Time for change
Brian Campbell
An Phoblacht/Republican News Thursday 2 July, 1998
After a hectic, historic three months politics in the Six Counties is still not allowed time to draw breath. In fact, when the Assembly met on Wednesday there was no shortage of breath.
What was significant was that an engagement of sorts took place. Not any sort of polite, measured debate, but a debate nevertheless. Far from the DUP and UKUP members ignoring Sinn Fein they were drawn into responding to them. Perhaps it will develop into something more constructive. That said, don't hold your breath.
Looming over the Assembly's first meeting was, of course, the threat from Orangemen to march on the nationalist Garvaghy Road.
The annual crisis over the march from Drumcree threatens once more to erupt into violence on the streets. The situation is now very tense.
Residents fear a British or RUC decision to over-rule the Parades commission decision. That would be blatantly against the spirit of the Agreement, which requires that citizens should not suffer sectarian intimidation. The Agreement also speaks about a future of equality. No longer as newly elected Assembly member Bairbre De Brun said should residents be seen as being in the way of something. They are people with rights and they deserve respect.
If the march goes ahead it would also be at variance with the resounding nationalist success in the Assembly elections. The Six Counties is so clearly not the place it was even a few years ago. Nationalists emerged from the election with their highest ever share of the vote - a total of 39.6%. It is further proof that the nationalist community is on the march, so to speak. They will no longer tolerate being classed as second-class citizens. They are saying that in the polling stations as well as on the streets.
By contrast unionists are split wide open and that has implications for the wider Unionist community. The intransigent elements within Unionism are currently engaged in a long term rearguard action. In the Assembly and as regards Orange marches, they want to cling on to old certainties. Slowly but surely they will come to realise the sort of changes that are inevitable. One of them is respect for the rights of their nationalist neighbours.
The unionist vote was split so much that for the first time a nationalist party, the SDLP, topped the poll with 22%.
But the SDLP has polled as high in the past. The real winners within nationalism were Sinn Fein. Their 17.6% confirms their steady advance this decade from less than 11% until now they are the biggest party in Belfast and in the counties of Tyrone and Fermanagh. The result also makes Sinn Fein the third largest party in Ireland. Their combined vote throughout the island is bettered only by Fianna Fail and Fine Gael.
A further piece of good news for Sinn Fein came in the shape of a report which shows that the party attracted 80% of new nationalist voters. That is a vital statistic given the SDLPs ageing profile and it points to Sinn Fein soon becoming the largest nationalist party in the Six Counties.
But the SDLP now has the opportunity to rebuild. The prospect of salaried political careers is likely to see an influx of personally ambitious young people into the party in the coming years.
The contrast between nationalism and unionism which this election has exposed
is indeed stark. The sense of empowerment which the peace process has given
to nationalists is expressed in a confident, coherent strategy - against
a palpable fear of the future among unionists. For them, it is the slow,
painful process of coming to terms with change. |
