I'M not sure LP Hartley could have begun the Go-Between with the lines: "The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there," had the story been set in Northern Ireland.
For here, in Northern Ireland, the past is the country we live in and that past is always in front of us.
There seems to be no escape from it. Turn a corner, duck down an alleyway, go to certain parts of every city, town or village, pick up a newspaper, switch on the radio or television, look at some kerbstones, lampposts and gable walls and there it is - the past. Omnipresent. Or, to coin a new term, omnipast.
It's a bit like that Morecambe and Wise song, Following You Around: "Now listen, don't you know, hiding from me does no good; where ever you may go, I'll be in the neighbourhood. Don't care where, look behind you, I'll be there, following you around."
The past follows us around because our political structures and methods of 'doing' politics are based on unfinished business. Nothing is ever quite resolved. Nothing is ever nailed down. Nothing is ever really changed. Everything we do is predicated on the need for both sides (and it's always the 'sides' who cut the deals) to ensure that they haven't, in fact, done anything which disturbs the past.
But the past needs to be disturbed. It needs to be taken by the scruff of the neck and given a darn good shaking. It needs to be told that it cannot hold the present, let alone the future, to ransom. And that means that we need to understand the past. Not just our own competing and contradictory versions and interpretations of 'our' past and 'your' past; but a collectively agreed understanding of where we are and where we came from.
The new film/documentary, Bobby Sands:66 Days, is a case in point. Judging by the reaction on social media, as well as on some radio programmes and newspapers, an awful lot of people - the vast majority of whom had not seen the film (because it hadn't been released) - have already taken a position. They have already decided what it's about and whether they like it or not. They've already labelled it revisionist, idolatrous, hagiographic, propaganda, insulting or offensive.
My own view - and I have seen it - is that it is a genuinely interesting film. I still regard Sands as a terrorist and I made the point in a review that, given what has happened since 1981, he may well have died in vain. That said, the film does examine what turned out to be a crucially important 66 days in our history: albeit, that it took over 30 years before we realised just how important those days were.
Here's my main point, though: we cannot simply ignore or forget what happened along the way and we cannot insist that film makers and historians shy away from certain 'moments' and people. In a few weeks time The Journey - the film about the 'unlikely friendship' between Ian Paisley and Martin McGuinness - will be released. I can tell you now that many people will be angry. They will claim that both men have had a 'make over' and are being presented as peace makers. There will be claims that both these men fuelled the troubles and inspired others to get involved with paramilitary organisations. Others will say that profits and propaganda are being generated while victims and their families are being ignored.
So, what do we do? Should we just ban films, books and TV dramas that try and address aspects of our past? Or should there be some sort of ombudsman who vets all scripts and ensures that they are 'balanced'? How do we address the complaint from a number of my Twitter followers: "Why are all these films about Irish republican icons and never about unionists and their perspective?" It is worth pointing out, however, that republicans rarely come out on the so-called winning side in those films: and in 66 Days there's an argument to be made that Sands' legacy is not, "the laughter of our children," but Sinn Féin locked at the hip with the DUP in a devolved UK government.
When you are afraid of the past, steered by it, or determined to rewrite it, then it's very difficult to escape it. That's why I've coined the term omnipast to try and explain the problem. Twenty years on since the elections to the Forum (the birth of the official peace talks process) in 1996 and local politics is still dominated by the same 'old' parties, rooted to their same old pasts. And while the past and the present remain much the same thing then we are likely to keep on making the same mistakes.
Maybe someone should make a film about that?
