Peace in the North

By Tommy McKearney

Peace – like a cure for cancer or an end to famine - has universal and unqualified approval. No known politician, clergyman, trade unionist, journalist or even soldier is on record as being opposed to peace per se.

This is not to say that, given certain circumstances, any or all of the above might endorse or even participate in the bloodiest of conflicts. The difficulty about peace is that it manifests itself as a consequence of events, treaties and agreements rather than existing as an organic commodity or a product that can be artificially manufactured.

Consequently, it is possible to talk in seemingly oxymoronic terms of: armed campaigns of pacification, wars to achieve or restore peace and to describe armies of dangerously armed men as peace keeping forces . The potential for paradox in all of this was well recognised by the ancient Roman Tacitus when he wrote of, making a wilderness and calling it peace.

It is essential, therefore when examining Northern Ireland (or any other area of conflict), that we avoid the seductive temptation to view the conflict as a struggle between peace loving (and hence right thinking people) on one hand and war mongering, men of violence on the other.

The weakness within such an oversimplification is compounded when commentators attempt to create an additional non sequitor by insisting that in order to fit into the peace-loving camp, it is necessary to uncritically endorse a particular viewpoint or even a specific treaty or agreement.

A recent example of this in Ireland is the bi-governmentally endorsed consensus created around the Good Friday Agreement (GFA). So passionate are some of its supporters that they become frighteningly aggressive when critics highlight the inconsistencies of the document, shades perhaps of the old story about an opinion poll taken in Turkey that discovered a 95% majority in favour of democracy, while simultaneously 85% of those polled believed that the dissenting 5% should be shot for holding anti-democratic opinions.

At the risk of falling foul of a somewhat similar outlook, it remains necessary to point out the limitations of the political process in Northern Ireland.

Peace, as stated above, is dependent on many things but above all it is essential that all parties to any settlement agree on the key and fundamentaldetails of what is proposed. In South Africa, for example, there was a clear understanding that in return for retaining the economic status quo and observing a policy of no retaliation, the white minority would surrender political power to the majority. There were many on both sides who felt this arrangement was wrong but all understood what was on offer.

In the North, no such clarity is evident. The key constitutional issue has not been resolved in spite of claims to the contrary. David Trimble and his allies have recommended the GFA to unionists on the basis that it guarantees the continued existence of the 'Union'. At the same time Sinn Féin has assured its supporters that the GFA will lead in short order to a United Ireland. So confident indeed is the party president, Gerry Adams, that he has even mentioned the year 2016.

Common sense tells us both cannot be correct and that one side or the other must eventually be disappointed. How disappointed remains to be seen, but the view that given enough time the loser will forget what he was fighting about is surely a risky proposition.

Several other areas of disagreement within the GFA highlight just how risky this may be. Although apparently recently addressed, the important issues of decommissioning and policing remain contentious. Republicans feel that they were bulldozed into retreating beyond what they signed up to on the original eponymous Good Friday. Nor is scepticism confined to one side, as is evidenced by the contortions the Stormont Assembly has undergone in order to re- elect the First and Deputy First Minister. And that is before we look at the wider elements of rejectionist unionism mounting pickets on primary schools or throwing pipe bombs.

Nevertheless, there is undoubtedly a great desire for peace in Northern Ireland. After almost thirty years of bloodshed, this is hardly surprising. The very duration however, gives us a clue to the apparent paradox of a greatly reduced level of physical conflict with no corresponding universal endorsement from within the unionist community. The fact is that the crucial area of dispute - the value or existence of Northern Ireland - remains unresolved.

A majority of unionists remain convinced that Northern Ireland is a separate entity from the rest of Ireland, entitled to go whatever way its majority chooses, even if this entails excluding republicans and nationalists.

Simultaneously, republicans and nationalists still refuse to accept the permanence of the six county zone and are, at best, prepared to wait a little while longer before terminating the northern political entity. The positions are mutually irreconcilable and there is unfortunately a degree of accuracy in the observation that peace in Northern Ireland is founded as much by exhaustion as by a deep running conviction in the merits of Senator Mitchell's document.

What makes the Northern Ireland situation well nigh impossible to resolve is the absence of one of the vital requirements to ending any long running dispute - a rough equivalence of forces guaranteeing mutual disadvantage to both if conflict continues or resumes. Britain, in spite of its claim to have no selfish or strategic interest in Ireland, continues to guarantee the permanence of the 'Union' while a majority supports it. The position of Northern Ireland within the U. K. (the core value of unionism after all) is therefore safeguarded whether unionists share power or not. For unionists this is a 'win, win' situation thus discouraging any meaningful compromise.

A possible parallel with the relationship between Britain and Northern Irish unionism is that between Washington and Tel Aviv. Ultimately, a proper and lasting peace will only come about in Northern Ireland when steps are taken to overcome the key element of irreconcilibility. To allow this to take place it is necessary to remove the impediment to progress created by the connection with Britain?

And for those who point to the inevitability of civil war and genocide in the event of Britain severing its links, let us point to a proposal made over a quarter of a century ago by leading loyalists and unionists. Prominent Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) members and a powerful member of the Northern Ireland legal profession mooted the idea of a confederation on this island. A solution that would break the connection with Britain, allow for a rough balance of forces and communities in the six-counties and create structures to prevent Dublin dictating events in the North. Perhaps that would be the sort of agreement that would give us all - Wolfe Tone included - real peace.

— printed with permission from Pens for Peace, The Irish Peace Institute

(Tommy McKearney is a former member of the Irish Republican Army who served 16 years in prison in Northern Ireland. He now works for Expac in Monaghan, helping former prisoners resettle post-release. He is also editor of the radical republican magazine, Fourthwrite, and writes for the cross- community quarterly, The Other View.)