WHERE do they get the proconsuls who run Northern Ireland? Is there a politician-quarry somewhere in the south of England from which they are mined, and despatched for service in Northern Ireland? Is it possible to tell the difference between the voices, the accents, the attitudes of Humphrey Atkins, Peter Brooke, Patrick Mayhew or any of the others who have passed through Northern Ireland on their way to political oblivion?
Is it any wonder that the Provisionals yearly and daily thank the British Government and its miraculous quarry for rescuing them from the impasses and embarrassments to which their murderous hobbies keep returning them? The weekend after the murder of Stephen Restorick should have seen a propaganda triumph for the British. The vile Sinn Fein chorus-line wittered on as usual about how John Major was responsible for the unfortunate killing, etc, etc, but with even less conviction than usual. For even they, in the moral fog of homicide through which they yearly flounder, know that John Major is not responsible for that young man's death; they know that the Mitchell principles, laid, down at the instigation of the US Government, demand that participants in talks must not simultaneously be involved in violence; they know that even if John Major commanded the unionists to talk to Sinn Fein, the unionists would not.
Stephen Restorick's life was a mere pawn, a finger cut from the hand of a child hostage and sent to the parents. Somebody in the peace process, ho ho ho, decided it was time to increase the pressure on the majority of people in these islands to do the bidding of the terrorist minority. So, take a life. What would have prevented that carefully planned killing? What deed must we do to prevent its repetition? How many knees must we bend that no more killings occur? How many times must we be told that because we do not bend our knees quite low enough or fast enough, the death that follows is our fault?
Chain of Obedience
Murder-as-symptom-of-political-malaise is the classic explanation and justification of these little expeditions against civilisation. But the people who do these things are not restless mobs, moved by barely-understood emotions; the people who did this evil thing belong to a trained military organisation which responds to a chain of obedience. Somebody - almost certainly somebody involved in the public face of the peace process ho ho ho - issued the command which took Stephen's young life, for no purpose to gain, no furthering of anything other than to prove that they can do it. Listen, friends: we know you can. You have won that argument. We do not doubt you can kill. And kill and kill. It is no achievement, merely proof of your barbarism.
What a propaganda weekend it could have been for the British, until, enter stage left, Sir Patrick Mayhew. The issue, Bloody Sunday. The outcome, Sinn Fein propaganda victory. For on Saturday, Sir Patrick told us that an apology for Bloody Sunday would be wrong, for an apology was for "criminal wrong-doing and there is nothing in the Widgery Report to support that."
You really do have to mine deep to find a politician with so little understanding of the English language, so little grasp of nationalist feeling on this issue, and so lacking in any regard for common sense.
For nobody has ever suggested that an apology be in response to a crime. I apologise when I tread on somebody's toes or bump into them on a stairway and when my soldiers are responsible for "shots fired without justification" (Lord Widgery), or for 19 rifle shots which were "wholly unaccounted for" (Lord Widgery), or, of the paratroopers, "When under attack and returning fire they show no particular concern for the safety of others" (Lord Widgery), or "firing bordered on the reckless" (Lord Widgery), or, of Patrick Doherty, "If he was shot in the belief that he had a gun, that belief was mistaken," I should apologise.
Festival of Evasion
Bloody Sunday was a military atrocity and the Widgery Report which followed it was a moral and legal atrocity, reviled and discredited not merely in nationalist Ireland, but anywhere sane people draw breath. But even in that festival of humbug and evasion which was Widgery, there was enough to be ashamed of shots fired without justification, unaccounted-for rifle fire, no concern for the safety of others, firing bordering on the reckless, Patrick Doherty, by Widgery's own normally weasely-words, killed while unarmed.
Can Sir Patrick Mayhew not understand that here alone were grounds for apology, never mind the darker and larger reality of Bloody Sunday which haunts and torments us on this island today? Is he incapable of making that leap into the minds of the rest of us? Or is he scared that by saying "sorry" he might give a propaganda victory to the Provos? In fact, the reverse has been the case.
As the 25th anniversary of Bloody Sunday approached, I wrote in this newspaper of the whited sepulchres of Sinn Fein organising commemorative marches for Bloody Sunday. Some family members of those killed in Bloody Sunday misinterpreted my remarks and judged that I was referring to them. I was not. My words were for Sinn Fein-IRA alone. As for the families, they are right to remember, right to march, and right to demand the truth about Bloody Sunday. But if they accept Sinn Fein as companions in their campaign, they should not be surprised that British proconsuls might misunderstand their motives.
Yet regardless of what groups support the families, Bloody Sunday deserves and demands full apologies, and it is time, regardless of what Sinn Fein do or say, for the British to start offering those apologies. Civilised people do not take their cues from barbarians. Meanwhile, if my words last January offended the Bloody Sunday families, I apologise sincerely. There, Sir Patrick; that is how it is done.