Opinion

Fionnuala O Connor: Election a sign we should move on, for the sake of Old Lang Syne

A rountable meeting at Stormont in Belfast with (left to right) Conor Murphy, Michelle O'Neill, Arlene Foster, Edwin Poots, Colum Eastwood, Nichola Mallon, Robbie Butler with Julian Smith Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (front right) and Simon Coveney Tanaiste (front left). Photo by Liam McBurney/PA Wire
A rountable meeting at Stormont in Belfast with (left to right) Conor Murphy, Michelle O'Neill, Arlene Foster, Edwin Poots, Colum Eastwood, Nichola Mallon, Robbie Butler with Julian Smith Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (front right) and Simon Cov A rountable meeting at Stormont in Belfast with (left to right) Conor Murphy, Michelle O'Neill, Arlene Foster, Edwin Poots, Colum Eastwood, Nichola Mallon, Robbie Butler with Julian Smith Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (front right) and Simon Coveney Tanaiste (front left). Photo by Liam McBurney/PA Wire

On the day of the year when non-singers sing at midnight after heavy-duty drinking, one particular song takes a hammering. ‘For the sake of old lang syne, my dear...’

But a line from something else better fits with bidding farewell to one year and open-hearted meeting of the new one: ‘Let those who will remember and those who can forget.’

There are reasons to think people here remember too much. Those with hearts permanently broken by violent deeds should not be told by anyone what they should and should not remember. Being told to do the impossible can only make the sadness sharper. There are good and proper arguments against forgetting, and more that are bad-minded. The worst recommend forgetfulness for those who did evil in the name of a cause, or the state, or their own careless and unintelligent sense of revenge.

Better, though, if most of us could forget. Better for communal mental health, and for the sake of wading out of the swamp towards progress of some kind, however flawed and patchy.

Whether in truth a new centre ground is solid now or merely there in outline, a flimsy surface thing, there is no downside to interpreting the vote in general as one for shaking hands and moving on, for the sake of Old Lang Syne. When last did we get any such sign?

If only the most relentless memorialisers were more sensitive souls. Working up communal memories into outrage should surely be recognised as a crime. Loudmouths should zip their lips; incitement is too difficult to prosecute and some have done little else all their public lives.

In the name of progress, the two parties who were told by the voters this month to mind their manners might simply cancel ceremonies. And oh, wild fantasy, marches. Does every loyalist protest need an Orange emissary? Are country families forever mourning lost young sons helped by a guest speaker from Dublin or Derry cranking out slogans and waving a fist? ‘The biggest show in the country’ – which country, eh? - would get by with less yelling.

Agreement on sharing what feeble power Stormont has, civilly, might now hang on people minding their manners and forgetting some bad behaviour last time around.

Though the forgetting should only follow a clearout of an incompetent civil service which imagines itself above the fray, and a stitching in of safeguards against unaccountable administration.

The world’s on fire, and we polish up the worst memories? 1614, 1690, Penal Laws, the Famine... 20s, 30s, 1969. Terrified to sound forgiving, some want praise for that. Time to take a chance on the huge yearning for just getting on with life.

Playing up bitterness and generating fresh mistrust did not go well at the polls. Those ugly banners and that fake letter damaged the parties they were intended to help. It may be the first such boomerang, at least the first so swiftly punished. We should hold on to that as a helpful, positive memory.

But most formal commemorations, like demands to condemn and show remorse, have nothing to do with truth or justice. What they do is exploit grief. Do leaders give them approval or at least show no disapproval simply to postpone work on new political programmes? Looks like it.

Sinn Féin is trying, if mainly through fronts like Ireland’s Future. The DUP looks internally dislocated, demoralised. The wise Denis Bradley dubbed them the parties least suited to lead this place into new relationships with the rest of Ireland, and Britain. But they are what we have, and Sinn Féin at least well knows it must keep on changing.

The words were already old when Robbie Burns re-worked them. Another tweak won’t hurt. ‘Here’s a hand my trusty friend, and give me a hand o’ thine. And we’ll take a cup of kindness yet for old lang syne.’

May politics be kinder in 2020.