I recently walked around areas of north Belfast and its suburbs. Today it is considerably more polarised than when I lived there, and the loss of mixed-religion living, a traditional feature of this part of Belfast, seems destined to remain, at least in the mean term.
But, apart from the sharp reminder of division and renewed territory marking during the recent Union flags protest, you can walk the area free from fear. We sometimes need to remind ourselves of how far we have come since the Belfast Agreement.
Feargal Cochrane’s book is good at that, while never losing sight of the issues that remain unresolved. It is a wonderful book, beautifully written, mercifully free from jargon, informative and incisive.
So let me dispense quickly with the few things I do not like about it: the football analogies, which are lost on me, as I guess they will be on many readers; and the choice of green, white and orange, as well as republican paramilitaries, for the dust jacket. (Why do so many publishers think this is right for books about Northern Ireland?)
Then there are the opening chapters, recounting the historical high points of past division, pitting Protestant ascendancy and Protestant landlords against the “dispossessed and disenfranchised Catholics”, with assimilation virtually impossible. This is bleak and stereotypical, quite at odds with the generally upbeat tone of the book and based on limited reading. No work of history after 1992 has been used. More recent historical research has challenged much of this.
In fact the main body of the book, which is largely about the road to peace, does not continue this theme of implacable division and violence. The role of “civil society” is particularly foregrounded, the “almost limitless array of interconnecting cultural, social, religious and political networks”, which kept Northern Irish society from totally disintegrating during the Troubles. They were particularly important in the long years of direct rule after 1972, when normal political institutions were suspended.
It was a worrying time of unaccountable government, with normal politics confined to councils and the handful of Westminster MPs and, above all, no way for the public to exert pressure on the politicians and bring them to the negotiating table.
Democratic deficit
In normal democratic politics the need to behave responsibly comes with political power. This became known as "the democratic deficit", and this is why the "informal sector", as the author describes it, was so important, encouraging and cajoling the political elites to dialogue.
Each time the peace process seemed in danger of faltering, such informal bodies again stepped in, and they often did so against the negativity and cynicism of others. I recall from my time on the Opsahl Commission of 1993 the trite “middle-class do-gooders” dismissal of people who actually were doing good. This book is one of the best assessments I have seen of the real contributions they made, and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, which funded many, must also take credit.
And yet, reading of the many misunderstandings and hiccups along the long road to peace in Northern Ireland, it is the sheer pedantry and pettiness of many of the actors that come through.
There were even elements of bedroom farce, including the famous and contested communication from the IRA army council to secret British contacts, in February 1991, that “the conflict is over, but we need your advice on how to bring it to an end”. This has always been denied by Martin McGuinness.
Cochrane shows that the communication was a mix-up of an aide-memoire drafted by several people, “a critical misunderstanding” that nevertheless had positive consequences in the response sent by John Major, the prime minister. It took a long time to accept that “talking to the enemy” was fundamental to peacemaking.
This account is prefaced by a quote from Jonathan Powell, Tony Blair’s chief of staff and the key British player in the run-up to the Belfast Agreement, saying as much. It is now a key principle of conflict resolution. It was not back then.
The book is enlivened by some of the best uses of autobiographical input that I know. The first-hand account of President Clinton’s visit to Northern Ireland in 1993 is one of these. Into the petty (and potentially destructive) “talks about talks” situation, the “petty-fogging and nit-picking” and distrustful “semantic” arguments of local politicians, stepped this colossus on the world stage. Cochrane was at the main “gig” at City Hall and recalled it as “a curious and surprisingly uplifting experience”.
Soft power
This was soft power at its best, with the president cajoling conflicting groups and making it difficult for even the most jaundiced to be negative. "It was a sensitive and crucial visit that required a deft political touch . . . He was as sure-footed as a mountain goat in the rocky terrain that confronted him and made the closely choreographed visit seem spontaneous, natural and effortless."
One can only wonder in hindsight whether peace would have come about without such external input and the sustained personal commitment of Blair, Albert Reynolds and Bertie Ahern. They did well on Northern Ireland and are rarely given credit for it. The recent G8 and President Obama’s visit notwithstanding, the eyes of the world have moved away from Northern Ireland. The test of enduring peace is whether we can bridge the gaps in empathetic understanding ourselves without always needing outside agencies to knock our heads together.
This brings me to the most important part of this book: its reflections on the future, the outstanding issues and the threats that remain, foremost of which is underlying sectarianism. This remains both understudied and underacknowledged. At the lowest levels it is instinctive, and most people would be shocked if it was pointed out to them. Yet it has allowed various power brokers (religious, political and communal) to manipulate people’s fears over many centuries, selecting those very high points of division, as noted by the author, to construct the history we are then conditioned to remember.
That a functioning democracy of sorts has worked in Northern Ireland in recent years is as impressive as it is surprising. But, as this book shows very well, “the heady days of 1998” are long gone, and the “sectarian carve-up” by Sinn Féin and the DUP (and resultant “identity politics”) are restricting agreement on more divisive issues.
With the extreme wings of both traditions accusing the parties of selling out, it is perhaps unrealistic to expect much else (though Cochrane does not see either dissident republicans or militant loyalists as significant threats).
Thoughtful and balanced
Although the conclusions reached in this thoughtful and balanced book show broad public satisfaction with the current power-sharing arrangements, the fact that "a culture of sectarianism is woven into the very fabric of the political institutions" of Northern Ireland explains the lack of any real vision on a "shared future". Perhaps it is high time to bring "civil society" back into the equation.
