Bertie To the Rescue

One can safely say that many an eyebrow rose at the news that former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern is a key contributor to a forthcoming economic report on Nigeria – The Report: Nigeria 2011, as recently reported by Paul Cullen in the Irish Times. Among other things, Bertie highlights the importance of running well-regulated banks. Quite.

Well, it’s just another of life’s little ironies that the former Taoiseach is much more highly regarded outside Ireland than within. But this is not, let’s be clear, for his management of the country’s economy. It’s for his considerable contribution to the peace process in Northern Ireland.
Of course, by the time the entire economic edifice had crumbled around all our heads, all that was history. Voters in the larger part of the island had much more immediately pressing issues to deal with and were determined to punish, in the severest way possible, the incompetence that had characterised the past fifteen years.
The overthrow of the ancien regime was as complete as any revolution of the past 300 years. Well, of course, nobody had their heads hacked off in the middle of city squares. It was democratic. But you know what I mean.
It was likened by many observers to the landslide victory of Sinn Féin in the 1918 election. Back then, in due course, as predicted by those who know the Irish, those winners split, we had a civil war, new parties emerged, yadda yadda yadda.
But what the peace process accomplished in Northern Ireland was not unlike what Fianna Fáil achieved in Ireland between 1926 and 1932 in bringing armed political dissidents into the democratic process. They did so with a mixture of brutality, persuasion and pragmatism – for example, u-turning on basic principles, like the oath of allegiance…
So now, Sinn Féin is the senior nationalist party in the Northern Ireland Assembly and is proving just as pragmatic and flexible as Fianna Fáil was way back when. There’s been a significant spinoff benefit in the 26 counties too, as the party made significant gains in the last election and now rivals Fianna Fáil for leadership of the Opposition.
The imminent Assembly elections in Northern Ireland won’t produce anything like the earthquake and tsunami experienced across the Border. Indeed, most onlookers note how ‘normal’ the issues are for this election compared with previous.
That said, two sub-currents are important. The first is that the Shinners have largely eclipsed the SDLP and have done so to such an extent that they just might challenge the DUP as the largest party. That would mean Martin McGuinness would be First Minister instead of Peter Robinson. Were that to happen, what with the centenary of 1916 coming along, the party might justifiably feel very satisfied with itself indeed…
But on the other hand, once again, there’s a growing threat from armed political dissidents. The recent murder of Constable Ronan Kerr brought thousands onto the streets of Omagh under banners and placards proclaiming ‘Not In My Name’.
The numbers who turned out for the young man’s funeral also made a powerful statement, as did the involvement of the GAA in his funeral. An attack on one of our members is an attack on us, they said.
That was a clear signal that there is much less ‘snakin’ regard’ for the militants than was the case in the past. But the murder and the growing list of close calls shows that terrorists haven’t gone away.
As just one example, a 500lb bomb was discovered in an abandoned van in an underpass in Newry earlier this month. If it had been delivered and detonated, perhaps in the centre of Newry, it would have been as devastating as the Real IRA bomb in Omagh in 1998.
It’s increasingly difficult for people to understand those engaged in terrorism, their motivations and their labyrinthine justifications for their existence and activity. Maybe that’s because history isn’t taught as widely as in the past and therefore its interpretation has been ceded to the realm of drunken rebel balladry and sectarian opposition-baiting.
Apologists for terrorism refer back to the 1919 election. They claim that Sinn Féin won and were robbed of power, therefore rendering all subsequent elections illegal; thus also, the Army Council of the IRA is the only legitimate government of the island.
If it turned up in a Dan Brown novel you’d dismiss it as far-fetched. But they’re not fiction and, daft as their story is, they’re not joking.
Insofar as they have any support at all, it is small. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t dangerous. Disaffection has always seeded dissident activity. The forthcoming visit of Queen Elizabeth and, in due course, the looming centenary of 1916 will generate many opportunities for dissident propaganda and agitation and maybe violence.
So, as Easter looms, we face into dangerous times on both sides of the border. One Government has to contend with the effects of financial banditry, the other with dissident terrorism. Both of these phenomena need to be consigned to the past so we can all get on with the rest of our lives.
Towards that end, and in another echo of history, it may well fall to Sinn Féin to be as ruthless in suppressing the threat from dissidents ‘on their own side’ as Fianna Fáil was once. Now there’s a strange scenario...