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The
IRA statement this week apologising for all non-combatants
killed by it during the armed struggle has caused
a flurry of excitement in media circles. We may be
forgiven on occasion for thinking that the media scrum
stands at the bottom of the mountain awaiting a 'sign'
from above which they can interpret in some new way.
Even when the tablet of stone is passed down from
P O'Neill with the words merely rearranged somewhat
differently from the last time they came down there
is a sense that some in the press posse have just
won the scrabble championship. How so much spin can
be put on so little substance is an intellectual crime
that those charged with disseminating our news will
unfortunately not have to answer for as they meander
through a fictionalised life. How an author of a book
on the IRA, Kevin Toolis, can make the claim that
'the Irish Republican Army has never apologised, regardless
of how cruel or pointless the act' defies credulity.
The
statement of regret by the IRA should not be insensitively
dismissed, if for no other reason than the obvious
solace it has brought to some of those who have lost
loved ones as a result of IRA activity. Who would
want to deny the Rev. Joseph Parker the comfort he
derived from the apology which prompted him to say
‘thank God they have reached this stage. To me
it is a wonderful thing.' Having lost his 14 year
old son Stephen on Bloody Friday his reading of the
IRA statement should be treated with respect. His
son would be 44 now. A long time dead; a lot of grief
to carry. Anything that makes it lighter should not
be scorned.
Yet
this should not be allowed to serve as cover for some
in the media to behave as if used cars are spanking
new models. Nor should it serve as a licence with
which to designate themselves as salespeople with
the task of securing purchasers through a discourse
abounding with allusions to the novelty of the product
or its unprecedented content. It is this media worship
of the peace process that has helped sustain that
process as a powerful discursive formation replenished
in large part by its own myths. And as Jack Holland
so brilliantly pointed out challenge the myth and
you become a rejectionist or an enemy of the peace
process. Yet if left unchallenged the public will
be led into the world of Alice in Wonderland.
In
assessing IRA statements any evaluation has to be
made against a backdrop that under the present leadership
republicanism has become a corporate lie. Lying both
externally and internally has become a defining characteristic
of the republican leadership. And on occasion expressions
of grief have meant absolutely nothing. In October
2000 the IRA shot dead Joe O'Connor in Ballymurphy.
It went on to deny any involvement and offered condolences
to the family of O'Connor.
For
all the media fanfare this week, the truth is that
the IRA has been apologising for years for killing
non combatants. And why should it be any other way?
No matter how legitimate a cause if we kill the innocent
in pursuit of it should we refuse to say ’sorry’?
The implication would be one of having for ourselves
the right to kill people by mistake. Such unadulterated
arrogance could only delegitimise any cause. In 1978
the IRA went so far as to say that it would accept
criticism from those bereaved after the La Mon bombing
in 1978. That they may have situated such apologies
in the context of general British culpability is beside
the point. Even on this occasion by differentiating
between combatants and non-combatants the IRA is still
saying that all those killed died in a just war against
Britain, otherwise the organisation would have apologised
for all the deaths. Mistakes merit apologies and the
IRA were no strangers to the concept of making one
and then offering the other. At one point in 1988
apologies followed mistakes with such frequency that
Bishop Eddie Daly in a funeral homily said he wanted
to hear no more of them.
All
this aside it is expecting too much to think that
IRA statements or acts at significant junctures are
mere coincidence. Gerry Adams claiming that this year’s
second round of decommissioning had no link to the
Republic's general election as he sat beside party
candidate Arthur Morgan was amazing for how he managed
to prevent his tongue coming through his cheek. The
1999 IRA statement that it was disclosing the location
of the graves of the disappeared shortly before negotiations
at Hillsborough persuaded few that the objective was
humane rather than strategic and was not linked to
taking the heat off in terms of the decommissioning
demands the party was facing. It was an act of the
utmost cynicism - literally throw a few bones as a
means to move the scent away from the weapons trail.
There
is a republican hand more strategic than ethical guiding
the latest announcement. The leadership are cleverly
making a pitch to isolate unionism as it attempts
to gather wider support for its demand that Sinn Fein
be punished for the failure of the IRA to act in a
'housetrained' way. The Sinn Fein leadership will
argue that the unionist allegation that republicans
are not fit for government is ridiculous given that
republicans are making apologies for killing the innocent,
attending imperialist war commemorations, and have
been de facto assisting the RUC (and in return receiving
RUC praise for it) in Ardoyne in ensuring that nationalist
youth pose no challenge to the state at a time when
those claiming to be fit for government are violently
attacking the RUC at Drumcree.
In
addition, Sinn Fein will be acutely aware that the
thirtieth anniversary of Bloody Friday is an opportune
time for journalists to rake the embers and assign
culpability to some individuals. The party president
will be all too conscious that, as one critical journalist
put it, 'the 30th anniversary of Bloody Friday would
provide ample opportunity for journalists to explore
his dark past'. The party would fear that the person,
as they see it, who is the leader of the Irish peace
movement, may be presented abroad and in the Republic
as the ’honourable member for Massacre’.
While the allegations flying about seem based on very
dubious substance, it is the spin that worries the
party. By getting in first with an apology the IRA
hopes to draw the sting out of the inevitable adverse
commentary.
In
all of this there is a further issue that the IRA
leaves unaddressed. How can the relatives of some
non combatants take any succour from the IRA statement
if the organisation denied killing their loved ones
in the first place? Who is to apologise to the families
of the Whitecross massacre - the Republican Reaction
Force? What is the husband and child of census collector
Joanne Mather to believe? Do they not merit an apology
rather than a denial?
If
words are to be worth more than the breath used to
convey them then there needs to be an acceptance that
mistakes are, by definition, beyond the control of
the IRA once it moves into operational mode. And while
the organisation remains active to any extent it will
always pose a threat of some sort to non-combatants,
the case of Andy Kearney serving as a salutary testimony
to the veracity of this contention. Saying sorry for
a mistake depreciates in value if those who say it
are prepared to risk the same mistake all over again.
This
week’s IRA statement, therefore, may well be
consistent with the peace process but need not be
consistent with the peace. It merely means that in
its battle with unionism to enhance the nationalist
position within the parameters of the internal settlement
republicans signed up to under the Good Friday Agreement,
‘truth’ is a weapon to be used against the
‘other side’. This seriously pollutes the
atmospheric well out of which, it is hoped by some,
a Truth and Reconciliation Commission shall emerge.
Sadly, truth is not wanted here, just its appearance.
Equally sadly, it is an appearance the peace process
sustains as was all too visibly evident from the comments
of a leading Irish participant at a 1998 Oxford conference:
the Good Friday Agreement was 'a delicately balanced
compromise which can be destroyed by truth - honesty
and straightforward talking must be avoided at all
costs.'
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