The end of July and the summer school season is getting into gear. In August there won't be a week without some literary, historical, musical or political gathering. Sometimes it's a mixture of all four. Last week the season kicked off with the first of the big ones, the Patrick McGill summer school at Glenties. There were Martin McGuinness, Martin Mansergh, Michael McDowell with Gregory Campbell bringing up othe rear.
Along come the Merriman, the Humbert, the Yeats, Parnell, Joyce and a dozen others which attract national and even international attention. There are also lots of less well-known local schools like the Byrne-Perry in Gorey, the Carleton in Tyrone and the Tom Dunn in Rostrevor.
You'll notice three aspects immediately. First, and not surprising because they're Irish summer schools after all, they are overwhelmingly concerned with Irish history, politics, music and literature. Secondly, where politics and history are concerned they are overwhelmingly examinations of nationalist issues or even just republicanism as a political creed. Thirdly, unionists don't organise any summer schools to examine unionism or anything else for that matter.
Ah, you ask, how can you say that in the very week the John Hewitt summer school is in session in Armagh? Furthermore, the theme of the summer school is 'Finding the Nation', a phrase taken from one of Hewitt's poems. You can say it easily because if you look at the committee of the John Hewitt summer school and its list of patrons you can't accuse its members of being exclusively unionist. In fact what is notable about its organisers like those of all summer schools, is their effort to try to INCLUDE unionists.
You look in vain for the unionist heavyweights contributing to summer schools and indeed, at the John Hewitt, the major heavyweight delivering a paper entitled 'Forging an Identity' is Garret FitzGerald, hardly a unionist. Professor Paul Bew is also speaking but while he claims in his CV to have been an advisor to David Trimble, he's shy of admitting to being a unionist. So far he hasn't 'come out' so to speak.
Even the annual summer school the republican ex-prisoners group Coiste Na nIarchimi runs at Ti Chulainn, Mullaghbawn always has one or more unionist speakers. The absence of unionist reflection on politics and history creates another problem. It's this. Republicans crowd in to hear unionists speaking and can question them and exchange views but it's all one-way traffic.
Occasionally you hear complaints from republicans at such gatherings who use the opportunity to tell unionist politicians in particular that there is no reciprocation. Where can republicans speak to a mainly unionist audience? Who would invite them? Where would the venue be? The answer from unionist guests is usually twofold. First, there is no unionist equivalent of occasions like 'West Belfast Talks Back' and secondly, 'the time is not right', such a weak and pathetic response no-one dignifies it with serious consideration.
Those questions deserve real answers. Why are unionists afraid to appear in public and question sacred tenets of unionism? Why can they not argue the toss with each other? Would other unionists think they are 'selling the pass'? Why are there no unionist intellectuals?
Is the phrase 'unionist intellectual' an oxymoron?
Is it because unionists never had to think about unionism as a political creed because the British government simply guarantees unionists can do what they like without ever having to justify their behaviour? Is unionism a political creed, or a ploy to avoid democracy? Is it because questioning unionist certainties means admitting unionism has to change, that the unionist project has failed?
Is it simply because no unionist knows how to make the north, in Martin Mansergh's phrase, "a workable entity" without giving equal political rights to nationalists which is the opposite of the purpose for which the north was created?
Can no unionist say that publicly?
We don't know the answers to any of these questions because unionists won't address them. You have to conclude that the DUP's refusal to speak to Sinn Féin is a true political reflection of the unionist community's refusal to enter into public dialogue with the rest of the people on this island.
