The Haas Commission

Submission to the Haas Commission, September, 2013

The Letter below is a re-working of an Open Letter to the leaders of moderate political parties in Northern Ireland. I should like to submit it to the Haass Enquiry for consideration.

Northern Ireland is the overlapping sector of the political Venn diagram which is the British/Irish archipelago. The people of this area are conflicted in their allegiances: the larger, slight majority, being pro-Union, British; the other smaller, slight minority, being pro-Gaelic, nationalist in orientation.

The present 'cats-in-a-sack' constitutional settlement will not deliver long-term stability, and the sooner the leadership of both political persuasions get this unpalatable message across to their respective communities, the sooner will order become the norm.

A phased programme of the stepping-down of claim and counter-claim must be agreed by the DUP and Sinn Fein - (and the other parties). The reason they are reluctant to enter this reality-zone is that they have led their people up the garden path, the Unionists taking every opportunity to spread the fiction that Northern Ireland is some cosy annexe of the Home Counties, that the people of England/Britain are four-square behind them, that they will be supported against the marauding Republicans come what may...; the Republicans have peddled the myth that 'we can have it all' - unification, kick out the Brits, put manners on the Unionists, keep 'our' schools, vote in Southern elections, keep the subvention from London, be feted around the world as 'freedom fighters'...

London and Dublin must start playing hardball with these dangerous confabulations.

Dublin must state authoritatively and unequivocally that unification is presently nowhere on the priority-list of the Irish government or people. It must drive home the deeply-held view of the vast majority of the Irish people that the 'armed struggle' was an ill-omened, ill-conceived disaster and that any gesture of ultra-nationalism that alienates or antagonises the Protestant people of Northern Ireland will be quickly disavowed by the majority Irish population, and seen for what it is, a vain attempt by Sinn Fein to continue to breathe life into a dying dream.

London, for its part, must make it abundantly clear to the leaders of Unionism that they cannot presume on the forbearance of the English people forever. The honourable stance taken by London, (poorly backed by Dublin) to frustrate the terrorist campaign of the IRA took its toll of the sufferance of the English people, (as are the present antics of the SNP). London must make it clear that the flag-brandishing, kerb-warpainting, drum-bashing, bonfire-blazing symbolisms of Loyalism are utterly counterproductive and must stop. Such manifestations of faux-fealty do not belong in the 21st century and those who use them as weapons must be told so.

Washington has a role, and is decently playing it.

Northern Ireland is a shared space and the people here, all of them, must be apprised of the fact.

I shall be happy, if invited, to attend a hearing of the Haass deliberations.

Wishing you every success. The children of Northern Ireland deserve better than they are receiving.

Patrick - (Paddy) - McEvoy