Burying the Troubles' unsolved murders in some great act of "reconciliation" would be to copy the ostrich and the sand, writes Dennis Kennedy
There is no point pussy-footing around the current vogue for a Truth and Reconciliation Commission for Northern Ireland - we need one like we need a hole in the kneecap.
The most oft-cited model for such a body, the South African one, indicates why. Two elements key to South Africa are missing in Ireland. The first is that there the argument was over, the dispute was settled. The National Party conceded that apartheid had to end, and that majority rule was inevitable. The ANC took power on foot of their democratic majority, and white minority rule was over.
In Northern Ireland the argument is not over; everyone may give lip service to the consent principle, but Sinn Féin and the SDLP both continue to insist that Irish unity is their prime political goal.
Nationalism continues to assert that partition was unjust and remains unjustifiable. Violence continues, though at a mercifully reduced level. Illegal armies have not gone away.
Secondly, in South Africa there was acceptance of a common moral view of the situation. This was that apartheid was wrong, and that continued white minority rule was an affront to democratic principle. This retrospective viewpoint on ANC use of violence made it easier, though by no means easy, for Afrikaners to close the chapter.
The fact that the crisis had been resolved in clear-cut victory for one side, and the immediate end of minority rule and of apartheid, made it easier for the black majority to move on without systematic pursuit of those guilty of crimes in the name of the apartheid regime.
Nothing like that applies in Northern Ireland. As John Hume repeatedly said, there was no moral cause to justify any violence. Nor was there any denial of democracy - the status of Northern Ireland, the key issue, was in accordance with the wishes of the democratic majority.
The only people who profess to see the atrocities of the past 30 years as the heroic deeds of "freedom fighters", or, on the loyalist side, of resolute defenders of a beleaguered community, are the perpetrators of such violence.
To the great majority, and to both governments, they are, or were, all guilty of gross criminal acts, however distorted their own rationalisations.
Brian Currin, a South African human rights lawyer, acknowledged many of these factors when he told the Irish Association in Belfast recently that it was too early for Northern Ireland to have a truth commission.
The Secretary of State, Paul Murphy, (Irish Times, April 9th) agrees, writing that the conflict must truly be over before there can be reconciliation, and both communities must have a shared vision of a truly inclusive future.
Yet in the same article he tells us he intends moving almost immediately towards some "better way of approaching the truth about the past".
What if the truth is that many innocent people have been callously murdered by misguided fanatics of both varieties? Will it help us all to "move on" in the currently blessed phrase, if we know that, and know also that many who did those deeds have not only gone scot-free but have been rewarded with public office?
John Bruton calls for "unilateral forgiveness" as the only means of escaping from the past. But the Christian concept of forgiveness is linked to confession and repentance. Unilateral forgiveness in the absence of such repentance could appear to be condoning the violent deeds, and would be taken as such by the unrepentant.
The danger is that Mr Murphy's good intentions will turn into another exercise in a shoddy rewriting of history that tries to portray the murderous violence of the past 30 years as part of a struggle for justice and equality. It wasn't, and to give any credence to such an idea is to help keep alive the cult of violence which is the distinguishing characteristic of Sinn Féin/IRA and of the loyalist paramilitaries.
The desire to find some way to stop arguing about the past and concentrate on the future is understandable. Hugh Orde, chief constable of the PSNI, says he does not have the resources to investigate the 1,800 unsolved murders of the Troubles. John Bruton sees no point in reopening the files on unsolved terrorist murders, but proposes one bumper Forgiveness, Reconciliation and Truth Commission.
But the last thing any commission is likely to find is the truth about the past; any version it comes up with will not stop the argument. And surely no files have been closed on the terrorist murders. All police forces have unsolved murders on their books but they do not formally close the files. Every now and then, someone is charged as new evidence has emerged.
No one expects the PSNI to devote scarce resources to investigating the crimes of 30 years ago. But regard for the rule of law demands that the possibility of conviction remains. To tidy all those unsolved murders away in some great public act of "reconciliation" would be to copy the ostrich and the sand.
The raw past cannot be tidied away. At some future point society may be able to stop picking at the sores and leave the search for truth to historians. But Mr Murphy should remember his own two preconditions for any public exercise in truth and reconciliation - the conflict must be over, and the argument too.
The Belfast Agreement was possible only because the ending of the conflict was glossed over, and the future left open. Which may be why it is now in intensive care.