Rewriting history is nothing new. Stalin airbrushed subsequent political enemies from early photographs and the former radical politics of some British cabinet ministers are now conveniently forgotten.
But this week's suggestion that someone who, for example, served 10 years in Long Kesh should have no record of his stay there is an attempt to rewrite history on a Pol Pot scale.
It might have been more valid to argue that paramilitary prisoners could be classified as having been convicted of a political offence rather than no offence. This would be in keeping with the hunger-strikers' demand for political status. It would also cater for the claim that many people would not have been in prison but for the Troubles.
Thus the records would show a difference between someone who robbed a bank for personal gain and someone who robbed it to buy guns for the UVF. One would be criminal, the other political. (Not in the sense that 'political' is an adjective of politics, which cherishes dialogue and eschews violence, but in the sense that the act was undertaken for political and not personal gain). But political actions can become blurred at the edges by sectarianism and personal motives.
Launching mortars at Downing Street, for example, was political. Whether it was a legitimate political act or not, it was intended to convince a powerful British prime minister to adopt a specific course of political action. But was the murder of a politically powerless, Protestant workman on his way home from repairing an RUC station quite the same?
What about the massacres at Kingsmills and Darkley? Would anyone seriously ascribe political motives to the Shankhill Butchers? Can psychopaths be political?
Equally the bank robber who hands over the proceeds of his actions to the UDA might be seen as political rather than criminal. But if he feels greedy and keeps a few pounds for himself, is his offence then 90 per cent political? And if some members of the UDA decide to use part of the proceeds for a fortnight in Spain, is that a political holiday?
So the concept of political offences obviously requires refinement but there is at its core a strong argument that many were in prison for acting on their political beliefs. But doing something for political reasons does not always make it right.
Mrs Thatcher went to war with Argentina for domestic electoral advantage – the purest of political motives. Mr Blair may have gone to war with Iraq for the same reason. Indeed invading Iraq was doubly political – removing a dictator and enhancing domestic political popularity.
Many believe that Bloody Sunday was a political act, designed to drive the Civil Rights Movement off the streets. But that hardly justifies it and it certainly does not warrant erasing from history either the action or responsibility for it.
The argument that a political motive justifies all violence is in danger of leading to the conclusion that Hitler's mass murder of the Jews can best be viewed in a political context.
Thus, the concept of politically motivated violence not only raises difficulties of definition, it challenges the ethics of the intent.
There is also the issue that for generations some republicans have failed to recognise that while they were undoubtedly imprisoned for political reasons, so too were many of their 'criminal' fellow prisoners. Those from working class, deprived backgrounds have a greater chance of ending up in prison than those from privileged backgrounds. These prisoners too are often victims of political circumstances – in their case the politics of socio-economic class – and for them there will never be a peace process.
The argument for reclassifying the prison records of those convicted of political offences (if they could be defined) is not without merit. But perhaps it needs more thought. Its strength is that ex-prisoners are subject to unfair treatment for life in employment opportunities, national insurance contributions and pension rights. This is wrong and must be challenged.
But the challenge would carry much greater validity – and much more humanity – if it were extended to include all prisoners. If it is wrong to continue to punish former paramilitary prisoners long after they have completed their sentences, is it not equally wrong in the case of other prisoners? By regarding themselves as not just different from other ex-prisoners but as somehow more deserving than them in post-custodial treatment, former paramilitary prisoners may miss an opportunity to seek a review of how society treats ex-offenders.
It is a review which is long overdue.
