A Tangled Web

Durkan and the Politics of Torpor



Poor Mark Durkan. He is a leader whose eyes see so much, yet whose brain sees so little. Have a gander at the rubbish he has written in the Irish News. So incensed am I by this nationalist speck, I feel suitable ripostes should be given to each of his arguments in turn. Here goes.



'The Good Friday Agreement gave new hope to the people of Ireland. After years of Troubles, it promised justice. It promised equality. It promised peace.'



The Belfast Agreement (the Multi-Party structures thereof) was voted in solely by the electorate of Northern Ireland. I know nationalists like to pretend it has some all-Ireland ratification structure which supposedly renders it impervious to Unionist demands for democratic structural alteration. That is NOT the case. As for the codswallop about 'equality', nationalists had already been living under the most stringent laws governing equal status anywhere in the European Union for almost thirty years.



'For two years in total, the agreement's institutions not only worked, they worked well.'



Suspensions, lack of ministerial accountability, efforts to strip the British institutional fabric out of the province altogether. Yeah, they really worked well, Mark! Ha!!



'Loyalists continued to terrorise nationalist communities and poison their own with drugs. And it just won't wash for unionist politicians to excuse their violence as "reactive".'



Another effort to equate mainstream Unionist politicians with terror in order to shadow the real links of Sinn Fein to the Provisional IRA. Unionist politicians of all hues have called for the arrest, punishment and - in some cases - imprisonment of 'loyalist' terrorists. These calls are well documented and in the public domain. Durkan is nothing other than a devious hypocrite in expounding this opinion.



'IRA activity has also badly damaged trust.'



Indeed it has, Mark. However, when did your separatist crew ever try to punish Sinn Fein/IRA for ongoing terrorist activity. Furthermore, when did you ever abandon nationalist camaraderie to cut a deal with democrats??



'The SDLP has always been at pains to make honest and positive judgments.'



Like the 'honesty' shown by Seamus Mallon when he promised to kick Sinn Fein out of the Executive if the IRA did not cease terrorism. Three years later, they were still there. Lo and behold, so were the SDLP!!



'The SDLP wants a deal that has shared commitments from all the parties not a deal produced by the Governments that all the parties have the opportunity to pick and snipe at.'



No, the SDLP wants transitional institutions en route to a 'united Ireland'. Any exercises designed to make the province stable within the United Kingdom will be resisted by Irish nationalists. That's why the concept of power-sharing is a total abomination.



'Let's not let bad politics damage the agreement, damage our society and risk storing up new trouble for future generations.'



I'll re-phrase that last line. 'Let's not let a bad agreement damage our society any more than it already has done by promoting and enhancing the status of evil and insurrectionism at the expense of a loyal majority.'