A Peace of the Cake

And so the Framework Document is launched. Another dawn. Another worthy attempt by reasonable people to find a way forward for others. Similar to before. But yet, not the same. Is it because what’s proposed is better, or because the context has changed? I don’t know. This peace is beguiling. It is hard to envisage a return of the bad old days. This is especially true north of the border.

For me, what’s called the peace dividend is already paying off. Visitors are arriving. Business is being done. Profits are there to be made. A long-nobbled dynamism is loose again.

This sense that there’s work to be done, and good business to be transacted with the wider world is in itself a disincentive to war. Or rather, an incentive to go the extra mile for peace.

You wouldn’t know this from the Unionist politicians. But you’d know it from their constituents, a significant majority of whom want to take things at face value, and give peace a chance.

This could be the start of something beautiful.

And the cross-border institutions? I don’t think they’ll be frightening to unionists at all. Quite the contrary. They’ll exist for the benefit of the people on both sides of the border region.

Why? Well, let’s take the famous European Union Structural Funds. At present, Northern Ireland’s applications go through London. Not great news. London is a long way off, and doesn’t understand the place.

However, a joint application from a cross-border regional development board would be a whole different kettle of fish. It gains massive added value if targeted and guided by the canny operators from the Republic, people who are widely celebrated in Brussels as being very smart around money, but who also give very good value. They don’t just talk good programmes, they deliver too.

When you start putting it together, it begins to sound like a good partnership, the pragmatic visionaries of the Republic and the hard-nosed moralists of Northern Ireland. Bejasus, we might even start to like each other! Partners in progress!

Funny thing, you know, it is the nationalists of Northern Ireland who find it hardest to like the peoples of the Republic. They talk disparagingly of “the South” and of the sell-outs, forgetting that, for example, Dublin was always seen as a unionist city (the Lord Mayor’s chain features King Billy). I mean, look at the names of the city streets.

So “the South” consists of the Pale, the West, the Midlands and the South, which is a region as large as Northern Ireland, and is centred on Cork. What the hell. As long as the guns are silent there’s a hope. More, perhaps.

Now, if we could only find a way to get those bastards with baseball bats to back off . . .

Perhaps it’s a symbol of our times, but the image of masked thugs beating the legs off a local drug seller, or a “known joy rider” would suggest that the liberal democratic tradition has young and tender roots in parts of Northern Ireland. And it has much in common with the gruesome scenes at Lansdowne Road the other week.

One thug is much the same as another, pal. I’m sorry, but that’s how it is. The bat-wielders may think they’re acting on behalf of the people or the nation or the cause, or whatever. To me they’re exactly the same as the three fascists photographed hammering a steward at Lansdowne.

And that sad fact makes me wonder about nationalism in general. The English fascists don’t regard themselves as bigots or racists. They call themselves patriots. I have no doubt that UVF and UFF gunmen make a similar distinction, just as the IRA do.

But perhaps we’re learning. The Irish have grown used to being loved. “These lovely, hospitable people,” Terry Venables called them. So now they have to get used to the fact that not everybody sings along.

Patriotism is a complex thing. It can be exclusive and ugly, or it can be inclusive and beautiful. Which is it to be? How do we establish our identity? By hating what is different, or by welcoming it? By demanding uniformity or celebrating diversity? By attacking what we are not, or by loving what we are?

Will it be offensive? Defensive? Or will it accept the world as it is given and make the most of it for the benefit of the most of its people?

It’s (y)our choice.

You’ll forgive me if I say that some of the rubbish written about the English hooligans by Oirish saints was a bit over the top. It is true that we don’t have that belligerent football culture. But that doesn’t mean we don’t have hooligans.

In fact, as I read the many reflections of long-serving observers of the decline of English standards, I was struck by their descriptions of the fringe elements being drawn in. These were the (relatively) ordinary blokes who coat-tailed on the fascists’ disruptions, and who then got swept away by the whole schtick.

There were plenty of them in Lansdowne. ‘I’ve never done anything like this before’, they bleated. ‘I got carried away’. Lovely.

And sociologists described how the adrenalin acts as a fix for the disgruntled and dissatisfied. The chanting, the belonging, the group ethos, the heady rush of excitement. They do it because it feels good.

And it reminded me of Mick McGovern’s piece in Hot Press some years ago on Youth Defence. Anyone who thinks we are immune to this sort of group intolerance and intimidation ought to remember groups like this. Just because they’re not football hooligans doesn’t mean they’re not hooligans. Ask Brendan Howlin’s mother.

Moreover, some of them are in the States, learning from the self-styled pro-life movement there. You know the American ‘pro-life’ movement. It’s the one that says it’s okay to kill another human being, as long as s/he’s born and working for a clinic.

Imagine. Millwall meets Newt Gingrich meets Father Marx. Oh dear oh dear.