The Good Friday Agreement diminished the violence but not the conflict.
The leadership of the Republican movement realized – though it will never be admitted – that they were unable to achieve their objectives militarily and gradually surrendered.
But very quickly culture itself was seen as a new sphere to continue the struggle, promoting nationalist views while traducing those of their opponents. In the writing of history too, through the changing justification for deadly action and whitewash of past atrocities, the war shifted from bombs and bullets to literature and books.
Recent gestures – of removing cherished symbols and naming children’s playgrounds after murderous hunger strikers – are only the beginning. Unionists must brace themselves for further provocation, of primary schools named after Provisional IRA bombers and whole streets called after the victims of one community alone. One of the reasons Republicans are resorting to such a campaign is, with the union secure, it is quite simply all they can do.
It was always naïve for Unionists to think their culture would be respected post 1998 –whatever inconsistent rhetoric Gerry Adams feeds the conference faithful – and they should not be surprised that Sinn Féin wants to demean their sensibilities. They’ve been doing it for just over a century now. Yet there is a viciousness in today’s cultural taunting which is calculated to inflict maximum offence.
In perhaps the hardest dilemma for Unionism, Irish nationalists are lawfully entitled to fight such a battle. It is infinitely preferable to the killing and sectarian bloodshed definitive of their yesteryear. Therefore Unionists must find another outlet for their fury outside of aggressive street protest; a way of engaging in cultural resistance themselves.
This is intrinsically related to depicting their stories and narratives. Long ago Republicans understood that the arts offer an ideal stage to present their case. It does not make for good art because you know the way each poem, play or film is going to end: with the dream of Irish unity as the only way forward. But in perhaps their most spectacular propaganda victory, Republicans convinced not just their base but a great number of Protestants themselves that the arts represent a distinctly nationalist forum and are not for them.
On the political front it is essential – as some have already recognized – to get people registered to vote, elected, and back into influence at Council and Assembly level. Culturally it entails advancing a programme and vision through books and the arts. The recent exhibition of prisoner painting in the Crumlin Road Gaol highlights how Loyalists are movingly capable of creative effervescence. Another channel is the theatre group Etcetera, which aims to stage plays directly highlighting the Protestant working-class experience.
This dynamic need not be the preserve of one group. Something which reaches back to the essence of Protestantism itself is the force of the individual conscience – inspired dissent – which contrasts with the uniform identity cloak of Irish nationalism.
This is, in the end, as vital as Unionism’s collective resistance in the North’s ongoing cultural warfare.
Connal Parr is completing a PhD at Queen’s University Belfast on Protestant working-class politics and culture, and serves on the board of the Etcetera theatre company.
This article first appeared online at www.newsletter.co.uk on Wednesday 12th June 2013.
