DAVID ERVINE posed a challenging question in a recent RTE interview. How can it be, he asked, that although there has been relatively little serious violence in Northern Ireland in recent months, the atmosphere of mistrust between the two communities is worse than it has been for a very long time?
Do we need the shock of violent death and human grief to be able to draw closer together, to realise that what we share is more important than those things which drive us apart?
If this is the case, the outlook is indeed bleak. But there is another explanation for the bitterness which seemed to explode out of nowhere over the summer months. After the ceasefires there was intense relief, and hopes for a better future. We saw it in the outpouring of emotion which greeted Bill Clinton less than a year ago, as though the US President had become a conduit for the dreams of both communities.
Since then each side has become, once again, tearful about the future. There was disappointment that the ceasefires failed to deliver on the promise of a lasting peace. Republicans grew sullen and resentful because of what they saw as a grudging and inadequate response by the British government. Unionists viewed the whole peace process as a nationalist plot, and their fears about the long term prospects have continued to fester.
All this burst on to the fields around Drumcree, with results which have induced a bleak pessimism about the chances for any political agreement between the parties. Impressions gained from talking to friends in Belfast and Derry over the summer have now been reinforced by the Irish Times opinion poll published this week, which shows that 63 per cent of people believe the talks at Stormont are doomed to failure.
And yet, as so often in polls of this kind, there are signs of hope amid the encircling gloom. The most striking of these is the high approval rating for those politicians who have insisted throughout the summer, often working against the grain and under intense pressure, on the need for moderation. This is all the more important because the general wisdom has been that all hopes for compromise perished at Drumcree, that the real political beneficiaries were the extremists.
JOHN Hume's personal standing has been enhanced with both communities by the events of the summer. This is due partly to his handling of the negotiations over the Apprentice Boys march in Derry last month. The fact that the march went off without violence was due to a number of factors, including the desire of both the leadership of the Apprentice Boys and Sinn Fein that there should be no serious trouble in Derry.
But, as well as this, Plume was clearly seen as speaking for all those in both communities, Protestant and Catholic, who were appalled by Drumcree and equally fearful that Sinn Fein's high risk street politics could provoke a serious escalation of violence.
The other politician who has emerged dramatically well from the poll is David Ervine, who drew approval from 56 per cent of Protestants and 36 per cent of Catholics. This is the more remarkable when one considers Mr Ervine's past record and how recently he has become widely known on the political scene.
In many ways the challenge facing the loyalist groups during, and after, Drumcree was even more daunting than the difficulties experienced by John Plume in Derry. In steadfastly refusing to go down the sectarian path taken by David Trimble and the Orange Order, both David Ervine and Gary McMichael ran very serious risks of alienating their core supporters. By holding their nerve, they have now managed to win a degree of trust in both communities which has always been denied to Gerry Adams.
By contrast, those parties most closely associated in the public mind with what happened at Drumcree and in the weeks that followed have all experienced a decline in their core vote. There is a message here for David Trimble and Gerry Adams. People may rally to the orange and green banners at times of heightened community tensions, but when they have time to reflect on the longer term implications, what they want is leadership which will move the situation forward through negotiation and compromise.
There are signs that David Trimble at least is prepared to swallow the lessons of the past summer. Plus meetings with John Plume, his decision to break with Messrs Paisley and McCartney over the expulsion of the loyalist parties from the Stormont talks may indicate a new flexibility that could, if he holds to it, be extremely important.
IT has been difficult for those of us who spent time talking to people in Derry and Belfast over the summer to feel at all hopeful about the chances for any political progress. The atmosphere at street level seemed to have become so vindictive and unforgiving.
There were those who argued that Drumcree and all that flowed from it represented some kind of communal purging of poisons trapped in the political bloodstream and that, once this had taken place, a new beginning might be possible. Frankly, it was hard to take them seriously.
And yet, it could be that the people of Northern Ireland have now had time to consider the scale of sectarian mistrust that was revealed, how dreadfully easy it would be for the situation to slip out of control. At the very least they want their politicians to go back to the negotiating table.
President Clinton described the situation pungently when he said, "We need a few good breaks." At least one of these has already happened with the return to Belfast of George Mitchell, and his steady commitment to making the talks work.
We all know that what could transform the situation now, giving new hope to the people of Northern Ireland as well as injecting huge energy into the political talks, would be a restoration of the IRA's ceasefire. Both Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness have hinted this might be possible, but have stressed there are still considerable difficulties.
Some of the developments that followed Drumcree should help strengthen those within Sinn Fein who want a new ceasefire. The events of the summer, in particular the eviction of Catholics from their homes, made the problem of decommissioning at once more complex and easier to resolve in a way that ought to be easier for the IRA to accept. The fact that Sinn Fein and the loyalist parties are at one on the issue should help to persuade other parties of the need to accept a constructive fudge.
There are other factors for Gerry Adams and those close to him to consider. The decline in public support for Sinn Fein among the electorate in Northern Ireland (as shown in the Irish Times poll) mirrors a growing impatience with the party in Washington and Dublin. We are moving into an election period when all the parties in this State are likely to be much more concerned about economic issues than about the North.
For all the gloom, there is a brief moment of opportunity here. But we need the breaks to which President Clinton referred, very badly indeed.