|
One
point has always been central to the Good Friday Agreement.
To some, it is a point so overwhelming in its importance
and so unavoidable and uncontrollable in its nature
that, to them, it has often seemed better to pretend
that it doesn’t exist at all. To others, its
existence so suffuses Northern Ireland’s socio-political
environment that it is scarcely discernable as an
element of the overall political context-and the overall
political problem-and is therefore seldom consciously
considered.
That
key point is this: the Good Friday Agreement was an
initiation of a political process which depends inevitably,
and to an unduly large degree, on the kindness and
goodwill of political opponents. The big problem is,
of course, that, in political environments, kindness
and goodwill are voluntary qualities which can be
withheld strategically or withdrawn altogether if
doing so can yield beneficial or necessary results.
The
pervasiveness of this “goodwill” phenomenon
is seen most recently in the following report of Sinn
Féin’s alleged negotiating position:
Sinn
Fein wants Mr Blair to give a categoric undertaking
that he will never again suspend the assembly and
power-sharing executive which have been put in cold
storage on four occasions over the past five years.
Nicholas
Watt and Rosie Cowan, “‘Imaginative gesture’
predicted by Adams,” The Guardian, 24
January 2003.
To
whatever extent, if any, Sinn Féin did actually
ask for a “categoric undertaking” on that
point, that party must have known that it was literally
asking the impossible from Mr. Blair and that it could
in the end obtain, at very best, a personal “best
efforts” commitment from him in that regard.
(“Copperfastening” is a term often heard
in the Northern Ireland political context notwithstanding
that fact that it is invariably a laughably inaccurate
description of what is actually taking place.)
Why can Mr. Blair give no “categoric undertaking”
forswearing future Assembly and Executive suspensions?
Four reasons leap to mind.
First, the oldest and truest cliché of so-called
“constitutional law” in the United Kingdom
is that no Westminster government can bind its successors,
and Mr. Blair would without doubt make no profession
of his own political immortality. The next prime minister
may come ten weeks from now or ten years from now,
but that prime minister will make up his or her own
mind as to whether, under the then prevailing circumstances,
Northern Ireland should have devolved government (Britain
has already well established the precedent of suspending
such government, even under the GFA, at its own pleasure)
and, if so, in what form and under what conditions.
Second, Mr. Blair is of course in no position to guarantee
Mr. Trimble’s position within the UUP. Were the
UUP to choose a new leader, that party’s taking
part in the GFA’s Assembly and Executive could
not be regarded as a certainty.
Third, Mr. Blair cannot in fact guarantee that Mr.
Trimble, even if he remained the UUP leader, might
not decide-again-to abandon the GFA scheme. For example,
the UUP under Mr. Trimble might threaten some time
in the future to quit Stormont if Mr. Blair did not
reject certain police reforms; if the UUP followed
through on such a threat, any “categoric undertaking”
not to suspend the Assembly and Executive would be
unavailing as the resignation of the Northern Ireland
Executive’s First Minister itself effectively
puts a brake on that entire devolved government.
Fourth, Mr. Blair clearly cannot guarantee the UUP
will prevail over the DUP in the next election, and
he assuredly could not guarantee that the DUP, as
the Unionist majority party in Stormont, would accede
to any mandatory powersharing arrangement including
Sinn Féin.
People
like Blanche DuBois may individually have to depend
largely-and sometimes unsuccessfully-on the kindness
of strangers, but a presumption of pervasive political
warm-heartedness seems a rather slender reed upon
which to try to fashion a durable governmental structure
in virtually any part of the real world, excluding
by no means whatsoever Northern Ireland.
That
fact notwithstanding, Sinn Féin could probably
decide now to “jump first,” to get the IRA
to disband permanently, to convince the UUP to return
to devolved government under the GFA, and to hope
that all would thereafter turn out well. Moreover,
Sinn Féin could do so notwithstanding the fact
that the party has given Mr. Blair rather backhanded
praise “for his ‘frank admission’ recently
that the Government had not honoured all its commitments
under the Good Friday Agreement” (Press Association,
25 January 2003). And maybe all would indeed work
out for the best were Sinn Féin and the IRA
to take that final leap of faith.
But
there has apparently been a bit of discussion in some
circles on whether Republicans would more likely see
controversial and yet-unfulfilled promises actually
fulfilled after their Armalites have been beaten into
begging bowls. (Should anyone regard that analysis
as some sort of incitement, please see my year-old
article “Disarm
Redundant Weapons Now” (The Blanket,
Belfast: 21 January 2002,).)
While he was head of Cable News Network, billionaire
Ted Turner started his “Goodwill Games”
in the mid-1980’s as “a way to ease tensions
during the Cold War through friendly athletic competition
between nations” (http://www.goodwillgames.com).
Sixteen years later, with the cold war little more
than a fading memory and with CNN having in the interim
been swallowed by media giant AOL Time Warner, those
Games ran out of goodwill and formally “cease[d]
operations.”
Perhaps similarly, Northern Ireland’s own political
goodwill games will soon be abandoned as well past
their prime and then, à la Van Morrison, the
people of Northern Ireland “can get down to what
is really wrong.” À la DUP Chairman Maurice
Morrow (“DUP Wants ‘New Democratic Deal,’”
News Letter, 20 January 2003), any new political
negotiations should and could then aim to produce
not a process but, instead, a genuine settlement.
Washington,
D.C. lawyer Paul A. Fitzsimmons wrote Independence
for Northern Ireland: Why and How (1993), available
from Newshound.
Index: Current Articles + Latest News and Views + Book Reviews +
Letters + Archives
|
