ABSTRACT
What is of special signi¿ cance here is that political and emotional ties to Northern Ireland have diminished dramatically, and neither state has any economic or territorial interest in claiming Northern Ireland for itself, and states this openly, to the dismay of traditional loyalism and republicanism in the North. Although attitudes to Northern Ireland are not based on parallel reasons and experiences, British and Irish interests have never been so close this century. Today both states are simultaneously willing to cooperate to reach a disinterested settlement, showing a rare common readiness to create long-term stability in Northern Ireland by locking the Northern Irish parties into a peace settlement of their own choice, and not dictated by special British or Irish interests. So if the old interpretation of the Northern Irish conÀ ict as the ¿ nal battle-¿ eld between unsolved Irish and British animosities held good, might we not expect a speedy end to the conÀ ict resulting from changed perceptions of the two external actors? Just as Northern Ireland might be expected to bene¿ t from its geographical position as mediator, or ‘cultural corridor’ (Longley, 1990) between Ireland and Great Britain. Unfortunately, this does not yet seem to be the case. The reality of Northern Ireland, in spite of considerable improvements as regards old Catholic grievances about discrimination and second-class citizenship, is an increase in polarization of attitudes and residential segregation, and a strengthening of political fundamentalist positions, as seen for example at the Forum elections of 1996 and the general election of May 1997. Nationalists and unionists share feelings of mistrust and uncertainty about Britain’s motivations and intentions today. At times of increased tension, for example during the marching seasons of the
last two summers, claims and accusations take on distinct sectarian overtones, and institutions such as the Royal Ulster Constabulary appear to operate on sectarian principles, and not as a neutral police body. This is a situation that is dif¿ cult to begin to change. However, the Peace Agreement of 10 April 1998, and the strong 71 per cent ‘yes’ vote on the agreement on the 22 May may be just such a beginning: it constitutes a framework for political cooperation between the parties in the North and between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic which may, in the long term, put the relationship between the people in the North on a different footing, and bring about a sense of shared identity and place. Police records show that there has been a steady increase in loyalist marches in the past ten years, so that they now number well over 3,000 annual marches. The ¿ gures also show a vast imbalance between the number of marches and parades held by the two communities. Loyalist marches outnumber republican ones by 9:1 (Jarman, 1997). The marching season now spans the period from Easter to early autumn, and has become a very contentious issue and manifestation of division and power:
The result of the past 30 years has been the establishment and the perpetuation of a culture of violence: where violence has altered social norms and behaviour, and where solutions to social problems are not necessarily taken through negotiations and compromise, as is clear from the continuation of ‘policing’ and punishment beatings by paramilitaries, even in times of cease¿ re, not to mention the – more or less overt – acceptance of the use of violence to achieve political ends. This affects everybody, not just active participants in or supporters of violence:
For a culture of violence to begin to move towards a culture of sharing or of coexistence and mutual acceptance, not to speak of a common culture, entails much more than just the absence of violence. A shared project, feelings of enough common ground, and agreed changes and common goals, are necessary prerequisites for a shift away from the safety of old-established and sectarian attitudes, and strong and, unfortunately, frequently reinforced feelings of mistrust and fear. Till now, there has been a resistance to change, based on sectarianism, partiality, and pervasive distrust. So the cultural divide in Northern Ireland is very real and has its own dynamic. On the whole, community relations in the 1990s appeared to be worsening in spite of an enormous amount of good intentions and hard work on the part of individuals and organizations:
In Northern Ireland there was considerable distrust of the political process itself, partly because of wasted opportunities following the ¿ rst IRA cease¿ re in 1994 and earlier, and because of the very different priorities and solutions of the two communities for a lasting settlement. According to the 1997 Queen’s University/Rowntree Survey Report it would appear that the British and Irish governments who set up the Stormont talks, ‘and the politicians elected to take part, were not focusing on the issues that are of the greatest importance to their respective communities’ (Irwin, 1998: 3). So much divides people in Northern Ireland that as con¿ dence building or trust building measures, talks ought perhaps to concentrate at ¿ rst on issues that receive high priorities for both sides, such as a Bill of Rights that guarantees equality for all and protects each community’s culture, and a right to choose integrated education. It would seem that much preliminary ground-work had to be in place, before the big issues as regards constitutional belonging and political structure could be tackled. There were, after all, mutually exclusive aspirations here and very little middle-ground in Northern Irish politics, just as there is no À oating vote on the constitutional question. So the revision of the Irish constitution from staking ‘a claim’ on Northern Ireland to one of ‘future aspiration of unity in the event of consent’ signi¿ cantly changed the question and most contentious
issue. The Northern Irish parties taking part in the recent very dif¿ cult but, fortunately, successfully concluded talks were in a curious double bind. On the one hand, they could not afford to be seen to be unwilling to negotiate, on the other hand there was a fear of the political peace process itself, that negotiation might lead to unacceptable compromise, such as forcing nationalists to accept partition, just as some hard-core unionists will not accept any Dublin role in a future settlement. Sinn Fein was constitutionally restricted from taking its seats in any partitionist body (Adams, 1998) till the Dublin Ard Fheis voted overwhelmingly to end abstentionism a few weeks ago and thus paved the way for inclusion of Sinn Fein in a future government of Northern Ireland. This is not giving politics to the terrorists, as some commentators have feared, but rather removing or rede¿ ning ‘the cause’ from the terrorists. It is, of course, admirable that Tony Blair and Mo Mowlam acknowledge Britain’s responsibility and involve themselves positively in Northern Ireland, but there were mindsets to be reckoned with, and old attitudes may defeat solutions. The various parties had a veto of sorts over the outcome – the DUP by boycotting the talks and mounting a massive ‘no’ campaign, and Sinn Fein could have been forced to refuse to take their seats in a newly elected Northern Irish Assembly. After all, abstentionism was an old republican tradition. If mainstream republicanism and loyalism are not active parts of any future agreement or settlement, it will not bring lasting peace. The mutually exclusive political and constitutional aspirations for the future and very different interpretations of the past help to explain why national identity in Northern Ireland is formed just as much on the basis of what it is not, as on what it is, where identity is difference, and must always be formed in close contact with what is considered ‘the other’. The social categorization process in Northern Ireland is a division of people by people for historical and economic reasons, and has taken on strong cultural and ethnic overtones, because it offers a de¿ nition of ‘us’ and a characterization of ‘them’ as mutually exclusive categories with strong group demands and loyalties passed down through the generations. Thus, Ken Maginnis of the Ulster Unionist Party in a recent Ulster Television interview criticized young unionists for being bigoted extremists with attitudes like ‘only people who hate Taigs [Catholics] should represent unionists’ (Maginnis, 1996). The two groups in Northern Ireland are today sometimes euphemistically referred to as ‘two traditions’ (the new politically correct expression), but much more than tradition is at stake, though tradition is frequently invoked as justi¿ cation for action, as both sides stress and celebrate different myths, symbols, and values, sometimes to the point of cultivating or inventing difference. Just as they are very aware of which myths, symbols, and values to ascribe to the out-group/the
other side. A sophisticated system of ‘telling’ has evolved in Northern Ireland, by which – through cues like ¿ rst name, address, family background, accent, and school attended – you easily place people in their respective groups, and a whole set of values and attitudes are automatically ascribed to them. John O’Farrell calls this ‘the partition no amount of talking can unite’: ‘Politically, the partition of Ireland has been a dismal failure; culturally it has succeeded beyond the wildest dreams of its instigators’ (O’Farrell, 1997: 151).
