Joint Authority could be the answer

Joint Authority could be the answer (Derry News, 8^th November

Mitchell McLaughlin’s call for de facto joint authority between the two governments in the absence of his party reaching agreement with the DUP in the talks process may have provided a real solution to the intractable Northern Ireland problem.

Of course, even Mitchell McLaughlin doesn’t see it that way. He sees the joint authority as another step towards a united Ireland and an evolving of the British government out of Ireland’s affairs.

But I would argue that it is imperative that there is some kind of breakthrough in the talks and the greatest of all breakthroughs would be the acceptance of joint authority.

Two things stand in the way of such a monumental breakthrough: the Irish Government and the unionists.

The unionists are against it because it takes away from them their “divine right” to be the legitimate people of Northern Ireland, their right to be a chosen people with insights into themselves derived from the Bible. They continue to reject equality for the same reason that it doesn’t recognise their special-ness.

The Irish government are against it as it would give them more responsibility as well as more influence, and they would not be able to foot the bill, as they would see it, in the same way as the British do so there is no point in them going down that road.

But for us to achieve Irish unity, I would argue that we must first accept that joint authority is a desirable political goal of both traditions. It is in effect the ultimate compromise, accepting as it does the legitimacy of both political traditions in Ireland, and the necessary role of the British government in Irish affairs at the behest of the unionists for all time.

In other words, joint authority is as valid as my own recent suggestion in these pages of a repartitioned Ireland. Joint authority with joint sovereignty would be even better as it would give someone like me the right to call myself Irish in a meaningful way and it would give our brothers and sisters in the unionist community the same right to call themselves British.

More than anything else the acceptance of joint authority would be the litmus test of any person claiming to be a unionist or a nationalist but expressing a desire to have members of both communities treated equally. You cannot be serious about treating members of the other community fairly and with respect if you don’t respect their right to call themselves Irish or British.

Those walking the path to Irish unity, itself a goal that can only be achieved through agreement, persuasion and consent, must tread though the red-hot ashes of joint authority first. There will be hostility and opposition, but there will also be a sense of having finally arrived at a proper and noble resolution of the Irish conflict.

Without the concession on the part of republicans of the legitimacy of the unionist position in Ireland, there will never be a united Ireland. I believe that true Irish unity lies at the other side of this “concession” of Nationalists and Republicans.

It’s a bit like having to prove that you are good in order to get into heaven, or more this-worldly, having to prove to your potential father-in-law that your intentions are honourable before you can marry his daughter.

Republicans must simply accept that unionists have as much legitimacy in their part of the country as they have, and see what happens from then on in. Otherwise we are simply fighting for absolutes, such as flags and emblems, songs and poems, that give us rights beyond reason, including the right to take human life.

Such rights only exist in our minds, not in any sense of reason or in a sense of proportion that allows us to fully comprehend a divided society such as ours.

The only way that republicans can oppose joint sovereignty/authority would be along the same lines as the unionists: that the Irish people are a “chosen people” in the Old Testament sense, in other words a pre-Christian people, and they cannot be seen to imply that any other group of people is equal to them.

Meanwhile lives are lost, families endure the sickness of sectarianism, and a people not born to fight, are readying themselves in their own minds to do battle again.

Irish unity, if it is going to happen at all, lies at the other side of joint sovereignty/authority, and it’s time that republicans began to think in this broader sense.

*John O’Connell isDerry-based author.

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