Few would have imagined that ten years after the first IRA
ceasefire, the future of the peace process would depend on Sinn Féin
accepting the PD view of history.
But that's exactly what Tanáiste Mary Harney demanded
yesterday when she insisted there would be no place in politics for
Sinn Féin unless they "stated clearly" that the murder of Jean
McConville was a crime.
Thus the price of participation for Sinn Féin in Government
north and south isn't decommissioning, the Mitchell Principles, the
retirement of the IRA or even agreeing to share power with Paisleyites.
Now they have another hurdle to clear: brand your own campaign as
criminal.
That's a Rubicon republicans aren't going to cross.
But they aren't alone in clinging firmly to their own
interpretation of history; even as they engage in the difficult work of
making peace with old enemies.
The Labour Party has no plans to expel its members with roots in
the armed revolutionaries of the Official IRA over the execution of
Ranger Best.
The British aren't close to admitting that the shooting of schoolgirls Julie Livingstone and Carol Ann Kelly was a crime.
The loyalists are more likely to 'celebrate' Greysteel and
Loughinisland in gory wall murals than declare their campaign criminal.
And the unionists queueing up at the doors of power in
Stormont are never, never, never going to acknowledge that the creation
of Northern Ireland and the subjugation of its nationalist minority was
a criminal conspiracy from the word go.
How come then that those sworn enemies could not only replace
war, war with jaw, jaw but were set for an historic compromise before
Christmas? Because they all concur on one thing: the past, unlike the
future, is a subject on which the parties to the conflict will always
disagree.
The killing of Jean McConville was an abomination. The laws of
the land decreed it a crime. But whether those who carried out that
grim deed viewed themselves as criminals is another issue altogether.
In fact, it's a core republican belief – eventually accepted by British
and Irish authorities after lengthy prison protests – that they were in
fact soldiers at war. Even wars, of course, have codes of conduct and
it would be a foolish person indeed who would say those rules were
never broken by the IRA – or the other participants.
Was every IRA member who picked up a gun in a society where
peaceful change had been stymied a criminal? And was everyone who
provided a safe house for republicans on the run commiting a crime? The
law says they were.
The PDs believe that to be the case. The majority of
nationalists, however, especially those in the frontline in areas such
as Ardoyne and Crossmaglen, beg to differ.
Until now, the peace process was constructed on allowing the
former parties to the conflict to make their own reconciliation with
the past. All that is now changed with the insistence of the PDs that
there can only be one take on history: theirs.
In political terms, that's a great strategy for the PDs and
the recent opinion polls do suggest that Sinn Féin is going to take a
PR battering if it continues to stand over every act the IRA carried
out in the midst of a brutal and horrific conflict.
However, that's Sinn Féin's prerogative. The voters can give
their own verdict on that stance in due course. What can't be tolerated
is that the past be elevated above the future in the next critical
phase of the peace process. To do so will lead only to stalemate and
deadlock – which may play well with the PD constituency – but
which will only lead to despair and heartbreak in constituencies which
bore the brunt of 30 years of conflict.
