The politicians returning to Stormont this week face one of the most testing periods in our recent democratic history.
We have now entered a decade of anniversaries where we have all been encouraged to learn a little more about, and come to respect each other’s traditions.
Frankly this process is not going well. Instead we have had street disturbances which have damaged the economy and, amongst politicians, the return of “whataboutery” that most frustrating, fruitless and frankly off-putting form of political discourse.
One of the most bitter disputes has been about a conflict resolution centre, we have had allegations of improper behaviour at the heart of government, death threats to and the intimidation of elected representatives and a police force both dangerously stretched and at odds with its board over the Historical Enquiries Team.
All this is happening against a backdrop of public sector cuts, and although there has been some recent encouraging news about the economy, it certainly doesn’t feel like that to the vast majority of us.
The government showed great imagination and vision inn investing in promoting tourism and the night time economy, and indeed worked hard to bring us the World Police and Fire Games and the G8 summit. Although these did raise our profile in a positive way, they were undermined by the rioting which has bubbled to the surface throughout the year.
Tourists will come in great numbers to a post conflict zone but not to one where they don’t feel safe.
Everywhere you look a collective inability to deal with the past is preventing us from moving on and building a better, fairer and more prosperous Northern Ireland.
It is an enormous collective challenge.
To compound it, right across the world politics itself is in crisis. Fewer and fewer people join political parties, fewer bother to vote, and politicians themselves are no longer held in high esteem. They are now, sadly ranked alongside estate agents, and yes, journalists, amongst those the public trust least.
Northern Ireland is no exception. You only have to listen to the Nolan Show or watch political debates here to observe that criticism is just as often directed at politicians in general rather than at one individual or party. There’s nothing unusual about this – it is happening across the world. What makes it more urgent here is that we are playing for higher stakes – and have issues which need to be addressed with great urgency.
Responding to this will not be easy and there are attendant risks for all parties. What we need here, as elsewhere, is a strong defence and reassertion of politics itself. In a society which has different communities with different goals and cultures politics provides a means by which compromise can be reached.
In a political system nobody gets everything they want, the task of politicians is to negotiate pn behalf of those people they represent to ensure that they get a good deal. It requires patience and courage. And it also requires political leaders having the guts to explain this reality to their own supporters. Compromise is the price you have to pay if you want to live in a democracy.
Of course a political system is not the only way to run a state. There are alternatives: dictatorships, totalitarian regimes and oligarchies (where one party grabs power and rules solely in the interests of its own).
There are elements in Northern Ireland who would like an oligarchy – and you do sometimes come across people who say that as it has a Protestant Unionist Loyalist majority it should be run as a Protestant Unionist Loyalist state. And there are others who are counting the days until that majority is reversed so they could impose their will on those from a British tradition.
Such thinking is the politics of conflict. We know where it has taken us in the past and there is a real danger of it taking over again: the recent omens have not been good.
So the next weeks and months are going to be hugely important both at Stormont and for the rest of us. The Haass talks need to go well and those of us who want to see a prosperous future for ourselves and our children need to understand that this process can have no winners or losers. It is, or should be, an exercise in real politics from which an acceptable compromise should emerge. I wish all the delegates well, and trust they will speak up strongly, show integrity and have the generosity to acknowledge other views. That’s a hard task for anyone after what has happened so far this year.
Categories: Politics, The Troubles
nickgarbutt 
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