Seeking a Northern Ireland peace

Press, 29 July 1989, Page 22

Seeking a Northern Ireland peace

Britain’s Irish Stew. By R. B. Alexander. Brackenridge Press, Dunedin, 1989. 217 pp. $24.95 (paperback). (Reviewed by Ken Fraser) Probably few people outside Northern Ireland comprehend one of Christianity’s great scandals, the unholy sectarian war in that British province. This, book should stir the cauldron of debate and turn up a few morsels of enlightenment for its New Zealand readers. It is not a pretentious catalyst for peace or a wand over the romanticist’s united Ireland potion, but an impressively objective search by a long-time student of Irish history. Belfast-bred, Bob Alexander has revisited his homeland a number of times since settling in Dunedin 27 years ago, and his conclusion in support of a redrawn all-Protestant and independent state in the north is perhaps the most provocative section of his book. Nevertheless, the sight of lan Paisley genuflecting before the Pope and kissing the ring of Saint Peter would be even more likely than a united Ireland or Ulster Protestants and Catholics sharing power. The author, who had a Belfast Protestant upbringing, is authoritative and bold

about his former community’s “morbid, paranoic” fear of the Catholic Church. Descendants of the “implantations” of Protestant Scottish lowlanders, who had a salvation-through-work philosophy, maintain their right to jobs in front of a minority group because they regard that group, illogically, as having no allegiance to the State. Institutionalised discrimination in housing, employment, and voting rights continued for half a century virtually unchallenged by ineffectual and fragmented Catholic political efforts until the legitimate civil rights meetings 20 years ago, the violent Protestant backlash, and the subsequent heavy British military presence. The author views Britain as holding a pro-Protestant stance in a Protestant regime in which the Catholic community has only the reconstituted LR.A., pre-empting the role of a radical Catholic party, for its defence. Protestant “paramilitary” forces do not share the “terrorist” tag bestowed by the authorities on the LR.A. Some of Bob Alexander’s strongest condemnations are directed at the Orange Order. As a binding organisation for the Protestant groups, says the author, it subverts everything in its path. Orangeism, he says, has a hatred of the Catholic Church that transcends everything else and has a parallel with Nazism’s identification of the Jews as the common enemy. Whenever the chips are down in the face of a British initiative the two Unionist political parties form an immovable Protestant vote. The Unionist block has three military forces, including the Royal Ulster Constabulary, at its disposal, and they would close ranks should the British Army withdraw. Northern Ireland’s Protestants have threatened to declare unilateral independence if faced with forced entrance into a united Ireland. In any event, the Republic of Ireland has failed to provide a climate for union; not that the republic would want a

million recalcitrant Protestants dumped in its lap. The Catholic Church, in the author’s opinion, holds an undue influence in the affairs of the republican democracy. Major differences in moral issues and religious approach alienate the majority cultures of north and south, and British conservatism is awkward as the historical tyrant in dealings with Catholic Ireland whose •religion is “not some collapsible stage upon which the latest fashionable political play takes place.” Britain, inept as ever with the socalled Irish question, remains the most influential of the elements in fixing the mess it created. The boundaries, for instance, it insisted upon for the partition of Ireland in 1921 were unsuited to north and south. After exploring various options, the author suggests that Protestants be provided with their own unchallenged and independent territory in the north and with Dominion status. Preceding this would be a 10-year breathing space in which Britain would formulate the framework before withdrawing. The United States has pledged massive financial aid in the event of a solution, and help would be sought from America and Commonwealth countries in such matters as housing and relocation. Seventeenth-century ignorance, alive and well, near the end of the second millennium, is bad enough, but the author’s proposal might do little more than give it insularity to feed on its own bacteria. Yet he provides an absorbing build-up and many facets of Irish political history. One thing for certain, as he says, is that Ulster Protestants and Catholics cannot and will not share political power. (Available from Brackenridge Press, 74 Cliffs Road, St Clair, Dunedin).