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Editorial: The politics of the absolute deadline

February 16, 2011

By Staff Reporter

There is something curiously pleasing about the image of Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams and the Unionist Party leader, David Trimble, holding hands and getting ready to "jump together," to use Adams’s words.

As we go to press, and British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s absolute deadline for agreement closes in, the question remains unanswered as to whether the two leaders will make that jump or will instead be left trembling on the brink.

If they do make the jump, it will be a leap into the future. If they do not, it will be seen as proof that neither republicanism nor unionism can throw off the shackles of the past.

It seems that the most suitable compromise currently on offer is this:

€ a statement from the IRA committing it to decommissioning by the date stipulated in the Good Friday Agreement — i.e. May 2000;

€ an acceptance by the republican movement of a timetable that would determine when the actual destruction or removal of weaponry was to begin;

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€ an agreement to impose sanctions on Sinn Fein if those commitments are not met.

As reasonable a scenario as it is, two important questions about it remained unanswered even as the deadline loomed. Can the Unionist leader accept such a compromise on his own hardline demands for actual decommissioning to begin before Sinn Fein enters the executive? Can Sinn Fein persuade the IRA that a timetable for the beginning of the disarmament process is an "obligation" that has to be met?

If the answer to both is yes, then Trimble and Adams will make the jump hand in hand, and the settlement will come into being, giving the North devolved government on the same day as Scotland and Wales begin their own experiment in self-rule.

If the answer is no, then the leap will be into the abyss of uncertainty and doubt.

It will probably mean the suspension of the new assembly. Republicans could live with this. The assembly is a concession to Unionism that the republican movement would be happier without. But it would be the second bitter blow suffered by Unionists in one week — the first being the banning of the Drumcree Orange parade on Monday. It would undoubtedly feed into the growing sense of grievance and frustration felt by the North’s Protestant community. The danger is that this frustration will express itself in increased sectarian violence as the loyalist paramilitaries lash out as they have done so many times before, with innocent Catholics paying with their lives for political failures.

Dogmas of the past often do not make good guides for the future. Unionists have made a dogma out of decommissioning, effectively hobbling the Good Friday peace agreement for more than a year. Republicans long ago made a dogma out of their "right" to wage what they euphemistically call armed struggle. But it is a "right" they conferred upon themselves, thanks to a particular interpretation of Irish history. And it is a right that is not recognized by the vast majority of Irish people. Sinn Fein’s involvement in the current settlement, including its decision to take seats in a new Northern assembly, implies that even many, if not most, republicans have come to view the armed struggle as no longer necessary. Why then balk at taking what seems like the obvious step and begin the process of disarmament that is part of the overall settlement?

Republicans advance "pragmatic" arguments concerning the need to "defend" Catholics from attack. After all, the roots of modern Northern Irish republicanism lie in the riots and sectarian attacks on Catholic areas in Belfast in August 1969: out of the ashes of ’69 arose the Provisionals. But since about 1970, it is almost impossible to come up with an instance when the Provisionals actually intervened to prevent a sectarian attack by loyalist paramilitaries. They have carried out retaliations for such attacks, but have been unable to stop them from happening, as the current wave of pipe bombings against Catholic homes bears witness.

So the claims that the arms are needed to defend Catholics are for the most part spurious. It is the principle of armed struggle that republicans still cling to that is important, for it is identified with their claims to continuity with the revered republican past.

However, if there is to be any hope for the North, indeed for the whole island, then reverence for the past will have to make room for commitment to a future that both Protestant and Catholic can share — a future without guns as a means of settling what is a political dispute.

All sides should remember that there is another absolute at work, whatever becomes of Blair’s absolute deadline. It is simply the absolute necessity of living together. And that is in the end inescapable.

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