Distretto NordEditoriali

Sinn Fein è il maggior ostacolo alla pace

ALEX KANE: Sinn Fein is biggest obstacle to peace

by Alex Kane

Sinn FeinTO paraphrase Sherlock Holmes: “It’s the little things that can be of the greatest significance in drawing conclusions. It’s all to do with the observation of trifles.”

When it comes to Sinn Fein, though, it’s not just the trifles you need to keep an eye on, it’s the whole dessert trolley – for you never know what particularly nasty little cocktail has been slipped between the plates.

Take, for example, Declan Kearney’s latest piece in An Phoblacht, in which he again promotes Sinn Fein’s very one-sided, self-serving reconciliation project.

If you are a unionist who doesn’t buy into that project and who questions the sincerity of Sinn Fein’s motives and agenda (a unionist like me, in other words) then, according to Kearney, you are “part of the current slow down (of) the peace process agenda led by sections of political unionism”.

Hmmm! Did you see what he did there? Yep, he just accused Sinn Fein’s critics of slowing down the peace process agenda: and, by insinuation, of not being genuinely committed to peace and reconciliation.

That’s propaganda in its blackest, most cynical form. Criticise Sinn Fein and you are anti-peace. Criticise Sinn Fein and you are anti-reconciliation. Criticise Sinn Fein and you are the reason why the problems continue. Criticise Sinn Fein and you remain sectarian and divisive. Criticise Sinn Fein and you are the enemy of progress.

And it gets better. Kearney goes on to argue that “the peace process still faces significant challenges and that’s why a new phase needs to be opened up, aimed at addressing and overcoming the unresolved hurt on all sides, fear, community divisions, sectarianism, partitionism, social inequality and economic disadvantage”.

He’s done it again, hasn’t he? Not one hint of an admission that the IRA has a lot of questions to answer, or that it was the onslaught of the IRA that contributed so much to the fear, divisions, sectarianism and disadvantage.

I can actually help him to address and overcome one of the issues he mentions. I would love to have a referendum on remaining in the United Kingdom or shifting into a united Ireland.

I wish the Secretary of State would sanction such a referendum right away. For I know, as does every single member of the Sinn Fein leadership, that such a referendum would keep Northern Ireland securely anchored to Great Britain.

Indeed, I would go further than that – because once Sinn Fein realised how far away it was from ever achieving unity it might actually buckle down and deal with the realities of life rather than with the dreams and blarney of their own mythology.

The biggest obstacle to peace in Northern Ireland is Sinn Fein’s delusional approach to politics.

Unionists did not sign up to a deal with Sinn Fein because they wanted to smooth the path towards Irish unity – so no amount of charm offensives, outreaches, reconciliation projects or even Martin McGuinness shaking the hands of monarchs and prime ministers is going to alter that fact.

Unionists support the United Kingdom and the Union. That’s why we are called unionists.

Most of us are prepared to reach a wide-ranging accommodation with the minority constitutional community in Northern Ireland, even to the extent of accepting powers of veto over majority opinion that are not the norm in other democracies. We don’t want a return to terror or conflict and we don’t want our children to endure what we endured.

But none of this means that we are any keener on Irish unity than we were 10 or even 50 years ago. Putting it bluntly, unionism is not up for grabs.

Sinn Fein’s position is not the same as ours. The IRA gave up the terror campaign and Sinn Fein embedded itself into the political institutions for no other reason than a long delayed recognition on their part that previous tactics to break the Union had failed.

They are where they are today because of a very clear failure to get where they really wanted to be by other, much bloodier, means.

Yet one simple fact remains: in precisely the same way that unionists haven’t stopped being unionists because they share power with Sinn Fein, nor have Sinn Fein stopped being republicans because they are locked at the hip to the DUP.

Deep down, way down in their psyche, there isn’t one Sinn Fein MLA who recognises the legitimacy of the Assembly, the border or the internal settlement. How could they?

The present arrangements contradict and undermine everything that Sinn Fein has ever championed. They are in a hole and doing their best to dig themselves out.

Which brings us back to Declan Kearney and the reconciliation project: a project which is no more and no less than a pretty desperate attempt to dig themselves out of the hole.

And that’s one of the reasons I don’t want to get involved and don’t want to help them. What, after all, is the point of helping them? If I thought they were serious about reconciliation in Northern Ireland and serious about building a better relationship with unionists then I would be supportive: but it just seems to me that the entire project is based on no ambition higher than that of furthering their own agenda and convincing some of their grassroots that the unity dream is alive and kicking.

I have no difficulty with a head-to-head debate on the merits of Irish unity versus the United Kingdom and would happily take part in such a debate.

But that’s not the sort of debate Sinn Fein wants. Their debate begins with the assumption that unity is inevitable, that unionists should reconcile themselves to that inevitability and that all is required is the winning over of a smallish section of the pro-Union electorate.

That’s not a debate that is worth having for unionists and that’s why I will continue to caution unionists against taking part in any Sinn Fein hosted debate conducted within those parameters.

Frankly, Mr Kearney, if you think that such an attitude means that I am part of the “slow down (of) the peace process agenda” then yes, you are probably right. But since it’s a newly defined agenda, drawn up to suit Sinn Fein and only Sinn Fein, I won’t be taking on any mantle of guilt you are trying to push my way.

If reconciliation doesn’t embrace all of us, or demand the same standards from all of us, then it’s not the sort of reconciliation I want anything to do with.

Pagina precedente 1 2
Tags

René Querin

Di professione grafico e web designer, sono appassionato di trekking e innamorato dell'Irlanda e della sua storia. Insieme ad Andrea Varacalli ho creato e gestisco Les Enfants Terribles.

Related Articles

Close