The beginning of the end of the Paisley era came not when Junior resigned from the Stormont Executive earlier this month, but when his father resigned as Moderator of the Free Presbyterian Church last year.
The essence of Paisleyism lay in the notion that Unionism and Protestantism were one and the same. This was symbolised in a single dominant figure holding leadership of both party and church.
In the Paisleyite perspective, the fight for the Union was an integral element of defence of the Reformation settlement. To give way to Nationalism, then, was to go against God. Hence the religious fervour with which Paisley had for decades proclaimed the old slogan – Not an inch!
But this wasn’t how the majority of Protestants saw their situation. They have signalled for some time they’d have no problem sharing power with Catholics as long as their aspiration to “remain British” was satisfied – an approach articulated increasingly clearly by political leaders of Loyalist paramilitarism in the 1990s. The approach was reflected in David Ervine and Billy Hutchinson of the UVF’s Progressive Unionist Party and Gary McMichael of the UDA’s Ulster Democratic Party marching shoulder-to-shoulder with David Trimble into the 1998 Stormont talks which Paisley had refused to attend and which were to lead to the Agreement of April that year. The Loyalist parties were reflecting feeling in working-class Protestant communities.
The impact of this pressure from below on the DUP was seen in the party’s manifesto for the November 2003 Assembly election, which called for an arrangement acceptable to “both communities”, rather than, as the party had previously demanded, an arrangement based squarely on the wishes of “the majority”. Outright opposition to power-sharing was replaced by acceptance of power-sharing in return for certainty on the constitutional position.
Meanwhile, it was clear, too, that if equality between the communities was guaranteed within the Northern State, the vast majority of Catholics would put the aspiration to a united Ireland on the long finger, and, anyway, had no stomach for a continuing armed struggle in supposed pursuit of The Republic. It was this pressure which impelled the Sinn Fein leadership to agree to a power-sharing deal which would leave Northern Ireland within the UK. The Sinn Fein leadership didn’t coax reluctant followers away from armed struggle. Rather, they brought the Movement’s position on armed struggle into alignment with feeling in the communities they purported to represent.
This is the basis of the DUP-Sinn Fein accord. The key element has been what working-class people on “both sides” wanted and would settle for.
The implication for the DUP and Free Presbyterianism has been profound. To share power with Sinn Fein was, on the face of it, to give an inch (and more) to Nationalism and thereby to compromise the Covenant which had bound party and church together. Paisley himself had broken the connection between his religion and politics. Hence, last September, he was compelled to announce he’d stand down as Moderator of the Free Presbyterians.
The decisive moves were made by the mass of the people. The incompetent chicanery of Paisley Junior may to some extent have dictated the timing of the most recent developments. But it was the people, particularly the Protestant working-class people, who did for Paisleyism in the end.
Those of us convinced that the man serving life in Scotland for the 1988 Lockerbie bombing was the victim of a miscarriage of justice were cheered last week by news that a deal had been done with Libya to enable Abdelbaset Ali Mohamed Al Megrahi to be transferred to his own country. The confirmation came in a letter from British Justice Secretary Jack Straw to the Herald newspaper saying that, “No deal has been done with Libya for the transfer of Al Megrahi.”
Bertie Ahern says we must vote yes to the Lisbon Treaty because it’s only through acting in concert with the EU that the Republic can have a voice in world affairs.
Keep that in mind as we consider recent events at the Rafah crossing between Egypt and Gaza.
On January 23, in scenes thrillingly reminiscent of the fall of the Berlin Wall, thousands of Palestinians broke out from the imprisonment imposed on them by Israel. The Rafah barrier was blasted, bulldozed and torn down by bare hands. Huge numbers poured through to bring back food, fuel and other desperately-needed necessities.
There was a puzzle here. Nobody doubted the reason for closure of the four crossings between Gaza and Israel: Israel was punishing the Palestinians for refusing to bow down. But why had the single crossing into Egypt also been closed, to complete the circle of incarceration?
Here’s why. Access to Gaza is governed by the Agreement on Movement and Access (AMA), drawn up in November 2005 under the supervision of the Middle East Quartet – the US, the EU, Russia and the UN. This would “give the Palestinian people freedom to move, to trade, to live ordinary lives,” said Condoleeza Rice.
The EU operates for the quartet in implementation of the Agreement. EU monitors are stationed with Israeli officials in a “liaison office.” The EU has agreed – although this is nowhere written down – that its monitors won’t sanction opening of the Rafah crossing without the say-so of the Israeli officials alongside them.
Since June 9 last, after the elected Hamas government asserted control over Gaza, the Israelis, and therefore the EU, have refused to authorise opening at Rafah. This is how the blockade of Gaza – now re-imposed – came about.
All EU members act thus in concert to ensure the oppression of the Palestinian people.
This is the voice in world affairs which Ahern warns we will lose if we don’t vote yes to the Lisbon Treaty.
“I have been in debates with many atheists and most of them are actually deeply unpleasant individuals,” John Waters told Jason O’Toole in the last issue.
If I were a more sensitive person, I’d be upset. John went on: “To actually believe [in God] requires quite massive, not just rational intelligence, but emotional intelligence, intuitive intelligence, creative intelligence.” My own deeply unpleasant view is that to actually believe in anything requires evidence.