Northern Ireland badly needs a more visionary politics concerned with joint projects if it is to free itself from past conflicts – and Bill Clinton is a good person to advance that cause. Speaking in Derry and Belfast last week he advised its leaders and people to "finish the job" of resolving issues in the peace process dealt with by his fellow American Richard Haass. If they manage to free themselves from the past, he added, they can "embrace it and be proud of it and not be imprisoned by it". This is an important message which should be taken seriously by all.
Mr Clinton cited a range of conflicts where Northern Ireland's lessons in peace-making are admired and emulated – Burma, Indonesia, Colombia and between the Basque country and Spain – but where it is not realised the North's own process remains unfinished. His role in helping to prepare and forge the Belfast Agreement as US president in the 1990s and his continuing interest in it since then entitles him to give such advice. Mr Haass and his colleague Meghan O'Sullivan worked intensively on the disputed issues of parades, flags and dealing with the past but failed to reach an agreement. Although the parties still meet there is little real engagement, at least until after local elections this summer.
After those it will not be difficult to find other excuses to not finish this job, particularly on flags and parades and especially by the two unionist parties competing for votes with more active loyalist bases. These want to retain past symbolism, resent its loss more and more as a defeat for their community and are increasingly organised to get their way by street violence if necessary, as was seen during the protests that preceded the Haass initiative.
Without political leadership, shared visions of common projects, external stimuli such as Mr Clinton’s or more pressure from the Irish and British governments the whole process could easily stall or be driven backwards. Survey evidence shows popular attitudes that favour better community relations are highly vulnerable to security threats that reverse them. So completing this business must have a high priority.
That is all the more important because an inward-looking Northern Ireland more imprisoned by its past is less well able to perceive, understand or take advantage of external changes that will affect its well-being. The most significant ones are in the United Kingdom itself. Facing a referendum on Scottish independence in September, general elections next year and an equally fateful decision on membership of the European Union, Britain will change even if the UK remains intact and stays in the EU. The relatively privileged position of Northern Ireland within the union will come under increased pressure, all the more so if it cannot finish this job.
