The British Government was right on Sunday to refuse permission for Protestant “”loyalist” marchers to march through Catholic areas of Portadown in Northern Ireland, despite the stand-off that has ensued. The marchers assert that they have been marching that route for many decades and therefore should continue to do so. But past bad practice is no justification for its continuation. The aim of the marchers is plain. They want to assert Protestant domination over a Catholic minority. They want to remind the Catholic minority of who is in control, as they have done every year since the Battle of Boyne in 1690 when the Catholic king James II was defeated by the Protestant William III. In short, the Protestant marches at this time year (the Boyne was fought on July 12) are deliberately antagonistic and are an atavistic expression of religious bigotry. All they do is perpetuate hatred and division.
And those divisions, created by such a small portion of a population that generally wants peace, are driving the British and Irish Governments and moderate in Northern Ireland to despair. To that extent the marchers have achieved their aim. They desire hatred, fear and domination and the march is a symbol of those desires.
The British Government is in a difficult position. If it allows all or some of the marchers through, it will inevitably give rise to violence in the immediate area. If it holds firm, it will inevitably give rise the incidents of violence by Protestants against Catholics elsewhere in the province. And then there might be further escalation and probably a return to full-scale “”troubles” that have plagued the province for all but two of the past 27 years. But by holding firm, the British Government may at least gain credibility among Catholics as a protective force … as it was viewed when the trouble began in 1969.
Both sides in Northern Ireland are to be condemned for engaging in the violence, but the question remains what can be done to break the cycle of violence.
The great hope engendered by the cease-fire that lasted through most of 1994 and 1995 is now shattered. But the so-called peace process was flawed anyway. It does not embrace Sinn Fein, a major voice among the Catholic minority, nor does it embrace the obvious path to a permanent settlement. The essential trouble is that the British Government, having artificially divided Ireland in the 1920s, insists that no constitutional settlement will be made without the approval of the majority in the smaller part of the entity it divided. Worse, the other parties, including the Irish Government, have blinded themselves to this, pretending that the motherhood statements about democratic principles coming out of London include the possibility of an all-Ireland referendum and reunification, when they do not. Yet, this is the only way to permanent peace.
Ireland itself has changed. Earlier fears by Protestants in the north that they would be discriminated against or that their culture and religion would be subsumed by papism are now unfounded, particularly in the context of both Britain and Ireland being in the European Union which allows for free movement of people and commerce over the border.
The time must come for the British Government to put the wishes of the Protestants in the artificial construct that is Northern Ireland into an all-Ireland context. The British Government should give ample warning (say five or 10 years, so those hard-heads who want to leave can) for an all-Ireland referendum, with Irish Government co-operation, on reunification.
The human and economic cost of pandering to the demands of the Protestants in Northern Ireland is too great to continue down the present path. The way things are, unless there is such a dramatic breakthrough in attitude, the prospect is for 25 years more violence and economic disruption.
The cause of a united Ireland will not go away, and is unlikely to be defeated by artificially constructed majorities in an artificially partitioned section of Ireland. This is not to excuse the evil men of violence in the IRA, nor to give in to them. Rather it is an acknowledgement that partition in the 1920s was flawed policy and has to be reversed if there is to be peace.
After reunification, the Protestant marches like those going on now will not pose the symbolic force that they do now. It is unlikely they would incite the violent responses that they do now. Nor is it likely that a Protestant minority in a united Ireland would suffer the same economic discrimination that the Catholic minority received in the north. Evidence of this lies in the peaceful and prosperous existence of a three per cent Protestant minority in the south now. Moreover, the force of European human-rights provisions would ensure no political discrimination. A Protestant minority in Ireland would, in any event, still be a minority of Irish people, as they themselves admit, so there would be less or no historic cause for violent demands for a change of political status; unlike the Catholic minority (who see themselves as Irish) in what is politically part of Britain in the north at present.
Initially, there would be loud and perhaps violent protest from Protestant groups against reunification, but ultimately there would be peace.