Peace Comes Dropping Slow

ANYTHING can happen. It's what you have to constantly bear in mind in relation to Northern Ireland: we are only the ingenuity of a couple of disaffected paramilitaries bent on mayhem away from violence and bloodshed at any time. But there is, nonetheless, a growing feeling that we may be about to move on to the next stage in the torturous process of rapprochement between Unionist and Republican.
Nothing could be more welcome now than confirmation that this is indeed the case. We have been teetering on the edge of doom for so long that an injection of optimism is desperately needed. Without even a shade of doubt, to keep the guns and the bombs silent is the single, most pressing imperative in Northern politics. To achieve that, measured progress is essential. And if that is what's on offer, then it is absolutely crucial that it is accepted in good faith precisely for what it is.
The word coming through is that a first move on decommissioning by the IRA may be forthcoming. Some reports have suggested that this is being depicted internally, within the Republican movement, as tactical - and, therefore, that an initial step of this kind is not such as to preclude a potential return to first principles later. The danger is that these reports might be seized upon by those elements within Unionism which are fundamentally opposed to giving an inch, in order to frustrate or stifle the Mitchell Review. You can hear the likely mantra now: what guarantees can you give us that violence is at an end, now and forever, amen? Of course, no such guarantees would ever, or could ever, be possible - for how can Gerry Adams or Martin McGuinness predict what kind of militarist response might be being planned, even as we speak, by renegade IRA volunteers of one kind or another? The IRA went to sleep for long periods in the past - but the ideology of armed struggle survived. How can anyone offer guarantees that this will not happen again?
But it is a measure of the remarkable progress that has been made under the leadership of Adams, McGuinness, Mitchel McLoughlin, Pat Doherty and co., that a significant gesture on decommissioning is being contemplated at all. To anyone with an open mind, it's been obvious for a long time that the Sinn Féin leadership has made the psychological, emotional and political leap necessary to move beyond the use of military means. As far as Sinn Féin is concerned, the war is over - and over the past two years every ounce of political nous at the disposal of Sinn Féin's politicos has been directed towards bringing the more hardline supporters of the strategy of armed struggle with them. But too often there has been a truculent resistance to acknowledging this among mainstream unionists.
It would be unfair not to recognise that there is a basis for this resistance: so many abominable deeds have been done on both sides over the past 30 years that trust is inevitably at a premium. But to secure political progress it is necessary for people to ditch the preconceptions about one another that inform the prevailing atmosphere of mutual suspicion. It is necessary to climb out of the trenches and to accept positive gestures as being made in good faith.
So, the first step towards decommissioning may be seen within the Republican movement as tactical. That's fine. We are inching our way forward into a future which is free of the imminent threat of the bomb and the bullet - free of the imminent threat of violence, mayhem and bloodshed. Any such move should be embraced and reciprocated with generosity. Let's hope that it will be.
What happens in response within the Republican movement will be of crucial importance too. It isn't easy after 30 years to accept that the war is over when the ultimate goal of all that fierce intensity of striving still seems so far away. It isn't easy to think about the sacrifices made by the Republican dead and to move on, into another more mundane phase of the struggle, without feeling that those who gave their lives are somehow being betrayed. Some volunteers and activists will want to cling to the idea that all of that suffering (and the brutality that was its flipside) has not been in vain - that continuing the military campaign may yet yield access to the promised land, that a united Ireland might still be brought about by violent means.
It doesn't make sense. Now really is the time to abandon that benighted project once and for all. Even if you accept the cause as righteous, and that's no simple matter to begin with, the inescapable truth is that the scale of the devastation and suffering inflicted in its pursuit far outweighs the nature of the injustices which it seeks to redress. And besides, it is clearly evident that a process of political change is in motion which will inevitably go a long way towards correcting whatever injustices may still exist - including, potentially, over the long haul, the existence of the border itself.
No, it is time now to move on from all that bitterness and bloodshed. It is time to embrace the civilian way of life, and the civilian way of politics. It is time for argument and debate and negotiations that are entered into on equal terms - not just because you are, at last, on the cusp of being treated equally, but also because the guns and intimidation that backed your position in the past have been consigned to the dustbin of history.
There was a simplicity about the idea of armed struggle that could be seductive, especially to people inspired by the flush of youthful idealism. The chalice is handed on. Shades of grey don't come into it when you've got a gun in your hand. They can't.
Looked at in one way, what's on offer instead is complicated, messy and prosaic. It is light on adrenaline fixes. And it's not so easy to quantify the impact of your actions as it might have been when you brought a whole city to a halt.
Looked at another way, it is just the fabulous chaos of ordinary life with all its tantalising twists and turns, joys and surprises - and the immense weight of ordinary sadness and grief - that beckons us into the future.
Fuck it. It is time.