We've heard a lot about what makes the North so intractable: the cultures of triumphalism, of victimhood, of bigotry and of conspiracy. But there's another ingredient which is seldom or never written about: it's the sneer.
Other countries have smear-politics: Northern Ireland has sneer-politics. Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil people, Progressive Democrats and Labour, they might all disagree with one another, but their opinions are not couched in either an incipient or an actual sneer. But the sneer is present in almost everything that is said in Northern Ireland. It is the lingua franca of Northern Ireland conversations. Even the peace process has from the start been accompanied by its bodyguard of sneers.
Scientists have recently been posing a theory that the universe is bound together by a tenuous, undetectable substance called black matter, which fills outer and inner space, and is everywhere. Northern Ireland is bound by black anti-matter, which we can call the sneer: and it is the universality of the sneer which makes all attempts at lasting institutional reconciliation almost impossible in the North. The sneer there fills the gaps between words. It is the medium in which all discourse occurs.
If you don't hear a sneer, it merely means that one is on the way.
Who do the Democratic Unionists not sneer at? Who do Sinn Féin-IRA not sneer at? Both sneer at everyone: they sneer constantly at radio and television interviewers; they sneer with as much vehemence at those who are close to them, but not quite of them, as they do at their complete enemies. They sneer in panel discussions. They sneer in private. They are sustained by sneers. Their parties are led by sneer-leaders. And more than their attachment to either the union and the crown or to the gun and to the coven-mysteries of Irish republicanism, the sneer is what defines them. Deduct the sneer from their existence, and that existence is gone.
But even the most "moderate" of the central stream of Northern Ireland life is sustained by the sneer, for identity in the North is driven by a disdain for others. It is a weapon to unleash in television studio or in private conversation. Unless you are entirely onside within a particular group, out comes the sneer - after the third drink in what passes for "moderate" company, but long before that in less pious circles.
The sneer is sometimes masked by humour, or an attempt at humour - which is another term for condescension. It is often enough unspoken, but is present facially. But it is there, constantly. It needs to be, for it is what gives one status in Northern Ireland politics. That is why the peace process used the sneer: the engine for the peace process throughout has been the sneer at those who were not on board, even as those who were aboard continued to sneer at one another.
Who are the Sinn Féin people from the North we hear most of on the airwaves? Gerry Adams, Martin McGuinness, Gerry Kelly, Mitchell McLaughlin, Pat Doherty. What do you see on their faces and hear in their voice as you think about them now, but a sneer? The same is as true on the other side: Ian Paisley, Nigel Dodds, Peter Robinson.
David Trimble can sneer a little bit, Mark Durcan almost not at all, at least in the television studio. And what is happening popularly to their parties? For elections in Northern Ireland are as much sneer contests as anything else: sneering is what Northern Ireland does best. So the peace process has now given us war-by-proxy: the AKM and the AN-94 have been oiled and stored in waxed skins, and other more enduring weapons have been brought out of the sneer-bunkers.
Bullying and sneering are part of Northern Ireland culture. It's almost impossible to have a conversation of any length without a sneer emerging, either at a third party, or at one's own opinion. Sneering is so implicit, so ubiquitous, that the sneerers are unaware that they trade in sneers. They are apparently unaware that generally people in the rest of Ireland or the UK do not sneer, and that it is not a conversational or a political norm to seek to humiliate or patronise or diminish those to whom or about whom one is talking.
Listen to any of those other Northern voices we hear on their airwaves - Michael Farrell, Bernadette McAliskey, Eamonn McCann, Nell McCafferty: they're never far from a sneer, usually a triumphant one.
Robust Northern honesty is probably the justification for their way of talking. But socialisation is always done at the price of honesty of some kind. We cannot speak our minds or show our full emotions, and call the outcome honesty, for that is not the mature honesty of adults but the self-indulgence of the nursery. Patience and the repression of ego are the foundation-blocks of any institution. No institution, no society, no peace process can endure while those who participate in them indulge their emotions with the proxy-warfare of the sneer.
If the peace process had created a non-sneering liturgy, in which sneering was taboo, then maybe we wouldn't have spent the past five years chasing our tales.
But of course, a non-sneering political culture - such as Alliance tried to provide - is one scorned as effeminate and effete in the North. The place is the mess it is partly because of the common culture of derision which binds nationalist and unionist.
And how can any cross-community political institution survive in such a poisonous culture?