Isaiah Berlin once famously divided mankind into hedgehogs and foxes, taking his cue from a line in an ancient Greek poem: "The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing." Undoubtedly, John Hume is a hedgehog. He knows one thing but he knows it well - Northern Ireland.
At times, Hume might have been constrained in his understanding of unionism by his West Bank of Derry background. For instance, there was a time when he regularly made unwarranted analogies between unionists and Afrikaners.
Nevertheless, few unionists would deny he has been a towering figure in the Province and a powerful advocate of the path of non-violence.
In his earliest political writings in The Irish Times in 1964, Hume was an iconoclastic figure within nationalism. He argued then that unionism could not be reduced to mere bigotry and was vociferous in his criticisms of Eddie McAteer's Nationalist Party for its ceaseless negativity about the Northern Ireland state which encouraged unionists to believe nationalists had no sense of public spirit. In a sense, then, the SDLP's decision to make nominations to the new Police Board is the final outworking of that thinking.
In his early years, Hume also championed other unpopular themes and causes such as the Border poll which he saw as a means of taking the constitutional question out of everyday politics. Likewise, the idea of introducing proportional representation - which Hume viewed as a means of separating unionism out and creating a constituency of unionists prepared to reach agreement with constitutional nationalists - was not popular with those who held to a purist view.
This is not the John Hume of some unionists' imagining. For many, he will be eternally associated with the phrase "It's a united Ireland or nothing." In fairness, he was merely reporting what many were saying in the Bogside. With the successful negotiation of the Good Friday agreement, Hume proved that the Bogside attitude was wrong and that a reasonable accommodation was possible.
It was the same refusal to bow to irredentism which caused his rifts with Charles Haughey and others, even in the SDLP, who resisted including in the report of the New Ireland Forum alongside a sovereign state, joint authority/sovereignty and a federal Ireland, a fourth option - an agreed Ireland. For such unorthodoxy, those closest to Charles Haughey continue to regard Hume as "the high priest of compromise".
Perhaps Hume's most brilliant and fascinating idea in the latter part of his political career was the dual referendum: the idea that any political package would have to be endorsed by the two parts of Ireland concurrently.
The powerful thesis was that the first exercise in "national self-determination" since 1918 would delegitimise the holding of illegal arms. The 1998 referendum did much to snuff out the sneaking regard for violence in some quarters but, as we all know, Sinn FΘin/IRA cares less about the will of the Irish people than about the strength it derives from the silence of the guns and noises about decommissioning.
It is easy for unionists to sneer at the rivalry between the SDLP and Sinn FΘin as if it were something wholly contrived. This is unfair. It ignores the fact that at one stage the IRA seriously considered killing Hume. It ignores too the fact that from his earliest days of political activity when Londonderry was aflame and there was huge uncontrolled excitement, calls to violence and baying for blood, Hume's was the sane voice that went against the grain. Latterly, few in Ireland would disagree with Hume's frequent assertion that nothing that has happened in Northern Ireland has justified the taking of a single human life.
At the same time, Hume has been implacably hostile to unionism ever since his experience of the UWC strike in 1974 that brought down the original power-sharing Executive. He could be accused of striking out in a "green" direction many times in the years that followed when an agreement seemed close. His particular success was to internationalise the situation to unionism's initial detriment.
While unionists might have been at the receiving end of that barrage, they can nonetheless appreciate his political and networking skills. Only in very recent years have unionists learned those lessons.
It is too early to judge John Hume's place in Irish history. We must wait a generation before an informed judgement can be made but it is likely he will stand comparison with Parnell.
It is to Hume's credit that he frequently quotes Parnell's enlightened definition of the nationalist creed: "Every Irish patriot has always recognised . . . from the time of Wolfe Tone until now, that until the religious prejudices of the minority, whether reasonable or unreasonable, are conciliated . . . Ireland can never enjoy perfect freedom; Ireland can never be united."
True to this view, Hume has consistently been on the right side of the efforts to reform and liberalise the Irish State. In the 1980s, Hume successfully campaigned for a bust of Parnell to be placed in the Palace of Westminster. It is not unreasonable to believe that one day John Hume's bust will adorn the parliaments in Belfast and Dublin as well.
Steven King is an advisor to the Ulster Unionist Party leader, David Trimble
King.uu@btinternet.com