Protecting our democracy depends not just on crushing those groups which are still committed to violence but also on sorting out some of the ideas of those seeking to crush them. There is still, it seems, a difficulty in some quarters with distinguishing between the actions of such groups and the things they profess to believe in.
Last week in the Dail, for example, the Fine Gael leader, Mr John Bruton, attacked the IRA for its refusal to accept that the Belfast Agreement was an act of national self-determination. "It is criminally wrong," he said, "for the IRA to deny that, because in denying it they are providing an implicit justification for the `Real IRA'. "
There are many reasons to criticise the IRA but this must be among the most fatuous I've heard. It is not "criminally wrong" to deny that the Belfast Agreement was an act of national selfdetermination. It is an exercise in free speech. The fact that others who hold the same view are intent on creating mayhem as a means of asserting themselves does not detract one iota from its validity. The important thing, surely, is that we have now reached the previously unimaginable stage where the IRA is capable of holding such a view and simultaneously waiving the option of violence as a means of enforcing it.
It is hard to conceive of any belief which, separated from unlawful action against those who disagreed with it, could remotely be described as "criminally wrong". It is a fundamental principle of democratic society that people be entitled to believe whatever they like. Even if the IRA is wrong about the Belfast Agreement, those who aspire to removing violence and strengthening democracy should be encouraging the expression of such views, however vehemently they might be disagreed with. Isn't it possible, too, that the IRA is not wrong? If it is "criminally wrong" to believe that the referendums North and South last May were not an expression of national self-determination, then a significant minority of the citizens of this State should be behind bars. And, despite the fact that I support the Belfast Agreement, and voted to amend the Constitution to pave the way for its full implementation, I would be among them.
It seems obvious to me that what happened on May 22nd was not an exercise in national self-determination. Such an exercise would have required the same questions about the nature of government on this island to be asked North and South, and would have been followed by a pooling of the results in both jurisdictions to provide a single answer.
If May 22nd had been a genuine exercise in national self-determination, the British army would now be in the process of withdrawing from the North, because a majority of the Irish nation would have expressed a democratic desire for this to occur.
This is not to say that what happened on May 22nd was not positive and desirable, or that it was not part of a process which may bring us closer to national self-determination. What I believe happened was that all of us, North and South, who wish to break the logjam in the affairs of this island voted for the possibility of a peaceful journey on to the next phase. This made it an occasion greatly to be celebrated. But national self-determination it was not.
Many people will disagree with me about this and that is their right. But to suggest that it is "criminally wrong" to hold such views is the statement of someone with an incomplete understanding of the essentials of democracy.
This was not an isolated example of this syndrome. Another such occurred two weeks ago, on the RTE programme Questions And Answers, when Democratic Left TD Pat Rabbitte, in the course of remarks about the Omagh bombing, criticised a Dublin-based Sunday newspaper for urging its readers to reject the proposal to alter Articles 2 and 3 of the Constitution.
There resides in these two statements by leading Irish politicians an extraordinary tangle of ironies and confusions. In supposedly defending the peace initiative, such people seem intent on replicating the logic and tactics which prevented them and many others from perceiving the historic nature of the process until relatively recently.
There is in such responses a residue of the Section 31 mentality, which held that you could eliminate violence by denying the beliefs of those who practised it. Recent events have surely illustrated the tragic redundancy of this perspective.
We need to get a few things straight in our minds. A democratic society must give every possible latitude to belief, opinion, even prejudice. The inability to separate actions from beliefs has been a problem with Southern responses to this conflict from the outset. Many of the most influential voices on this issue south of the Border have gained such influence precisely because they were unable or unwilling to distinguish between what the IRA did and what the IRA claimed to believe.
Now, on the verge of a settlement, we need to tread carefully, because the quality of our peace depends not on eliminating the beliefs which provided the justification for war but on creating a democratic context for such opinions - as an alternative to violence.
I would not dream of suggesting that either John Bruton or Pat Rabbitte is wrong to express his honestly-held opinions. The expression of such views, however illogical, is a vital part of the workings of our democracy. The problem is that people like John Bruton and Pat Rabbitte, by virtue of holding senior positions of power in this State, have considerably more capacity to make reality reflect their opinions than have those with whom they find themselves in disagreement.
It is out of this situation that violence emerges, when those who feel powerless to express themselves through the democratic process seek alternative forms of making themselves heard. Far from attacking newspapers, organisations or individuals for expressing or providing an outlet for minority opinions which happen to be shared by people who plant bombs, we should be complimenting and encouraging them on account of the contribution they are making to democracy and peace. To be fair to Pat Rabbitte, he has shown an admirable willingness to concede the scale of Sinn Fein's achievement in moving Irish republicanism away from violence. It is a pity that he does not yet appear to understand that the total realisation of this goal must entail the integration of republican beliefs, including some he would regard as extreme, into the democratic debate.
Similarly, many of us share John Bruton's frustration at the fact that ending this conflict cannot be a simple matter of obtaining undertakings and unequivocal statements from all parties. But some of us recognise that when the end of this conflict is finally achieved it will have been because all of the grievances, beliefs and aspirations of all participants in the conflict have been transported on to the main stages of our democracies.