Lessons to learn from this tentative peace

Graham Walker The announcements last Saturday in east Belfast that the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) had decommissioned its weapons, and that the Ulster Defence Association (UDA) had begun the process, were widely welcomed, if somewhat overshadowed by the death of Michael Jackson. However, there was never any expectation of popular rejoicing. Nationalists and not a few unionists believe it was long overdue, but many in the Protestant working-class areas where the loyalist paramilitaries are based remain bluntly opposed.

Graham Walker

The announcements last Saturday in east Belfast that the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) had decommissioned its weapons, and that the Ulster Defence Association (UDA) had begun the process, were widely welcomed, if somewhat overshadowed by the death of Michael Jackson. However, there was never any expectation of popular rejoicing. Nationalists and not a few unionists believe it was long overdue, but many in the Protestant working-class areas where the loyalist paramilitaries are based remain bluntly opposed.

The significance of the moves for the strengthening of the political process in Northern Ireland seems real enough. Fewer guns and gunmen should spread confidence in the Stormont system of government - peculiar as that system, with its four-party executive and mutual communal vetoes, may be. If the UDA follows the UVF example and completes the process, there will be an even greater likelihood of the nationalist community shunning the "back to war" message of dissident republicans and rendering them ineffective. At present the dissidents still pose a threat, feeding off the discontent of elements in some strongholds over the "Stormont sell-out". Loyalist decommissioning can only help Sinn Fein win the argument in the nationalist community about the benefits of peace and politics.

Nonetheless, the threat from dissident republicans made the decision to decommission a risky one for the loyalists. In the view of those for whom they represented a genuine line of defence - and defiance - there will always be a danger of a republican return to violence. In socially deprived Protestant districts there is a serious lack of confidence in the security forces, and the still relatively new Police Service of Northern Ireland has been derided.

The sense many poorer Protestants have of themselves is of a people left behind in the peace process, a community whose concerns are ignored because they do not fit with the narrative of the times. It cannot be said that the loyalists' decision to decommission reflects a greater confidence and more purposeful outlook on the part of their community. Rather, it has occurred against a background of worrying levels of social alienation, poor educational attainment and political demoralisation. Some of the resentment found expression in the deplorable harassment of Romanian immigrants.

The massive challenge facing the political representatives of the UVF and the more far-sighted leaders of the UDA is to give their community a reason to place their faith in politics and to show that political engagement can bring results. The extent of that task is reflected in the fact that Dawn Purvis of the Progressive Unionist Party, who read out the statement about UVF decommissioning, is the sole political presence associated with the loyalist paramilitaries at Stormont and, usually, the only voice of badly-off Protestants in the Assembly.

Purvis, a feminist and socialist, incorporated into her statement the plaintive words of the loyalist folk hero Gusty Spence, about the readiness with which radical thinkers in his community were dismissed as crypto-republicans or communists. She knows that not much has changed since Spence's heyday. Her party has confronted the problem of trying to change an ingrained defensiveness in Unionist political culture. The further fragmentation of Unionist politics could be seen in the European elections with the strong showing of Traditional Unionist Voice, an anti-Good Friday Agreement party. Politicians such as Purvis need to believe that decommissioning helps send a signal to ordinary Protestants that it is time for a new start.

What might be the significance of loyalist decommissioning for Scotland? If Northern Ireland can remain peaceful, this helps make the lingering sectarian problems in Scotland more manageable. There is the hope that supporters of the loyalist and republican causes will be less prone to romanticise and glamorise "the struggle" and "the siege". With the threat of paramilitary violence effectively removed, more Scots might be inclined to show interest in how devolution is working in another part of the UK. Scotland might begin to notice how much she has in common with Northern Ireland as a largely public-sector economy in a recession and time of cutbacks.