UNION SUNDOWN

A detail said it all. As RTE’s extended 6:01 news bulletin ended and the cameras panned back from the presenters, Bryan Dobson leaned across to shake the hand of Sinn Fein general secetary, Lucillita Breatnach. Definitely a gesture that wouldn’t have been made if Dobson wasn’t convinced of the ceasefire and sure that Sinn Fein had indeed joined the political club.

And yet there was a strange but telling detatchment in the Dublin public’s reserved reaction to the I.R.A. ceasefire. No mass outbreak of public rejoicing. No celebrations in Phoenix Park. No car-horns honking in O’Connell Street at midnight. It was just another day in the life – we heard the news today, oh boy . . .

Later on, I was drinking in a Ranelagh bar, hardly 400 yards from where Martin Cahill was shot. The 9 o’clock news ended but some in the pub would have preferred watching wrestling on Sky to the extended Prime Time special. Eventually the formalities were observed and we stayed with RTE. But would any German bar have switched to Sky sports when the Berlin Wall came down?

This muted reaction was in tune with the South’s increasing apathy and disgruntlement with the North. The Troubles had become our own long-running version of Zoo T.V., a political soap opera where Ian Paisley played the Edna Sharples character and John Hume was Ken Barlow. Peace, just as much as many of the later atrocities, arrived with a peculiar air of unreality.

The political pundits gathering in official circles to scavenge every last morsel of news weren’t to experience this or include it in their voluminious reports but somehow, we’d become spectators, not participants in our own history. So far, the I.R.A. ceasefire hasn’t broken the Southern spell of anaesthesia.

ROME’S WRIT DOESN’T RUN

And yet this anaesthesia was a primary reason for the ceasefire. The armed struggle hadn’t Southern support, acquiesence or even any expectation of it. In 1969, there were only three parties in the Dail; there were three new additions to parliament, but Sinn Fein, but had no chance of joining them, with the Greens the latest beneficiaries of any Southern protest vote. The Republican struggle just couldn’t continue isolated from the rest of democratic Nationalist Ireland.

But this anaesthesia, this muted and detached response on the streets of Dublin should also soothe Unionist fears. The partition mentality still survives in the South. Gerry Adams may still wish to jolly the peace process along for the maximum benefit of Sinn Fein, but he will find scant support in the 26 Counties for unrealistic demands.

And yet the immediate Unionist response was one of wounded suspicion. One could accept that they were still suffering shock after 25 years of trauma and carnage but there were also sad and irrational notes to this Unionist disharmony. If they were fearful, it was not because of the I.R.A. but because they now were in danger of becoming the isolated ones. However indirectly, Gerry Adams could communicate with Bill Clinton and Jacques Delors but those doors weren’t ajar for Ian Paisley.

The I.R.A. were also persuaded to call the ceasefire because the context had changed. Once the backdrop was the British Empire; now the background is Europe. In 1969, neither Ireland nor Britain had joined the Common Market and the Second World War was still a real experience. Among the Unionist leadership were many who’d fought in the Guards like Terence O’Neill and James Chichester-Clark or been paratroopers like the D.U.P.’s M.P., Johnny McQuade. Irish neutrality during that conflict was still remembered and not forgiven, a potent element in Unionist mythology.

It still can be a rallying call but its effect is diminishing. The real truth is that the I.R.A. campaign has disguised the fact that there are other far more powerful forces working to cause a crisis for Unionism. In the last 25 years, essentially if not totally independent of the I.R.A, two props of the Unionist identity, both its religious and Imperial elements, have been if not removed, seriously eroded.

Secularism is dulling the sharper edges of sectarian divisions. The Catholic Church can no longer expect absolute and unthinking obedience from its flock. Difficulties concerning the introduction of divorce in the South lie in practical matters like fears about the division of property, not in opposition based on Catholic theology. And while the Church will fight to retain control of education, its tactics are essentially bureaucratic. It can no longer expect automatic victory by direct public appeals to its flock.

In certain ways, we could be headed back to where we began. The Nationalist cause has long made much of the negative impact of proto-Paisley Protestant preachers in the 19th Century but it neglects to mention that Catholicism also marched away from liberalism. Irish Catholicism, as we’ve experienced it, is a 19th Century creation, manufactured by Pope Pius IX, the First Vatican Council and Cardinal Cullen. Only then did Rome Rule really merge with Home Rule.

But now Rome’s writ doesn’t run. Unionists can still legitimately suspect the Vatican but they can’t now characterize the Southern people as creatures of Rome. That sectarian card is no longer an automatic trump.

BELFAST THE PROVINCIAL BACKWATER

Doubtless, Ian Paisley may still strive to define his version of Unionism in religious terms but what works in Ballymena doesn’t play in Basildon. If anything, he serves the politics of creeping Nationalism. Paisley seems like a character from a Hammer horror film, while Albert Reynolds seems the good European neighbour, the decent, friendly and far from alarming Irish builder who’s just joined the Home Counties golf club.

But Unionism is even more vulnerable to the second switch from the Victorian value-systems that have divided the peoples of this island. The British Empire is dead. Despite all John Major’s haverings about Maastricht, we all now play in Europe.

Let us be truthful about the past and acknowledge that Catholic nationalism consistently misread Unionism. Wolfe Tone was promoted as the true and authentic leader of the Protestant tradition; Unionism was misrepresented as an abberation, a political disease, a conspiracy caused by the grandees of the Orange Order who misled the Protestant farmers and workers of Ulster. Thus, Catholic nationalists consistently refused to acknowledge that Unionism did have its own economic and political logic.

Leave aside, for the moment, the obvious religious differences. Unionism, as we know it, is essentially a Victorian creation, a product of the British Empire and the Industrial Revolution. Belfast had far more in common with Glasgow and Liverpool than Dublin. Why should Unionists have wanted to quit the Imperial economic system and join an isolated and economically backward South devoted to protectionist policies?

Thus, after the 1922 settlement, Belfast could still preen its self-esteem as a city of the greatest Empire the world had ever seen and patronize Dublin as an inferior backwater, a capital city imbued with De Valera’s delusions of grandeur in a country of sloth and superstition. The United Kingdom still strutted the world stage as the champion state while the Republic hadn’t even been admitted to the First Division of nations. Dublin, or so Unionists held, had removed itself from the Imperial banquet, where Belfast still feasted at the top table. Unionists represented the most dynamic economic forces on the island; the South was a priest-ridden reservation for ranchers and peasants.

And for the first two-thirds of the 20th Century, Unionists could cite ample evidence to support their beliefs. Tragically, the I.R.A. campaign has disguised the fact that there were larger historical forces working against traditional Unionism than paramilitary violence. Unionism still has to come to terms with the changes wrought once Europe replaced Empire as the context of the Irish problem.

Unionists really should have learned their lesson from the Anglo-Irish Agreement. They were right to feel betrayed by Margaret Thatcher. However they didn’t pause to ask why Thatcher, the apparantly traditional Tory who boasted she had put the Great back into Great Britain, should contradict her rhetoric and invite the Republic into what they defined as the internal affairs of the United Kingdom.

Unionism had got offside of history. Margaret Thatcher might bluster against Brussells as much as Ian Paisley but her economic policies undermined the basis of the Union as much as, if not more than, the I.R.A.’s bombing of economic targets.

She razed the heartlands of Britain’s Victorian industrial strength. The Tories became the party of the Home Counties, as prosperity was channelled to the South of England. But if Liverpool couldn’t secede, the Six Counties of Northern Ireland were a different and potentially disposible matter.

The positions of Belfast and Dublin gradually reversed, a switch sadly imperceptible to Unionists. Now Belfast was becoming the provincial backwater while Dublin preened itself as a capital city of Europe. Now Irish ministers sat at the top table while Unionist leaders were excluded from the European banquet.

AN OUTSIDER IN EUROPE

But Unionism has proved itself incapable of adapting to this switch of context from Empire to Europe; it still worships at the altars of Empire and of an increasingly tattered Crown. All its rhetoric and symbolism is essentially nostalgic; its leadership is unable to imagine a future for Unionist traditions within Europe. While John Hume speaks a common tongue with Jacques Delors, Ian Paisley lambasts the Pope. Still kitted out in the Imperial new clothes, Unionism is now friendless in Europe, mute and unresponsive while Brussells commissioners lather on about a Europe of the regions.

Now I don’t know if this is Gerry Adams’ cute intention but he has essentially led Sinn Fein onto the European stage. The last 25 years had been a battle of the backward glance, a fight seen always through the rearview mirror, a struggle at an oblique angle to history whereby identity has become the only possession, almost the opium of the deprived in both communities. But as Sinn Fein venture onside, the D.U.P. and the Protestant working-classes remain offside.

But new Unionist leadership doesn’t have to mean an Ulster De Klerk who will fudge and mudge their way into an United Ireland. One can rattle on about Unionist vetos and their right to self-determination but the physical and geographical fact remains that Unionism, however weakened, still has the will and the wish to deny an United Ireland. A Unionist De Klerk can only deliver a new accommodation.

Sadly, Ian Paisley’s baneful affect isn’t limited to those who vote for his party. His role as the perpetual nay-sayer of Loyalism suffocates new thinking in the Unionist camp when Ulster must stop saying “No” and instead decide that which it will say “Yes” to. Isolation may suit Paisley’s temperament but not Unionism which now must form new alliances through compromise.

Unionism must begin to imagine its own future. This doesn’t mean an United Ireland; it isn’t even just over the political horizon. But Unionism can’t any longer confine its politics to the United Kingdom. It too must play in Europe and, short of an United Ireland, it must also engage in All-Ireland politics.

Tragically, the Unionist working-class are least equipped to make those moves. While both Catholic and Protestant middle-classes can make gradual accommodations, the people of the Shankill and East Belfast have been shunted into a political cul-de-sac. What is there in this peace for them? They see peace but they also see a pan-nationalist front aligned against them that includes not just Clinton and Delors but also the Premiers of Australia and New Zealand. What price Imperial and Commonwealth loyalty now?

Bryan Dobson was right to shake Lucillita Breatnach’s hand: the I.R.A. ceasefire is genuine and will hold. All danger now comes from the Loyalist side; they can not oppose the ceasefire but they can violently attack any imposed political settlement that might emerge from the “peace process”.

We may have a ceasefire but it has also caused a Unionist crisis. In the aftermath of the I.R.A.’s announcement, they are confused and bewildered. Progress will only happen with patience while Unionism rethinks itself.

Somehow Unionists must find new positive elements in their identity to recover their self-confidence. Because once Europe replaced the Empire and as secularism erodes religious differences, Unionism shows only negative and ambiguous faces. It doesn’t even assert its Britishness in positive terms that convince even the people of the rest of the United Kingdom. Instead, it has been more comfortable expressing itself in anti-Irish and anti-Catholic terms that also makes Unionism an outsider in Europe.

THE RESPONSIBILITY TO RETHINK

But it is also ambiguous. Over the past twenty years, Unionist policy has vacillated. Its leaders had been quite unable to choose between the three options of devolution, integration and an independent Ulster.

Doubtless the people of Dublin and London both reacted with similar circumspection to the I.R.A.’s announcement. Both governments and their electorates see themselves as proxy parents to fractious orphans. The difference is that Dublin has done far better for its Northern Nationalist clients.

But here lies a trap. Northern Nationalists cannot overplay their hand. Endorsements from Bill Clinton and Jacques Delors boost the morale and definitely look imposing on the diplomatic C.V., but they can’t compensate for lack of support from the Southern people should Northern Nationalists miscalculate at any potential showdown.

Dublin politicians may no longer stand idly by but their people might yet prefer to watch Sky Sports to Prime Time. Thus, Unionist fears may be exaggerated; it doesn’t remove from their leaders the responsibility to rethink.

TWO CHEERS FOR THE CEASEFIRE

AT THE midnight hours, as the Provo ceasefire came into force, I didn’t go up to the Rosemount Barracks to cheer and jeer and bang on the security fence. Instead, I headed up to the Dungloe to listen to Martin Hayes on fiddle and Steve Cooney on guitar. It wasn’t just on account of the predictable brilliance of their semi-improvised set but because I thought I’d feel better in that atmosphere just then. I was iffy about the unrestrained air of celebration which the Republicans were insisting was the proper response to the “dawn of a new era” (Irish News), although I hadn’t yet worked out why.

But I had a vague sense that there was something false about the air of triumph, and it’s come more into focus since. The scenes on the Falls as Adams cradled bouquets of flowers and buideals of champagne, besieged by adulation, betokened genuine jubilation, certainly, but there was, I think, something else there too; a sense of relief, or more accurately of release, from a burden which people had found harder to bear than they’d been able to acknowledge, perhaps even to themselves. Some may have been celebrating a measure of freedom which they believed had been won by the armed struggle, but there was also celebration of freedom from the armed struggle.

The anti-Provo propaganda which has passed for news coverage in much of the media for much of the past 20 years, and more, has involved the demonisation not just of IRA activists but of the communities the IRA was rooted in. “IRA supporters” have been presented as having minds of dark malice which come to light only when filled with glee at somebody on the other side suffering, which is very far from the truth.

Of course, there are vicious little bastards everywhere and no shortage of people on the Falls or in the Bogside who in their own minds have reduced Protestants to an abstraction to which you don’t have to respond humanly. (And not just in the Falls and the Bogside either: some of the worst sectarians in Ireland are to be found among the hush-puppy patriots of the South.) But for much of the time, many of the people here who have supported the IRA have had a struggle within themselves, too, when cruel things have been done, as it were on their behalf.

In our pub on the morning of the Enniskillen atrocity the most representative thing said was that “They [the IRA] are asking too much of us”. There was the same feeling after the Shankill bomb and, regularly in the wake of individual killings which almost unnoticed, or at least unremembered, have punctuated recent past history, of Protestants with some unremarkable association with the RUC or British Army. Many who hate this pitiless infliction of grief on decent people nevertheless couldn’t bring themselves to join in the instant denunciations of media moralists who had no problem with killings in other contexts. The IRA was, and is, “part of what we are”; generated from within the community precisely by the pressures under which the community was put, and consisting in the main of the sons and daughters, friends and neighbours of ourselves and the people of the same street. There was a sort of duty placed upon people by that consideration which has now been lifted, and they walk with a lighter step.

Had there been any strong feeling that the armed struggle was serving a useful purpose, there wouldn’t have been so widespread a welcome for its ending. Naturally, there are some who have doubts about what’s on offer in return, but no powerful faction emerged to argue that continuation of armed action was the best way to win more. That reflected another emerging element in Catholic working class attitudes, to do not with morality but with utility – the feeling that the armed struggle, whatever argument there might be about its role in the past, had become counter-productive to the interests of the community in whose name it was being waged. That, too, is one of the reasons – likely the main reason – for the cessation: the IRA was reacting to the wishes of its “own” people. It’s of passing interest that this went unmentioned in many commentaries.

A big part of my iffyness about it all has to do with the alternative strategy the Republicans are offering, of an alliance with the SDLP, the Dublin Government (particularly the Fianna Fáil element of it) and the Irish-American lobby around Clinton to which Sinn Féin has been promised direct access. This is an impressive line-up in terms of general political clout but as a coalition, it can only hold together within the confines of a conservative agenda. It may be able to deliver some advance to the Catholic community in the North vis-a-vis the Protestants, but it will not deliver radical social change to anyone. And it certainly won’t sanction any tactic or campaign which might upset the economic applecart. A number of commentators have wondered about the wisdom of Albert Reynolds associating himself so closely with Gerry Adams. I wonder about it the other way round.

We are most likely to use pressure towards a deal which, in substance, would amount to joint British-Irish authority. In one perspective, that would represent progress for the Catholics who for the first time could feel that their sense of identity was reflected and respected in the institutions of the State. And that, of course, is only right. But this would be achieved at the expense of Protestants feeling that they had lost further ground. And it would leave neither Catholics nor Protestants of the working class better off.

I sense there are some to whom even the mention of class in this context seems quaint. But class has always been a major factor in the Northern situation and still is. For example, class is the main determinant of how Catholics vote. Broadly speaking, the poorer a Catholic you are, the more likely it is you’ll vote for Sinn Féin; the better off, the more likely to support the SDLP. And if you are seriously rich, there’s a chance you contribute to Alliance. It’s always been the working class doing the bulk of the killing and dying and the long years in jail. People who claim that class has no direct relevance are plain wrong.

Looked at in terms of class, Albert Reynolds is as alien to the Falls as to the Shankill. Any deal he will push for might make the Falls feel a bit better about itself, but it won’t meaningfully lessen the extent of the economic exploitation on either road. What’s more likely to emerge is an intensification of economic competition between the two.

There’ll be demands that every low paid job that US investment creates on the Falls is balanced by one on the Shankill, that every penny of “aid” on one side is matched on the other. By the same token, politicians on each side will squabble about fair shares of suffering as cut-backs and redundancies continue in existing employments and services. All this could happen “peacefully”, of course, but not only would it be a poor sort of peace for us to stumble into at last in the shadow of the mountain of misery which has accumulated over the past 25 years, it would be the peace of sectarian stalemate, and always with the potential when we rubbed up against one another too abrasively to flare up into fighting yet again.

There’s need for sharp debate in the Bogside and the Falls about what an “unarmed strategy” means, about what demands or campaigns it should encompass, on which section of society it should be based, to whom it should reach out and try to embrace, who should be allowed to set limits to its ambition. Can the Falls reach out to the Shankill and yet keep faith with Reynolds? And if, as I believe, it cannot, which road should we now take? This is the key question which those who want see the struggle through will now have to answer. First, though, it has to be asked. And an atmosphere of unquestioning and somewhat artificial euphoria isn’t conducive to sharp questioning.

Two cheers for the ceasefire. The third can wait until we can see more clearly where we’re headed.