Look, I know I've got it wrong, but this is how I thought it was: by the efforts of three governments, Sinn Féin-IRA had been brought from a fascist hell of its own making, and from the brink of defeat by the British, into the sunlight of democracy.
To sweeten the pill of terrorist failure, special arrangements were made to put Sinn Féin-IRA into government. This was an extraordinary event, not merely in Irish history, but in world history: no other minority terrorist group has ever had such a special and benevolent dispensation created for it. Not merely was it allowed to give up violence without losing face, and with its prisoners released unconditionally, but it was then given a share in running the state it had been attempting to overthrow.
There were conditions for this: disarmament, an embrace of democratic rules, an end to all violence, and a backing for the institutions of the state - the sine qua non of anyone involved in government anywhere. They were the payment in return for getting a place in the sun. Admittedly, it would be too much to expect full compliance instantly; maybe in a couple of areas, for historical reasons, Sinn Féin might for a while fall short. But far from falling short in some areas, Sinn Féin-IRA has failed to deliver in any of them; worse, it has actually mounted massive covert intelligence operations against those with whom it was in government, as well as on its secret benefactor, its very own Magwitch: MI5.
Gross violation
Now, in my feeble, uninformed view of the world, everyone would agree: the security forces have no choice but to take measures as vigorously and as quickly as possible against such treachery; for this is a gross violation of trust, of law, of security, of decency and of binding treaty obligations. Which merely goes to show how little I know of things.
Because nationalist Ireland has seen things in a different way. Instead of Sinn Féin-IRA being the culprit in this affair, the poor, harassed and exhausted Police Service of Northern Ireland has been turned into the villain. The Shinners howled blue murder; Bríd Rodgers huffed and puffed that the police would have some explaining to do; Martin Mansergh declared the police raid was more like something one would find in Zimbabwe; and Tim Pat Coogan rumbled his usual crypto-shinner rubbish. (Zimbabwe: does Martin Mansergh have the least idea how Mugabwe would deal with the Shinners? Does the word "Matabeleland" ring any bells?)
The most disgraceful misrepresentation of the collapse of the Executive came in the shape of a cartoon in last Saturday's Irish Independent, showing a coffin marked "Good Friday Agreement RIP", and with the dove of peace inside. The coffin is being borne by alligators, shedding their hypocritical tears: of the three reptilian bearers visible, two are dressed as Orangemen, the third as a policeman. The bowler-hatted figure of David Trimble is shown hammering nails into the coffin.
Disgraceful lie
This is the most contemptible and most disgraceful lie I have ever seen in the great smorgasbord of fiction and dishonesty called the peace process. To find such Die Sturmer falsehood in Ireland's largest selling broadsheet daily, one which has a splendid record of opposing violence, and on the same page as articles by two of the most courageous opponents of Sinn Féin fascism, Bruce Arnold and Conor Cruise O'Brien, is quite astonishing.
Now, I don't believe for a second that the cartoon reflects the beliefs of the proprietor, Sir Anthony O'Reilly, or the editor, Vinnie Doyle, both ardent opponents of bigotry and violence. But it clearly reflects the views of large sections of nationalist Ireland.
So let's go through it all again, and this time, pay attention at the back. Who set up a massive, covert intelligence operation against their colleagues in government? Sinn Féin-IRA. Who looted correspondence between the president of the US, the British prime minister and the Taoiseach? Sinn Féin-IRA. Who trained FARC terrorists in Colombia? Sinn Féin-IRA. Who imported weapons from the US and Russia while in government? Sinn Féin-IRA. Who smashes limbs and exiles people from their homeland? Sinn Féin-IRA. Who, alone and uniquely, destroyed the power-sharing Executive?
Gosh, I don't know. Who? All right. I do. But nationalist Ireland doesn't appear to. Since the Stormont scandal erupted, nationalist Ireland has portrayed the Northern police as thuggish goons, and the betrayed unionists as the betrayers. This, then, is the reward that David Trimble receives from nationalist Ireland for bringing his political career to the point of ruin and his party to the very edge of the precipice, over which it will very shortly disappear.
Nationalist Ireland is back to its comfortable core position of blaming the unionists, and not confronting the armed men in its midst; and the stench you smell in the air has a name. It is Weimar.
Shinner point of view
Presumably it was the assurance that nationalist Ireland would see things from the Shinner, boys-will-be-boys point of view which encouraged the abortive operation foiled in Wicklow last Friday. And this most certainly would have succeeded without the splendid young men and women of the ERU. (Why do they get so little credit for the extraordinarily fine job they do? And what would this state be like without them? Well like Zimbabwe, actually.)
At this point, let us remind ourselves just how long after the Stormont fiasco this major IRA violation of its ceasefire was intended to occur. It was a week. A bloody week. Jesus Christ Almighty, who's making a fool of whom here?