Beyond a Handshake: The Dark Underbelly of the Northern Ireland Peace Process

The meeting and subsequent handshake between Martin McGuinness and Queen Elizabeth II has been hailed in most quarters as an historic moment and yet another stepping stone on the path to peace and reconciliation in Ireland. Faced with a public seduced by the ‘feel good factor’ of the Northern Ireland peace process, the media could not have found an easier story to sell. As the BBC put it, ‘She is a monarch; he is a republican. She was born in a palace; he grew up in the Bogside of Derry. She is the epitome of the British establishment; he is a former IRA leader, the paramilitary group which killed her cousin Lord Mountbatten’.

Despite this rhetoric, the reality is not quite the rosy picture than devotees of the Peace Process might wish to paint. Ultimately, the handshake was just the latest piece of political drama to be spawned by an ongoing theatrical show. With an enthusiastic audience ready to lap up another performance, it hardly needed to be sold. The media speculation over whether Martin McGuinness would in fact meet with the Queen was as much theatre as the handshake itself. No sensible person could have been in any doubt over whether it would take place. As author and former IRA volunteer, Anthony McIntyre, wryly put it, ‘British ministers meet British queens’. Spare us the reconciliation routine. In fact, right-winger Iain Martin from the Daily Telegraph was more accurate than most of the mainstream media when he declared that, if anything, the moment symbolised the ‘decommissioning of Martin McGuinness’. Interestingly, he finds himself in agreement with Republican dissidents like McIntyre, disillusioned with the peace process and the direction in which Sinn Fein has taken the Republican movement.

There can be no doubt that Northern Ireland has been transformed into a better place today than it was before and during the Troubles. The leaders of the Provisional Republican movement, Martin McGuinness and his colleague Gerry Adams (‘comrade’ is just so out of touch with the times), were not wrong to make peace. However, their attempt to revise history by claiming that the Provisional IRA’s campaign was justified in order to bring about the status quo does not stand up to scrutiny. The IRA’s stated aim throughout the conflict was to establish a 32 county democratic socialist republic. They fell miserably short of this target. Ireland remains divided and the Provisionals instead find themselves striding ever deeper into the heart of the establishment which they once aimed to destroy.

Those Republican dissidents who continue to support violence are of course heading down a blind alley. Armed struggle has proven utterly fruitless in the pursuit of republican goals. There is nothing more criminal than to prosecute an unwinnable war, but that is exactly what the Provo leadership did for thirty years, at the expense of thousands of lives. Not all dissidents, Anthony McIntyre being a good example, support a return to war, but almost all have expressed disgust at the hypocrisy of the Provo leadership. When McGuinness labels the current generation of Irish Republican militants as ‘traitors’, ‘conflict junkies’ and ‘Neanderthals’, he effectively condemns himself and criminalises all the IRA volunteers who fought, died and went to prison during the armed campaign. This is after all the man who was once labelled the ‘IRA godfather of godfathers; the man who made Derry ‘look like it been bombed from the air’; the man who said that the war against Britain would ‘always continue until continue until freedom is achieved.’ The institutions of the Northern Irish state which constituted part of the casus belli at the Provisionals’ birth in 1969 are still intact, so what other changes can justify retrospectively condoning the Provisional campaign but condemning the dissident campaign now? It is true that within the state there is now far greater equality between Catholics and Protestants, but was that really worth a thirty year war in which thousands were slaughtered?

To conclude that the Provisional IRA campaign was unjustified is not to pass judgement on those IRA volunteers who fought, died and went to prison for the cause of Irish freedom, demonstrating bravery and commitment. They, who were demonised as terrorists and psychopaths, are the ones who emerge from a dirty, stinking war with their honour intact, unlike the ones who led and directed it but have washed their hands of guilt. While the former face a catalogue of problems such as lack of employment, readjusting to life outside of prison and rebuilding shattered families, the latter are feted worldwide as peacemakers and great statesmen, having swapped armalites for Armani suits. They are quite happy to justify their ‘political support’ for the Provisional IRA campaign, yet they will baulk at any suggestion that they were ever directly involved in it. Martin McGuinness claims to have left the IRA in 1974 to become a purely political activist, while Gerry Adams, former Belfast O.C. and Chief of Staff, would still have us believe that he has never been in the IRA.

This lack of transparency is the hallmark of Sinn Fein today; a party of paranoid control freaks, imbued with a totalitarian mentality and unforgiving of even the mildest dissent. In a recent interview, former Sinn Fein MLA, Billy Leonard, paints a truly Orwellian picture of the contemporary Provisional Republican movement. He describes how ‘(Sinn Fein) elected representatives didn't hold the real power, rather it was held by a blend of ard chomhairle (Sinn Fein National Executive Committee) and (IRA) army council members: everyone was meant to be equal but in classical terms some were more equal than others.’ It was this Stalinist degree of control which enabled Adams and McGuinness to perform their volte-face with the minimum of dissent from within the movement.

Rather than accommodating voices of dissent, Sinn Fein has collaborated with the British establishment to clamp down on then. The fruits of the Peace Process have not been extended to those who would dare to express an alternative opinion. Harassment, intimidation, arrest, internment without trial and death in custody is the order of the day for them instead. Marian Price is one such case in point; a former IRA volunteer who bombed the Old Bailey at the age of nineteen in 1973, she was force-fed while on hunger strike for 200 days and released in 1980, weighing five stone and suffering from anorexia and tuberculosis. Today, despite serious health problems, she once again languishes in prison, accused of encouraging support for the Real IRA, after she held up a piece of paper for a masked man to read. Unlike Adams and McGuinness however, there is no evidence that Marian Price has been involved in committing, planning or directing any acts of violence since her release from prison. Although she continues to justify dissident Republican violence, that is not a crime. Her real ‘crime’ has been her vocal opposition to the Peace Process and the direction in which Sinn Fein have taken the Republican movement. Of course, one can suffer a worse fate. Take Joe O'Connor for example, a Real IRA member whose life ended in a hail of bullets in 2000. When Anthony McIntyre publicly accused the Provisional IRA of the murder, he and his pregnant wife incurred their wrath and ended up with their house being picketed by a Sinn Fein mob. 

A significant recent development threatens to muddy waters further. A US court has ruled that researchers at the Boston College must hand over an interview conducted by Anthony McIntyre with former IRA member Dolours Price, sister of Marian, which may shed light on one of the most notorious killings of the Troubles, that of mother-of-ten Jean McConville who was murdered and 'disappeared' by the IRA in 1972 for acting as a British informer (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-18765606). Previously, interviews carried out with the late Brendan Hughes, once a close friend of Gerry Adams and a high ranking IRA member, by McIntyre for the Boston College Belfast Project, caused a stir when they were released as part of a documentary and book entitled 'Voices From the Grave'. In his interviews, Hughes claimed that the McConville was executed by an IRA squad labelled the 'unknowns' which was under the direct command of Gerry Adams. Price's testimony however promises to be more explosive, as it is believed that she was directly involved in the murder, having been the driver of the car which took McConville away to be executed. In addition to this, prosecutors are also demanding that interviews with seven more IRA volunteers are handed over. With the potential to incriminate not only Adams but other senior members of the Provisional IRA/Sinn Fein, there are fears that the release of the tapes could turn the peace process upside down. Unsurprisingly, McIntyre has expressed grave concerns over potential retribution from his former colleagues in such an event.

In addition to this recent development, the paramilitary threat posed by the likes of the Real IRA and other dissident Republican shows no sign of subsiding. As unjustifiable as dissident Republican violence is, anyone who thinks that the militants are going to go away any time soon under current conditions in Northern Ireland are living in Cloud Cuckoo Land. Sinn Fein's failure to deal honestly with the past and their Stalinist intolerance of dissent have provided a fertile breeding ground for such activity. The dissidents may be blind to the futility of violence, but they certainly aren’t blind to the hypocrisy of Sinn Fein and how Republican ideals have been sold short. Their actions serve as a reminder that Martin McGuinness shaking hands with Queen Elizabeth II is just the latest episode in the ongoing peace process show; a grand gesture that will not solve the underlying economic, social and political problems that the people of Northern Ireland still face. Irish unity, republicanism and socialism were meant to be the answers to these problems. All three have been cast to the wayside as Sinn Fein march inexorably down the path of convention and respectability. It was said that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. No truism could be more apt in the case of Sinn Fein and the Provisional Republican Movement.

The Meaning of American Psycho

I recently finished reading Bret Easton Ellis’s 1991 novel American Psycho, better known to most of the current generation as a cult film released in 2000, starring Christian Bale as the depraved serial killer and investment banker, Patrick Bateman. The novel serves as a superb expose of American bourgeois culture. Having endured page after page of his blood-soaked, racist, misogynistic narrative, it is hard to recall any literary character as utterly repellent and seemingly irredeemable in one’s eyes as Patrick Bateman. However, it is the real psychopaths stalking the financial sector, personified by the fictional character of Bateman, for whom our contempt and anger should be reserved.

Wikipedia defines psychopathy as ‘a personality disorder characterized primarily by a lack of empathy and remorse, shallow emotions, egocentricity, and deception’. One is hard pressed to find a more appropriate description of the behaviour of the financial sector! It is unnecessary to re-summarise the details of the sub-prime mortgage crisis here and how the amoral, opportunistic, cynical actions of financial traders contributed to economic meltdown. I will however spare a mention for the self-styled market trader Alessio Rastani, who hit the headlines in 2011 as the result of a BBC interview in which he declared that ‘Governments don’t rule the world, Goldman Sachs rules the world’ and ‘I’ve been dreaming of another recession’. After the initial media furore, it transpired that Rastani’s credentials as a ‘financial expert' are questionable; he is in fact an independent trader who, given his lack of insider experience in the financial sector, hardly qualifies as a spokesman for the likes of Goldman Sachs. This, however, should not detract from the accuracy of the statements he made in his interview. We should have been spared the reactions of shock and horror to Rastani’s candour, because he was merely stating facts which have long been apparent to the critics of global capitalism. A ruthless, selfish culture has starved empathy of oxygen and produced mercenary individuals, for whom profit overrides any human considerations, inflicting pain and misery upon millions of people worldwide.

There is an interesting parallel between the initial reaction to American Psycho’s publication and an earlier work of art that provoked similar controversy in its time and continues to do so today: Pier Paolo Pasolini’s 1975 film Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom. The film, based upon the Marquis de Sade’s book The 120 Days of Sodom, is set in the Republic of Salo in the final years of Mussolini’s regime, and depicts the brutal torture of eighteen teenage boys and girls at the hands of a group of Italian fascists. The film’s stomach-churning scenes of violence and depravity were too much for many a censor, and the film was subsequently banned in a number of countries (It was only released uncut in the UK in 2000). In Italy itself, one cannot rule out the possibility of politically motivated censorship. Almost all of Pasolini’s films had been banned at some point in his native country because of their critical attitudes towards authority. The fact that he was also gay, an atheist and a Marxist, cemented his position as a hate-figure for the Italian Right. American Psycho too faced the wrath of critics and censors worldwide, and Ellis received hate mail and even death threats after its publication. In Australia, it is still only available in bookstores to those aged 18 or over, shrink-wrapped and behind counters.

Like American Psycho, Salo, despite its graphic nature, does not glorify or glamorise violence; indeed it does quite the opposite. It is impossible to watch the film and be titillated; one can only feel emotions of disgust and horror, just as Pasolini intended. The film is rich with symbolism and meaning, right down to the notorious scenes of coprophagia, which Pasolini regarded as a metaphor for rampant consumerism. The irony is that the ‘shit’ we have been force-fed by the commercialised mainstream film industry is seen as less harmful, from the thinly veiled racism of American Westerns to the shameless jingoism of modern action films, genres which have historically glorified machismo culture and warfare, at the expense of dissenting voices. Likewise, the trail of havoc wreaked by Patrick Bateman, selecting as his victims homeless black men, prostitutes and a young child among others, is emblematic of the devastation inflicted on the most underprivileged and vulnerable segments of society by a financial elite, buoyed by callous indifference to those whose lives it impacts on.

American Psycho conveys through words what Salo conveys through celluloid: A pure undiluted hatred of hegemony and abuse of power. It may be that those in the ranks of financial professionals will reject this and regard any comparison to a man who rapes, tortures and murders his way through life preposterous and offensive. Then again, wouldn’t those who only saw the exterior of Patrick Bateman – handsome, charming and intelligent – have had similar thoughts if confronted with that image? Works of dissenting art like American Psycho and Salo are brilliant because through their raw, uncompromising nature they force us to confront the ugliness of reality. It is certainly not a pleasant experience, but it is probably necessary.

Christopher Hitchens and the Wisdom of the Head

The untimely death of Christopher Hitchens has precipitated words of praise and expressions of regret from both sides of the political divide, from the Daily Telegraph’s Toby Young to SWP ideologue Alex Callinicos. The latter’s acknowledgement of Hitchens’ achievements must however be seen in the light of his personal acquaintance with the late author and journalist. Others on the Left have had few, if any, kind words to say in the wake of his passing. Hitchens’ widely perceived ‘move to the Right’ in the latter part of his career was seen as an act of betrayal and dismayed many of his former admirers. Alternatively, some on the Left maintain that they were suspicious of his radical credentials from the start and regarded him as a committed supporter of the Establishment.

Both of these characterisations represent over-simplified views of Hitchens, who had, by the end of his life, come to reject the traditional ‘left-right continuum’. He preferred to define his career by a consistent opposition to all forms of totalitarianism and a desire to expose and scrutinise centres of power. To this end, and for the most part, he displayed greater fidelity than many of his critics on the Left. From the 1970s onwards, he made numerous interventions in support of progressive causes, which included speaking out against the Vietnam War, highlighting US complicity in human rights violations in Latin America, and criticising Israeli oppression of the Palestinians. 

However, these achievements were overshadowed by his inexplicable dalliance with Empire during the Iraq war in 2003. It also proved the final straw for many of his critics on the Left. Hitchens was an outspoken supporter of the American invasion, claiming that it was justified in order to bring about the downfall of a tyrannical and oppressive regime. However, in doing so he found himself sitting squarely in the same camp as the most powerful country in the world; an odd place for a man who had dedicated his career to monitoring centres of power and exposing their crimes. He did nothing to discredit the spurious theories, used to further justify the invasion, which claimed a link between Saddam Hussein’s Iraq and Al Qaeda. In fact, he claimed that the Iraq war was unlikely to make the ‘Al Qaeda problem’ worse, and was proved tragically wrong by the bloody insurgency which followed the toppling of Saddam. Despite the deaths of hundreds of thousands in Iraq over the next eight years, Hitchens continued to stand by his support for the decision to invade, severely damaging his reputation as a voice of moral strength. His subsequent criticisms of American conduct during the war, such as with regards to the human rights abuses perpetrated at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib, were made to look hollow in the light of this.

It is surprising that a man of Hitchens’ intelligence could have been drawn to such a simplistic paradigm whereby failure to support the American invasion of Iraq made you an apologist for Saddam. Conversely, the anti-imperialist Left regarded the failure to defend Saddam's regime as the equivalent of kowtowing to Empire. Hitchens justifiably detested the hypocrisy of these elements of the Left for turning a blind eye to the excesses of anti-Western dictators. However, in this case he made the fatal mistake of succumbing to the strength of his emotions. Instead of adopting a principled stance of condemning both the Baathist regime and Western neo-imperialism, he ended up mirroring the myopia of those for whom he had nothing but contempt.

It is fair to say that, other than alcohol and cigarettes, allowing his heart to get the better of his head was perhaps Hitchens’ greatest weakness, even when he was motivated by the best of intentions. His instinctive and strident opposition to Islamic fundamentalism was well-founded, but he erred by coming to regard it as a unique and grave threat to civilisation. As has been pointed out by Noam Chomsky, the crimes committed by fanatics in the name of Islam, while undoubtedly wicked and depraved, pale in comparison to the scale of the crimes committed during our lifetime by the forces of Western imperialism in the name of democracy and human rights. A careful examination of political and socio-economic conditions in the Middle East would provide compelling evidence for why it is the latter that sets the context for understanding the former. Instead, Hitchens took the easy way out by placing excessive weight upon the irrationality of faith as a means of explaining the phenomenon of ‘Jihadism’, thus avoiding the kind of robust enquiry that was most needed at this time.

It was this kind of approach to issues which left Hitchens open to accusations of failing to apply the analytical rigour one would have expected from him. He was not helped by being partial to the use of highly colourful language, viewed by some of his critics as shameless attention seeking. I for one sincerely doubt that this was actually his intention. I believe that essentially he was just being Hitch; remaining true to his own particular style of expression. At times however, this penchant for rhetorical flourish only helped to fuel doubts over his commitment to serious analysis. His description of Mother Theresa as a ‘lying, thieving Albanian dwarf’ was crass, unnecessary, and probably detracted audiences from the important and well-founded criticisms to be made of her. His gleeful comments on cluster bombs eviscerating his enemies were downright ludicrous.

In the final analysis, Christopher Hitchens was undoubtedly a deeply cultured man blessed with a phenomenal memory and remarkably expansive knowledge. He took numerous principled stances in support of freedom and in opposition to tyranny, making a considerable contribution to intellectual life over a period of four decades. He can be forgiven for his fondness for the wisdom of his heart; he was only human after all and, more often than not, he was possessed of correct instincts and laudable intentions. It is however a tragedy that, at such a critical juncture in our recent history, he failed to follow the wisdom of his head and ended up being so profoundly wrong.

American Foreign Policy and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: Enduring Madness

The US ambassador to Belgium, Howard Gutman, has come under fire for comments made at a conference on anti-Semitism in Brussels, which included the following:

"It is the area where every new settlement announced in Israel, every rocket shot over a border or suicide bomber on a bus, and every retaliatory military strike exacerbates the problem and provides a setback here in Europe for those fighting hatred and bigotry,"

"Were a lasting peace in the Middle East to be reached, were joint and co-operative Israeli-Arab attentions turned to focus instead on such serious, common threats such as Iran, this second type of ethnic tension and bigotry (referring to anti-Semitism) here in Europe - which is clearly growing today - would clearly abate."

Gutman’s suggestion that failure to reach a peace settlement between Israelis and Palestinians has contributed to a growth in anti-Semitism in Europe was instantly latched on to by prominent Republicans, including presidential candidates Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich, as an example of the Obama administration’s hostility to Israel. Consequently, calls for retraction of his statement, an apology and even his resignation have abounded.

Gutman was not defending, excusing or even trying to downplay anti-Semitism; he was simply offering an explanation of why it exists. While racism in all its odious forms is always unjustified, history has taught us that it is more than anything the child of circumstance. Are senior Republicans trying to imply that anti-Semitism just happens to be a naturally occurring phenomenon within the warped minds of Europeans?

It is also important to bear in mind that those who equate Judaism and Jewishness with the unjust practices and policies of the state of Israel represent a minority; the overwhelming majority of critics of Israel, who include many Jews, make a clear distinction between the two. That anti-Semitism should have reared its ugly head again in Europe is tragic and deplorable, but no less so than any other form of racism or religious hatred. Take Islamophobia for example; also on the rise in Europe at an alarming rate. To regard anti-Semitism as a unique contemporary form of hatred is therefore to fly in the face of reality. It is however a convenient tool for those extolling the virtues of unconditional American support for Israel, the slightest deviation from which leaves one open to admonishment. This was Howard Gutman’s crime. By suggesting that certain actions of Israel had not been helpful to the ‘peace process’ and had helped to fuel anti-Semitic sentiment, he was guilty of sacrilege at the altar of American foreign policy. Yet remarkably, Howard Gutman is in fact Jewish and the son of a Holocaust survivor. In other words, he is the last person you could expect to downplay anti-Semitism.

There is a striking parallel between the Republican reaction to this case and the general Republican reaction to Palestinian violence that encapsulates the American paradigm of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In both cases, there is condemnation without any attempt to understand. Anti-Semitism and Palestinian violence are seen as equally inexplicable. The notion that Palestinians have genuine grievances and feelings which need to be understood and dealt with is simply too much for Republicans to take, for it is the first step to acknowledging that Israeli occupation and oppression precipitates Palestinian resistance. Instead, they prefer the comforting familiarity of an enduring Orientalist mentality which frames Palestinians, along with other Arabs and Muslims, as inherently irrational, uncivilised and addicted to violence. Effectively, there is no 'reasonable' Palestinian voice to be understood; they might as well not exist as a people.

The Howard Gutman controversy is not merely an example of how low Republicans will stoop to generate political mileage in the run-up to the 2012 US presidential election. It is symptomatic of the madness of American policy regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Obama’s Democrat administration, as demonstrated by its recent decision to cut funding from UNESCO in reaction to the UN agency’s admission of Palestine as a full member, has shown itself to be no friend of the Palestinian people. What the latest controversy does demonstrate is that it still has a way to go before it catches up with Republicans in the lunacy stakes.