Well, here's a pretty picture indeed, the Duchess of Abercorn prevented from visiting a school in the North because the odd local thick or two think she shouldn't visit what they call a "nationalist" school. Well, firstly it's not a nationalist school.
It's a Catholic school; no doubt the local thicks don't know the difference, and nor should we care if they do or don't. The opinions of small town cretins are neither here nor there in the grander scale of things - or rather should not be; but in Pomeroy they appear to be both here, there and everywhere.
So is this what progress in the North is to consist of: that any old parboil-brained hillbilly on either side can halt whatever he likes, regardless of the opinions of the greater majority, merely by invoking the tribal veto and consulting what passes for his brain on the matter? In law and spirit, the days of that sort of nonsense died last year; so why is it possible that against the wishes of almost everybody, including the unspoken preferences of the Minister for Education, Martin McGuinness, the Duchess of Abercorn was unable to visit a certain Tyrone primary school?
Greater veto
Is the habit of deference to thuggery so ingrained that people have forgotten the greater veto which exists within the terms of the Good Friday Agreement? It is the veto of consensus, as powerful a weapon as exists in democracies anywhere.
The c-word has been making its appearance a lot in Sinn Fein utterances on this and that. In their lexicon, "consensus" means a body of opinion with which they agree. All sorts of people - social workers, priests, elected representatives of other parties - are expected to defer to that consensus. However, if a body of opinion exists with which Shinners disagree, it is called unionist intransigence.
So small-town thugs, with their small-town tribal visions and their hicky, small-town minds might well employ the cword in talking about opposition to the Duchess of Abercorn's visit to a tiny Co Tyrone village with as much accuracy as they declare that she is a member of the royal family. She's not, but of course they're too plain thick or bigoted to know the difference. But either way, so what? The point is: do we consult such half-wits about the conduct of society generally, and obey their instructions? Do teachers ask them how to teach, priests seek their advice on how to give a sermon, lawyers on how to administer the law, police officers on how to enforce the rules of the road? Of course not. So why on earth have such knuckle-trailing dolts the right to exercise a veto on who may visit Catholic schools in Northern Ireland?
One-way traffic
The traffic has been all one way since the Executive came into power. Although Martin McGuinness's general statement of position accepts the rights of schools to invite whomsoever they want as guests, he refuses to condemn local Shinners who are blocking the Abercorn visit. Similarly, Bairbre de Brun declined to condemn the intimidation of two social workers by Shinners for meeeting RUC officers in Carrickmore. But these Ministers of Northern Ireland will sooner or later learn that the only way to impose discipline among their followers is by public rebuke. It is the way of democracy; it is what the people of Ireland voted for. And, as the summer months approach, Sinn Fein will have to understand that the tolerant sauce that has been ladled all over Sinn Fein intimidation will also have to be applied in equal measure to its Orange variants when the time comes. And that might be very unpleasant indeed for nationalists.
In all truth, compared to what has gone before, Sinn Fein's tactics have been noisy and threatening rather than physically coercive. If people had recently stood up to the fairly dimwitted bullying of Sinn Fein, we would not have seen the Duchess of Abercorn back down before the disapproval of village idiots. For if government in North Ireland is dependent on the assent of every saloon bar hero, then it will not get government at all, but a permanent saloon bar brawl.
Moral responsibility
Rightly or wrongly - and time will tell if this time I'm right - I actually believe that the Sinn Fein Members of the Executive want Northern Ireland's experiment in governance to work. At a time when the bravest police force in Europe, the RUC, is effectively being wound up and replaced by something new, Sinn Fein's leaders have the moral and political responsibility to tell the fat thugs who issue dictats in small towns to shut up; for if such numskulls are allowed to call the shots, their perfectly dire Orange mirror image will be capering once again on the outskirts of the Garvaghy Road yet again this coming summer.
It's called being grown up. Unless Sinn Fein matures into a responsible political party and not a party of permanent protest in government - whinge whinge, whinge - the Belfast Agreement will come to nothing. Bairbre de Brun stops the Union Jack being flown from Departmental premises. Gerry Kelly uses the law to get £4,000 from the RUC. If that's the law, fair enough. But surely, only small-town thicks - and whatever else they might be, none of the people named in this column are that - think the peace process is a one-way street marked surrender. Or am I wrong on that as well?