A QUESTION OF ONE STEP AT A TIME
A question of one step at a time
Maurice Hayes
THE Trimble-Adams meeting last week has been hyped by the media and most commentators as historic, and in a way it is. The two principals have tended to play it down as part of a routine necessary to secure the setting up of the Executive and the implementation of the Agreement.
It suits the unionists to keep it as low key as possible in order to avoid irritation in the ranks, raising the ire of those who would remind Trimble that despite all his protestations, decommissioning has not yet taken place. The low key republican approach is a mark of Sinn Fein's increasing political sophistication. They are well aware of Trimble's difficulties and did not wish to add to them by the appearance of triumphalism. It is nevertheless a significant meeting from their point of view.
For the community they represent, it signifies the acceptance by unionists as equals in the political process of their elected representatives, and their place in the scheme of things, which is preparing to run the country. It is too, a matter of history that the leader of unionism and the leader of republican nationalism should meet for the first time since the Collins-Craig meeting in the early days of Government in Northern Ireland.
Those who are assessing this meeting against the yardstick of some impossibly purist goals, should perhaps instead measure it by remembering where both men have come from and how quickly. Not much more than a year ago, each thought it possible to secure a settlement by cutting out, or ignoring the other. The Sinn Fein strategy was to deal only with the British and Irish Governments, leaving the former to deal with the unionists and to bring them into line. The unionist tactic, at that time, was to form a compact with modern nationalism in the form of the SDLP, which would exclude Sinn Fein from the equation.
A lot of things have changed in the meantime - mainly the Good Friday agreement which enabled each to achieve some of their objectives (but not all) and at the price of conceding parallel objectives to other people. The result is a complex set of relationships, of gains and concessions, of rights and responsibilities, which hang together like Rubik's cube. What it has done more than anything is to give each of the parties who wish to make it work a vested interest in the survival of the other and in hanging together.
The other thing that has changed is the strength of the will for peace among the ordinary people in Northern Ireland, expressed through the referendum and more strongly and vocally than ever after Drumcree on the one hand and the Omagh bomb on the oilier. Drumcree exposed the appalling vista of sectarian strife, Omagh a return to bombing and bloodshed on an unpresidented scale. It is this will for peace, the hunger for the politicians to get down to work and do the business that is now the engine of change.
Sadly, it is those furthest away from the frontline who have the least appreciation of this hunger for peace and its significance. It is no surprise that the foci of the Real IRA are in areas far removed from the border. The further from the sight of blood it appears, the more blood thirsty it is possible to be.
On the other hand, as perverse in their own way as the irredentists of the Real IRA and continuity Sinn Fein are those academics, soldiers and politicians who would insist on unconditional surrender and who are willing to prolong the war or to risk the peace in order that this can be extorted. Again it is easier in the studies of Dublin and Cork to know more about what needs to be done and to be purer in the inviolability of their principles than the people who are actually suffering and who can tolerate a degree of ambiguity if that helps to move the business on.
It is a poor appreciation of historical precedent too to ignore the fact that democratic government would not have emerged in Ireland if pragmatic and practical statesmen had not been prepared to accept the possibility of the transition of fighter and bomber to democratic politician. Michael Collins, Richard Mulcahy and their colleagues did not exactly graduate from a Quaker Peace Institute.
Shorn of hype, the Adams-Trimble meeting has been an important stage in the developing process. Future events will show whether it deserves to be called historic.
It is certainly unusual, if only for the way in which both men spoke of it afterwards as having been civilised and workmanlike. Adams's remark that Trimble was a man he could do business with, had to do business with, would do business with, was perhaps a little more Forthcoming than Trimble's assessment - but not much, and he too conveyed a distinct feeling that progress could be made.
Both men have clearly recognised the tact of inter-dependency - that they need each other. Both have shown not a little courage to get to where they are and there is a sense of a parallel if not fully shared determination to press on to the goal.
It is progress indeed that they should have got past the stage of megaphone diplomacy, shouting at each other across the barricades. Noise generally obliterates nuance, and parties can only net the crudest appreciation of their opponents position by this position in of communication. Talking through intermediaries is not much better - the message tends to lose too much in transmission. The important thing about face to lace meetings is not so much that people can talk as that they can listen to each other. There has perhaps been less listening than rhetoric in the discussion so far, and it is progress that the parties are now beginning lo understand the difficulties and concern of their opponents (their partners in the enterprise) and to take account of them in their thinking and to modify their own demands accordingly. Of the two, Trimble is probably in the more difficult position. Adams has an almost unanimous Mile in republicanism and nationalism behind him, a visibly united party and support from the other main wing of nationalism, while the militant opposition has been discredited by the Omagh bomb. Trimble has the electoral support of just over half of unionism (but the popular support of many more) has a divided party, and the other wing of unionism is working to destroy him.
Decommissioning is a touchstone for unionism, and for Trimble's credibility, and he needs some help from republicans on this. It only takes a few dissidents in his Assembly party to swing to the votes and he will be unable to deliver. Sinn Fein may be legally and literally correct saying that the agreement proposes no preconditions and that decommissioning is scheduled to take place in parallel with demilitarisation over two years.
Politics however, dictates an inability to wait for two years and a need for some declaration of intent and some evidence of action strong enough to convince doubting unionists that the risk which Trimble is contemplating is worth taking.
Trimble himself has called for a start to decommissioning, not total disarmament. The withdrawal of army patrols in Belfast is clearly a response to the lessening of threat following the Real IRA ceasefire, but it is politically significant also, as is the release of prisoners, in the complex game of move and counter-move and may encourage a Republican response.
The talks are significant in that the principals have taken each other seriously and treated each other with respect. Each may now be assumed to know the position of the other rather better. There is a sense that republicans are aware of Trimble's need for some significant gesture on the arms front and are engaged in the search for a formula which might provide this.
Maurice Hayes
THE Trimble-Adams meeting last week has been hyped by the media and most commentators as historic, and in a way it is. The two principals have tended to play it down as part of a routine necessary to secure the setting up of the Executive and the implementation of the Agreement.
It suits the unionists to keep it as low key as possible in order to avoid irritation in the ranks, raising the ire of those who would remind Trimble that despite all his protestations, decommissioning has not yet taken place. The low key republican approach is a mark of Sinn Fein's increasing political sophistication. They are well aware of Trimble's difficulties and did not wish to add to them by the appearance of triumphalism. It is nevertheless a significant meeting from their point of view.
For the community they represent, it signifies the acceptance by unionists as equals in the political process of their elected representatives, and their place in the scheme of things, which is preparing to run the country. It is too, a matter of history that the leader of unionism and the leader of republican nationalism should meet for the first time since the Collins-Craig meeting in the early days of Government in Northern Ireland.
Those who are assessing this meeting against the yardstick of some impossibly purist goals, should perhaps instead measure it by remembering where both men have come from and how quickly. Not much more than a year ago, each thought it possible to secure a settlement by cutting out, or ignoring the other. The Sinn Fein strategy was to deal only with the British and Irish Governments, leaving the former to deal with the unionists and to bring them into line. The unionist tactic, at that time, was to form a compact with modern nationalism in the form of the SDLP, which would exclude Sinn Fein from the equation.
A lot of things have changed in the meantime - mainly the Good Friday agreement which enabled each to achieve some of their objectives (but not all) and at the price of conceding parallel objectives to other people. The result is a complex set of relationships, of gains and concessions, of rights and responsibilities, which hang together like Rubik's cube. What it has done more than anything is to give each of the parties who wish to make it work a vested interest in the survival of the other and in hanging together.
The other thing that has changed is the strength of the will for peace among the ordinary people in Northern Ireland, expressed through the referendum and more strongly and vocally than ever after Drumcree on the one hand and the Omagh bomb on the oilier. Drumcree exposed the appalling vista of sectarian strife, Omagh a return to bombing and bloodshed on an unpresidented scale. It is this will for peace, the hunger for the politicians to get down to work and do the business that is now the engine of change.
Sadly, it is those furthest away from the frontline who have the least appreciation of this hunger for peace and its significance. It is no surprise that the foci of the Real IRA are in areas far removed from the border. The further from the sight of blood it appears, the more blood thirsty it is possible to be.
On the other hand, as perverse in their own way as the irredentists of the Real IRA and continuity Sinn Fein are those academics, soldiers and politicians who would insist on unconditional surrender and who are willing to prolong the war or to risk the peace in order that this can be extorted. Again it is easier in the studies of Dublin and Cork to know more about what needs to be done and to be purer in the inviolability of their principles than the people who are actually suffering and who can tolerate a degree of ambiguity if that helps to move the business on.
It is a poor appreciation of historical precedent too to ignore the fact that democratic government would not have emerged in Ireland if pragmatic and practical statesmen had not been prepared to accept the possibility of the transition of fighter and bomber to democratic politician. Michael Collins, Richard Mulcahy and their colleagues did not exactly graduate from a Quaker Peace Institute.
Shorn of hype, the Adams-Trimble meeting has been an important stage in the developing process. Future events will show whether it deserves to be called historic.
It is certainly unusual, if only for the way in which both men spoke of it afterwards as having been civilised and workmanlike. Adams's remark that Trimble was a man he could do business with, had to do business with, would do business with, was perhaps a little more Forthcoming than Trimble's assessment - but not much, and he too conveyed a distinct feeling that progress could be made.
Both men have clearly recognised the tact of inter-dependency - that they need each other. Both have shown not a little courage to get to where they are and there is a sense of a parallel if not fully shared determination to press on to the goal.
It is progress indeed that they should have got past the stage of megaphone diplomacy, shouting at each other across the barricades. Noise generally obliterates nuance, and parties can only net the crudest appreciation of their opponents position by this position in of communication. Talking through intermediaries is not much better - the message tends to lose too much in transmission. The important thing about face to lace meetings is not so much that people can talk as that they can listen to each other. There has perhaps been less listening than rhetoric in the discussion so far, and it is progress that the parties are now beginning lo understand the difficulties and concern of their opponents (their partners in the enterprise) and to take account of them in their thinking and to modify their own demands accordingly. Of the two, Trimble is probably in the more difficult position. Adams has an almost unanimous Mile in republicanism and nationalism behind him, a visibly united party and support from the other main wing of nationalism, while the militant opposition has been discredited by the Omagh bomb. Trimble has the electoral support of just over half of unionism (but the popular support of many more) has a divided party, and the other wing of unionism is working to destroy him.
Decommissioning is a touchstone for unionism, and for Trimble's credibility, and he needs some help from republicans on this. It only takes a few dissidents in his Assembly party to swing to the votes and he will be unable to deliver. Sinn Fein may be legally and literally correct saying that the agreement proposes no preconditions and that decommissioning is scheduled to take place in parallel with demilitarisation over two years.
Politics however, dictates an inability to wait for two years and a need for some declaration of intent and some evidence of action strong enough to convince doubting unionists that the risk which Trimble is contemplating is worth taking.
Trimble himself has called for a start to decommissioning, not total disarmament. The withdrawal of army patrols in Belfast is clearly a response to the lessening of threat following the Real IRA ceasefire, but it is politically significant also, as is the release of prisoners, in the complex game of move and counter-move and may encourage a Republican response.
The talks are significant in that the principals have taken each other seriously and treated each other with respect. Each may now be assumed to know the position of the other rather better. There is a sense that republicans are aware of Trimble's need for some significant gesture on the arms front and are engaged in the search for a formula which might provide this.
Further Information
Publisher: IRISH INDEPENDENT
Ref: II/152
Published Date: 15-Sep-98
Related Images
There have been no images archived for this article.