“Build a future; only then can you revisit the past without being held captive by the past…”

 “The most intriguing part of Irish history for me is the period of Grattan’s parliament…. the first emergence of the Renaissance Movement in this island amongst the non-conformists. They wanted to get freedom for everybody who was advancing, for the Roman Catholic community, the slowly emerging merchant class……. fighting not just for their own rights but for everyone’s. Then the Catholics in the South organised on their own, ultimately dividing the community….. realistically leading to partition…… I blame the South for partition.”

Given his background as a Nationalist MP at Stormont, the view of the late Claudy-born Paddy Gormley did not conform to the lazy stereotype.

Following defeat in the1969 Stormont election by the late Ivan Cooper MP, riding on the back of popular support for the Civil Rights campaign, Mr Gormley, a graduate of Maynooth University, came to Stranmillis College of Education to complete a post-graduate qualification and enter the teaching profession.

His views, stated in the course of an interview for the SRC magazine -(it is amazing what you re-discover during lockdown)- stand in marked contrast to the sloganizing and standard interpretation of Irish republicanism re-iterated, yet again, in the recently published Economic Benefits of a United Ireland (Sinn Fein November 2020):

“Partition sustains many of the problems besetting the people of Ireland. It is also a symptom of these problems. British rule in Ireland and the denial to the people of Ireland of our right to self-government remains at the core of our divisions and difficulties. The human, economic and social costs of British rule and the disastrous decision to partition Ireland have been immense. 

Partition is a manifestation of British involvement in Irish affairs. It was imposed in 1921 following the Government of Ireland Act 1920. Part of its purpose was to facilitate British control over a part of the island and to prevent the emergence of a truly national Republic.”

In addition to Its summary dismissal of any pro-Union preference, or rights, Irish republicanism is not averse to blame and victimhood narratives. Although claiming to address, on the basis of evidence, how a United Ireland would be better for the economies of the two jurisdictions on the island, Sinn Fein, ever in campaign mode, is unable to resist the tedious and septic repetition of the ‘injustice of partition ‘, placing the blame on a British government of the day.

It is a well-rehearsed policy position that offers the party at least two ‘benefits’, namely, in contrast to Paddy Gormley, by placing total blame on to someone else, you do not have to take responsibility for your angst and by establishing a blame culture, violence and killing, the blood from which is still on the hands of the party, is justified.

It offers no moral reflective constraint on what an Uachtaráin Michael D Higgins, speaking of the history of Irish republicanism and the ‘Irish struggle’ refers to as ‘the callous disregard for human life,’ or sensitivity to the views or pain of others.

There is no attempt to break down the hardness, question or challenge the old battle cries; preferring to conspire than inspire, pervasive threats keep the war going by other means. Content to conform only to its own thinking, no counter-narrative is invited or considered.

You cannot build a free society or engage on a new economic Ireland on that basis and is there not irony in a party which espouses freedom so enthusiastically displaying such an inability to free its thinking from the chains of an embittered past to focus on the present and the future?

Unfortunately, it is not alone in its preferences for often, as we see in our politicians, it is those whose minds are the most closed and sealed within uncontested prejudices who fight the most fervently, content to abandon the true interests of the people.Seeming not to realise that it is not just destructive but self-destructive, they would rather groan than grow.

Writing in his book’ Not in God’s Name’ Rabbi Jonathan Saaks, who died in early November, noted:

“…you have to build a future; only then can you revisit the past without being held captive by the past.”

In a not totally dissimilar vein Michael D Higgins, in the context of Machnahm 100, commenting on the potential of commemoration notes:

Commemoration ….. offers the opportunity to reflect, to look deeply at change over time, to provide an understanding of where things have been, where they are today and why.”

It seems that Sinn Féin wants to do none of this. It is apparent in its determination to promote an essentialist and absolutist polemical narrative and, whilst speaking of wishing to build a future, wanting to re-create an imagined pre-partition past, the demise of which republican violence shaped to no little extent. There is no earnest desire to heed the words of President Higgins when he speaks of:

…confronting and working through that which establishes the distance between us in terms of different narratives of violence recalled, the absolutism that drove those impulses to violence, the careless and dangerous assumption of “the Other’ which may have driven such violence.

 Or rise to the challenge of understanding contexts; of nurturing…

“…a narrative hospitality as might replace past entrenchments.”

 In approaching the NI Centenary and the commemoration of partition, it is unlikely that an Irish Nationalist or Republican will find reason to celebrate; the clue is in the name. However, partition created two separate jurisdictions, not one, each with an imperfect and, as Paddy Gormley suggested in the 1970s, complex history over time; neither, as some Unionists in Northern Ireland might be tempted to feel, a cause for unbridled triumphalism.

In this final period of the Decade of Centenaries as polls show a desire, particularly amongst the post GFA less constitutionally focused generation, for a better and contextually defined future in terms of concerns and issues politics needs to engage in this time of reflection and own its responsibilities and failings, past and present.

Sinn Féin and its constituency have a role to play but it is unlikely to be meaningful in the long term if it adheres rigidly to its current messaging; you cannot bring solutions to a divided society if you fail to acknowledge that you are and have been part of the problem.

Photo by geralt is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA

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