Unionism

Arthur Aughey:

Senior Lecturer in Irish Politics at the University of Ulster

ln this brief article I want to identify the great danger to the Union in historic thinking, thinking which informs many of the prejudices about the future of Northern Ireland. I try to indicate the choice facing Unionists and how they might go about making it.

Gordon Wilson and the Logic of Historical Pessimism

If one were looking for an example of the key problem facing Ulster Unionism today one would have to look no flirther than the performance by Gordod Wilson at the Forum for Peace and Reconciliation on Friday 13th January 1995, (perhaps that date is appropriate). As reported in The lrish Times the next day, Wilson advanced the following set of propositions: First, that a united Ireland will come one day; second, that Irish and British politicians rnust devise an interim political structure on the way to a united Ireland; third the Irish government should persuade the Unionist people that their future lies in a united Ireland. This task, he argued, will not be easy but it must be done. Wilson's submission to the Forum was given in "a personal capacity". However, what he had to say goes far beyond his "personal capacity" and is a matter of public significance. (To use the jargon of contemporary feminism, Wilson's personal in this case is political).

Lets take the personal first. No one with any human sensibility could deny the Christian sincerity of Gordon Wilson. or, in more secular terms, no one could challenge his virtuous nature. However, since Wilson's propositions correspond to the present agenda of Sinn Dein as outlined concisely by Mitchel McLaughlin in a recent interview with Barry White in the Belfast Telegraph then I am, perhaps, not being altogether cmel to put the following interpretation on them. First, he seems to assert that the only problem in Ireland consists of Unionists standing in the way of the inevitable solution. Second, since these people tend to be rather stupid they need to be led slowly, like the wayward children they really are, towards an acknowledgement of the historical justice of Irish unity. Third, since they won't recognise their destiny all at once it will have to be revealed to them bit by bit (as God reveals His glory on earth). Fourth, unfortnnately this cause of Irish unity - inevitable and natural as it is - happened to be responsible for the murder of his daughter. Fifth, the punishment, therefore, for those who murdered his daughter should be that they inherit the earth (of the six counties). What is the hidden logic of Wilson's propositions? It is quite simple. The victims of the Troubles are (inevitably and naturally) responsible for their own victimhood.

MoraIly and politically, then, Wilson is wandering lost and naked in someone else's dream and a dream which is the Unionist nightmare. He only confirms the seff-serving righteousness of Sirm Fein and the IRA whose double act is - ironically so given its Calvinist theme - like that of the anti-hero Robert Wringhim in James Hogg's The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner. The righteous elect who proclaim the inevitable salvation of the Irish people are at one and the same time the devilish agents who murder and maim those same Irish people, Catholic and Protestant alike. It is, of course, political antinomianism of the most destructive kind. As Eoghan Harris' columns in The Sunday Times so eloquently and forcefully chart, the rehabilitation of the Provos into the Great Nationalist Hall of Fame is happening apace amongst elements of the Southern intelligentsia. The sort of view propounded by Wilson is music to their ears. As a well-respected innocent abroad in a company of wolves, he has certainly repaid Albert Reynolds' investment of a Senate seat rnany times over.

Of course, Wilson's views in all their appalling logic would be merely a private tragedy if it were not for the fact they illustrate deeply-laid political prejudices which lie at the very heart of the problem of making the case for the Union. By extension they present a serious public challenge to the future of Unionist politics. For these prejudices are held not only by Nationalists (as one would expect) but also by some Unionists (as one would not expect but which Wilson confirms). They also appear to be held by many in British political life despite frequent professions to the contrary (we all remember Sir Patrick Maybew's unguarded comment to the reporter of Die Seit). They inform much of the media comment on Northern Ireland. In sum, the challenge lies in the pervasive political prejudice which also assumes the inevitability and the naturalness of Irish unity The very way in which the peace "process" is spoken of suggests this.

Process as Historical Law For instance, the peace process is sometimes talked about as if it implies the working of a natural law towards a pre-determined goal. Sinn Fein spokemen always and other Nationalists somerimes take the peace process to be an example of such a law. An historical law leading inevitably to Irish unity is part of the common inheritance of all Irish nationalists. The peace process in this sense projects a course which is beyond the control of any single party to frustrate - meaning that it does not need the consent of Unionists and that the British government should not be "unhelpful" in advancing it. That is the sort of understanding which commentators almost unconsciously replicate

lndeed there is the idea currently abroad that the only thing holding history back from its natural course has nothing to do with the opinion of the greater number in Northern Ireland and nothing to do with the principle of consent or respect for the rights of democratic citizenship. It has to do only with the temporary and tactical needs of the Conservative Government with its present precarious majority (or lack of it) in the House of Commons. This supposed situation has been attacked by Nationalists, of course, as a "squaliid parliamentary deal". (It never seems to occur to Nationalists that Home Rule was the product of a squalid parliamentary deal between the Liberals and the Irish Party a century ago). The argument goes that any sensitive consideration of Unionist priorities somehow infringes the principle of British "neutrality" and therefore the prospects of peace.

The latest veiled accusation of this is to be found in the address by Cardinal Daly at Canterbury Cathedral in January 1995. Proclairning that if only he did the right thing John Major would deserve to be remembered alongside that great parliamentarian W E Gladstone (a very subtle and "Unionist-sensitive" remark) Daly gave the following warning. It would be deplorable, he argued, if party political problems at Westairster were solved at the expense of peace. Both "government and Opposition at Westmjrster have a heavy responsibility laid upon them to avoid any action or decision or voting arrangement which would jeopardise the prospects of peace in Northern Ireland". (This sounded rather like the even less subtle message delivered on the eve of the IRA ceasefire in separate statements by John Hume and Gerry Adams and by Albert Reynolds; statements which employed similar phraseology about the onus and responsibility for change resting with the British government, ie fix up the Unionists). Of course, the Nationalist attack on Ulster Unionist influence with the Corsservative government - such as it is - is not about the issues of British neutrality at all. Nationalists don't want the British to be neutral. They want the British to do some persuading on their own behalf: Unionists should be neutered and that is something else entirely

Cultural Superiority In contemporary Nationalist politics one can now detect the coming together of two complementrry dispositions. The first of these dispositions may be termed (following Robert Hughes) the "cultural Strut" of Northern Republicanism. There is the pervasive belief that Irish Republicans are a culture-bearing people, vital and dynamic, who will carry all before them. There is the equally pervasive belief that Unionists are a culture-dependent people with no inner resources to withstand the growing power of the national idea. The second of these dispositions is a smug sense of cultural superiority which pervades the attitudes of Southern political society and which finds expression in a patronising unctiousness towards all things Unionist (for example, read the leading articles of The Irish Times). As Ernest Feilner has suggested, whilst modern, global influences erode the very meaning of the traditional nationalist project especially within the European union) then the political and emotional significance of the remaining elements of cultural distinctiveness increase accordingly. That is the Southern condition today.

All of this does not necessarily constitute a pan-Nationalist political front. There are differing views on means and objective between Nationalism north and south and within Nationalism in both parts of the island. Yet there is a shared sense that the Britishness of Northern Ireland will become ultimately the peculiar cultural identity of Ulster Protestants and not a definitive constitutional status. And rather than being durable, the Union will become a traditional form designed to provide the conditions for the ultimate goal of British disengagement from Northern Ireland. History as they both understand it, is on the side of the Nationalists. The significance of Wilson's submission (I suppose in both senses of the word "submission") to the Forum is that he now subsribes to that sarne understanding. It is an understanding which he has probably picked up through the absorption of everyday assumptions amongst the political class in Dublin.

Now it might indeed be understandable if Unionists slowly came to adopt this sort of fatalistic attitude. One comes across it all the time. It can often appear to be a hopeless struggle to continue to defend the Union against what seems to be the relentless tide of opinion. It can be demoralising and dispiriting to expereience that last respectable form of bigotry anti-Unionist bigotry. Why not just give in? Why not choose the quiet life? Certainly, that is what those who have assiduously promoted the '"Irish peace initiative" expect. They expext that Unionists will not be up to the task of adapting to new circumstances. They expect that there will be no re-invigoration of Unionit political judgemnent. They expect the defences to collapse from within. They expect history to resume its normal coulrse in Ireland after a century of frustration. On the evidence of the last 25 years who is to say that this view may not be correct (for the likes of Gordon Wilson have already thrown in the towel)? In such an atmosphere, what choices are open to Unionists?.

Choices There would appear to be two general options open to Unionists. The first of these options is simply a variant of the sort of demoralised - and demoralising - perspective I have been outlining. It is the option of "gently managing decline". This is an option which, though it dare not speak its names, does have a certain appeal. For there exsts within Ulster Unionism an attitude of passive resignation which is not quite defeatism but is more akin to decadence. To use a phrase found in the Bew, Gibbon and Paterson book, Northern Ireland 1921-94, some may have a sense of living in the "twilight of the Union". At the going down of the sun there may be some comfort in conjuring up the spirits of one's ancestors (especially if it is funded by the Cultural Traditions Group). This is especially the case if you believe that the future is behind you. And there are very many possible psychic benefits in accepting the impossibility of one's position and negotiatirig intelligently the long-term conditions of lifting the siege. If this is the favoured option (or if this is the option which seems unavoidable) then it is all up with the Union and Unionists had better make their accommodation in a new, Nationalist Ireland.

The second alternative is the "Tancredi option". In his famous novel, The Leopard, Guiseppe de Lampedusa had one of his characters propose the following conservative wisdom: "Unless we take a hand now, they'll foist a republic on us. If we want things to stay as they are, things will have to change". Since Unionism is a conservative idea insofar as it is concerned to maintain the constitution it needs to reflect and draw upon its wn imaginative resources. The purpose of this reflection should be to change in order to conserve. If the Tancredi option is the favoured choice, then Unionism is set for interesting times. For I am convinced, now that the shooting war is over (for good, I hope), the real war has just begun. And it will be an intellectual war. How might Unionists respond to the new battle lines?

At the heart of Ulster Unionism have been two propositions. The first proposition is that continued membership of the British state is necessary for the protection and survival of one inillion Protestants on the island of Ireland. The second proposition is that he acknowledgement of the authority of the British state in Northern Ireland is a sufficient condition for the accommodation of cultural and religious diversity and the promotion of economic well-being. These propositions inforrn respectively the communal / defensive and the liberal / progressive modes of Unionist argument. Often, of course, both of these modes have been bound up one with the other. If one were to separate them, however, then a clearer picture emerges.

In the business of communal defence the Democratic Unionist Party is always going to outflank the Ulster Unionist Party. And the irony of this position in present circumstances is that it feeds on defeat and not on success. The DUP needs betrayal and humiliation in order to confirm their apocalyptic vision of the world. In the bnsiress of liberal progress one of the heartening aspects of recent political argument has been the concern ot the Ulster Unionists to speak for the "greater number" in Northern Ireland. This is a simple phrase but it is pregnant with meaning. For it proposes that Unionist politics can be something more than the politics of paranoia, something other than the politics of communal defence.

Of course, the problem for Unionists is that minority in Northern Ireland (not all Catholics) do not acknowledge the legitimacy of the British state because it believes that state to be incompatible with its definitive sense of nationhood. It will always be impossible to change the minds of those who hold this view. But it is vital not to encourage that view. For, just as many Protestants can happily call themselves Irish (on their own terms) and can distinguish between that self-ascription and support for Irish nationalisrn, so too can rnany Catholics distinguish between an emotional attachment to the symbols of British statehood (which they don't have) and a utilitarian calculation of the material and civic advantages of membership of the British state (which they do have). There is scope, in other words, to try to reconcile loyalty to the Crown and the half-crown (an example of how not to do it has been the pathetic antics Queen's University).

If Unionists are really sincere about the positive benefits of British statehood then defence of the Union will have to be something more than the politics of Protestant security. Unionists should act on the basis of (one of) their own assumptions. The politics of equal citizenship within Northern Ireland as part of the United Kingdom depends upon detaching the idea of the state from the idea of religious community. Since direct rule in 1972 this has been happening anyway. Unionists need to recognise necessity and make a virtue of it. What they should not do is play into the hands of Nationalism by equating cultural identity with statehood. Sirm Fein and the SDLP will howl "Parity of esteem" and "political expression of an Irish identity". And that way lies the logic of joint authority and joint authority is nothing other than the dissolution of the Union.

Conclusion Where are these rather desultory remarks leading? Since I am not a politician and poor at practical suggestions I can only observe that what Unionism lacks today is what one might call a "concept". In other words, a sense of itself as an active political idea larger than the day-to-day struggle in Northern Ireland. Historically, this was always Unionism's great strength, its sense of being a part of something wider and larger than the narrow ground of Irish Nationalism. It is quite remarkable how, over the last 25 years, Unionists have allowed all this to go by default. There needs to be a rethinking of the Unionist concept which can maximise the advantage of things done well in Westminster, Brussels, Strasbourg and beyond. The Union is once again a live issue. It seems to that Young Unionists should be doing this rethinking and doing it now. Otherwise, in 10-20 years time Gordon Wilson's prophesies will have come to pass. The Union of Great Britain and Northern Ireland will be in the dustbin of history.