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Brendan
O’Neill’s recent The Blanket article
“How the Peace
Process Divided Ireland“ contains some important
truths - not least his assessment that, “in reality,
the deepening[ Northern Ireland social] divide is
a result of the peace process, not a threat to it”
- but some of his analysis in that regard is quite
incorrect.
More
and more as the days go by, people are allowing themselves
to talk out loud, as Mr. O’Neill does, about
some of the objective realities and inadequacies of
the “peace process,” particularly as currently
manifested in the Good Friday Agreement scheme:
The
Irish peace process has division and instability
built in. 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. [Emphasis added.]
However,
notwithstanding those accurate observations, Mr. O’Neill
goes on to exaggerate the extent to which political
and constitutional matters have in fact been resolved
in Northern Ireland through the GFA:
Unionist
parties 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 a sense
of purpose and direction. On the other side, republicans
have ditched the principles on which their movement
has been based since the early 1900s - no longer
talking about being the ‘legitimate government
of Ireland’, but instead effectively accepting
their position as a minority movement within the
six counties of Northern Ireland.
With the national question off the agenda, and
the conflict robbed of its political content,
all sides in Northern Ireland are turning to culture
and identity.
Mr.
O’Neill repeats these above-emphasized assessments
by arguing that today’s conflicts have been “[s]tripped
of any political content.”
That
Mr. O’Neill makes these inaccurate comments,
key as they are to his general analysis, is quite
surprising in light of his accurate assessment that
the “peace process” has involved and still
involves “containing the conflict rather than
resolving it.”
Along
with various others recently, Barry White has, conversely,
correctly identified one stark GFA inadequacy: the
Northern Ireland political conflict remains unsettled
as reflected in - and, to some extent, caused by -
the fact that the Provisional IRA has not seen fit
to stand down but instead apparently views its “role”
as a continuing one within the GFA context. More specifically,
Mr. White wrote (with emphases added below) in the
27 July 2002 edition of the Belfast Telegraph:
So
although the rules on ceasefires have now been defined
and tightened, thanks to David Trimble, nothing
has changed, unless the IRA are mad enough to continue
testing the government’s resolve. If they lie
low, making sure their hands don’t get any
dirtier, they can carry on indefinitely, resisting
the Prime Minister’s pleas for voluntary disbandment.
As long as they’re there, they’ll be
a constant source of worry for the peace process.
Most unionists will never be happy sharing power
with a party linked even to an inactive army, and
those who do will stagger from crisis to crisis,
trying to survive by threatening to quit.
Any chance of devolution working as it should
do, if we continue in this vein, is frankly impossible,
though it can take a lot of punishment. The image
of the Assembly is of an institution in constant
conflict, providing an abysmal example to the interface
communities.
Nonetheless, it must be said that, even were the infamous
“P. O’Neill” to announce tomorrow that
the Provisional IRA had stood down and disarmed completely,
the immediate tensions in the “peace process”
might considerably lessen but the underlying problem
causing division would remain: absent a demonstrably
long-term and generally accepted constitutional solution,
Northern Ireland will be interminably divided between
those still firmly desiring reunion and those opposed
to it.
As but one minor example of this situation, the Irelandclick.com
web site on July 9, 2002 published a story trumpeting:
“Support for UK link at all time low in North.”
That article backed up this headline with “Northern
Ireland Life and Times political attitudes survey”
data: “[T]he number of people supporting the
Union is now at 49.3%, down a massive 22% since 1989
when it stood at 71%.” Great news for Reunionists!
Bad news for Unionists!
Until,
that is, the next sentence of that story is read:
“The same survey suggests that the number of
people who want Northern Ireland to ‘re-unite
with the rest of Ireland’ stands at 28.3%.”
Doing the math and leaving out the undecideds (as,
of course, they might do themselves in a real-life
plebiscite), this political attitudes survey tells
us that a vote on reunion would run about 37 percent
in favor and about 63 percent against. According to
that analysis, reunion will assuredly not happen overnight,
and it may indeed not happen even at the end of an
additional full generation.
Nonetheless,
a constant drumbeat for reunion, heard by all in Northern
Ireland, continues, and thus people there inevitably
divide themselves accordingly along sectarian lines.
Against
this backdrop, Billy Mitchell’s recent article
and question “Is
Class Politics a Possibility?” can be answered:
“Basically no, class politics is not a realistic
possibility in the current context.” Of course,
some “class politics” is already found across
the respective ranges of the current Unionist and
Nationalist/Republican political parties. However,
more to the point concerning cross-community class
politics, any attempt in the current context to form
and operate, for example, a Northern Ireland “Liberal”
party would, sooner rather than later, result in a
split between “Union Liberals” and “Reunion
Liberals.” (Cf. the Alliance Party, not
yet straying far from its Unionist roots but nonetheless
losing considerable support to parties more straightforward
on their union/reunion positions.) The same would
be true for Northern Ireland “Conservatives,”
Northern Ireland “Labours,” and so on.
Jim
Dee, writing for the Boston Herald on 28 July
2002, hopefully suggests that all is not lost for
the “peace process,” even if the GFA is
relegated to history:
So
where does that leave the peace process?
There is no question that rocky times again lie
ahead. But it must be remembered that the Good Friday
accord - while a pivotal moment in both British
and Irish history - was neither the beginning nor
the end of the broader peace process.
As always, the big picture is what really counts.
And, in that sense, one of the most important developments
of the entire peace process is that cooperation
between London and Dublin has strengthened dramatically
since 1993.
If Northern Ireland’s new political arrangements
collapse or are suspended between now and next May,
Dublin and London will work together as never
before to ensure the peace train stays on track.
[Emphasis added.]
Maybe,
just maybe, the “big picture” engineers
of this peace train could and should next time take
a difficult, never-before-attempted detour from the
peace process’s “let’s not seriously
try to resolve the underlying constitutional issue”
mainline. Maybe it would be helpful if people in Ireland,
North or South, themselves discussed that particular
point publicly, directly, honestly, and, not least,
capably.
More specifically in that regard, a few contributors
to The Blanket have purported to address my
earlier published arguments regarding the British
and Irish governments’ initiating, in the wake
of a GFA failure, an inquiry into the possibility
of a fair and workable six-county independence. Maybe
others - perhaps including Mr. O’Neill - could
take on, “pro” or “con,” those
same independence arguments, but maybe, unlike earlier
critics, they could do a creditable job.
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