Some gestures speak the truth, and others conceal it. The difference between the two only are apparent not in what they contain, but in their context.
When Hitler said after his annexation of Czechoslovakia that he had no more territorial ambitions and that Europe may now slumber safely in its bed, the words could have been taken at face-value, or they could be placed alongside his history of aggression and pathological dishonesty.
So, last week's minimalist decommissioning - to which category of gesture does it belong? Does it form some part of a general truth which it reinforces? Or is it a false symbol whose inauthenticity can only be judged by other events, from which it stands, separate and discrete?
Does the presence of republican activists in Colombia give us any evidence in either direction? Or is that incident to be judged as separate and discrete, related to the broader narrative of the peace process only in that it contradicts it?
Desire for peace
The problem about this peace process is that it plays on all our worthier emotions, as well as our less worthy, more cowardly ones - we all want peace, but we also prefer to suspend our critical faculties so as to be seen to conform with the process; the equivalent of an unbeliever's conspicuous trip to the communion rail and the ostentatious proffering of a hypocritical tongue.
It was this combination of emotions which united so many people - including myself - to agree that the IRA's gesture of disarmament was significant. Now, I'm not so sure. Significant is a good word. But what does the "disarmament" signify? That it is the prelude to the abolition of war as a political tool? Or that SΘin Fein-IRA play politics purely by tokens - a coinage which nobody else is allowed to trade in?
There was nothing token about the destruction of British army fortifications within hours of the decommissioning announcement; but then there was nothing token either about the deed which brought the token gesture from the IRA - the destruction of the Twin Towers of New York, the massacres of thousands of people and the transformation of US attitudes towards terrorism.
These were real statements of intent and purpose, about which one could be in no doubt. So why was the IRA reply so very economical? Why did Gen John de Chastelain's unspoken assessment of the decommissioning suggest that it just about met the not-very-exacting rules of disarmament? He knows what was disposed of. So too do the terrorist leaders who did the disposing. Does anybody else?
Decomissioning
Is anyone able to say with confidence that the general's interpretation of what the decomissioning deed signifies is the same as ours would be if we knew what weapons had been decommissioned, and how? Does it signify a general of disarmament? Or does it signify the IRA will disarm only under coercion, and even then, solely according to the tiniest letter of the peace process, rather than to its larger and more ambitious spirit?
If thousands of Americans have to die in order for the IRA merely to make the most minimalist of symbolic gestures towards the rules of democracy, we may conclude it could be a long time indeed before Sinn FΘin-IRA behaves according to the rules the rest of us to adhere to. Who knows, the US government might prove reluctant to have its citizens slaughtered in the requisite number which would provide Sinn FΘin-IRA with the political and moral context for those tiny and invisible - yet nonetheless "significant" - disarmament gestures to move the peace process forward, (as the saying goes).
In the meantime, the down-payment by the British to win this tiny gesture has been the destruction of the RUC, and its replacement by uniformed human rights-enforcers - as if Northern Ireland was as instinctively law-abiding as a nudist colony of Swedish vegetarians.
And that destruction is now irreversible, whether or not the Swedes decide to dabble in a spot of cannibalism, and to strut around in SS-TotenkopfverbΣnde uniforms.
Watch-towers
The army watch-towers are either gone or going. The RUC is gone. So too is the Special Branch. And what next, I wonder? The Royal Irish Regiment, perhaps? And what will take the place of regular security forces then but irregular militias, answerable only to local "community leaders", aka, the IRA, UVF and UDA? And is that why Gerry Adams says he doesn't ask for the loyalists to be disarmed - because if they handed in their guns, the IRA couldn't get away with those risible, invisible gestures to a certain kindly Canadian gentleman?
But far worse than any of these doubts is the real sense that democrats are being manipulated by the IRA army council, through the broadcasting media in particular. We know that any politician on the governing council of the Knights of Columbanus would be grilled remorselessly about those links on radio and television. We also know that Sinn FΘin leaders are members of the IRA army council, and we equally know, that no references to this fact will ever be made in the course of any broadcast interview. Instead, they are repeatedly allowed to get away with quite ludicrously disingenuous assertions about "speaking" to the IRA leadership.
Sceptics have policed this process. Sceptics won the minimal decommissioning which has occurred. Sceptics, not peace process enthusiasts, will make and guard the peace. It's time for Bertie Ahern to join our number.