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If
I were teaching journalism I would tell my students
once they qualify, to think very carefully before
writing a book about a subject/place in which they
currently plough their trade. Whilst the pot of money
dangled before them by eager publishers to get hold
of a book on a hot topic may seem attractive, if not
tempting, few working journalist have successfully
written these type of books. Of course there have
been exceptions that disprove the rule; Pity the
Nation by Robert Fisk is a prime example. The
book covers the trials and tribulations of the people
of the Lebanon during the civil war and Israeli invasion.
Fisk, back then as today, lived in the Lebanon and
was then the Times Middle east correspondent.
Sadly few journalists have been able to emulate him
and in the main few such books get to the heart of
their intended subject, despite their authors often
having a great deal of knowledge about their subject
matter due covering it on a daily basis as a working
journalist.
Brian
(Barney, I'm told, to his pals) Rowan falls into this
category with his new book, The Armed Peace, Life
and Death after the Ceasefires. The core of his
problem, like all those who attempt such a work, is
sources and in this case how to portray those police
officers, intelligence agents, politicians, soldiers,
loyalist paramilitaries, clerics, etc., who are both
the main sources for the book and the personalities
that appear within it. This is part of the kernel
of the problem, for any working journalist who attempts
to write such a book, including Rowan. For if they
wish to maintain their sources into the future, they
cannot afford to give to them too much offence, as
it is vital that they are able to maintain a relationship
with these said sources, if they are to continue their
day job as a working journalist. In Rowan's case,
covering the north of Ireland as the BBC security
editor.
Another
part of the problem with this type of book is that
almost every thing the author includes in the book
will have already been put into the public domain
by them as a working journalist. In Rowan's case,
as I have already stated whilst working for the BBC.
If he had not done this and he were to publish something
new in the book which he had held back from his employer,
they would quickly want to know why he had done so.
Wanting to freelance as an author and make a few quid
on the side would hardly cut the mustard with his
employers, thus if he were to hold back without an
adequate excuse his future secure employment would
be in jeopardy, so he is hardly likely to do so.
As
too Rowan's new book, he is guilty of both the aforementioned
limitations about writing such a book and a third
is added due to the nature of the journalism he is
engaged in on a daily basis. Major news outlets like
the BBC, report through the lens of the great and
good. That is 'important' people make the TV evening
news the world over, while the masses i.e., the rest
of us have a walk on part to be manipulated like pieces
on a giant chess board. Thus in Rowan's broadcasts
as in his book The Armed Peace, his sources
are his subjects. In his eyes it is these men and
women who not only make history but their unseen hands
also sculpture it. The masses merely carry the marble.
Those individuals Rowan writes about are made up of
people who are at the height of their professions,
otherwise Barny would not give them any credence let
alone the time of day. Prime Ministers and Presidents,
senior politicians, police officers, securocrats,
the odd Republican volunteer and British military
officers, all at the top of their own greasy pole.
Now while this may work when covering Westminster,
Congress or the Dail, although I have my doubts, when
analysing the conflict in the north of Ireland and
the Peace Process it falls far short, as this conflict
has been fought out on the streets and hills, argued
over within terraced houses and small community halls.
The people who make up the ranks of the Republican
Movement, the SDLP, the Unionist Partys and the Loyalist
paramilitaries all come to some degree from within
these embattled communities. It is the decisions that
they have made that in many ways have been the motor
of the conflict's direction and more so it is how
they will judge the GFA in its totality, and what
it has brought to their door which will ultimately
decide whether it stands or falls. Yet in Rowan's
book they hardly have a walk on role. This reminds
me of the way history was taught in the UK back in
the 1950-60s, when every event good or bad was portrayed
as springing from the monarch and their senior placemen.
'The people' were invisible from the tale as indeed
they are from Rowan's book. Those who represent the
people on the Republican/nationalist side are carefully
filtered down to a handful of senior Sinn Fein suits
and their behind the scenes, 'may I whisper in your
ear, Sir' mouthpieces. Those who support the GFA in
the negotiations get a starring role, those who oppose
like Ian Paisleys and his party are given standing
room only. Those who will play a role in actually
making the decisions about whether it stands or falls
on the republican side are invisible. No matter, as
Danny Morrison is available and gets a walk on part
as their spokesperson, becoming in the process the
font of wisdom within the republican community, with
his hand and at times his heart on both their and
Gerry Adams' pulse.
When
Rowan comes into contact with senior IRA figures it
is either in the backs of cars or the corner of seedy
cafes. These senior republicans are always pushing
bits of paper across the table to Barney with a communication
signed by P. O'Neill. I began to wonder if he was
ever going to tell us he was often told to eat the
said communiqué. Yet these senior Republicans
have no name, faces nor personalities. They are quite
literally non-people, just as the British State wishes.
Never mind they have never gone away, in Barney's
book their only purpose is to shove bits of paper
signed P. O'Neill at him so that he can rush back
to the studio and read it out on the radio/TV and
give his own state sponsored spin upon it.
Now
this spin may or may not be subconscious but it is
there all the same; if anyone doubts it they only
has to read in the book the manner in which Rowan
writes about the RUC and securocrats assessment's
of the Provisional's intentions. Whatever they say
he reports as fact without spin as if these organisations
have no agenda of their own. The chief constable Hugh
Orde's word is taken as gospel; from his lips never
a lie shall pass. This despite the fact that Rowan
having been a working journalist covering the North
for more years than he cares to remember knows full
well that lies, half truths, innuendo and spin are
the daily bread for the RUC whatever the name they
trade under.
To
sum up, Rowan, like all those who sup at the top table
of the Peace Process is obsessed with the decommissioning
of PIRA arms. Every conversation reported, every interview
given in the book leads one in a circle back to this.
How much simpler for all if Gerry and his crew, once
they had decided to proceed politically without the
aid of arms and gained the freedom of the majority
of Republican prisoners, had followed the tried and
trusted way and issued an order to dump arms. But
that of course would have meant them admitting, at
least to themselves that the conflict is far from
over. How could it be otherwise when the British State
keeps thousands of their armed forces within the north
of Ireland? When their client Loyalist Paramilitaries
are all fully armed and ready for fresh orders from
their masters at any time? If arms had been dumped,
the British government would not have the peg it currently
has, on which it intends to hang the Provisional Republican
Movement upon and then place a sign above it saying
"PIRA: A Defeated Terrorist Gang".
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