Beyond the hyperbole, what next for Northern Ireland?

national | miscellaneous | other press Thursday May 10, 2007 13:54 by Chris Marsden and Julie Hyland

The ceremonial opening of the power-sharing Executive at Stormont, with Sinn Fein’s Martin McGuinness sitting alongside Ian Paisley of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), is portrayed as a fairy tale ending to the Northern Ireland peace process. In fact, it is more akin to a business agreement between two hostile parties charged with opening up Northern Ireland PLC to global investors.

There was something grotesque about the sight of Paisley laughing and joking with the media, telling them, “I wonder why people hate me, because I’m just a nice man.” And McGuiness standing alongside him, whilst outside Stormont police broke up a protest against the Iraq war. More revolting still were the efforts of Prime Minister Tony Blair to cast himself as the architect of peace, as if more than three decades of bloody conflict had nothing to do with Britain.

Talk of Northern Ireland’s sectarian conflict being put to one side is true in only one respect. The Republican and Unionist divisions that have been fostered by British imperialism for centuries have played a vital role in concealing the essential class antagonisms within Northern Irish society. The alliance between the DUP and Sinn Fein will serve to expose them as parties of capital, fundamentally hostile to the social interests of the working class—Catholic and Protestant alike.

Almost a decade has passed since the signing of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998, which inaugurated the power-sharing Executive at Stormont. This was made possible by Sinn Fein’s agreement to renounce its terrorist campaign and accept the legitimacy of the Northern Irish state.

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