Earlier this week, the German chancellor, Dr Helmut Kohl, was in Prague to sign an historic document in which Germany and the Czech Republic confronted the bitter period of Nazi wartime atrocities and the post war expulsion of millions of Germans from Sudeten territory, and expressed their regrets. "We cannot stay in the past, or in the end the past will win: Dr Kohl declared. It will take longer for the sensitivities to disappear, but the formal act of reconciliation was a major step in the process because both governments are now clearly committed to encouraging the "mutual forgiveness" to which the German chancellor also referred.
Events at Drumcree last summer, and the statements yesterday by Orange Order leaders that no consultations with local people in the Garvaghy road will take place before the lodges march there next July, highlight the failure of a similar process to take root in the North. It is one of the paradoxes, and the tragedies, of the historical differences dividing society in this island that while both major communities share the same language of tolerance and forgiveness - "judge not that you may not be judged", "cast out first the beam out of thy own eye" - it has apparently no practical relevance in helping to build a new relationship between antagonists.
Dr S G Poyntz, the former bishop of Connor, proposed yesterday that the churches should draw up a confession" of faults by both sides which have contributed to distrust and hostility. The Church of Ireland was the beneficiary of the penal system that suppressed Catholics and dissenters for over a century and left a legacy of social oppression that subsisted for many years after the penal laws were repealed on the opposite side, Dr Poyntz suggested, was the Ne Temere decree that disadvantaged Protestants to the point that their numbers dwindled disastrously. To look at history coolly and dispassionately is not easy, and to formulate even those two examples in language free from suspect overtones and in terms of appeal for forgiveness and reconciliation, will challenge the ingenuity and determination of the drafters.
Dr Poyntz did not suggest otherwise, but believed that such a statement, properly drawn up, could take its place beside other formal declarations repudiating past dissensions in other countries. In the context of this island, the very process of working on such a document could be an aid to understanding, all the more so if it was done on a basis of broad consultation, and was accompanied by a South African style Truth and Justice Commission. The underlying point should be to turn the prevailing attitude of justification for events in the past into one of mutual questioning of the historical legacy and understanding by both sides of the harm inflicted by past actions.
Dr Kohl's phrase that "in the end, the past will win" applies with particular force to traditional relations in this island. In spite of profound changes south of the border, and a developing pattern of new relationships in the North, the core of the problem of historical perceptions has not been dealt with. One practical area was touched on by Dr Poyntz in his address much depends on relations between church leaders and the clergy at local level. These have a responsibility which they often ignore.