Even aside from the clamour from some quarters for a highly-selective truth, and the frequent exploitation of victims by all sides, it is clear that many people believe reconciliation in Northern Ireland is dependent on our first going through some kind of "truth process", writes David Adams.
I believed this myself for a time, but not any more. We should be clear on precisely what people expect from such a dedicated process, and the probable consequences of their expectations being met. They will be looking for the delivery of nothing less than the finer details of the Troubles. And why wouldn't they?
After all, everything else is already known. We already know, even down to the specifics in many instances, that British government agencies colluded at times (for the "greater good", they would no doubt claim) with both loyalist and republican terrorists. And that, throughout the Troubles, the Irish government did little to address the porous nature of the Border and was less than enthusiastic about arresting and extraditing republican terrorists wanted for questioning about serious offences in the North. Everyone knows, as near as makes no difference, which of the paramilitary organisations was responsible for particular actions. However, if we attempt to go beyond this broad knowledge, by definition we get into the realms of trying to find out precisely who did what to whom. It is then that major problems will arise.
How can we be certain that a truth process will not be exploited in much the same way as the victims were? Presuming everyone agrees to co-operate, which is a big presumption, can we seriously expect paramilitaries, in particular, to come clean on fine detail? Is it not more likely that we would be treated, instead, to a self-serving history where responsibility is heaped on opponents, or former colleagues now dead or out of favour? And, even if they did come clean, would it really be in the best interests of society here for the paramilitaries and the governments (primarily the British) to throw open for public examination all of the sordid and sorry secrets of the Troubles? Unquestionably, such disclosure would be of great interest to the public and the media. But we cannot pretend that such knowledge would be in the wider interest of a society noted for being as short on forgiveness as it is long on memory.
Internal community cohesion, for example, would hardly be furthered by people learning who within their midst were paid informers and agents. Nor would reconciliation within rural communities, in particular, be advanced by people finding out precisely who among their neighbours and acquaintances murdered, or set up for murder, family members and friends.
Far from assisting reconciliation, such a raking over of the ashes of the conflict, long before they have cooled, would be more likely to set it back by decades. It may also have a profound effect on the peace process itself. No rational person can possibly disagree with the proposition that governments, above everyone else, have a duty to conform rigidly to the letter of the law. But it should be remembered that both the Police Ombudsman's Office and, to a lesser degree, the PSNI Historical Inquiries Team are already trawling through the past activities of the security forces in search of wrongdoing.
If, however, it is decided that nothing less than the full intimate disclosure of everything related to the activities of previous administrators and their agents will do, then it is not hard to predict what would happen next. Similar logic would immediately be applied to the present day, and there would be a demand that the intimate history of all of the elected representatives at Stormont be made public.
After all, so the argument would go, the history of our present rulers is of infinitely more importance than the transgressions of those who are no longer in power. Given all of the implications, and I have only scraped the surface here, it is highly unlikely that the powersharing Executive could bear the weight of a genuine, full-blown truth process.
And it is upon survival of the present political arrangements, and not some ill-thought-out, cliché-driven quick-fix scheme, that gradual and genuine reconciliation ultimately depends. There are those who say that if the political institutions cannot take the weight of full disclosure now, then they are probably destined for collapse anyway.
That is like insisting that a young sapling should be tested to destruction on its weight-bearing capacity. For that is what the present political arrangements are akin to: a delicate young plant that needs nurturing to maturity. Genuine public interest must dictate that we do not test them too much, either prematurely or unnecessarily. There is a naive belief that, as if by some law of nature, reconciliation must follow truth as effortlessly as day follows night.
Real life doesn't quite work like that. If we insist now on trying to tie up the loose ends of the Troubles into some neat little package, then we will probably destroy what we already have.