AGAIN we heard on Questions and Answers that the time has come for the British to put pressure on the unionists to conform with whatever the Dublin, London axis wants in life, as if Dublin can command the Northern nationalists to do what they would not freely do. Again we heard about the tribal instincts of the English wrecking the possibility of a settlement, as if Irish tribal instincts did not exist. Again we heard about Tory backbenchers upsetting applecarts, as if the apple cart had not been on its side for the past 30 years or so.
Thirty years, not 25, six or seven; it is 30 years since the Malvern Street killings and the emergence of fundamentalist loyalism in political, paramilitary and ecclesiastical forms. Todays elections could provide the watershed to that historical movement, when finally it comes to be the single most powerful force within Northern Ireland. If that happens, it will have taken the combined forces of the Department of Foreign Affairs, the entire political establishment in Dublin, much of the media and Northern constitutional nationalism to help bring about the triumph of fundamental Ulster Protestantism.
Those forces go by another name, a name which everybody within those forces denied was appropriate: the pan nationalist consensus. The other day, Pat Doherty, of Sinn Fein, was quoted as saying about the Canary Wharf bombing: "We have to be realistic. Having put the nationalist consensus together, it failed to move the British towards a date for negotiations. Yet, three or four weeks after a bomb goes off in London, a date is produced." [my italics].
Semtex Persuasion
Is my heart alone in sinking at the scenario these words conjure before us - of the lads with the Semtex being at the forefront of the nationalist consensus, demanding right to admission to the talks, which are scheduled to begin on June 10th, regardless of what happens in the meantime? Already we are hearing from non Sinn Fein nationalist sources the plaintive assurance that Sinn Fein and the IRA are completely different organisations, separate and divisible, and that it would be wrong for the British government to exclude Sinn Fein from round table talks merely because the IRA is setting off high explosives on the streets of London.
Just to complete the developing picture of idiocy, we hear from people who know nothing about the PUP and the UDP that these parties are being sweet and reasonable, and what a shame it is that other unionists are not going to follow their lead.
And my head sinks in despair. It is as if we have learnt nothing in three decades. These hearty, plausible men representing the UDP and the PUP; I know so many either by face or by name. So many will come to the table with no real mandate to speak of. These creatures understand the IRA because they see themselves when they see the IRA. The chuckling cutter of fenian throats understands and professionally admires his opposite number, the fine gentleman who devised the human car bomb, which compelled selected men to go to involuntary suicide deaths.
Peace of the Gun
No doubt these fine Sammies and Seanies have much to discuss; but they cannot deliver their communities. The peace they bring is the peace of the gun, which is no peace at all; it is the peace of the broken thigh bone and the shattered knee joint; the peace of terrorised silence.
Electorally speaking, Protestants are not all that fond of those genial, gun toting Sammies. In the ballot box, they prefer religious respectability, albeit Protestant respectability; not balaclavas, but sashes; not gun law, but law, albeit Protestant law.
They are tired of hearing that they can be persuaded out of their adherence to the Crown bay fluent tongues, that by a fair deal in a new Ireland they can be caused to forsake the most important part of their identity - their unionism. Pat Doherty again: "... the British have to be out of the situation and then we can work out with the unionists whatever Way this country is going to be run . . . But the core - that the British have to disengage from Ireland - is fundamental."
Excuse me? Excuse me? Mr Doherty, sir, can you hear me? Is that what you people, armed or otherwise, are going to say to Mr Paisley and his chums? That all these talks are about is the surrender of the British government and the majority unionist community in the North to the demands of one terrorist group among many tell me: how do you think Mr Paisley and Mr Robinson and Mr Trimble and Mr McCartney and the rest, including those nice, grinning gentlemen from UDP and PUP, or whatever the hell they're called, are going to chew on that tasty slice of cake? Say it's delicious, Mr Doherty, and is there any chance of any more? Or will they get up, take their hats, sashes and balaclavas and walk out of there?
And, when that happens, is nationalist Ireland going to be calling on the British government to "pressure" the unionists into compliance? How, precisely? In the way that Dublin can "pressure" Sinn Fein/ IRA into obeying its will?
Critical Mass
For much of the time we seem to understand that Northern Ireland is a society approaching critical mass; any minor disturbance causes an increase in matter, and boom. But, at crisis time, we all - Irish unionists, Irish nationalists, English unionists - revert to some kind of stereotypical posturing. The unionists are distinguished by an almost permanent apoplexy. Republicans find refuge in victimhood, which even extends to indignation that the British might withdraw their DHSS office from Crossmaglen, which is simply beyond all parody. From across the channel we can hear the plaintive sounds of the Dam Busters March mixed with the lowing of unwanted cattle. And, meanwhile, everyone plays pass the parcel; the parcel is called blame.
No solution is to hand; no solution is possible. Channel 4's Frontline Special on revisionism in Ireland tomorrow at 7.15 p.m. might convince you yet.