|
Joe Horgan : Paisley did nothing for peace in North 
STRANGE as it may seem Ian Paisley, stepping down now as the North’s
First Minister, has become a typical example of modern media and political
culture.
Like a talent show winner he finally got the gig he was so hungry for;
even the great outsider was finally unable to resist the lure of power
and the trappings of office.
Having spent a lifetime on the dark side of fame he ended up smiling like
a Big Brother winner once he realised he might get his own show.
Of course for this to happen, for himself and Martin McGuinness to reinvent
themselves as the Chuckle Brothers, the political and historical amnesia
that has accompanied the rise of new Ireland had to be smuggled across
the border.
It was as if the Troubles had never happened.
The eulogising of Paisley that accompanied both his time as First Minister
in the North and his recent resignation has been at best bizarre and at
worst distasteful.
It has never been clearer that a lot of journalism is hard to distinguish
from PR — even when we all already know what the truth is.
Bertie Ahern’s ability to do business with anybody has been one
of his greatest political strengths but his inability to judge anybody
— whether it be Haughey or Burke or whichever Fianna Fáil
bigwig was on the make — has been one of his greatest failings.
So his handshakes and smiles with Paisley only confirmed what this was
all about.
We all had to pretend the past had never happened. We had to live in the
continuously disposable now of modern media-shaped life.
We had to forget Paisley the ogre and demagogue and embrace Paisley the
lovable old man.
Fair enough, you might say. Anything to stop the carnage and violence
in the North.
And who was going to argue against that?
The only problem with that though is that we then have to conveniently
forget the role that Ian Paisley himself had in that carnage, in fuelling
it and prolonging it.
It was often said of Paisley that he was ready to defend Ulster to the
last drop of everybody else’s blood.
He marched many a working-class Loyalist up to the top of the hill, showed
them the spectre of sectarian violence and whilst they plunged in he marched
back down again to safety.
As the Ulster Unionist Ken Maginnis recently wrote: “The tragedy
is that the last 2,500 victims of terrorism would not have died had Paisley
not thwarted Sunningdale.”
Now there is political animosity within Unionism on display in that statement
but there is also a lot of truth because prior to any agreement Paisley
built a career out of eternal opposition.
The reality is that Ian Paisley finally entered into power sharing because
he had nowhere left to go.
Then, once the vista of power opened up before him, the largest ego in
Northern politics just couldn’t resist being the main man.
He had destroyed the other Unionist powerbases, he had seen the IRA abandon
their war and the situation he was in left him with no options. Let us
not forget that this man opposed in his own inflammatory and dangerous
way the civil rights campaign of the 1960s, the Sunningdale Agreement
of the 1970s, the Anglo-Irish agreement of the 1980s and the whole peace
process and subsequent Good Friday agreement of the 1990s.
So let’s be honest about this. Let’s forget all that avuncular
smiling and Paisley as a cuddly old man.
This man did nothing for peace in the North of Ireland.
Whilst others took chances and put themselves at great personal risk to
seek a way to end the madness of sectarian violence, Paisley not only
opposed them but encouraged the men of violence.
In many ways he helped create the men of violence. Never for him the considered
and careful word if the shouted slogan would do. Never for him the complications
of compromise if the simplicity of opposition was available. Never for
him the lure of understanding if the comforts of bigotry were at hand.
Never for him the grasping of peace.
Politicians of all shapes and sizes have careers littered with a pattern
of saying one thing and doing another. Paisley was no different in that
regard.
What has been different in his case though, even though most of his actions
took place in far more extreme situations than most others, has been this
time when assessments are being made of him that are so distant from the
truth.
In reality his political career needs a truthful obituary.
His was a career marked by bigotry, dangerous language in the most dangerous
of situations and continued opposition to anything that looked as if it
might bring that to an end.
To suggest otherwise says as much about us as it does him. |
