Not too long ago, a mural in Derry's Bogside read 'nothing has changed.' The reality behind the myth is that in the words of W.B. Yeats 'all changed, changed utterly,' and it is left to debate as to whether what has emerged is a 'terrible beauty.'
Consider for a few moments the following events of just one day last week.
Alleged IRA leader Thomas "Slab" Murphy has appeared in court, charged with tax evasion. Mr Murphy, allegedly a former IRA chief of staff, faced nine charges of failing t
o file tax returns when he appeared at Ardee District Court, Co Louth.
Dissident republicans opposed to the peace process were blamed for the attack on an off-duty policeman in Derry. Sinn Fein's Martin McGuinness, a former IRA leader in the city and now Deputy First Minister in Northern Ireland's power-sharing executive, condemned the attack as a deliberate attempt to plunge the community back into conflict. The Mid Ulster MP said: "The war is over and it is time these people woke up to that reality."
For decades it appeared that those suspected of criminality were immune from prosecution but it now appears that the authorities on both sides of the border are intent on using charges such as tax evasion in much the same way that the FBI finally brought Al Capone to court and eventually jail.
The changes in the statements of Martin McGuinness over a twenty year period are equally remarkable. In a BBC programme, Real Lives,' in the mid 1980s, Martin McGuinness said: "We Republicans don't believe that winning elections will bring freedom in Ireland. At the end of the day it will be the cutting edge of the IRA that will bring freedom." My, how times and attitudes have changed and the niggling question is whether the struggle, with so much death and suffering on all sides, was worth it!
The past still and somewhat inevitably comes back to haunt the present political structures. Last week, the Executive marked six months in office, slightly longer than its ill-fated predecessor of 1974. Armistice Day commemorations drew the reminder of the IRA atrocity in Enniskillen two decades ago. We cannot airbrush the awful events out of our history. We should not attempt to create hierarchies of victims. In short, we cannot change what has already happened and no amount of recrimination or bitterness can bring back to life those who lost their lives. The only thing that we can influence is the future by our present actions.
I would not pretend that an Executive overwhelmingly dominated by the DUP and Sinn Fein looks like the most secure edifice given the mutual antagonism and loathing that existed between them and their supporters for decades. However, the nationalist electorate has democratically endorsed Sinn Fein in the same way as the unionist electorate has rallied the DUP. The reaction of both the SDLP and UUP reminds me of a scene from the musical 'Evita' with the words 'Where do we go from here?; this isn't where we intended to be.' Neither has become accustomed to playing second fiddle and in this year's Assembly election both the SDLP and UUP lost further ground.
I have always credited Martin McGuinness with 'street cred' and readily agree with his analysis of the SDLP and UUP "being in denial" about how the DUP and Sinn Féin have usurped them as the lead parties.
After six months of the Executive many nationalists may have been surprised to hear Martin McGuinness state that " there are individual members of the SDLP who walk past me in corridors in this building (Stormont) as if I didn't exist." As a former chairman of the SDLP in Derry I am not at all surprised by such behaviour. It is indicative of the deeper malaise within the party that has accounted for its demise. I write these words in sorrow rather than in anger. Many SDLP public representatives, afraid to face the political future themselves, now seem to be falling over themselves to be taken over by Fianna Fail. Over the last decade, in Assembly elections, the SDLP vote has plummeted by 103,000. Not all these voters switched to Sinn Fein whose vote went up only by 38,000. Having singularly failed to stop the rise of Sinn Fein, northern constitutional nationalism is at the crossroads but it shows little appreciation of a future path. When in doubt, appoint a sub-committee and defer making meaningful decisions about a strategy. This was precisely what the old Nationalist Party did in the late 1960s and by the time their sub-committees had deliberated on policy the party had virtually ceased to exist. It's all déja vu to anyone who has a grasp of history.
As to the Executive's future over the next six months - and maybe we should only look that far ahead - I agree with the Deputy First Minister's view that there will be 'difficulties and tensions over issues such as the Irish language, what Ministers get what in the draft budget, the proposed devolution of policing and justice powers, the UDA, the delayed appointment of a victims' commissioner, and the murder in south Armagh of Paul Quinn.' However, he himself has forged a strong working relationship with Ian Paisley and other ministers are taking their cue from this. Whatever their private political feelings about each other, DUP and Sinn Fein ministers are slowly but surely doing business with each other. They even appeared to have reached a consensus that they don't care if the SDLP and UUP jump ship and become the official opposition. I would go so far as to state that they would welcome such a move. However, neither the SDLP nor the UUP seem have the bottle for such a move. It is safer to set up sub-committees rather than be decisive.
