Myopia of wants...

David Ervine

�

As the Northern Ireland Assembly debates the 'Programme for Government' the perception is that the politics envisaged within the Good Friday Agreement are working well. Ministers are punching long hours grappling with the difficult process of delivering the much-deserved services of Government to the people.

Politics is coming closer to the people. That is a superior position to the previous circumstances where the remit of Ministers, not accountable to the Northern Ireland Electorate, covered a multiplicity of Departments.

Constituency offices, offering help and personal interaction, abound. Politicians are accessible and accountable and offer a vehicle upon which the voice of the people can be transported to the very seat of power.

Individuals and groups are lobbying vigorously among the Assembly Members. The airing of public concerns in the debating chamber or in the committees of the Assembly offers, for the first time in a long time, openness and clarity for the population about issues which directly affect them.

Even with a couple of reticent Ministers, the system is functioning. However, underlying strains and tensions are just below the surface and potentially are capable of holing the process of politics and peace below the waterline. It can hardly be surprising that the issues of decommissioning and policing cause this divided society great difficulty.

The 'iceberg' nature of such subject matter should concern us as much as the issues themselves. Clearly if we lose our process of politics and peace many of the democratic gains will be lost.

Against that backdrop the stumbling block issues will dog us. Collapse of the process offers absolutely nothing to the resolution of difficulties. Indeed, if we lose our anchor to the democratic process then the circumstances we struggle with may get much worse.

From the outset politicians on both sides took the liberty of 'selling' the GFA to their own constituents in terms beneficial to themselves. I suppose that was always likely. It is now clear to all that such a far-reaching agreement was always going to have benefit and pain for all sides. Alas, yet we still suffer the indignity of each side rallying support for their own interests and defaming the needs of their opposites.

The Good Friday Agreement is clear in all its strands that interdependency of traditions and constituencies is vital if it is to succeed. Since 10th April 1998 one tragic fact has dogged the implementation of the Agreement. Almost like a rolling negotiation, the advocates of the Agreement have faced each other with the baggage of wants rather than the practical explanation of needs.

Are not Adams and Trimble proving beyond all doubt that each believes the other to be strategizing when they shout their difficulties from the roof-tops? In the separate huddles formed by the UUP and Sinn Fein party lovvies 'the other side' are viewed as simply using the hype of internal strife to benefit their own position.

The leaderships of Unionism and Nationalism are behaving as dependant factions. Each has its champion to whom it is wedded and reliant upon. Blair and Ahern are those reluctant champions whose 'partisan' positions are carved out for them, not by those who elected them or the parliament to which they are responsible but, by the squabbling factions of Northern Ireland who have carried with them from the old dispensation to the new the same old divisive politics of failure.

Demands, no matter how moral, fit into the category of wants. Any negotiator would make the opening gambit of any exchange a quest for the sun, the moon and the stars. However, the megaphone negotiation we've experienced for a long time now is no negotiation at all. Demands will not be met! It is as simple as that.

When a leader makes a demand that is not met, who suffers? With political division so finely honed, it seems inconceivable that rebutting it would harm the leader in receipt of such a demand. It could be argued that the leader who makes the demand is not seriously wounded either.

Indeed, apart from the usual political snipers, most from the constituency where the demand emanated would blame the 'other side' for their dishonour rather than blame the leader for his failure to deliver such a core requirement.

There are two real casualties in all of this. Firstly, this form of politics reaffirms division at a time when we should be moving to diminish division. How easy it is to simply brand our opponents without taking account of collateral damage being stored up as each side becomes more and more disillusioned with the demands and counter demands of the other.

Perhaps inadvertently the politicians are conditioning our people for failure as they badly administer a process that we can't afford to fail. Secondly, the demands have to date failed miserably. That means that the needs we all have are not being delivered. They are being lost in a battle over wants. The outcome of this can only mean one thing. This process of politics and peace cannot survive unless the needs of this society are fulfilled.

The needs are not being addressed because we are caught in myopia of wants, which by their very nature are mutually exclusive.

As far back as the Mitchell Review, the smaller parties to the Agreement advocated a form of implementation committee or commission made up from all the pro agreement parties. All of the reasons outlining the requirement for such a mechanism were made then. Today I have outlined them again.

What excuse can the larger pro-agreement parties give for inaction in this regard? I assert that such a mechanism can make a substantial difference to progress and change the public perception of political inability. As I write there is no formula for implementation of the Agreement.

There is no process, which ensures that the people get what they voted for. The creation of an implementation committee or commission would be a valuable contribution to the tools required by politicians if it is their desire to see the Agreement work.

In short, if we want to achieve the things we say we need to favour the creation of a wholesome and vibrant society, then we had better think of effective ways to get them!