Sinn Fein jumped through DUP’s hoops and fell short

Sinn Fein jumped through DUP’s hoops and fell short

The long-awaited Hillsborough Agreement is a sham with grave consequences for the

nationalist community, says Chris Donnelly, a former Sinn Fein council candidate.

Belfast Telegraph

Two weeks ago, the DUP stood isolated, cornered by circumstances and by the

party’s failure to abide by its obligations in the eyes of the governing consensus

throughout these islands and beyond.

The cracks in the one-time solid DUP edifice weren’t long in appearing as the

leadership stood poised to pay the price for its enduring failure to educate its

membership and community base about the pains of compromise at Stormont.

Alas, agreement was reached and the elbow-worn podiums wheeled out to prop up the

by now very weary prime ministers.

Amid the smiles and laughter, there was even the promise of a new beginning; a

hint that, this time, the deal would survive.

I’m afraid I don’t buy it. This deal’s a pup, a sham which would more

appropriately have been agreed at Scarva.

Within minutes of publicly endorsing the ‘deal’, DUP leader Peter Robinson was

boasting of his clever device to pull the shutters down if he didn’t get what he

wanted over parading. How’s that for a new commitment to partnership?

As each of the firmly-set deadlines approaches, we can expect sabre-rattling and

late night negotiation.

The Hillsborough deal has ensured that the DUP can effect the downfall of the

Stormont administration on more favorable terms if republicans do not concede

critical ground on the parading dispute.

The decision by Sinn Fein to agree to a rigid timeline over parading has elevated

the issue in a manner which has unnerved many within the nationalist community.

It is discussed in terms which ask plenty of nationalists, but nothing of

unionists regarding developing an equal society based on trust, tolerance and

diversity.

Nationalist communities continue to suffer due to the inability of the leaders of

nationalism/republicanism to alter the parameters within which the parades issue

is discussed.

Those parameters decisively favor the Loyal Orders — and, by extension, the

unionist political leadership — as the ideal compromise becomes one in which the

unionist ‘quid’ of entering into negotiations with residents is deserving of a

reciprocal ‘quo’ in the form of an unhindered parade.

Sinn Fein repeatedly jumped through DUP hoops in the vain hope of obtaining the elusive prize of the devolved policing and justice ministry it failed to nail down at St Andrews — a shortcoming which itself illustrated that republicans need some fresh, legally literate pairs of eyes around the top table.

Imagine were republicans to insist that discussions on parading only take place in

the context of dealing with how either community embraces political and cultural

expressions of the ‘other’ side.

Think what republicans could bring to that table regarding the display of the

Irish tricolor — not to mention localized solutions involving reciprocal parading

through loyalist communities.

Once DUP representatives realized that the price for pursuing a parade through the

Crumlin Road interface would be having to sell a republican parade through

Ballysillan, the present ‘parades-or-bust’ strategy would be shelved.

The republican mantra of seeking dialogue as the panacea for all parading ills is

idealistic claptrap exposing a failure to adapt tactics which has seen nationalist

communities outmaneuvered in areas like Ardoyne, Rasharkin and Springfield,

provoking considerable local discontent, something which people living on the

Garvaghy and Ormeau Roads are acutely aware of.

For the sake of the entire community, republicans need to jettison the tired

rhetoric of talking and walking as it merely plays into the hands of the Loyal

Orders and a Parades Commission, which has shown itself to be sympathetic to the

walk for talk solution.

A resolution to parading is predicated on the acceptance that mutual respect

entails being prepared to do precisely what we ask of others. Posing that

challenge to the political leaders of unionism is the key to moving the discussion

out of unionism’s comfort zone.

Comment:

The people in Nationalist areas such as Dunloy, Rasharkin, Lower Ormeau, Garvaghy

Road, Ardoyne and others where these contentious parades take place each year are

not in favor of the Hillsborough Agreement. The SDLP has denounced it as a sham as

has the UUP. It seems that the only ones in favor are the two parties in Stormont

who agreed to it, the British and Irish governments both of whom want to wash

their hands of it, and the usual cadre of American politicians who have an

insatiable need to be involved in Irish issues especially in the run-up to St.

Patrick’s Day.