The nomination of the North's former deputy first minister relegates Norris to a sideshow, writes DAVID ADAMS
AT LAST, the presidential race has become about something other than David Norris. Let’s dispense with this Norris business.
Yes, of course he should be free to run for the presidency, as should any other Irish citizen. What republic worthy of the name forces would-be presidential candidates through a political establishment sieve, for fear of giving the people the opportunity to choose badly?
However, notwithstanding that, or my previously expressed sympathy for his plight, I believe that Norris should stop seeking a nomination. If he doesn’t, whatever their underlying motivations, his enemies will be proved right: he is clearly not suitable for the office of president. The reasons for and the reasoning behind his earlier withdrawal have not altered and only a mix of blinding ambition and worryingly elastic principles could have convinced him to change his mind.
Anyway, the Norris affair has been reduced to a sideshow since Sinn Féin announced Martin McGuinness as its candidate. After Gerry Adams’s chances of reaching the Áras had faded to the point where his standing for election would have been counter-productive, McGuinness was such a blindingly obvious choice for the Shinners that no one except them thought of it. The rest of us were too busy contemplating who from among a motley collection of nondescripts and surrogates might be endorsed so the party could at least have a dog in the race.
As with Norris, the question now is whether McGuinness would make a suitable president of the Republic. Has he the right character traits? On any fair analysis, the answer has to be yes. McGuinness is intelligent, has a warm and winning personality and is as relaxed in the company of world leaders as he is with the likes of me.
Still, one must always be careful not to confuse personality with character. Fortunately, there is enough evidence available to assess McGuinness’s character.
One has only to consider his track record as Deputy First Minister in Northern Ireland. Who could have imagined a few years ago that he would be capable of earning the respect of most unionists, yet this is precisely what he has managed to do. Integrity, courage and a constant reaching out to other communities have been the hallmarks of his time in office.
Is this not precisely what is required of a president in an increasingly diverse Ireland?
Many of his “republican” detractors accuse McGuinness of ditching Irish republican principles. In fact, the opposite is true. Since the decades-long conflict in Northern Ireland was brought to an end, it appears that genuine Irish republicanism is beginning to reassert itself and there is no better exemplar of this awakening than McGuinness. I call it an awakening because most Irish republicans are only now facing up to the gulf between their stated beliefs and their attitudes and actions.
In all fairness, it’s a gulf that Eoghan Harris has been courageously highlighting for years, but more on Harris on another occasion.
Crucially, predominant Irish republicanism seems no longer to be entirely the slave of nationalism (which by definition is a narrow, exclusive ideology). Indeed, the Belfast Agreement dictates that just such disentanglement must happen.
However, it is not McGuinness’s track record as deputy first minister that many in the political and media establishments will want to concentrate on, but his previous role as a senior member of the provisional IRA.
It should hardly need stating that if elected, McGuinness would not be the first head of state, in the Republic or elsewhere in the world, with his kind of background. More to the point, is there not something wholly contradictory, if not downright hypocritical, in the position of most of those eagerly pointing to what they believe makes McGuinness unsuitable for the Áras, when all but a tiny few of the same people were to the fore in arguing, rightly in my view, the merits of the peace process and the agreement?
Intrinsic to their arguments, and mine, was the need for us all to “draw a line under the past”. Objectors, including victims, were dismissed, sometimes contemptuously, as obstacles to peace, to be left in the past where they appeared determined to reside. It was to be a bright beginning to relationships, where former combatants could re-enter society and would be encouraged to fully engage in the political process if they so desired.
What happened? Was all of this “putting the past behind us” only intended to apply to the North (and the conflict-torn regions of the world where the Irish blueprint for peace is regularly peddled)? The logic of the peace process and the agreement was always going to lead to McGuinness, or some other Sinn Féin representative, running for the presidency of the Republic.
It’s a bit rich for those who lambasted unionists for complaining he wasn’t a suitable person to be deputy first minister to be dragging up his past now. Either we support the agreement, and its implications, or we don’t. There have been harder pills to swallow than McGuinness running for the Áras.