THERE is an extraordinary pessimism over the immediate future in Northern Ireland. Monday's Irish News, for instance, bemoaned on its front page the awfulness of the summer and failed to perceive any hope at all.
The general pessimism arises from the failure of the multi-party talks to get anywhere in June and July, the continued refusal by the IRA to renew its ceasefire, the threatened resumption of the loyalist paramilitary campaigns and the impasse over the Orange marches during the summer. Above all it is reflective of the post-Drumcree trauma.
There is a perception, particularly on the part of the Catholic middle classes that, after all, nothing has changed in Northern Ireland, it remains a bigoted Orange state and an unreformable one at that. That post-Drumcree trauma seems to have unbalanced perceptions, for some obvious and salient realities suggest a far more encouraging prospect.
The most obvious and most salient of such realities is the continued virtual absence of paramilitary violence. In the 25 years from 1969 to 1994, the average number of people killed every two years was about 260. In the last two years almost (i.e. since the start of the loyalist ceasefire in October 1994), only two people have been killed in the Troubles in Northern Ireland. This is an extraordinary transformation, and the failure to acknowledge this necessarily distorts any evaluation.
It is true that the IRA ceasefire has not been reinstated formally hut, informally, has there not been a ceasefire now for several months? We have read a great deal of how the moderate elements within the republican movement have beef overwhelmed by the shard men", but what evidence is there of this, given the best possible (in their eyes) justification for a resumption of a full-scale campaign provided by Drumcree?
If anything, the objective evidence is that Gerry Adams and his allies within the republican movement are very much in the ascendancy and are able to hold the line even in the face of severe provocation.
I argued here and elsewhere in May and June that there would soon (by the end of July) be a resumption of the ceasefire. That proved too optimistic, but the objective grounds for believing that the IRA is committed to "the long peace" (in contrast to the earlier strategy of "the long war") have not changed.
Repeatedly, the IRA has signalled it will meet its "responsibilities" if there is a prospect of Sinn Fein involvement in meaningful all-party talks. In practice this has meant either that decommissioning will not become an insuperable obstacle to the talks progressing on to substantive issues. Manifestly, that remains the case, even after Drumcree, as was confirmed in a number of Sinn Fein comments over the weekend.
There are similar encouraging signs emanating from the loyalist paramilitaries. The murder of Michael McGoldrick in Portadown in early July seemed ominous, but since then it has been apparent that the moderates there, too, are in control. Perversely, the most encouraging of these has been the death threat to members of the UVF who are believed (by the Combined Loyalist Military Command) to be a threat to the peace process.
In spite of these signs, it is not improbable that there will be some further IRA "operations", most likely outside Northern Ireland. It is also not unlikely that there will be some loyalist retaliation for such violence, but the clear signals are that the IRA has decided mentally to give up the "armed struggle" in the medium to long term and that the loyalist paramilitaries will respond in kind.
DRUMCREE was indeed shocking in terms of the RUC and state capitulation to loyalist intimidation, but wasn't some of the damage undone by the steadfastness of the RUC in August during the Apprentice boys march in Derry and elsewhere?
Indeed, the Drumcree experience might be turned around on the unionist leadership in a way that might actually help to break the deadlock on the all-party talks. The unionist argument on decommissioning is a good one: that if one party reserves the right to resort to undemocratic means to advance its objectives if this cannot be done through negotiation, then that subverts the negotiating process. But David Trimble et al are precluded, or should be, from advancing this argument.
When they had failed to achieve through normal democratic means the right to march through Garvaghy Road in their Orange Order incarnations, they resorted to undemocratic means to achieve that objective. And among the undemocratic means to which they resorted was to warn that a consequence of their not getting their way would be the likely outbreak of murderous UVF violence.
In addition, they have made it clear that if they again fail to get their way, they will do the same again, and Sir Patrick Mayhew has asserted that in such circumstances force will prevail.
Surely, on the basis of their own arguments on decommissioning, they should now be precluded from taking part in the all-party talks. Alternatively, if they are to continue to participate, the argument against Sinn Fein doing so in the absence of agreement on decommissioning (but of course on the basis of an IRA ceasefire) is very much weakened.
It should also be acknowledged that it isn't true that nothing has changed. Note how the unionists have changed - nothing now about the Anglo-Irish Conference or Maryfield (the last bout of negotiations broke up over the convening of an Anglo-Irish Conference). There are not even any protests about the Dublin Government being involved right at the heart of the talks.
There has also been a profound change on the nationalist side. Some nationalists are now prepared to live with the Northern state provided it is reformed. The reform of the state may require an all-Ireland dimension as a means of asserting or respecting the nationalist identity, but such a dimension need not disturb the constitutional arrangement that is so central to unionist demands: the maintenance of the union with Britain.
Yes, it means that Northern Ireland is different from Devon, but isn't that accepted anyway by unionists and everyone else? For instance, a central plank of unionists is the "right" of the people of Northern Ireland to self-determination - they assert this in opposition to the nationalist former demand of the right of the people of Ireland as a whole to self-determination.
But the people of Devon do not have the right to self-determination, nor do the people of Surrey or Yorkshire, and it would be considered bizarre if anybody there were to assert such a right.
Yes, Northern Ireland is different, and the unionists themselves implicitly acknowledge this. It may take several years for talks to get anywhere and perhaps this present round of talks will fail.
But there is now the basis of a deal on Northern Ireland, and there is now a willingness on the part of the organisations formerly involved in intensive violence to pursue their objectives politically. These are hugely encouraging developments, and an acknowledgment of them can help them along.