Let’s stop parading Agreement’s ambiguities and end the gridlock

Thursday, 6 November 2008

Gerry Adams hit the nail on the side when he remarked on Sunday following the RIR’s Belfast parade: “This is ... an Irish town and for the British Army to host a march at this time is totally and absolutely reprehensible.”

Belfast is certainly an Irish town. But it is a United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland town, too. This was explicitly confirmed in the 1998 Multi-Party Agreement and is, surely, morally binding on all who endorsed the Agreement.

True, the Agreement was also explicit that partition would remain only for as long as a majority within the North wanted it so. But this has been the unionist position all along. Ian Paisley spelt it out more than 30 years ago: if a majority in the North voted for a merger with the South, he wouldn’t welcome the development, of course, but, as a democrat, he’d have to accept it.

If the war waged by the Provisional IRA was about partition and the constitutional status of the North, it lost, and the Agreement was acknowledgement that it had lost.

This does not subtract from the right of relatives of people killed directly by the British Army or through collusion with loyalist paramilitaries to protest against a parade such as last Sunday’s, or of opponents of imperialist war to call in the name of decency for its cancellation. It does mean that the ground for objection to the parade put forward by Mr Adams — Irish town, British Army — coming from a pro-Agreement quarter, had no political legitimacy.

This is not a point which has figured prominently in editorial commentary on Sunday’s parade and protests. There is an unwritten law, still at least semi-operative, that no communal leader should be pushed too hard to face up to the implications of the Agreement for his or her ideology. Deft misrepresentation of the Agreement (or ‘creative ambiguity’ with regard to its provisions) continues unabated.

An honest nationalist approach to the Agreement would have been rooted in a recommendation to accept a continuation of partition and the inclusion of the North within the UK for as far into the future as it was possible to see in return for a rock-solid guarantee in of equal rights for nationalists and nationalism within the State.

Similarly, pro-Agreement unionists would have been more honest with themselves and their supporters had they campaigned for a Yes vote on the basis that untrammelled unionist rule and the practices that went with it were over and done with and that nationalism and nationalists would henceforth enjoy equal status with unionism and unionists in a State which, as a quid-pro-quo, would remain part of the UK.

Had the Agreement been endorsed on both sides on that basis, we might be in a different, better place today. But there was no serious requirement placed on either side from any quarter to face the implications of the document they’d signed up to. At the time of the referendum, indeed, any suggestion that the glaring contradictions be acknowledged and examined was widely regarded as unhelpful, disruptive, even indicative of resistance to peace.

The result has been a 10-year effort to implement and consolidate a political arrangement on the basis of separate, irreconcilable versions of what the arrangement entails, and a determined refusal to admit consideration of any alternative perspective on the way forward.

Thus it is today that Sinn Fein and Agreement late-comers the DUP can each present a convincing argument that it’s the other side which is acting in bad faith.

When there’s no common understanding of the deal, there can be no agreement on who’s in default. There is no way of working out whether Peter Robinson or Martin McGuinness is right about the context in which the Executive could or should be called into session. How could there be when they don’t agree on what the founding document of the Executive means?

This is, at the least, a significant factor in the continuing instability at Stormont and in the persistence and even sharpening of the communal divide on display in the streets of Belfast four days ago.

On this reading, it is the politics of the Agreement, and of the way the Agreement was put in place, which has produced gridlock in the institutions and helped prolong conflict on the streets.

The paradox is that, to a greater extent than at any time in the past decade, the priorities in the minds of the people — including many of the people out in Belfast last Sunday — don’t have to do with another round in an Orange-Green trial of strength, but with the difficulty of making ends meet.

No doubt, the top people in the two top parties want the impasse resolved. The strategy — insofar as we can discern anything sufficiently coherent to be described as a strategy — consists of fumbling sleight-of-hand. At this stage, what else?

The Agreement is not the solution but part of the problem.

Paolo

You made a very misleading statement when you say most in the republic don't like anyone from the north. I'm from the republic, Dublin (yes that place that frightens unionists everytime they hear the name) and I love the north. I cannot wait for you to be a burden on us!!

Posted by Jim | 08.11.08, 19:33 GMT

Post a complaint

Please note Name and E-mail are required.

Contact details

Eamon you forgot one important detail and it is this. By sharing power unionists are negating the reason they insisted on the state being created in the first place. And that my friend, is why they can't let it go. They will never share equally.

Posted by Jim | 08.11.08, 10:26 GMT

Post a complaint

Please note Name and E-mail are required.

Contact details

Trevor, I'd welcome Northern Ireland having to pay its own way in the world, and I'm not impressed by those who smugly think they'll be able to sit out the downturn because they work for the state. I'd like to see who'd abandon ship if it ever happened though - I suspect we might find exchequer-dependent Derry, the Falls, Strabane getting to be very quiet places indeed. Ballymena, Lisburn, N/Ards, Portadown might grind along with a bit of a recession.

Posted by maggie | 07.11.08, 21:43 GMT

Post a complaint

Please note Name and E-mail are required.

Contact details

Trevor, nice touch. Along with your assertion that "no one" likes Unionists, you should probably throw in N.I. nationalists and republicans. Except the irony of nationalists and republicans "spongers" is that they loath the very Government from which they sponge.

Check out the coins in your pocket Trevor. Who's head is featured on them? If this makes you bitter, why not give every one of these coins in your possession to Children In Need?

Posted by mickey | 07.11.08, 09:41 GMT

Post a complaint

Please note Name and E-mail are required.

Contact details

Trevor, what you mean is you don't like Unionists. What you should also realise is that a large proportion of the Republic's population, don't like any of us from either community in Northern Ireland. So nobody like's us and many of us hate each other. As for sponging - you'll find that the nationalist community have been as equally adept if not better at this than Unionists.
Whilst the N.I economy is reliant upon the public sector, what you fail to note is that when/if the British government abandon their million citizens here, the jobs will go which the Republic can't and won't replace leaving large sections of the Unionist and Nationalist communities without any work and a huge burden on the Republic's economy/existing population. Don't expect big bail-outs from the Brits/Yanks/EU.

Posted by Paulo | 07.11.08, 08:50 GMT

Post a complaint

Please note Name and E-mail are required.

Contact details

Well written, Eamon. 'Nuff said.

Posted by Attilathehun | 06.11.08, 19:56 GMT

Post a complaint

Please note Name and E-mail are required.

Contact details

Unionists wake up. Nobody likes you -not Brown -not Cameron.
Harold Wilson hit the nail on the head when he called you a pack of spongers. Most of the work here is in the public sector funded by Britain and doled out to the N.I. Government in the form of a subsidy. With the credit crunch all over the U.K. I suspect that Englishmen will start complaining that you are getting too much of the money available to the Treasury and demand equal treatment. Still this will give the Unionists a chance to do some more girning and as Shirley Bassey sings "nobody does it better".

Posted by Trevor | 06.11.08, 19:44 GMT

Post a complaint

Please note Name and E-mail are required.

Contact details

Very well explained , but very few shall agree , mores the pity .

Posted by SAIGEADOIR COLLAC ABU | 06.11.08, 17:13 GMT

Post a complaint

Please note Name and E-mail are required.

Contact details

Eamonn be careful-because of you, common sense might break out in N.Ireland.

Posted by joe de vol | 06.11.08, 16:12 GMT

Post a complaint

Please note Name and E-mail are required.

Contact details

More clear thinking from Mr McCann. Thank you.

Posted by neil | 06.11.08, 15:38 GMT

Post a complaint

Please note Name and E-mail are required.

Contact details

As far as I thought it wasnt just if the majority in Northern ireland wanted it but also the majority in the South wanted it too? Why would they? Its ok having a sick distant relative you havent seen for decades pop over for a cup of tea but would you want to care for them 24/7 and the cost involved to you? Northern Ireland is just not self sufficient at this stage and with all the problems and the divides it would not be worth it. By bomb and bullet or by talking and negotiation there will highly unlikely be a united Ireland in anyone here's lifetime. If ever. And Mickey is right why would you want to? Belfast reduced to a second city, many duplicate jobs disappearing within the public sector. If you hate Britain that much you might as well keep taking its money rather lumber yourself on Ireland.

Posted by soarer | 06.11.08, 13:43 GMT

Post a complaint

Please note Name and E-mail are required.

Contact details

Eamon for First and Deputy First Minister.

Posted by Paulo | 06.11.08, 12:55 GMT

Post a complaint

Please note Name and E-mail are required.

Contact details

It still beats me why any nationalist or republican from NI would want a unified Ireland - Lord knows, the South doesn't want us - but it would categorically mean the end of the tricolour and Soldier's Song (symbols which I thought they held dear?).

Posted by mickey | 06.11.08, 11:04 GMT

Post a complaint

Please note Name and E-mail are required.

Contact details

Pity we can't get Eamon up the hill to talk some sense to the dunderheads. McCann for President.....

Posted by Frustrated | 06.11.08, 10:55 GMT

Post a complaint

Please note Name and E-mail are required.

Contact details

NiteLife: White's Tavern

Had a big night out? Click here to send your pics

In Pictures: Lingerie Super Bowl 2012

In Pictures: Lingerie Super Bowl 2012

Women: Can you flaunt too much?

Women: Can you flaunt too much?

Old School Pictures: Ian Paisley

Old School Pics: Girls Aloud Nadine Coyle

To launch gallery click image or select school below

Methodist College, Campbell College, Grosvenor,
Bangor Grammar, Dunlambert, St Augustine's,
St Dominic's, Royal Academy, Ballymena Academy

Teletoons by Stevie Lee

Teletoons by Stevie Lee

Follow us on Twitter

In Pictures: The Troubles

Titanic Gallery: First class bedroom

Titanic Gallery: exclusive collection

Out & About: Pizza Night

Out & About: Pizza Night

Columnist Comments

gail_walker

Gritty, moving and heroic...Billy plays captured life here

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times ... Sunday's 30th anniversary screening of the seminal Too Late to Talk to Billy was riveting viewing. But it wasn't nostalgic viewing.
ed_curran

Parties need better defence in Stormont's game of two halves

Surprise, surprise. Peter Robinson has been to his first gaelic match, Martin McGuinness is heading for Windsor Park and the Ulster Unionists have scored another own goal.
nuala_mckeever

Why trying to go on a diet is never really a piece of cake

Some people make New Year’s resolutions, I make lists. Every new year I determine to keep track of everything I spend and everything I eat and drink.

frances_burscough

Scary movie? Their jaws were sore from laughing

Teenage boys love horror films and I have two who are in charge of the remote control in our house, so naturally there’s gore-a-plenty on the box most weekends. However, until recently one film was banned.

TeleToons

Teletoons gallery by Stevie Lee

Latest Comments