Make no mistake, Paisley’s big hearty handshake with Bertie at Farmleigh House last year was the beginning of what will inevitably be a lengthy dalliance.
That dalliance will only be consummated when unionists are confident enough to behave as equals.
That "consummation", if you follow standard Irish nationalist theology, would be a good thing, surely?
Feeney gives a mixed and confused answer to that one:
Unfortunately you can’t see Robinson and Depooty Dawds stepping up to that mark
"Unfortunately" here meaning that it’s a bad thing Robinson and Dodds won’t deal with the Republic’s government (which is not actually true, both they and other Unionist politicians have been "confident" enough to deal on a cross-border basis- when it’s to Northern Ireland’s or their own advantage).
But Feeney then contradicts himself, with his very last sentence:
When a unionist leader finally does cut the mustard the resulting compact between the two dominant forces on the island, Fianna Fail and unionism, will have serious consequences for northern nationalists.
So Unionism making a "compact" with the main party in the Republic is a "bad thing" for "northern" nationalists?
Why’s that?
Feeney is alluding to several unpalatable truths.
First up, "northern" republicans are being deliberately frozen out by Fianna Fail, whilst the Unionists are being given the VIP treatment everytime they pop down south. Watching Paisley and Ahern doing a metaphorical jig round the Boyne earlier in the month got me thinking- it's now very difficult to imagine a leader of the Republic turning up for a similar function on the other side of Ulster’s ethno-nationalist fence; can you picture, for example, Bertie or Cowan donning their black berets and sun-glasses and popping up to Bodenstown, or joining Gerry and the boys at a H-block memorial?
But is it part of a longer term strategy to woo Unionism into the unitary state, or simply a short-term one to further damage Sinn Fein in the eyes of the Republic’s electorate?
If it is the latter, then the likes of Feeney do have cause to be worried- his and Sinn Fein’s brand of narrow communal politics doesn't travel well south of Newry, and in the zero-sum game, everytime Donaldson or whomever pops up on RTE giving a reasoned and conisdered point of view- republicans once again lose in the eyes of the ROI's electorate.
If it is the former, then the republicans are also, ironically enough, losers. Genuine UK Unionism cannot be persuaded into a United Ireland, Ulster nationalism most certainly can. I firmly believe that the promise of a federal unitary state which guarantees a perpetual DUP fiefdom in the NE corner of the island can be sold* to the Ulster nationalists. A Prodistan which promises the superficialities of British identity (which for many Dupes simply means wearing the sash wherever they damned where like) and an ultra-right wing social conservatism is much more than the DUP can guarantee their followers if Northern Ireland remains within the United Kingdom.
Would Fianna Fail be prepared to guarantee such an autonomous abomination?
Depending on the economics, I'm sure of it- technically they would have delivered the fabled United Ireland by consent, whilst on a grubby realpolitik level, their brand of bourgeois parish-pump politics could cope very well thank you with their real Northern Soul Brothers, the DUPes, on board.
Imagining a FF/DUP governing coalition in perpetuity, with the Prodiban calling the shots on social and cultural issues more than ever before in much of Ulster; I think that's what's giving not only genuine UK Unionists, but also now people like Feeney on the communal wing of Irish nationalism, the shakes.
*As Chekov points out in his review of Maloney's biography of Paisley, it wouldn't be the first time that such a possibility has been considered.
2 comments:
An interesting take on Feeney’s piece O’Neill. I’d be interested to know how exactly he views unionists as not treating nationalists as equals, given that power sharing is up and running, there are convivial relations with the Irish government and all types of equality legislation is accepted (including the positive discrimination stuff). It seems that people like Feeney see equality as basically ceding the constitutional furniture of the Union and writing off electoral superiority as irrelevant! It is the same utterly invidious bullshit that demands tricolours fluttering beside the Union Flag on public buildings. Equality is not ignoring the principle of consent and allowing those who wish to effectively ignore the constitutional status of Northern Ireland.
On the Prodistan point, I actually believe that Paisley’s departure will take us further away from that possibility, at least in the short term. I’m reminded of Robert McCartney’s comment “Paisley is a fascist who is more interested in an independent Ulster, a mini-Geneva run by a fifth-rate Calvin”. Undoubtedly the DUP remains an ethno-nationalist party and only nominally committed to the Union though.
With every passing day I suspect we are approaching some sort of repartition with some sort of Orange Free State envisaged for a much smaller Northern Ireland.
The orange parts of this map, http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/images/maps/map12.htm
Sometimes I suspect that the leadersips of Fianna Fáil, the DUP and even perhaps Sinn Féin are converging on to this.
Perhaps I am wrong.
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