February 17, 2011
By Staff Reporter
But in a short while, we have been rudely shunted from a point where a historic breakthrough seemed imminent to the point where an historic breakdown seems depressingly possible.
Much of the strength given the Good Friday agreement from its birth came in the acceptance by all parties that, just as the accord itself was not perfect, those who signed it could not lay an absolute claim to moral superiority, or absolute political cleanliness.
Nothing has changed since 1998 in that regard. But that doesn’t stop politicians and political parties from jostling for advantage, be it lofty and moral, or down, dirty and purely party political.
And who holds the highest ground now? The politician who will tell a lie in order to protect the long-term advance of normalized politics on the island of Ireland, or the politician who will tell a truth and risk that same advance.
All politicians charged with shepherding the peace process need to address these questions in the context of charge, counter charge and a new political volatility that threatens to run out of control.
Gerry Adams is being widely excoriated by those who say he is wrongfully denying a convergence of the IRA and Sinn F