Stakeholder

The glitterati and political hoi polloi love everything to do with our peace process. They want to export our success.  To them the grotty underworld of murder, intimidation and terror are histories.  To them they are as mild as an Agatha Christie plotline. Of course Agatha Christie novels are the stuff of a tame but vivid imagination where murders are carried out with panache by romantic villains. Even the murdered tend to be haughty arrogant people justly exited- albeit in somewhat unseemly circumstances. If Northern Ireland was a murder mystery it’s more Ted Bundy than Miss Marple.

In the silver plated world of Shaun Woodward and his political ilk; moral outrage is directed towards thick headed non conforming loyalists and backwoods dissident republicans without any sense of irony that these are the degenerate spawn of the lead parties in our current Executive; now so warmly embraced and feted.

Until recently these rump factors were easily dismissed as being passed their sell by date or as back to the future merchants. Of course, let’s make a distinction while the TUV is far from a harmless political movement their activities have remained political but the dissident Continuity IRA and their Real IRA counter-parts are underground organisations comprised of scumbags motivated by half baked ideologies and the sinister power that is derived from ownership of a balaclava and bomb-making kit.

While the so called ‘Hand of History’ appeared to absolve the original protagonists from their collusion in the terror and sectarianism; it’s the reach of the ‘Hands beyond the Grave’ which are presenting the most problems for those wishing to move from culpability to canonisation thanks to collective societal amnesia.

The voices from the grave won’t be silenced; indeed they are crying out. The revelations that the reminisces of former loyalist and republican paramilitaries are to be aired with devastating consequences; is proof in the veracity of old adage that what goes on round come round. Maybe it’s just karma.

Naturally those who cooperated with the telling of these stories may have thought they would have been granted longer lives as their revelations are certainly damning and embarrassing for the current leadership of so called reformed loyalism, republicanism and the securocrats in the British Government. Al Gore might call it an ‘inconvenient truth!’

Naturally it will not make one bit of difference to the political balance at Stormont. Those old enough to remember don’t dare to remember and those too young to remember don’t care too. Those particularly in the SDLP or the Ulster Unionists who seem to labour under the illusion that support for Sinn Fein or the DUP is some-kind of temporary electoral dispensation might as well try the CS Lewis Wardrobe on the Holywood Road to enter Narnia. However that’s not to say that the Stormont coronation crowns should not be pricked by the odd thorn or two. In fact the wearers should be continually humbled by the electorate willingness to forgive their respective pasts.

Now we have the spectacle of loyalists saying that their price for participating in the Good Friday Agreement was an amnesty from prosecution for any crimes committed. Personally, I believe they probably were told that. In fact I am surprised it wasn’t given to them in writing. Thankfully people like Raymond Mc Cord are not swept up by the collective hypnotism. He wants justice for the murder of his son. So too does Michael Gallagher. So too does the Claudy and Loughinisland families.

It would be so politically convenient if all these people and others could be bought off or better still be comforted by counselling. But they, other victims and their families are entitled to remain politically inconvenient by their presence, protest and continued pursuit for justice.

The revisionists say there should be no hierarchy of victims but it is becoming increasingly obvious that there is a hierarchy. Innocent victims and their families are supposed to accept the whitewash of vague apologies while justice and retribution is to be pursued for those with political clout.

If the cry of victims comes back to haunt the perpetrators of murder in Northern Ireland – no matter how high their station- natural justice demands equality and honesty of treatment.

It seems pointless to take the high moral ground when pursuing octogenarian Nazis or Balkan War criminals to atone for their misdeeds when at the same time we are prepared to lionise and collude to cover-up murder in our own back-yard because its politically convenient. Lent may be over but the penance isn’t.