From Unity, 21 March 2009

Commitment questioned!

by W. Owl

The actions of republican paramilitaries opposed to the Good Friday Agreement resulting in three dead and four wounded have quite rightly been condemned by people the length and breadth of Ireland.
     There has been a great degree of political commentary, with the vast majority in a positive light, but there has been some that has been negative. One of those on the negative side was the Belfast Telegraph columnist Gail Walker—which, knowing her track record, is not surprising.
     Under the sarcastic heading “Your day has definitely come, Martin McGuinness,” she used the events in Antrim and Craigavon to launch an attack on Sinn Féin. She wrote that what was “required” was that two “living” men, Peter Robinson and Martin McGuinness, First Minister and Deputy First Minister, “Our Government,” should stand up and be counted.
     I don’t know where she had been the previous couple of days, as both had made statements—indeed Robinson was praised for his measured response, as opposed to a knee-jerk reaction, and McGuinness was quoted in the Irish News as stating, amongst other comments, that “the people responsible are signalling that they want to restart that war. Well, I deny their right to do that.”
     Her attention then turned to Sinn Féin when she wrote: “Was that it then? Was that the peace? Were the last 10 years our lot? Are we back in the 1960s after the border campaign?” She then follows this up with “Can we look forward to yet another outburst of republican purism, now that it seems Sinn Féin can’t deliver on its promise to end the war?”
     What Sinn Féin could have done to prevent the RIRA or CIRA from carrying out the attacks Walker doesn’t tell us. But when you are in the game of smearing someone, you don’t have to.
     She writes that the “dissidents merely have to be big enough and deadly enough to pose their erstwhile friends, Sinn Féin, a very nasty question: whose side are you really on?”
     It’s obvious that Walker is relishing this situation; and who are the unionists she refers to, those who are opposed to power-sharing and the Good Friday Agreement in general? She seems to be posing questions that other unionists aren’t. Unless. of course. she is indulging in good old-fashioned shit-stirring.
     She carries on: “If there’s any hedge-trimming by Sinn Féin [whatever that is] people will rightly conclude the peace process is a sham.”
     She then backtracks a wee bit when she concedes that “I suppose their leaders have just about passed the first hurdle and kept the show on the road.”
     Unfortunately, and again not surprisingly, this backtracking doesn’t last long when she states, “Still, while their condemnation may have satisfied all the legalistic necessities many will feel it has more to do with the political logic of the situation than any deeply felt revulsion.” You can only assume that if Sinn Féin said the world was round then Walker would argue it was flat, because how could you believe anything Sinn Féin says?
     She states that Sinn Féin took more than 12 hours before it issued a statement, which “has been duly noted by many people here.” No, Gail, it has been duly noted by you.
     She then goes on to state that, “Their sincere condemnation should be axiomatic.” I bet she had to consult a dictionary before she used that word. Just an example of Walker trying to prove she has some form of intelligence or, in her case, some form of arrogance.
     Anyway, if Sinn Féin were “axiomatic” in their response it wouldn’t mean anything to her.
     She finishes her diatribe by stating: “If Sinn Féin speaks with a forked tongue of these murders—or prattles on about the dangers of the PSNI overstepping the mark in their efforts to track down the gunmen—unionists will think they have sat down with a bunch of slippery twisters who think a peace process means more one-way concessions.
     “It is not enough for Sinn Féin to say they support the peace process. They now have to say they want peace. Pure and simple.”
     The point is that the PSNI may overstep the mark, with all the dangers in that.
     There were twenty responses to her article, only one in support, which speaks volumes.
     Walker may question Sinn Féin’s commitment to the Good Friday Agreement, but some of us would question hers.

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