a northern change? || 'cultural traditions' and political ambiguity

'Cultural Traditions' and Political AmbiguityAuthor(s): Richard EnglishSource: The Irish Review (1986-), No. 15, A Northern Change? (Spring, 1994), pp. 97-106Published by: Cork University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/29735735 .

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'Cultural Traditions' and Political Ambiguity

RICHARD ENGLISH

In his rather pious 1993 Reith lectures, Edward Said commented

on 'the way an intellectual can become a professional who specialised] in one bit of turf, accredited, careful, speaking not the general

language of a wide audience but rather the approved jargon of a

group of insiders'. Said offered what he considered the preferable alternative of 'maintaining relative intellectual independence' by

means of adopting 'the attitude of an amateur instead of a profes? sional'. He also argued that, 'Nothing

... is more reprehensible than

those habits of mind in the intellectual that induce avoidance, that

characteristic turning away from a difficult and principled position which you know to be the right one, but which you decide not to take.

You do not want to appear too political; you are afraid of seeming controversial; you need the approval of a boss or an authority

figure; you want to keep a reputation for being balanced, objective, moderate'.

I do not wish to claim that this essay represents the adoption of 'a

difficult and principled position' which I 'know to be the right one'.

Nor would I wish to be associated with the smug title of Said's lecture

('Speaking truth to power').1 Indeed, by instinct I fall into that cat?

egory which he condemns, of intellectuals who prefer to inhabit the

obscure world of professional specialism rather than to live in the

realm of more general and accessible argument. But it seems to me

that there are some important general observations which need to be

made concerning the Northern Ireland Cultural Traditions project.

My intention is to provoke discussion by offering arguments which

are rarely articulated (at least, in public) but which have important

bearing on politics in Northern Ireland. So, instead of Said's 'Speaking truth to power', I would offer the rather less presumptuous title of

'Suggesting Doubts to the Influential'.

I

The initial impulse behind the Cultural Traditions Group - 'to explore

ways of promoting a better understanding of, and a more constructive

debate about, our different cultural traditions in Northern Ireland' 2

would surely command widespread approval both within and

97



98 IRISH REVIEW

outside the region. Similarly, the declared ambition of the Cultural

Traditions Journal, Causeway, - 'to promote better understanding

among the various communities in Northern Ireland' 3 would pro?

voke few cries of protest. When to these agreeable aspirations are

added the group's undoubtedly positive achievements - the publica?

tion of Professor Roy Foster's elegant lecture, the targeting of layered

questions of identity in a series of annual conferences and books, the

sustaining (indeed, the encouraging) of critical reflection and com?

ment 4 then it might appear niggardly to offer serious criticism of the

Cultural Traditions project/projects. Yet there do seem to me to be two crucial points on which serious

discussion might focus. The first concerns what one might refer to as

the the equal legitimacy thesis. I recognize that those within the

Cultural Traditions orbit have themselves acknowledged certain of

the difficulties with a two traditions model. James Hawthorne's inau?

gural preface of 1989 acknowledged that, 'There is much in common

across the so-called "community divide"'5 and, indeed, no serious

student of Northern Ireland would deny the complex overlapping and eclecticism characteristic of much local culture. But I think, sadly, that Dr Maurna Crozier is right to assert that, for most people, 'the

only significant divide, at an individual and community level, is that

between Protestants and Catholics'.6 Or, as Conor Cruise O'Brien put it twenty years ago, 'the distinct communities indicated by the terms

'Catholic' and 'Protestant' are the prime realities of the situation'.7 My

objection does not centre on that point, but rather on the notion of

publicly and loudly according equal legitimacy and respect to the

differing traditions in question.8

Drawing upon the logic of the equal legitimacy thesis, Patrick

Mayhew argued in April 1993 that 'each of the main components of

the community will need to be given recognition by the other, and in

any settlement each must be accorded parity of esteem, the validity of

its tradition receiving unqualified recognition'.9 In an earlier speech (delivered in December 1992) the Secretary of State made similar

noises in relation to political traditions and aspirations: 'We are com?

mitted ... to honouring our commitment to the wishes of a majority in

Northern Ireland. . .. The reality is that the identity of unionists is

safeguarded in fact, and also in national and international law; it is

also recognized as wholly legitimate by constitutional nationalists.

But there is also the aspiration to a united Ireland, an aspiration that is

no less legitimate.'10 The important point here is that -

predictably, if not inevitably -

attitudes toward parity of cultural esteem have political implications.



'CULTURAL TRADITIONS' AND POLITICAL AMBIGUITY 99

In Northern Ireland, to accord respect (or to give support) to cultural

traditions is to give support - in varying degrees

- to political

aspirations and instincts. My point is that the equal legitimacy thesis upon which Cultural Traditions thinking rests -

why else cel?

ebrate or encourage appreciation of varying traditions if you do not

accord them at least roughly equivalent validity? - has carried with it

political implications which have rendered dangerously incoherent

the position adopted by the state. The government's official position is

as clear as it is ambiguous, and is evident in the 1985 Anglo-Irish

Agreement. It might, perhaps, be paraphrased in terms of two state?

ments: first, 'we'll stay as long as the majority wish it' and, second, 'we'll go as soon as is possible'. The Agreement affirmed 'that any

change in the status of Northern Ireland would only come about with

the consent of a majority of the people of Northern Ireland' and

recognized 'that the present wish of a majority of the people of North?

ern Ireland is for no change in the status of Northern Ireland'. The

Agreement also declared that 'if in the future a majority of the people of Northern Ireland clearly wish for and formally consent to the

establishment of a united Ireland, [the UK and Republic of Ireland

governments] will introduce and support in the respective parlia? ments legislation to give effect to that wish'.11 This might be consid?

ered the Conservative Party's version of the desire which has been

evident in much British Labour Party thinking, a desire to combine the

twin objectives of consent and unification. This may be deemed incon?

sistent, given that for the foreseeable future -

complicated demo?

graphic trends notwithstanding -

effective consent within Northern

Ireland to the idea of British withdrawal is simply not a realistic

expectation. Put simply, you either have consent or you have unifica?

tion - not both at the same time.

Now, it is quite clear - from Patrick May hew's speeches and from

other evidence - that there is a relation between the notions, first, of

equal respect for two sets of cultural traditions and, second, for two

sets of political aspirations. In each case, the official line has been to

afford equal respect, legitimacy, validity to the dominant traditions in

the region: Protestant/unionist on the one hand, Catholic/nationalist on the other. And there does seem to me to be an intellectual (and,

therefore, a practical) confusion involved here. For the state to accord

equal legitimacy on the one hand to a tradition whose instinct and

drive is to support and maintain the state and, on the other, to a

tradition aiming at some form of dismemberment of the state12 seems

to me fundamentally incoherent. Yet we have it on the Secretary of

State's public assurance both that equal respect should be given to the



100 IRISH REVIEW

two sets of cultural traditions and that the nationalist aspiration to a united Ireland 'is no less legitimate' than the unionist wish that

Northern Ireland should remain part of the UK. The aspiration to

break the union of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is, evidently, as

legitimate as the aspiration to maintain it.

It is at the point where these cultural and political attitudes coincide

that the Cultural Traditions project enters the game. It does so, I

believe, with some unfortunate consequences. In Northern Ireland, where insecurity, ambiguity, and uncertainty continue to have fatally destructive and destabilising consequences, such an incoherent ap?

proach -

granting equal legitimacy to opposing sets of cultural/politi? cal loyalties

- seems to me to be deeply unhelpful. It appears to take

the ground from underneath unionist (and, more crucially, loyalist) feet and it undoubtedly sustains the nationalist (and, more crucially,

republican) illusion that British withdrawal /Irish unity are not only feasible, but have a certain measure of support within British govern?

mental circles. Each of these results contributes significantly to the

sustenance of paramilitary brutality -

brutality to which the Cultural

Traditions project itself was a direct response. Thus, the very violence

which the project was intended to undermine has been given greater momentum by the ethos of state ambiguity to which the project has

itself significantly contributed.

II

The second area about which I would entertain certain doubts con?

cerns the assumptions underpinning the equal legitimacy thesis which

I have discussed above. The underlying assumptions in question are

variously referred to by Cultural Traditions spokespersons and are

also reflected in political statements by the Secretary of State. To take

two quotations from recent, thoughtful papers by Dr Crozier: The

long-term aim [of the Cultural Traditions Programme] is to foster

tolerance of cultural diversity'; and [speaking of those involved in the

Cultural Traditions Group:] Their position was an essentially liberal

one, grounded in the notion of improvement, which suggests that,

given a widely-based education, people will choose more tolerant

ways of accommodating difference than murdering each other.'13 Here

we have, therefore, a clearly expressed preference for tolerance of

cultural diversity, and an explicit belief in the power of liberal progress. Attached to this is the view that, in James Hawthorne's words, cul?

tural diversity 'is surely an asset'.14 And, again, Patrick Mayhew's

public utterances are of relevance:




In Great Britain we have a pluralist, multicultural society which on the

whole copes tolerantly with tensions. Similarly in Northern Ireland, we

hope to promote as far as possible, through government programmes, mutual respect for the different cultures that flourish here. I am particu?

larly grateful to the Community Relations Council and Cultural Tradi?

tions Group for the invaluable work they do in encouraging people here to understand and respect the traditions and values of others.15

It seems to me that cultural diversity in Northern Ireland is, in fact,

anything but an asset. The conditions within which diversity can be

relished rather than feared are either those in which the minority cultures do not exist in a hostile relation to the state or those in which

they are simply not strong /numerous enough to pose a serious threat

to the stability of that state. Neither of these conditions obtains in

Northern Ireland. The notion that pluralism on the British model can

work in Northern Ireland seems to me to be extremely naive, to

underestimate the extent of hostility between the communities within

Northern Ireland, and to understate the degree of hostility implicit within nationalist political (and, therefore, cultural) life in the region. Nor is the logic of this point reliant upon any preference for one set of

traditions over against another. If, rather than discussing a sizeable

Catholic /nationalist minority within Northern Ireland one were in?

stead discussing a sizeable Protestant/unionist minority within an all

Ireland setting, then the argument would be equally telling. For in

each case the minority would possess the capacity to threaten the

stability (even the existence) of the state in question. My point is not

that cultural diversity should automatically be perceived in a negative

light; rather, I am arguing that in contemporary Ireland, given the

overlap between cultural and political loyalties and also the existing levels of polarisation and hostility, cultural diversity is crucial to

political conflict. To celebrate it seems, to me, peculiar. The idea that with appropriate education people will opt for toler?

ance rather than for violence is, perhaps, valid. Plainly, however, such

education can only be effective -

indeed, can only be genuinely, fully educative - within a context other than that which currently obtains.

Those of us involved in formal education know from professional

experience the impotence of liberal, educative endeavour when set

against the countervailing forces of self-sustaining, self-serving, parti? san cultures. My contention is that both the celebration of diversity, and also the liberal belief in the possibilities of educated tolerance, are

of questionable relevance to Northern Ireland. Why? Because the

situation - politically, culturally, demographically

- is so appalling. Indeed, to ignore the true dimensions of the problem involves the



102 IRISH REVIEW

danger of seriously worsening it. It is sometimes argued, in relation to

Northern Ireland, that the situation is so bad that something simply must be attempted. A recent example would be the work of the

political scientists John McGarry and Brendan O'Leary. The first chap? ter of their recent work, The politics of antagonism, establishes the extent

of damage done by the conflict, and this serves to reinforce the sense

of urgency prevalent throughout their book in relation to the desire

for a solution.16 But the difficulty is that full recognition of the extent of

the crisis both urges one to strive for some healing initiative and also

leads one to acknowledge the fact that most such attempted initiatives

have the potential further to destabilise, disorient, threaten, and con?

fuse - precisely the developments most likely to worsen the very

conflict which one had hoped to assuage. In The politics of antagonism,

O'Leary and McGarry espouse the path of joint authority for Northern

Ireland. In their previous book, however, these same authors rejected the notion of joint authority as it would 'involve an explicit upgrading of Dublin's power over Northern Ireland' and would therefore risk

'destablilization and possibly a very violent reaction'.17 Surely, joint

authority would still carry these same risks.18

I believe that the references to these authors are telling, not least

because the two men involved are serious and, in some circles, in?

creasingly influential scholars. Their relevance to our current discus?

sion is that they combine astute recognition of the seriousness of the

crisis with a conviction (less astute, in my view) that remedies are

available. In their 1990 book, The future of Northern Ireland, they op?

posed 'the notion that there is no solution to the conflict in Northern

Ireland. In fact, as the chapters in this book amply demonstrate, there

are many solutions to the Northern Ireland conflict.'19 In actual fact, there is a vital distinction between proposed solutions - of which there

is, indeed, no shortage - and actual solutions, for the latter can only

justly be described as such when it has been proven that they can in

fact solve the problems of Northern Ireland. What McGarry and

O'Leary's 1990 book - a collection of essays respectively defending different proposed solutions - in reality demonstrated was that none

of these proposals could carry complete conviction. Each of them

could be rejected as incapable of 'solving' Northern Ireland's prob? lems (an unsatisfactory formulation anyway, in my view).

The relevance of all this to the Cultural Traditions endeavour is that

the latter has also reflected a combination, first, of stressing the seri?

ousness of the tragedy and, second, of believing in the possibility of

(in this case, liberal) remedies. In fact, the full tragedy of the situation

is that the kind of liberal initiatives pioneered under the Cultural




Traditions umbrella have contributed to that very instability and

ambiguity within which the jagged edges of the conflict have been further sharpened. Just as the McGarry/O'Leary proposal for joint

authority would surely provoke further (and disastrous) violence and

polarization, so, too, on a less dramatic scale the Cultural Traditions

message of equal legitimacy, celebration of diversity, and encourage? ment to conflicting (and deeply politicized) cultures has underpinned a governmental equivocation which is damagingly incoherent. And

just as the possibilities for liberal, educated tolerance to spread are

surely rather slim, so, too, the question must be asked with reference

to the most jagged edges of Northern Irish life: is it true that either

loyalists or republicans are less likely to act violently because of the

governmentally endorsed attitude of equal legitimation which has

characterised the Cultural Traditions approach? The answer must be

negative; indeed, I would suggest that by (inadvertently) feeding both loyalist anxiety and republican hope the exact reverse has been

achieved - namely, the creation of perceived incentives toward greater

brutality. In conclusion I would like to cite, again, from the Secretary of State's

Coleraine speech of December 1992.1 want to try to illustrate what I

consider to be the dangers involved in misplacing liberal assumptions and ambitions when dealing with Northern Ireland. In rejecting the

notion of 'cultural superiority' and in pushing the line that , 'the

cultural achievements of each country draw on and enrich the other', Patrick Mayhew referred intriguingly to the early twentieth century IRA leader, Ernie O'Malley (1897-1957). T recently learned [stated Sir

Patrick] how the letters of an IRA leader of the 1920s, Ernie O'Malley,

warmly recognise the cultural riches of the very country against which

he had just been fighting with such determination.'20 As Ernie

O'Malley's biographer and the editor of the collection of letters to

which Sir Patrick is here referring, I was particularly interested by this

passage. And, as this speech rightly suggests, O'Malley did indeed

drink deeply and pleasurably of British culture - in particular, of

literary culture. Thus we have the fascinating prospect of an IRA

leader, imprisoned for his fight against what he perceived to be the

British-controlled state authorities, and yet writing (while incarcer?

ated, in 1923) that: T have a decent library now and have ample time to

browse deep in Chaucer, Shakesp.[eare], Dante and Milton'.21 The

point, however, is that O'Malley was able to combine a personal culture much of which was Anglocentric with a fierce, brutal hostility toward British rule in Ireland. To try to cite him to liberal purpose

misses the points: first, that his political outlook was itself extremely



104 IRISH REVIEW

illiberal, simplistic, and largely immune to liberal pleading22 and,

second, that the dynamics underpinning the revolutionary movement

within which he was active - for example, the economic and religious

marginality of Catholic Ireland within the UK - were forces strong

enough to overwhelm any possible reconciliation via the route of

Chaucer, Shakespeare, or Milton.

Translated into the present day: what of O'Malley's political de?

scendants in the modern IRA, and what of their opponents in loyalist

paramilitary groupings? In each case the response to the Secretary of

State's liberal Coleraine gesture was (predictably) depressing. While

he suggested that the government respected nationalist traditions and

aspirations (and, in doing so, even acknowledged the bookish eclecti?

cism of at least one early twentieth-century gunman), the fact is that

the modern republican gunmen are simply not amenable to such

elegant pleading. Again, one might be tempted to argue that the

economic and religious marginality of Ulster's republican Catholics

within the UK provides a hurdle over which cultural eclecticism

simply cannot jump. Certainly, it is O'Malley's unflinching, dogmatic

separatism rather than any tendency toward cultural compromise which has characterized the IRA and Sinn F?in in the 1990s, and the Coleraine speech evoked no seriously promising response from those

quarters. More depressingly still, however, the reaction of loyalists to

this attempt at liberal reasoning was a deepening anxiety concerning a

Secretary of State who openly praised nationalist heroes and who

accorded the same legitimacy to nationalist aspirations as he did to

those of Ulster unionists.

The Coleraine speech reflected many of the assumptions involved

in the Cultural Traditions project and it seems a fitting illustration of

the points which I have made in this essay. The equal legitimacy thesis

and its underpinning liberal assumptions seem to me not only to fail

in their attempt to soothe communal tension, but actually to reinforce

the fears and hopes which lie at the heart of the Northern Irish conflict.

John Wilson Foster has recently written that, 'It is hard not to see

Cultural Traditions as officially but tacitly cultural preparation for

political alterations: my guess [he argues] would be joint sovereignty followed by unification'.23 My own point is that, whether or not Fos?

ter's argument is valid, the practical and current effect of the Cultural

Traditions logic is itself damaging. Loyalist anxiety is deepened, and

therefore more violence ensues; republican illusions are sustained, and therefore more violence ensues; each set of paramilitaries derives

strength and momentum from the other's brutality, and therefore

more violence ensues.




Notes

1 E. Said, 'Speaking truth to power', Independent 22 July 1993. 2 J. Hawthorne, 'Preface' in M. Crozier (ed.), Cultural traditions in Northern

Ireland: Varieties of Irishness (Belfast, Institute of Irish Studies, 1989), vii.

3 Causeway, promotional leaflet.

4 R.F. Foster, 'Varieties of Irishness' in Crozier (ed.), Varieties of Irishness; M. Crozier (ed.), Cultural traditions in Northern Ireland: Varieties ofBritishness

(Belfast, Institute of Irish Studies, 1990); M. Crozier (ed.), Cultural tradi?

tions in Northern Ireland: All Europeans now? (Belfast, Institute of Irish

Studies, 1991). 5 Hawthorne, 'Preface' vii.

6 M. Crozier, 'Coping with bottled time: an approach to cultural diversity'

(unpublished ms.), 3.

7 C.C. O'Brien, States of Ireland (St. Albans, Panther, 1974 ed.; 1st ed., 1972), 16.

8 See, for example, M.Crozier, 'Cultural traditions: long-term politics?'

(unpublished ms.), 3.

9 P. Mayhew, 'A framework for a just settlement', 8.

10 P. Mayhew, 'Culture and identity', 6.

11 Quoted in J. McGarry and B. O'Leary (eds), The future of Northern Ireland

(Oxford, Clarendon, 1990), 305.

12 That Sinn F?in pursue such an outcome is clear. But see also John Hume's

clear commitment to a model of Irish national self-determination which

would imply Northern Ireland's secession from the UK, and also his

preference for a sovereign, independent Ireland (Irish Times 26 Apr. 1993; A. Pollak (ed.) A citizens inquiry: the Opsahl report on Northern Ireland

(Dublin, Lilliput, 1993), 368.

13 Crozier, 'Coping with bottled time', 1; M.Crozier, 'Social anthropology and policy related research in Northern Ireland' (unpublished ms.), 8.

14 Hawthorne, 'Preface', vii.

15 Mayhew, 'Culture and identity', 14.

16 B. O'Leary and J. McGarry, The politics of antagonism: understanding North? ern Ireland (London, Athlone Press, 1993).

17 McGarry and O'Leary (eds), The future of Northern Ireland, 293.

18 In a more recent work, Brendan O'Leary has preferred the term 'shared

authority' to 'joint authority', since the latter term might be considered to

imply dual direct rule from Dublin/London, whereas the former more

fully describes the aim of the proposal, that of combining shared Dublin/ London responsibility with 'a full share in democratic and accountable

government for the peoples of Northern Ireland' (B.O'Leary, T.Lyne, J.Marshall and B.Rowthorn, Northern Ireland: sharing authority (London,

IPPR, 1993), 136. Shared authority would still involve a significant up?

grading of Dublin's role in governing the region and would, therefore,

carry with it considerable risk of d?stabilisation.



106 IRISH REVIEW

19 Ibid, ix.

20 Mayhew, 'Culture and identity', 15.

21 O'Malley to Humphreys, 12 Apr. 1923. For further reflections on

O'Malley's Britishness, see R. English, 'Green on red: two case studies in

early twentieth century Irish republican thought' in D.G.Boyce, R.

Eccleshall, and V. Geoghegan (eds), Political thought in Ireland since the

seventeenth century (London, Routledge, 1993). 22 See, for example, his own published attitude toward diversity of opinion

in Ireland: 'The people of this country would have to give allegiance to it or if they wanted to support the Empire they would have to clear out and

support the Empire elsewhere' E.O'Malley, On another man s wound,

(Dublin, Anvil, 1979 ed.; 1st ed., 1936), 332.

23 J.W.Foster, 'Notes on intellectuals and intellectual life in Ireland' (unpub? lished ms.), 23.



a northern change? || 'cultural traditions' and political ambiguity

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