Northern
Ireland's peace process is,
despite IRA's decision on arms,
still a fudge
By JONATHAN
POWER
August 7, 2001
LONDON - This is not the last tango in Belfast, whatever
the hype of Sinn Fein. Sinn Fein and the IRA have a
marked ability to suggest, even promise, a course of
action but then the actual delivery becomes a
now-you-see-it-now-you-don't process.
Still, the IRA proposal made earlier this week looks
like the firmest and clearest promise yet to destroy
their arm caches. And common sense suggests that in the
end they will act to begin real disarmament before next
week's deadline, despite today's qualms by the Unionists.
Not only do the nationalists have the better part of the
bargain in the Good Friday Agreement of 1998, everyone
knows that the arms cache question is more symbolism than
substance. As was shown with the bomb that wounded eleven
people in west London last week dissident factions of the
IRA have no trouble in making deadly bombs out of
fertiliser and the international market in weapons is so
fluid depleted arsenals can be rebuilt all too
quickly.
We will not know until way in the future how many
years it takes for a culture of non-violence and "jaw
jaw", as Churchill once put it, to replace one of "war
war". The peace process and the IRA truce that is part
and parcel of it have gone on for seven years now.
Violence is dramatically down from the height of the
troubles, even counting in the bombs of the splinter
movement, the Real IRA, and the ongoing street violence
of the Protestant militias.
Moreover, in normal times, Northern Ireland, with its
strong church culture on both sides of the sectarian
divide, is one of the outstanding non-violent cultures of
Europe. If you wanted to bring your teenage daughter up
safely and securely this used to be a place to move to.
However, over the last five years, common criminality
riding on the back of the militias has started to go the
way of other societies. Just as important for the future
well being of Northern Ireland is whether this street
criminality can be dealt with as effectively as the
political violence.
The big difficulty for Northern Ireland is that so
much of the Good Friday Agreement that ushered in the
formal peace and joint Protestant/Catholic rule of the
province was built on fudge, "a working
misunderstanding", as one commentator has shrewdly put
it. This enables both sides to believe the Agreement best
serves their political agenda, which suggests that both
sides are reading things into it which are not quite
there. The longer time passes from the euphoria of the
Agreement and the success of the twin referenda in voting
support for it, the more those that disagree with it are
able to build a plausible public case for its
self-evident weaknesses.
The political agendas of the two sides are
irreconcilable for one fundamental reason. The
Protestants, who make up 60% of the North and who control
most of northern industry and commerce, want to remain
part of the United Kingdom and the Catholics want to join
up as part of independent Eire to the south. The Good
Friday Agreement which attempts to provide the Catholics
with equitable political representation and a minority
share of the offices of state is seen by a majority
(albeit a slim one) of the Protestants as the basis for a
good permanent solution. The nationists on the Catholic
side see it only as a stepping-stone to a united
Ireland.
But one achievement of the negotiations is that now
neither side feels trapped in the old political forms.
The government of Eire won a referendum in 1998 that
renounced the south's constitutional claim to sovereignty
over the north. And the Protestants have declared
themselves willing to be party to all-Ireland
institutions in which Britain and Eire have an equal say
in making policy. This opens the doors to voluntary
change rather than coerced change although it doesn't
alter the fact that the two sides want two diametrically
opposed things.
Yet long before we get to testing how far the
nationalists can push the Protestants towards devolving
increasing amounts of power to cross border institutions
a modus vivendi has to be found on the outstanding issues
of the make up of the overwhelmingly Protestant police
and on the withdrawal of the British army. Clearly, the
very fact that Sinn Fein/IRA have made this week concrete
promises about getting rid of their arms and explosives
caches suggests they are now much happier with the
promises on these issues now made by Prime Minister Tony
Blair in his demarche with the Irish Prime Minister
Bertie Ahern.
Yet, whatever the politicians promise, reality will be
governed by the levels of violence that accompany yet
another provocative Protestant Orange Order march and by
the number of times a dissident IRA faction let off a
bomb and Protestant militias move to retaliate. Optimists
will argue that having come so far the present Sinn Fein
and Unionist leadership is skilled enough to defuse
whatever tensions may arise. Pessimists will point to the
rising electoral strength of the extremists and the
province's unfailing ability to produce a continuous
supply of young militants and street thugs on both sides
who are constitutionally unable to miss a chance to
confront the other side.
Right now the optimists have the upper hand. Before
the 1994 IRA cease-fire Unionists would not be seen
standing in the same room as Sinn Fein members. These
days they sit at the same table and decide government
policy together. What will keep them there is hope for
the future. While the mainstream Protestants will never
concede ground on a united Ireland they will probably be
kept reasonably happy if their majority stays intact
(which means watching the birth rate) and if there is
continuing peace. Sinn Fein, for its part, will probably
abjure the temptations of violence if the cross-border
institutions function reasonably well and if they
continue both in the north and the south to up their
proportion of the vote at election time.
Yet at bottom all this is fudge and more fudge. It
will be interesting to see, after there are another few
years of relative peace and a culture of non-violence has
taken deeper root, how they will take care of their
fundamental and unresolved differences.
I can be reached by phone +44
7785 351172 and e-mail: JonatPower@aol.com
Copyright © 2001 By
JONATHAN POWER
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