Oh dear. It appears we’ve been
sold a pup. The DUP MP, Jeffrey Donaldson, let the cat out of the bag – to mix
both metaphors and species – when he conceded, on Tuesday’s UTV Live Tonight, that
the US diplomat Richard Haass was “not a miracle-worker”.
Why then was such an under-qualified
person head-hunted for the position of chairman of the all-party talks which
start in mid-September? I would have thought that the minimum criteria for the role
would have included demonstrable expertise in the performance of extraordinary
deeds which could be explained only by divine intervention. If we don’t have
God on our side, next month, the initiative is in trouble.
It gets worse.
Previous political
breakthroughs owed little to American intermediaries, Jeffrey informed us: “It
was the local political parties who came up with the solutions at the end of
the day.”
No they didn’t. If they had found
solutions, the problems would have been solved (the clue is in the noun) and
they wouldn’t have needed to invite Mr Haass to mediate. The fact that the
First and Deputy First Ministers have had to resort yet again to trans-Atlantic
brokerage suggests that problems remain and that local representatives are unable
– or unwilling – to solve them.
It wouldn’t be so bad or so
embarrassing if they were new problems, or even major ones, which had emerged
during the evolution of the political process. Sadly, the problems in Haass’s
in-tray concern flags, parades, protests, symbols and emblems – the unclaimed baggage
circling round on the carousel of our past.
Whatever their age or provenance,
and however intractable they might seem, these problems do need to be solved. But
where should Richard Haass begin? How do you discuss ‘cohesion and sharing’
with a group of people who don’t want to be in the same room?
I imagine you begin by agreeing the
objectives of the process and establishing the parameters for the talks. Once
again, there was a contribution from Mr Donaldson which might prove instructive.
The Lagan Valley MLA told UTV: “What my community wants to know is that there’s
not going to be a cultural whitewashing in Northern Ireland; yes we want shared
space, but not at the expense of removing the culture and identity of one section
of the community.”
The irony will not be lost on
nationalists of a man with Ulster Unionist roots counselling against cultural
whitewashing in Northern Ireland. That was precisely the experience of
nationalists here during decades of Unionist rule following the establishment
of the northern state: their culture and identity received scant recognition
and no respect from the Stormont government.
Their mistreatment conflicted
with the advice of no less a person than Lord Carson who, in 1921, urged the
Ulster Unionist Council to “...be tolerant to all religions, and, while maintaining
to the last your own traditions and your own citizenship, take care that similar
rights are preserved for those who differ from us.”
That appeal amounted to a call
for equality. It would be interesting to contemplate the implications, for
example, for the flying of flags on public buildings, the use of emblems and
symbols, or the commemoration of republican dead. “Similar rights...for those
who differ from us”.
For the spirit of Carson to influence the Haass talks,
and encourage unionists to maintain nationalists’ traditions and citizenship, would require divine intervention. Now and again, miracles do happen.
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