trimble said: 'If you have a problem
with a bully in a school, you don't close the whole
school down. You exclude the bully from the class.
Nobody else should be punished.' (9)
That
just about sums it up - where the once-great movements
of Unionism and nationalism have been reduced to the
status of stubborn schoolchildren playing up to get
as much attention as they can, with Blair as the headmaster
who dishes out the punishment. No wonder Sesame Street
is planning a Belfast-based version of its patronising
kids' show, to 'promote understanding and tolerance
between Northern Ireland's rival communities' (10).
So
will the peace process itself collapse? No. Its institutions
may be unstable, but in the absence of anything else
the peace process continues. In the wake of every
crisis, politicians of all persuasions now repeat
the mantra about needing to 'save the peace process'
and 'protect the Good Friday Agreement' - showing
that they have nothing else to argue or fight for.
The
Assembly might be suspended, an election might be
called, more Unionists might resign - but the peace
process, and the instability it brings, will go on.
Read on:
(1)
The
fragility of Northern Ireland's peace, Kevin Connolly,
BBC News, 7 October 2002
(2) The
gap may be narrow but it threatens to destroy the
peace, Jonathan Freedland, Guardian,
8 October 2002
(3) Bush/Blair
transcript seized by IRA spies, Thomas Harding,
Daily Telegraph,
8 October 2002
(4) Unionists
queue up to declare the end of the affair, Rosie
Cowan, Guardian,
8 October 2002
(5) The
securocrats' revenge, Roy Greenslade, Guardian,
9 October 2002
(6) The
fragility of Northern Ireland's peace, Kevin Connolly,
BBC News, 7 October 2002
(7) Assembly
suspension 'likely option', BBC News, 9 October
2002
(8) Blair
told to get rid of 'the bully', Noel McAdam, Belfast
Telegraph, 9 October 2002
(9) Blair
told to get rid of 'the bully', Noel McAdam, Belfast
Telegraph, 9 October 2002
(10) Big
Bird heads for Belfast, Jason Deans, Guardian,
9 October 2002
Reprinted
with permission from the author from Spiked
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