W2E-005 Fortnight editorials-1.txt
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Popular power

Robin Wilson

The pieces inside by Adrian Guelke (p12) and (in the supplement) Eamonn Gallagher should make arresting reading for any complacent minister or official in London or Dublin. Can any still be complacent after the miasma into which the 'peace process' collapsed last month?

In giving the Downing Street Declaration a fair wind (Fortnight 324), we suppressed our doubts about the way it hinged on the notion of'self-determination' (Fortnight 321). Yet it is now evident that what Mr Gallagher calls the 'paradigm of conflicting self-determinations', which has been at the heart of attempts to achieve a settlement since direct rule, is fundamentally flawed.

As the former Opsahl commissioner argues, "While academic research during the past 20 years or so has concentrated on the problem as principally an internal conflict largely confined to Northern Ireland but with external ramifications, politics has concentrated on the self-determination paradigm - with, and perhaps for that reason, limited success."

Prof Guelke, having written on international dimensions of the conflict as well as on his native South Africa, is similarly well placed to comment. Making self-determination hinge on whether nationalists or unionists hold a majority, he points out, is not only not new; it does not offer a formula for breaking down the sectarian divide. Instead, it risks "placing a political premium on the maintenance of community solidarity and offering no incentives for cross-community co-operation".

Last month's messy exchanges between Sinn F&/ein, the two governments and sundry other players entirely missed the point - which is not whether the declaration is 'clarified' or not. Paradoxically, to 'clarify' it for Sinn F&/ein, to make it more akin to Hume-Adams, would entail making key elements less clear - particularly the majority-consent principle and the neutrality of the British, both of which would be qualified into an implied long-term withdrawal formula.

So are we inevitably destined to spend weeks, months, years more 'Waiting for Provo'? There is now no doubt that the republican movement will not accept the declaration as it stands, and equally none that the 'clarification' Gerry Adams has sought would see crucial liberal Protestant support (see p14) disappear like snow off a ditch.

But there is another way. Republicans have tentatively indicated that what could be acceptable is a clear and incontrovertible commitment by the British government on foot of the declaration to introduce a series of measures which would "empower the nationalist community".

They frankly admit that the rank-and-file republican view of the declaration is that it has nothing to offer. They point to the disillusioning experience of the first hunger strike, when a vague and general document produced by the British did not lead to the expected concrete steps (until after the next one). And they are convinced that, even were the IRA to accept the declaration as it stands, another IRA would take its place.

But what if, as was suggested in Fortnight 323, the British government was to commit itself - and, where possible, rapidly introduce - a raft of measures which secured the 'empowerment' of nationalists (without disempowering unionists) which the Opsahl Commission held out? A promise that any new political institutions would entrench equality, not just majoritarian power-sharing; a pledge to give legal recognition of nationalism so that Northern Ireland no longer enshrined unionist cultural dominance; new north-south structures so that relationship on the island were between Irish men and women alone; a bill of right and repeal of 'emergency legislation'; phased withdrawal of the army, initially to barracks; a fundamental review of policing, to establishing a service which no longer entailed the majority policing the minority; a programme of social and economic reconstruction for ghetto areas; phased release and reintegration of paramilitary prisoners; and so on.

This would give republican leaders something to'sell' as a rationale for a purely peaceful politics, would indicate the bona fides of the British state and would clearly help, rather than hinder, the long-term goal of unification by consent.

None of these principles need prejudice renewed interparty talks. Indeed, the latter frankly have no chance of success unless such a clear framework is established for them. For by ending the ludicrous separation between 'peace' and 'talks' - not to mention the latter's baroque 'three strands' division - we could then get on to the business of fleshing out the cross-sectarian consensus that Opsahl sketched and to which Prof. Guelke alludes.

The big question, as ever though, is this: would the British government be prepared, given the Conservatives'implacable hostility to root-and-branch reform of the British constitution, to entertain such a radical rethink, to make a settlement possible in Northern Ireland?
