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BBC
Spotlight yesterday evening was devoted to
profiling Martin McGuinness. Unlike television documentaries
from a bygone era in which Provisional republicanism
was still considered a threat to the British state
and McGuinness public enemy No 1, last night’s
broadcast was in soft focus. The dissonance between
two previous programmes - Real Lives in 1985
and the Cooke Report in 1993 - and Spotlight
2002 could hardly have been more graphic. The powers
that be wish to see McGuinness locked in Stormont
and not in the H-Blocks. Safer that Irish politicians
deprive Irish people of acute hospital facilities
than the British having to do so themselves. And the
BBC is not renowned for straying off state side and
making the uncomfortable journey across the tracks.
Better that republicanism is depicted in its Good
Friday mode. The Bloody Friday variety would make
it difficult for longstanding opponents to do some
partitionist business.
In
this sense critics might muse that last night’s
broadcast was more Spot the Light than Spotlight.
From whatever perspective other than that of British
institutional power seeking to coalesce with a republican
leadership eager to become institutionalised, the
producers ensured a dimmer switch regulated the investigative
beam. Ed Moloney hardly came in from the USA to limit
his input to the largely anodyne observations that
the producers allowed their audience to hear. The
only critical voice who could lay claim to previous
republican baggage was a former British state agent,
Willie Carlin.
The
programme was not without some balance. The producers
could never have justified a televised equivalent
of Before The Dawn. Even in today’s peace
process-driven media where frequently success means
sycophancy, McGuinness being allowed to avoid the
question of IRA membership would have earned Spotlight
a slot next to Fools and Horses. The Derry
politician performed well but only in the manner of
shadow boxing where the sole contestant remains undisputed
champion for ever and a day. No real punch was ever
going to come. Despite all the waffle about securocrats,
few in the establishment want to see the Good Friday
Agreement champion knocked out of the ring. As Eamonn
McCann puts it 'there is no fundamental contradiction
between the politics of the Provo leadership and of
the British ruling class.'
Unionists
of course would bemoan that this or that particular
incident never came to be highlighted. Most are probably
seething that the human bomb - where, in our peculiar
Provisional version, we innovatively force others
to commit suicide - was not dealt with in any detail.
And had it been, today’s unionist discourse would
have burst at the seams, gorged on a verbosity focusing
almost exclusively on the possibility of Osama bin
Laden as future education minister for Scotland.
Those
republicans who have never seen anything in the peace
process other than a bunch of self-serving leadership
lies will hardly be interested in one-eyed unionism’s
particular take on events. They will perhaps fulminate
at the easy time McGuinness got on the question of
republicanism’s somersaults. Was it really the
same Martin McGuinness who said?:
I
can give a commitment on behalf of the leadership
that we have absolutely no intention of going to
Westminster or Stormont … Our position is clear
and it will never, never, never change. The war
against British rule must continue until freedom
is achieved… Don’t go my friends. We will
lead you to the Republic.
A
mere six months after these comments eight IRA volunteers
went to early graves at Loughall. How many, we may
ask, faced their deaths with those words ringing in
their ears? And would they still have ventured out
on that Bad Friday had they been presented with a
more honest account of leadership intentions? An account
that would go something like this:
I
can give a commitment on behalf of the leadership
that we have absolutely no intention of going to
the Republic or even Joint Authority… Our position
is clear and will never, never, never change. The
war against British rule must continue until partition
is secured through our consent. Don’t go my
friends. We will lead you to Stormont.
The
only uncomfortable moment for the former education
minister came when he was asked at what point he had
left the IRA. Rather than refusing to be drawn on
the matter, he awkwardly parried the question by deferring
to Saville. But at least he avoided the public ridicule
which frequently greets his party leader each time
he protests that he was never a member of the organisation.
Still,
paradoxically - but entirely consistent with the nonsenses
and myths that underpin the peace process - McGuinness’s
admission that he was once a member of the IRA may
add weight to the Sinn Fein president’s claims
that he was never in it - he had no reason to infiltrate
it on behalf of peace seeking Sinn Fein, Martin was
there already trying to build a peace process.
While
Deaglan de Breadun, formerly Northern editor of the Irish Times,
described Gerry Adams as the architect and Martin
McGuiness as the engineer, the latter’s respect
for his party leader while evident was qualified by
his wish to stress that he was no flunkey merely there
to hold the umbrella over Adams’s head when it
rained. The Ballymurphy man had learned a lot from
the Bogsider we were told. Nevertheless, McGuinness
went as far as to explain how he would trust
the party leader with his life. Brave man Martin.
More faith than me.
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