Ourselves together?

When will there be a United Ireland? Never, according to unionists. When the majority of the population of the North wants it, says the British and Irish governments. Sinn Féin had been hoping for 2016 but at this point that looks unlikely, to say the least.

According to many the problem is the “two tribes” of nationalists and unionists simply cannot agree and must be kept away from each other – both valued, but living separate lives in a mutant recreation of the pillarisation that scarred Belgium and the Netherlands for decades.

As seductive as the ‘two nations’ argument is, it is anti-political nonsense. Surely the historic mission of Irish republicanism was not to “push the Prods into the sea” but rather to create a secular, democratic Irish republic? Just what happened to that goal?

There is a certain irony in the ‘two nations’ view dominating politics on both sides of the border. After all, the group which did the most to promote the idea was the British and Irish Communist Organisation (BICO), the remnants of which now pursues an anti-partition line on the basis that Britain’s failure to integrate the North of Ireland into the mainstream British polity has resulted in a United Ireland being the only game in town.

During the 1970s, when the BICO first proposed that Ireland contained two nations, few mainstream figures on either side gave the argument the time of day. Over the course of two decades, however, it slowly became the orthodoxy with the help of sympathetic figures such as Conor Cruise O’Brien and erstwhile republican Eoghan Harris.

Unfortunately, the settlement that was finally reached has not brought peace, it has brought containment. The violent actions of fringe republicans aside, the real problem is that the Agreement and Assembly not only reward sectarianism, they promote divergent cultural identities. The whole ‘parity of esteem’ agenda may seem harmless but it is inherently divisive and fails to live up to the Enlightenment values that so badly need to be promoted in Ireland, North and South.

The idea that Orangeism universally represents Protestants, particularly secularised and former Protestants, is laughable. Likewise, although the Catholic nationalism of the likes of former IRA volunteer Gerry McGeough presumably has some traction among putative republicans, it does not represent anything like the mainstream view of those we refer to as Northern Catholics, let alone Sinn Féin voters. The tragedy of the Assembly is that it has turned the common ground of secularism into a kind of ideological demilitarised zone that, once entered, renders politicians unelectable.

Of course, one doesn’t have to be a republican to be a secularist and the new alliance between the Ulster Unionists and Conservatives is an attempt to stake out clear, pro-British territory not held back by the fetters of the past. Whether is has any hope of succeeding in the hyper-sectarian Assembly remains an open question, especially in light of the fact that David Cameron’s interest in the North is entirely opportunist, allowing, as it does, the Scottish Conservatives to make a rhetorical commitment to strengthening the Union.

Of course, the ‘two nations’ theory did not appear from outer space. The main representative of Irish republicanism during the 1970s was the Provisional IRA – not a group that was ever likely to gather much in the way of Protestant support, despite the rhetoric promising a new, secular Ireland. In addition, many unionist fears about the South at the time were in fact rooted in the truth – as the Ryan report into clerical child abuse has recently demonstrated.

Which leaves us where, exactly? Clearly Sinn Féin is not the correct vehicle for convincing erstwhile Northern Protestants to work for a secular United Ireland, but then what is? Secular republicanism has been a victim of Sinn Féin’s very success, a success which has come at the cost of undermining the historic promise of republicanism itself.

Worse still, in transforming itself into the party that represents Irish nationalism in the Northern Ireland Assembly Sinn Féin has put itself in the awkward position of actively cementing sectarian division. Even if the party somehow developed a programme to make itself acceptable to erstwhile Protestants its daily activity in the Assembly would do nothing to further that agenda.

This article was previously published in Humanism Ireland