I think one of the most important questions in front of us, is this: do we want a cooperative and reconciled Northern Ireland?
Two weeks away from the 21st anniversary of the signing of the Good Friday Agreement, it is a question worth asking. So let's look at some key evidence. We have stalemate rather than resolution. We have no agreement on the constitutional future of Northern Ireland and no arrangements for parking the question while we deal with pressing socio/economic issues. There is increasing electoral polarisation focused on the rise of both the DUP and Sinn Féin.
We are into the third year without a functioning Assembly and Executive. A public inquiry into the RHI saga has exposed forms of governance which would embarrass a banana republic. There is no stability or consensus at the political centre. There is no agreement about a common narrative. Northern Ireland remains an us-and-them society. We still have an us-and-them approach to victims. The only 'truth' anyone is interested in is self-confessed evidence of wrongdoing done by their opponents; evidence which can then be recalibrated, allowing them to justify some of their own activities, including terrorism and paramilitarism.
A 'generation' is generally reckoned to be in and around 20-25 years. So the post-Good Friday Agreement generation - who were supposed to be the first real beneficiaries of the peace process - are all now adults. It is important to accept that they have grown up in a terror-free environment; that said, is the political/electoral/community environment they've grown up in any better than it was for me (and I'm of that generation which was just entering its teens in 1968)? I would argue that it isn't.
Megan, my eldest (she was born in October 1998), cast her first vote on March 2, 2017, in the Assembly election. That Assembly has yet to meet. The electoral choices she had were, more or less, the same choices I had when I cast my first vote in the general election in February 1974. Back then the United Ulster Unionist Coalition was seeking a mandate to bring down the Sunningdale Assembly; although I was pro-power sharing and supported Brian Faulkner. What she didn't have on her ballot paper was a choice of new political vehicles which represented and spoke for her generation.
The baggage of my generation is still there; still cluttering up the hallways and blocking the pathway to something new and better. The problem is that the something new and better requires truth and reconciliation and truth and reconciliation requires a broad-based desire for a shared future and political cooperation - which doesn't, or so it seems to me, exist. Crucially, I'm not persuaded that it will ever exist. Which, in turn, means that a truth and reconciliation process is unlikely to happen, either.
Let's be honest, what is the likelihood of terrorists, governments, intelligence services, security services and political parties telling the full, unvarnished truth about their respective roles since the late 1960s? None at all. How could they even embark upon that process against a background of ongoing stalemate? Who tells their secrets - and there are an awful lot of secrets being covered up - when telling those secrets would raise key questions about motivation and strategy? Anyway, telling secrets can only have a purpose when everyone has already agreed a common way forward. That agreement does not exist.
Personally, I have always been interested in the exact nature of the relationship between the IRA and successive UK governments. Back channels were opened in the spring of 1972 - maybe even slightly earlier than that - with the first formal discussions taking place between Secretary of State William Whitelaw and representatives of the Provisionals in July. Those channels remained open for most of the next 25 years. What was being talked about? What were the red lines for both sides?
Is it the case that the primary, if unstated policy of successive governments was, in fact, to find a way of bringing the IRA and Sinn Féin into an institutional process rather than use the considerable military/intelligence might of the UK state to destroy every aspect of their terrorist capabilities? And if that was the case, is it also the case that the IRA continued with the terrorist campaign for propaganda reasons only, knowing that the end destination was always a political process?
Anyway, back to my opening question. I think the only thing we can say with certainty is that the overwhelming majority of people do not want a return to violence. But that's about all we can say. On just about everything else we remain as divided as ever. My middle child, Lilah-Liberty, has her first vote in 2027; while Indy, my youngest, will have to wait until 2035. I fully expect their electoral choices to be the same as Megan's in 2017 and mine in 1974.