Opinion

Book highlights need to complete the peace jigsaw

 The Ballymurphy massacre families
 The Ballymurphy massacre families  The Ballymurphy massacre families

Brian Rowan’s book, ‘Unfinished Peace, Thoughts on Northern Ireland’s Unanswered Past’ is a classic example of first-hand history at its best.

To tell the story of what peace actually means he selected some well-known and mainly lesser known but nonetheless important individuals, to write their personal accounts about the impact of peace on them and their families.

The book’s appeal and power lies in the manner in which it reveals itself to you through the personal stories from people from different backgrounds especially those who lost loved ones during the conflict.

Reading their stories of loss, I felt their brokenness in their emotional turmoil and wilderness as I recalled those I know who lost family members or those I knew in the IRA, who died young, or went to jail or lived their lives in exile.

The contributions are from relatives, from former combatants (republican, loyalist and state forces), from those working on behalf of relatives from religious ministers and politicians from academics, journalists and civic society. All worthy contributions.

The personal accounts and the author’s commentary stretches the readers’ emotions from end to end.

Through the eyes of others, or more accurately their pens, we are reminded of how difficult it was to achieve peace and to maintain it.

And how immensely difficult it has been to achieve a meaningful truth recovery process for those relatives who lost loved one’s despite the incredible achievements of setting up new all-Ireland institutions, the release of political prisoners, a new police service and the demilitarisation of society to give but a few examples.

The book devotes a considerable amount of commentary arguing for a credible and workable truth recovery process inside a framework which fulfils the hopes of relatives and meets the needs of those protagonists in the conflict who have the truth to tell: the British government, republicans, unionists and loyalists.

Its publication before Christmas coincided with the latest failure to agree truth mechanisms in the pre-Christmas negotiations which produced the ‘Fresh Start Agreement’.

This crucial aspect of the negotiations hit an insurmountable obstacle when the British government introduced its ‘national security’ veto. A veto which Sinn Fein tried to overcome with a series of proposals which recognised the British government’s concerns but offered a way forward. They were rejected.

For most of his career in journalism Brian Rowan has specialised as a security correspondent. It is what he is well-known and highly respected for. But over the last number of years he has also specialised in and written and spoken extensively on the need to deal with the legacy of the past – the final piece of the peace jigsaw – yet to be inserted.

It is a glaring gap which urgently needs filled. Brian Rowan says it requires new and fresh thinking on what is possible; what is doable.

He argues for language when dealing with the past which chimes with the mood of reconciliation with the new beginnings and sense of hope that came with the Good Friday Agreement of 1998.

He offers some new and fresh thinking. Scrutiny of the past should be to ensure it never happens again – not a parade of shame for the British government, republicans or loyalists.

He suggests there is no one truth, narrative or answer. There are multiple, contested and competing narratives and truths and explanations. And that all of these narratives should be accepted as genuine, if not agreed, as a contribution to a wider understanding of the origins of the conflict.

The author’s approach includes and records all those who made a valuable contribution to peace, including former political prisoners, who are routinely scapegoated, overlooked and demonised by the British government and unionist politicians and sections of the media.

He does not shy away from collusion and the British state’s role in this.

And he challenges the leadership of nationalist Ireland to do more than just criticise dissident republicans for their armed activities: “Like the IRA before them they will not be condemned off the stage.”

This book puts the needs of the relatives first; in front of the competing narratives and political allegiances out of which the conflict grew and was sustained.

All those involved in trying to complete the peace jigsaw should read this very helpful book.