Nus Extra or: How I learned to stop worrying and love the Card (part 2)

pro scribo, The following does not pretend, nor intend, to be some historical treatise or analysis of a hugely complex and nuanced affair, but it serves a purpose and is a simplified opinion

Tony Blair has his faults. People could toss out events such as Iraq, shameful acts like not calling for a ceasefire in Iraq, and the dreadful inaction over Darfur. Some people might point to ’sofa-government’, style over spin, Alistair Campbell. But perhaps selfishly i will always admire him for working with Clinton to bring an end to the struggle in Northern Ireland.

Since the Creation of the Irish Free State, the progenitor of the modern republic, there has been an open wound to many Irish, both those in Eire, and those in the province. The iniquitous solution to an unenviable problem of a divided population in the 6 counties, would always ferment trouble, and over the course of the 20th century the victims of British pride have been various, a multitude of innocent civilians on both sides, the innocence of civilians who were stuck in a wretched and inhumane system, and the ideals of Liberté, égalité, fraternité were conscientiously thrown away in favour of control, iniquity, and divide and rule.

By handing control to one religious group to the complete exclusion of another, there was created a sense of divided, diverse futures. You knew if you were born into a catholic job, there were far far fewer jobs that were open to you, based solely on your religion. Whilst those born into a protestant family had the confidence of having the establishment on their side.

This created the insipid pandemic of disparate futures that occurs in every occupation vs occupier, entrenched majority vs oppressed minority, fat cat boss vs factory floor peon. The creation of the sentiment of two communities, two futures, the reconcilable differences were ignored and grew a suffix. With no shared stakes in success, it seemed to be more beneficial to close down, retract into enclaves and islands, and put up fences. And if you barely share a single street cobble with the other side, where can you see benifit in compromise? all you see is an ever more divided past, present and future.

The spark of genius, the golden thread running through the 1990’s negotiations was presenting the narrative of a bonding of futures. The idea that sharing a bond of any kind, to the respective hated enemy of either side was enough to make many balk. But slowly and surely, both sides came to see that since they shared the same space, and were inflicting the same wounds on each other, they did indeed share things, not least of which was a future.

Realising that neither side could unilaterally succeed by very definition of the conflict, the vision of the shared future, prosperity and peace was what ultimately brought the troubles to an end. And peace in Northern Ireland has been (hopefully) found. A pax Blairus.

So strong is the pull of buying in to a shared success that it can eventually lead to then end of a protracted, endemic, aged conflict between two very different and divided groups. This yearning for success, when harnessed, can be amazingly productive.

And success is all the easier when every one plays a part, and knows the dividend shared is the dividend desired

part 3, actually turning all this parable-ised preamble into a point, is really just a click away. If you’ve hung in thus far, the pay-off is a-coming