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In
his
recent response to my pieces setting out a new framework
for a future all-island Republic, Mr Paul Fitzsimmons
seems to regard the entire exercise as a monumental
waste of my time. He rightly states that at present
there is no driving force, either military or socio-political,
towards unity at present - and from there asserts
that any discussion of what form that Unity may take
is so much hot air, notwithstanding any “interesting
theoretical points” such a discussion may raise.
I
think Paul is missing the point. The fact that there
is no current real dynamic towards Unity (despite
all Sinn Féin’s rhetoric) is a matter
of concern - and not just to me. And in the absence
of anyone else “stepping up to the plate”
as our American cousins say, someone has to
kick-start debate. Hopefully between the two of us
we have already started that process.
Of
necessity, from a Republican or Nationalist point
of view, this will involve re-examining what we mean
by “Unification”. What sort of all-island
State do we want? As a fundamental part of this we
must consider the Unionist population - how can we
not just accommodate them, but entice them
into joining with the rest of the island on this project?
Consideration of the Unionists cannot be, as so often
in the past, an optional add-on, but something built
into the very fabric of any new State.
Contrary
to Paul’s statement that
“That
Unionists in Ireland closely associate their heritage
and traditions
with the isle of Great Britain, that they broadly
view themselves as
"British," that they often have a real
and strong (albeit, to Republicans,
an obsequious if not serf-like) loyalty to the English
monarchy, that they
have considerable trepidations about going from
a majority position in the
North to a small minority position in a 32-county
state, these facts are
just not worth Mr. Irvine's public consideration”
I
was of the opinion that, in contrast to most traditional
Republican and Nationalist rhetoric on the subject,
I was consciously building all of these Unionist concerns
into my model.
What,
otherwise, would be the point of bringing the Foreign
Treaty powers of the German Lander and Swiss
Cantons into the mix? I explicitly mentioned an instance
whereby a Unionist-majority tuath could have
its own formal relationships with the British Government
and the Crown within the Irish Federation. I can imagine
instances where Unionist-controlled local areas may
have special citizenship arrangements with Britain;
where a member of the Royal Family may hold, for example,
the honorary position of head of the local council
- and many other possibilities whereby Unionist areas
can give real and tangible expression to their British
sense of identity. Furthermore, developing these relationships,
expressions and treaties is a matter for those Unionists
themselves. Such links will not be a begrudging grant
from the table of those who would be our betters,
but something they have arranged by themselves and
for themselves, on their own terms.
Surely,
also, devolving real governmental power to local areas
and allowing treaties with other Governments at a
stroke negates Unionist fears of being vastly outnumbered
with no power in their own land? Under my model, we
are all of us masters of our own destinies in our
own parts of Ireland. Surely this is preferable to
finding yourself permanently dependent on the whims
of London Governments you cannot fully trust?
The
current situation is as damaging to Unionists as it
is to Nationalists or Republicans. The stresses caused
within the Unionist community by being forced to live
in as much a state of “Ever Becoming” as
Republicans are clear, and both socially and politically
destabilising. Old Stormont is dead and gone and is
never coming back, though many seem to believe in
its incipient resurrection. And as things stand, the
only choices they seem to have are to play the GFA
institutions and hope they can keep clinging by their
ever-shrinking fingertips onto some sort of control
over events in “Ulster”; or to accept abject
defeat and march sullenly into Dublin’s dead
embrace. The current consensus on “The North”
within the London and Dublin Establishments traps
all of us into permanent instability and, for Unionists,
the appalling prospect of a “death by a thousand
cuts” while for Republicans the equally-appalling
prospect of an entire community deluding itself into
thinking the lá will indeed tiocfaidh, and
being eternally disappointed.
This
must stop.
Fresh
thinking is required, and while my own musings may
never receive broad acceptance - someday, somewhere,
somebody else’s will. Paul’s stated preference
for a six-county independent state has been mooted,
on and off, and mainly by Loyalist paramilitaries,
for decades. No one seems to be buying, and for good
reason.
One
of the North’s primary problems is the extreme
insularity of the place. Wrapped up in the integrity
of its own eternal struggle, the outside world has
never really meant much to any of the inhabitants.
And an independent six-county state will remain trapped
in its own little bubble. Speaking as someone who
“escaped” from the claustrophobia of Derry
to the Republic 11 years ago, and as someone who has
spoken to many other similar “refugees”
- in the Republic, in Britain, in the US - the one
thing that always crops up in conversation and memory
is the day all we exiles realised just how dysfunctional
the place of our birth really was. Though we love
it all the same, and it will always be home, the whole
place needs the breath of fresh air that reconnecting
with the outside world will bring.
I
cannot see that ever happening while those Six Counties
remain either attached by their poisonous umbilical
cord to Britain; or free to float in their own space.
In fact any UDI would merely exacerbate the existing
situation, no matter what idealistic views of a happy-clappy
democratic egalitarian Ulster some people may hold.
If we Northerners are not sufficiently mature and
outward-looking to operate the GFA properly, how does
Paul imagine we will be magically transformed into
a people that could successfully operate an independent
State?
Unionists
are obviously confused and frightened by the future.
And little wonder, for the current political consensus
and traditional Unionist policy conspire to trap them
into a nightmare twilight world. Confused and frightened
people, with no obvious possible future that looks
remotely pleasant, are dangerous to themselves and
to others. And that is precisely what we are witnessing
within Unionism at present.
The
truth is that the only people that can rescue Unionism
from this predicament are the Unionists themselves.
Only by seizing the initiative, transforming the rhetoric,
and striking out for a new goal - one which offers
them a secure future in their own place but in partnership
with the rest of the peoples of this island, not the
sterile divisions and hatreds and isolationism of
the past - and brushing aside the stifling consensus
and its no-hope no-future paradigm, can Unionism rescue
itself and its people from this endless trek of misery.
Time
for change. Time for hope.
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