No
doubt, many of those still interested enough are
sitting wondering what the rollercoaster ride of
the last few days was all about. Those suffering
most from Post-Debacle Stress Syndrome will be the
dealoholics. While it has not yet found a cure for
chronic sufferers whose recurring symptoms break
out every time Blair and Ahern hint at coming to
Belfast, Northern Ireland fortunately leads the
field in PDSS research. The correlation between
PDSS and journalism is said to resemble that for
smoking and cancer. An early warning sign appears
to be a totally irrational belief despite all the
evidence to the contrary, that the political tyre
kickers who seek to govern us would actually complete
a transaction that might, once the initial fanfare
faded and the audience had gone home, consign them
to obscurity. Once full blown, PDSS, feeding on
its own symptoms, manifests itself in an even more
bizarre belief that the next Blair-Ahern visit will
sort matters out and deliver a done deal. Which
in this place would be one of those rarely recorded
instances of a successful parasite having deliberately
killed its host. As Nick Robinson reported in the
Times, ‘this row was a tad too convenient for
both sides who, away from the cameras, showed none
of the anger or bitterness they had displayed publicly
for their supporters.’
Of
the two parties locking horns, albeit through the
impaled butts of the British and Irish governments,
the DUP is more eager to strike a deal. Amongst
other things it thinks that having a sackcloth-clad
Martin McGuinness in government is evidence enough
that it has humiliated the IRA and shunted the lion's
share of the blame for the conflict onto Adams'
militia. How else can Peter Robinson justify putting
McGuinness in government after having named the
Derry nationalist under Assembly privilege as a
member of the Provisional IRA’s prosperous
army council?
Sinn
Fein's primary aim is to expand North and South.
It is power driven rather than ideologically guided.
This totalising strategy determines and is not determined
by strategic sub-concerns in the North. The power-sharing
executive there is subsidiary to the imperatives
of expansionism. It's function or malfunction will
not be determined by Northern factors but by island-wide
ones. The North nevertheless remains vitally important
because it houses the pump from which flows the
high octane aphrodisiac that Sinn Fein feeds on
and without which its explosive propulsion onto
the national stage could not be sustained. Tonight
on the Republic’s Late Late Show, Gerry Adams
was the main act. He was there promoting himself
and his party – quite well it must be said
– solely as a result of this week’s deal
debacle. Had the deal been clinched he would have
been on the show tonight also. But perhaps on no
more. But with no deal, Late Late viewers are assured
of even more commanding performances by the Sinn
Fein boss.
Sinn
Fein, astute in measuring public perception and
conscious of the need to maintain goodwill at home
and abroad, knows it must be seen to be working
towards an accommodation with unionism. The type
of accommodation, however, must not be bedded down
too comfortably otherwise it develops a dynamic
and sustainability all of its own and might just
bring an end to the endless processing. To prevent
such settling Sinn Fein always offers the unionists
a chair, which invariably has a nail in it so the
latter, if they avoid getting scratched, can never
sit comfortably. The nail is the IRA. For as long
it is below the unionist fundament there is no respite.
Sooner or later, with or without arms it tears something
and all bets are off. Requiems and inquests follow.
Then the two governments come along, give the kiss
of life to the corpse, and the thing totters along
for another while.
Sinn
Fein encourages this situation of creative crisis
to happen. A permanently settled executive is no
good to it. One facing seemingly interminable crisis
gives the party’s island wide expansionist
project more zip. Subverting any Northern political
equilibrium, rather than thwart the peace process
adds momentum to it. Each time IRA subversion occurs
Sinn Fein is more than content to wage a public
battle over the existence of its military arm. It
seeks to persuade the island’s public that
unionist intransigence is more detrimental to attempts
at establishing a power-sharing executive than the
IRA, which we are disingenuously told has been on
ceasefire for ten years. That policy so far has
been rewarded at the polls North and South. It is
unlikely to be abandoned until such times as electoral
growth is capped.
Viewed
through such an interpretive grid, the hue and cry
about humiliation is a red herring. Paisley’s
sackcloth and ashes comment is the excuse, not the
reason, for Sinn Fein not to strike the deal. Sinn
Fein in its own humiliation of David Trimble last
October clearly signalled it had no intention of
doing a deal and had every intention of elongating
the life of the peace process. By bagging the promise
of an election before concluding a deal, then not
concluding a deal, Sinn Fein sent Trimble into an
electoral lion pit where his only hope was to minimise
the mauling he was certain to get. Sinn Fein was
aware that on the other side of the election the
emerging unionist lion would have DUP branded on
its rump and that it would never forego an opportunity
to wave the sackcloth. There was never any intention
to deal then or now. Last year's humiliation of
Trimble, who at least believed in the Good Friday
Agreement despite being continuously blamed on not
wanting it implemented, was predicated on a Sinn
Fein desire to produce a more plausible 'rejectionist'
unionist body.
Sinn
Fein shrewdly and strategically always ensures that
concomitant with sabotaging the stabilisation of
the power sharing institutions, there will be enough
coming from the party to create the appearance of
forward momentum. It helps in the blame game. The
latest paper from the two governments indicates
that Sinn Fein is willing to move on a range of
issues including policing. It has, to the chagrin
of the SDLP allowed the DUP to dilute the mechanisms
of accountability within the assembly. But crucially,
it has not disbanded the IRA. Its time will come
when the exchange rate is considerably higher than
anything a power sharing executive can offer.
