Editorial - In the shadow of a gunman
That there are dangers in any Anglo-Irish deal is obvious, but not so obvious that it goes without saying. That there are dangers in not pursuing an agreement is equally obvious. The task at hand for the British and Irish political establishments is to weigh the dangers against the possible gains. For the Irish govern men t in particular compelling reasons have to be found for running the risk of massively increased civil unrest in Northern Ireland and possible violent action aimed at the Republic. The political pressure on the Coalition to pull a rabbit out of the hat and the public relations challenge of presenting the same proposals in two different ways to two different audiences are not sufficient justification for a deal that does not tackle the immediate problems of Northern Ireland. By Fintan OToole
In spite of the evidence in history and the repeated stateements of Loyalist political leaders, there has been an abiding assumption among nationalists that the threat of Protestant violence ill response to anything they see as threatening their position in the United Kingdom is a bluff. In this issue of Magill we probe the deep psychological dissposition towards a violent response by the semitional party of Ulster Loyalism, the Democratic Unionist Party, which represents nearly half of the Protestant popuulation. The evangelical, often apocalyptic, turn of mind of that party gives little grounds for hope that they can be swayed by an appeal to rational, pragmatic calculations.
The evidence of 1912, of 1920 and of 1972 also argues against the belief that the Protestants are bluffing. In each of those years tens of thousands of ordinary Protestants joined official or unofficial paramilitaries: the UVF in 1912, the "A", "B" and "C" Specials in 1920 and the UDA in 1972, when Stormont was prorogued. Both in the early twenties and the early seventies substantial numbers of Catholics were brutally murdered. In 1972, as now, there was no immediate threat to the position of Northern Ireeland in the United Kingdom, but the response was none the less vicious. There is no reason to believe that it would be different in 1985 if the Loyalists perceive a threat, and it is clear that they do perceive such a threat even in a relatively innocuous consultative machinery involving the Dublin government.
The DUP's strategy for defeating an Anglo-Irish agreeement involves a carefully-staged series of moves, from parrliamentary opposition to the engineering of electoral conntests to civil disobedience and finally to armed conflict and the declaration of a Provisional Government. Whether or not all of these stages actually come into force, it is clear that the opportunity for the DUP to build up tension, with a consequent open invitation to the sectarian killers to go to work, is there to be exploited. However loathsome the DUP's ballo t-box -in -one-hand -and-arrnalite-behind-the-back strategy, it has obvious political advantages for them in their attempt to establish themselves as the political spokessmen for Ulster Loyalism and it has to be taken seriously.
To take such risks without a meaningful agreement would be grossly unjustifiable. Because Loyalist oppoosition will focus on the consultative machinery involving the Dublin government and on any secretariat from the Republic which is based in Belfast, there is a tendency to assume that those aspects of an agreement would of themmselves be enormously significant for nationalist aspirations. A clear look at the consequences of such a consultative machinery suggests otherwise. Charles Haughey has good reason to regard a consultative role which gives responsibiility without authority as potentially "disastrous".
In many ways a consultative role is a diplomat's dream.
The prospect of continuing, open-ended discussion, of an endless series of nods and winks and behind-the-scenes bargainings has innate attractions for the professional dipplomats who have negotiated the substance of the deal. It sets up a machinery which is self-generating and ultimately self-justifying. There is always plenty to consult about and consultation is always sufficiently vague to be seen as an end in itself. The point, however, is the institutions which this machinery is meant to oversee. And it is those instituutions themselves which have created the immediate probblems which the Anglo-Irish process is supposed to tackle.
Mr Haughey has engaged in some sleight-of-hand in this regard. The term "alienation" which has been used so often to sum up the plight of the Northern nationalist is deeply ambiguous. It implies at once an alienation from the United Kingdom, which can only be overcome by the institution of a United Ireland, and a more specific alienation from the machinery of security and justice, which can be overcome in the absence of a United Ireland. Mr Haughey has used these senses of "alienation" interchangably, allowing him to move imperceptibly from criticising any arrangement which does not tackle the alienation of the nationalists from the security forces and the courts to maintaining that there is no solution short of a United Ireland.
This sleight-of-hand should not be allowed to obscure, as it has to date, the debate about the consultative role which the Irish government is to have after the signing of the deal. For it is possible to isolate the demand for legitimate and agreed institutions for policing Northern Ireland and for administering justice from the demand for a United Ireland. And it is clear that a consultative role which comes into effect only before the institutions of the Norrthern state have been reformed is meaningless. If the Irish government is to be involved in overseeing the operation of security forces which have not been fundamentally reeformed, then they will be in an even weaker position than they are at the moment in seeking to represent the point of view of northern nationalists with regard to those security forces. They may find themselves unable to exert any conntrol over the RUC and the UDR, and at the same time unable even to protest publicly about the behaviour of the RUC and the UDR because they are locked into a "consulltative" process.
John Hume argued at the SDLP conference that the UDR, the RUC and their behaviour were not the Northern Ireland problem. He said that "they were symptoms of a deeper problem, which is division." This is of course true, but it is not an excuse for entering an agreement which leaves the position of the UDR and the RUC fundamenntally unaltered. As symptoms, the behaviour of the UDR and the behaviour of the RUC have also been massive irriitants in preventing the evolution of basic structures oflaw and justice which could win even a temporary and continngent consensus of Catholic and Protestant support. Mr Haughey is again right to identify the disbandment of the UDR as a central prerequisite to a meaningful agreement.
All but a handful of the 7,500 members of the UDR are Protestants and the increasing role that the regiment has played in security in Northern Ireland has meant that <. through it and the RUC one community has been given the task of policing the other. Security has been hopelessly compromised as part of a sectarian apparatus, and much of the hatred and disgust which Catholics feel at the operation of the state in Northern Ireland has been directed at the UDR, a disgust quite properly strengthened by the role of UDR members in sectarian crimes. This is not in itself the problem as John Hume says, but the disbandment of the UDR would be an achievement which would give the norrthern nationalist 'community reason to believe that the Irish government was acting as an effective guarantor of its immeediate interests. Without the disbandment of the UDR what can the Irish government hope to achieve by being consulted about the operation of an innately sectarian security system?
Where Mr Haughey is wrong is to link this demand for the disbandment of the UDR with a rhetorical repeetition of the demand for a United Ireland. Such a stance not only fuels the paranoia which it is in the interests of those who would manipulate Loyalist reaction to build up, it also ignores the fundamental problem of unity by connsent - the winning of the consent of both communities in Northern Ireland. That consent can only be built on the basis of certain basic agreed structures of law and justice and those structures need to be given time to work in the absence of the kind of strife and violence which the threat of a united Ireland will provoke.
The Irish government either believes that the basic secuurity structures of Northern Ireland can be reformed in the absence of a united Ireland or it does not. If it does, then the emphasis in any deal it can do with the British governnment needs to be on the radical overhaul of the security machinery, and not on a consultative role which involves responsibility without power. If it does not, then there is no point in calling, as Mr Haughey has done, for the dissbandment of the UDR before a united Ireland is achieved.
A cosmetic level of constitutional progress which connsists in no more than the establishment of a consultative process achieves only the worst of both worlds, giving a validity to discredited security forces and at the same time risking an escalation of Loyalist violence. What is needed is real and tangible progress towards finding acceptable institutions of justice. Without it, all the talk of historic objectives and a united Ireland is so much verbiage.