Dysfunctional Unionism and the Paradox of Partition

The most optimistic scenario has it that devolved government will will be restored to Northern Ireland some time next year and that Sinn Féin and the DUP will share power.  Maybe they will but I wouldn't bet on it.  I've said before that I don't believe that the DUP will be all that anxious to share power with republicans and that the party's base support is generally hostile to the prospect.  Sinn Féin, on the other hand, have no real interest in the good governance of an entity they want to "make history".  Then there is the reality that direct rule ministers will keep things ticking over thus showing that while devolved institutions may be desirable, they are far from essential. 

Partition, in the sense of the division of the island into two separate jurisdictions, is now more solidly established, politically and constitutionally, than it ever was and unionists should start behaving in a way that recognises this essential truth.  Garret Fitzgerald pointed out in Saturday's Irish Times that a

deeply paradoxical situation emerged on the two sides of the Border, the reality of which seems to have escaped almost everyone.

First, on the Protestant unionist side, their artificial electoral majority within the six-county area never translated itself into a psychological sense of being actually a majority. Because of decades of Southern hostility and of Northern nationalist resistance to their rule, the Protestant unionist community could never lose a sense of being a threatened minority on the island of Ireland. In that key respect, and at the deepest level - that of fear - unionists in Northern Ireland continued to think in all-Ireland terms.

In sharp contrast, the nationalist people of the rest of the island, while retaining at least a theoretical commitment to Irish unity, rapidly became deeply involved in the construction of their new State, with its own complex set of new institutions.

The most entrenched sentiments of partition are found within Northern Ireland itself, where, despite the parity of esteem supposedly ushered in by the Good Friday Agreement, structural divisions based on confessional lines remain more firmly embedded than ever - a point made in a very significant speech by Pat Rabbitte recently.  The Labour leader's basic point was that "Sinn Féin’s real interest was never in bedding down the Good Friday Agreement and working its institutions in good faith but in maintaining instead an environment of instability and uncertainty – a persistent atmosphere of crisis, in which normal politics is impossible and extremism thrives" and "the only message being delivered is that there cannot be any solution to a problem unless it is delivered by Sinn Féin. All other nationalists must be sidelined"

Can "all other nationalists" i.e. the SDLP, regain the initiative?  There's little sign of it.  Can unionism become less dysfunctional and avail of its historic opportunity to build on the constitutional guarantees that should make the majority's position more secure?  The most depressing fact about the immediate political situation in the North is that while there is a good basis for a "historic compromise" between unionism and nationalism in order to further democracy and more accountable government, the leading parties of both traditions have no real interest in so doing.  Nor is there any sign of a new political formation coming along and seizing the initiative. 

Comments

[Red Rover]

In a paradoxical fashion I agree with the broad sweep of the post, yet ive wondered whether Paisely's genus as an Ulsterman first and foremost made him more disposed of than others to contemplate power. Of course it suits him and SF to have some sense of being victim, and instability will always yield that.
Yet looking at Paisely as of a different breed to UUP types wishing they were in the tory party, he is a peculiarly ulster man. In politics, is his desire to govern his homeland or be a stopper. Your article argues articulately for the latter yet for some reason i cannot shake the former from my mind.
Whether such an impulse is enough to get the Assembly up and running is an altogether tougher question and your idea of partition as indoctrianted in both sides is an interesting take. I doubt Paiselys will to power supercedes that powerful division and resentment.
cheers
RR

[hensons]

Firstly good blog in general - well written, researched and measured. well done.

in relation to the post I have recently being thinking that perhaps we are all looking at this upside down. from Dublin, London and even Belfast and Bnagor we have tut tuted at the antics of the DUP with two fingers crossed behind our backs hoping for the grim reaper to collect paisley the elder asap. Our thinking, that without him unionism will be free to compromise and make politics work.....but then i thought that we percieve the "poor" leadership of unionism to be a weakness - when in actually fact their very irrationality and unreasonableness is their strengh. their extremism is what ensure the status quo as it beds down direct rule and at the same time guarantees that the south will want nothing to do with them.

politically i think they are playing a blinder - their only danger is that the British and Irish govts go above their heads and implement joint authority - a couple of bombs in dublin would quickly put an end to that.

just finished the freaknomics book - it was great.