The ghosts haunting Trimble as unionist pathfinder

Time and again in the last week the figure of David Trimble has been haunted by the spectre of F.W

Time and again in the last week the figure of David Trimble has been haunted by the spectre of F.W. de Klerk, former president of South Africa. Time and again he is stereotyped, like de Klerk, as a politician of planter stock, while he signs - or consigns - the Union to a future which recognises for the first time the place and role of his political opponents.

Such comparisons are skin-deep only. If any analogy exists between Northern Ireland and South Africa - and that is a debate in itself - the figure Mr Trimble may need to resemble over time could bear a closer likeness to de Klerk's successor, Nelson Mandela.

Many ghosts compete to haunt David Trimble as he prepares to face the outcomes of today's Grand Orange Lodge meeting and Saturday's debate within his own Unionist Party. The spectre of more than 3,000 violent deaths within the last 30 years is the most imminent, and must always remain so.

Political ghosts linger, too, images as different as those of Butt, Carson, O'Neill or Faulkner. Some include the prospects of a different kind of resolution, had successive Stormont governments dealt differently with the civil rights of its citizens. Others signal nostalgia for a time when life could be lived without apparent fear or change, provided your caste was in power.

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Perhaps more immediate analogies draw on the imagery of the Old Testament and ancient British saga. Will David Trimble lead his chosen people to a promised land, as Moses did? Or might he end up as King Canute, ultimately impotent before successive demographic waves which finally drown his people under an impending nationalist majority, destined to hit shore some time within the next 30 to 50 years, depending on whose estimate you credit.

The rising noise of the loyalist thought police is already threatening Trimble's own political future, as it has threatened, and executed, the careers of other unionist politicians who have attempted to face reality. Pundits are openly speculating as to whether at least five of Trimble's own MPs will arise and follow Paisley, to adapt a catchphrase from the Republic's Haughey years.

Such speculation inevitably serves to enhance the figure of David Trimble in the Irish, British and international media, which in itself may be regarded by some of the thought police as a confirmation that they were right all along.

If his opponents' repudiation of the Agreement is tantamount to a major loss of nerve, then Trimble's achievement last week was to demonstrate for the first time in years that unionism can in fact recognise reality. "Stupid unionism" is how historian Paul Bew briskly characterised a similar opposition earlier this week. That was old-style unionism: a preference for the mystical over the political, and for almost any position which managed to avoid change.

But what remains to be found is evidence that reality can also be transformed: at issue is how smart a style of unionism Trimble can invent, and how far his supporters are prepared to encourage him.

Within the freshly branded "Cool Britannia", adopted by Tony Blair's new Labour, it is difficult to see how anything but the very smartest unionism might have a long-term future. Cool Britannia, a quintessentially modern ethos, is so all-encompassing in its possibilities that it steals a march on virtually every other political affiliation.

Not least of its achievements was New Labour's master-stroke of renovating the role and rule of the royals, traditionally a preserve of the pro-unionist Tories, and then appropriating them as the born-again symbol to unite such vastly differing affiliations. Within days of Blair's electoral victory, the Conservative Party was reduced to little more than a de facto English national party.

Because the monarchy is now so demonstrably bound up with the pluralist, multicultural ethic of Cool Britannia, the fundamentalist dogmas of old-style unionism are in serious trouble. Granted, Catholics are still excluded from the monarchy, but that last legacy of Henry VIII's extraordinary will-to-power has already been questioned by the Prince of Wales. Changing the relationship of church and state within the United Kingdom may take quite some time, but change it must if Cool Britannia's logic is to have its inexorable way. In a political system altering so quickly, the gothic undertow of "stupid unionism" cannot but fail, apart altogether from the issues of what that failure might cost in human terms, or what penalties Cool Britannia might impose.

Already, old unionism is sounding suspiciously like the die-hards who opposed the 1921 Treaty. The phrase "an immoral compromise" is all the more familiar because it was first used by Cathal Brugha in the Treaty debates. There's a grim historical irony in recognising the possibility that Brugha might have welcomed the new Agreement in part, because it appears to substitute a pledge of office for the once non-negotiable oath of allegiance.

Like the same die-hards, old unionism represents a way of life, something far bigger than a political party. But pinning down that way of life is tough. Because its essential principles remain abstract, its followers need not get bogged down in the dynamics of contemporary politics. Hence the position of some supporters who swear that they are prepared to die if needs be for their beliefs, when all that is required is that they be prepared to change.

Smart unionism will need supple politics. Few reports so far risk believing that Trimble can pull the disparate strands of unionism together to a point where it becomes politically match-fit. Yet if, as seems likely, Trimble becomes First Minister of the Assembly, should it be passed at referendum, it is Trimble who must articulate a detailed vision which can actually encompass all the people of Northern Ireland.

That was Mandela's task in South Africa, not de Klerk's, but imagining Mr Trimble in a muumuu is not the point of this speculation. He has, at any rate, already shown his tribal costume to considerable effect: that brolly-and-bowler attire of Drumcree is precisely what yielded him his leadership role in the first place.

The acid test of the unionist ethos is whether it can in fact recognise the times that are in it. If not, unionism will be condemned to an endgame of memory dodgems, and its politics will not survive. However unlikely or hard to imagine it seems to some, David Trimble is now chief pathfinder for an extraordinary departure in democracy whose effectiveness will depend on being able to listen most not to the loudest voices, as previously, but to the gentlest. Reinventing Northern Ireland demands no less.