Time to reflect after McGuinness’ death
DURING the long years of the Troubles and the most fraught chapters of the peace process there will have been times when Martin McGuinness would have wondered if he would suffer a violent death.
He did not die at the hands of another gunman or in a bomb blast but instead lost a battle with a rare genetic disease at the age of 66.
His family have not only received words of sympathy from fellow republicans but from world statesman and members of different traditions who appreciated his personal warmth and his pivotal role in bringing the IRA’s campaign of violence to a halt. Nobody would begrudge his family the comfort such expressions of condolence and respect will bring; a wife has lost her husband and children have lost their father.
However, there is a special cause for regret at his death at this time. He had unfinished business.
He shunned opportunities to say that the campaign of systematic murder in pursuit of a political goal was wrong, that the slaughter was unjustified and the terror campaign did nothing to promote peace, justice or reconciliation on the island of Ireland.
Instead, in 2015 he said: “I am still 40 years on proud that I was a member of the IRA. I am not going to be a hypocrite and sit here and say something different.”
The so-called “armed struggle” he helped lead was not a continuation of the civil rights movement.
There was a clear alternative to violence, as demonstrated in the courageous leadership of figures such as John Hume and Gerry Fitt who worked to secure liberty and equality. Catholics and Protestants who wanted to bring down the tribal barriers were united in horror as they watched the IRA intensify toxic sectarian divisions and set in motion a nightmarish cycle of revenge killings.
More than 3,600 people would die in the carnage – at least 1,800 of whom were civilians. The IRA terrorised communities, murdering and mutilating those in neighbourhoods they claimed as their own who fell foul of the local strongmen.
Their futile and squalid campaign failed to secure a united Ireland but Mr McGuinness and his colleagues enjoyed political success, eventually sharing power with the DUP. Devolution could have come to Northern Ireland decades earlier if not for a combination of loyalist bigotry, republican rejectionism and paramilitary violence.
It is ironic that hardliners have reaped the political rewards of a peace process which also resulted in the mass release of murderers. There has been no equivalent of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
If surviving IRA members want to be peacemakers they should not speak of their “war” with pride. If they admit it was a catastrophic mistake perhaps today’s “dissidents” will not reject politics in favour of the gun.
Power-sharing has collapsed and there are fears Brexit will bring yet more instability. Truly courageous leadership is needed now. The Western Mail newspaper is published by Media Wales a subsidiary company of Trinity Mirror PLC, which is a member of IPSO, the Independent Press Standards Organisation. The entire contents of The Western Mail are the copyright of Media Wales Ltd. It is an offence to copy any of its contents in any way without the company’s permission. If you require a licence to copy parts of it in any way or form, write to the Head of Finance at Six Park Street. The recycled paper content of UK newspapers in 2014 was 78.5%