"It's only words, and words are all I have" as Ronan Keating once sang. If only real life was as simple as cheesy ballads would suggest. Yesterday's "historic" declaration by the IRA that it is abandoning violence after 35 years of bloodshed is very welcome. As were all those other "historic" declarations about a "total cessation" and "the war" being "over". Fine words indeed, but only words.
Given the Provisional movement's long record of duplicity, words mean nothing. Only action, or in thos case inaction counts. If the IRA really have "gone away, you know", then the political atmosphere in Ireland will truly be transformed. But if, as I strongly suspect, the Provos continue with the racketeering, the money laundering and the intimidation, then nothing will change, except that the public's cynicsm will increase a little.
How could one not be cynical about this week's shenanigans? Yesterday's statement was trailed by excited chatter in the media about changes in the IRA Army Council's memebership, presumably fuelled by the Sinn Fein press office. Adams, McGuinness and Ferris have apparently stepped down from the Provos' board of directors. These are the three gents who have long denied even being in the IRA, let alone being at senior management level.
Does this mean that this trio of parliamentarians will no longer have any influence over the Ra? At a fromal level this will be the case, but only a fool would believe that the threesome will no longer have any sway with the hard men. It seems far more likely that Gerry and the two Martins have stepped back from the IRA to create a cordon sanitaire of plausible deniability. These men, who hope to soon be the recipients of ministerial limos, will need a good alibi the next time the IRA rob a bank or stab a man to death. This, rather than a sea-change within republicanism, seems a more likely explanation.
Yesterday's statement was also preceded by another event which encourages cynicism; the release of sectarian mass-murderer Sean Kelly. A month ago NI Secretary Peter Hain was teling us that Kelly had had his license revoked for engaging in paramilitary activity. Now after a couple of weeks back inside, it is apparently safe to release the Ardoyne man back into society. What marvelous rehabilitative powers the NI Prison Service must have!
Again, how can one not be cynical about Kelly's summer holiday in Maghaberry? As Pete Baker put it on Slugger yesterday: "either the original re-arrest was politically motivated, or the release is, or both." Having been re-arrested as a sop to unionists, or to those pesky "securocrats", he ws then re-released as a sop to the Provos. Were it not for Kelly's dark past, one could almost feel sorry for him, used as a pawn in other men's games.
What in all this, of the rule of law? What of justice? What of the families of Kelly's victims who don't seem to be on anybody's radar? The only thing that seems to matter here is the process (I no longer use the adjective "peace") which must be kept going at all costs. The process, the process, the process; as well-known truth-teller Tony Blair might say.
And what a long process it is. It's now eleven summers since the IRA promised us a "total cessation". Now they say they are "standing down". In the intervening period you could have fought two world wars and still had some change. The sheer length of the process breeds cynicism about its machinations. There are so many over-hyped pronouncemnets that they soon dull the senses. Or to quote a friend's father earlier this week "Oh great, historic statement number thirteen hundred and forty-two."
After yesterday's tell-your-grandchildren-about-it pronouncement from the IRA, it seems more than possible that life will go on as before. The Provos will not of course go back to the cul-de-sac of the long war. But neither will they give up the criminality and the Brownshirtism. Just the excuses will change.
And they're only words.