Ireland two years after Good Friday deal
Republicans rue slim pickings from a bare bones agreement
THE SECOND ANNIVERSARY of the Good Friday Agreement in Ireland brings with it the realisation that, in the words of one supporter, "it has all the aerodynamics of a flying brick".
The suspension of most of the structures of the agreement after only a few short weeks no longer looks like a temporary glitch.. It is becoming clearer as time goes on that neither London nor Dublin have any clear plan of action in place.
The best that could be expected from their point of view or would be a cobbled together agreement that would prove highly unstable or, more likely, that the fractured agreement will sail through its second anniversary and through the May 22 deadline for arms surrender by the republicans.
The collapse has been presented as a failure by republicans to hand over arms. It is true that many people, including many republican supporters, believed that the Sinn Fein leadership had agreed to such a handover, but to focus on this is to ignore the role of the unionists.
The reality is that the agreement fell to the right. As first Minister Trimble recently announced, decommissioning of arms as an element of the good Friday agreement was a political impossibility. The decommissioning demand became a rallying cry for the unionist right, a way in which they could express their opposition to any diminution of their sectarian privilege.
The persistent growth of reaction has led to the British partially collapsing the institutions set up by the process. The unionist response has been to look for further concessions, especially the retention of that name RUC (Royal Ulster Constabulary) for the local sectarian police force.
So what now? We are entering a new period where the majority of the institutions of the Good Friday Agreement are not operating, but the agreement remains overwhelmingly dominant politically.
What we have now is a bare bones Good Friday agreement. What remains is British rule, sectarianism and repression and patronage and clientelism. Without government structures to disguise this reality there is a growing layer of cynicism.
As Brendan Hughes points out in Fourthwrite (opposite), a few have gained and moved on, while working class republicans are left behind.
Examples of the emptiness of the reform process are indicated by the Saville enquiry into Bloody Sunday, which kicked off with a series of smears against Sinn Fein leader Martin McGuinness.
Reports have been published about the reform of criminal justice which were mainly about incorporating middle class Catholics more firmly into the state administration and providing a back door to incorporate former republicans through community justice schemes. The whole network of laws representing colonial repression are to remain.
The British remain without any real threat. Their rule is unchallenged, yet there is an essential instability that threatens long-term danger. In the short term their task is to save Trimble.
The main weapon they have historically deployed against the unionist right is appeasement. The row about the RUC is a good example of this.
The right wing demand that the name RUC be retained. The British, having little to offer nationalism other than a change in name, refuse.
They then attempt to appease by offering everything else to the right. The RUC are awarded the George Cross, and their sectarian history is endorsed by the British Prime Minister and the Queen.
Prime Minister Blair hints that police reductions will be reversed if there is a security threat. All this feeds further reaction, with Trimble surviving a leadership vote by the skin of his teeth and an anti-agreement candidate selected as the unionist candidate in a Westminster by-election.
Any deal done now must concede to loyalist reaction, and this will make it almost impossible for the Sinn Fein leadership to endorse it.
Meanwhile Sinn Fein continues to proclaim victory. They do this in the same way that other defeated forces do, by constantly redefining their goals. Success is now defined as Sinn Fein becoming a large reformist nationalist party in government in both parts of Ireland.
To this end their recent Ard Fheis (Sinn Fein convention) had the hilarious sight of a debate about coalition with capitalist parties in the South. As if a party whose main demand is coalition with the unionist party in colonial administration in the North would balk at a coalition with the main capitalist party that it has been in bed with throughout the evolution of the peace process!
The process here is a familiar one. The handpicked delegates have long passed the point where they could offer any serious opposition to the leadership. They still feel sentiment for the good old days and need to be talked around. The decision to hold a delegate conference is in practice acceptance of coalition.
The problem here for the Sinn Fein leadership is that bare bone process which excludes them from government in the North makes their claims of victory implausible and leaves them open to the criticism of former leading activists like Brendan Hughes – that they have abandoned the programme of republicanism and gone into alliance with local gombeen capitalists who have a long history of exploiting republican prisoners.
The long sleep of the peace process is over, but there is a long road yet to travel.