Not war, but peace

IT is more than three years since the Good Friday agreement pointed to the possibility of a peaceful settlement of years of religious and political strife in Northern Ireland. Since then, each encouraging move forward seems to have been followed by a step backward to bitter division.

Still no solution has been achieved. Still the talks continue, and the Governments of Britain and the Irish Republic have to commit much time and effort to them.

It is easy to take a pessimistic view of the situation, to see conflict as endemic. Some of the signs, however, give grounds for optimism, and on a long view there are genuinely hopeful indications that change is under way. The most hopeful factor of all, underlying everything else, remains the referendum on the Good Friday agreement, which showed that the majority of the population preferred peace to war. This was not, one might argue, surprising; most people do, after all, prefer the chance to live in peace rather than constantly face the prospect of violent death. It was - and is - significant because in effect it put the politicians under notice to make serious efforts to work with rather than against each other.

The reality, clearly, is not as simple as that sounds. For example, the school year began with a disgraceful demonstration by Protestant Unionists against Catholic children walking to their primary school through a Unionist area. Such behaviour is inexcusable and can hardly be credited from people who claim to be both civilised and Christian.

There are still manifestations of what one might call the Northern Ireland knee-jerk reaction syndrome; if the Unionists seem pleased with a development, the Nationalists will reject it, and vice-versa.

Slow though changes in deep-rooted attitudes within Northern Ireland are, changes in attitudes towards Northern Ireland are becoming more significant.

For example, an opinion poll conducted by ICM for The Guardian showed that in Britain 41 per cent of those polled believed that Northern Ireland should be joined with the Republic, only 26 per cent that it should remain part of the United Kingdom. Furthermore, 64 per cent blamed Unionists and Republicans equally for Northern Ireland's problems, with three per cent blaming Unionists and five per cent blaming Republicans.

The poll reflects the indifference of many in mainland Britain to the province. The U.K. as seen here is nothing like the way it is perceived by the Unionists. On the other side of the sectarian divide, there is limited understanding in the (overwhelmingly Catholic) Republic of the Catholic Nationalist ethos in Northern Ireland. To put it bluntly, most people in Britain do not much care whether Northern Ireland remains in the U.K. or not, and enthusiasm for a united Ireland (that is, the incorporation of Northern Ireland into the Irish Republic) is more symbolic than real in the Republic.

There are economic reasons for these attitudes. The cost of Northern Ireland to the British taxpayer is great; if Ireland were united, the taxpayer in the Republic would face great costs. There are also strong social and political reasons, which can be summed up by recalling that Northern Ireland is manifestly different from both the rest of the U.K. and the Republic, and that difference constitutes a potential embarrassment. To illustrate the difference with a minor personal example, I have found, like everyone else, when visiting Northern Ireland that the divisions between Protestant (Unionist) and Catholic (Nationalist) communities are echoed in many aspects of daily life. By contrast, on a visit to the Republic, such as I made earlier this year, there is no overt sense of that kind of division. The fact, for example, that in largely Catholic Dublin there are two cathedrals, both of them Anglican (i.e. in Irish terms, Protestant) is a matter of history but not of bitter current controversy.

Northern Ireland will not be removed from the U.K. by the indifference of the mainland British. Its position within the U.K. will continue unless and until a majority of the people of Northern Ireland itself decide otherwise, and so long as there is a Unionist majority in the province, that will not happen.

The more often the politicians of Northern Ireland, however, are reminded that they are in a sense out on an emotional limb, the more they are likely to be forced into real compromise and collaboration. It will not happen quickly or painlessly, but circumstances may well prove stronger in the long run than the rhetoric of history.

BILL KIRKMAN

The writer is an Emeritus Fellow of Wolfson College, Cambridge. E-mail him at wpk1000@cam.ac.uk

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