If You Ask Me
by Malachi O'Doherty

There is a painful irony in the role that Peter Hain has inherited in Northern Ireland. Such a frisky and vigorous, macho man - up for a challenge! He is also a bit like the fireman who has arrived after the fire has gone out.

And the fire has gone out - mostly. Not only the fire on the streets and on housing estates - the fire of chaos and murder.

The fire in the bellies of ardent paramilitaries has gone out too - and it must be difficult for young people to imagine that men like David Ervine and Gerry Adams - cuddly and hairy as they appear - were ever part of an incendiary uprising that devastated our towns and cities and took thousands of lives.

Now that would have been a challenge worthy of firefighter Hain.
Had he been here when IRA vandals were smashing up Main Street; had he been here when Paisley was urging a Third Force on the Carson Trail; had he been here when ranks of masked loyalists were tramping the streets and manning the barricades; oh such a difference a strongman in government might have made then.

But now Hain surveys the scorched ground of Ulster and he sees new growth everywhere, and only the occasional smouldering ember of parades angst or political deadlock, none of which warrants the full blast of his hose and it's awesome power.

Firemen Hain doesn't like this. Not for him the easy way of previous Secretaries of State - glad handing and spreading only unction, the political equivalents of charity car washes and helping cats out of trees. Hardly work for a real man at all.

The usual responsibility of the Secretary of State is simply to douse us with patrician reassurance - which amounts only to reassurance that their civil servants are taking care of everything. Hain wants action and he wants it now. But that's not the way we do things here.

He must be frustrated at our slow pace. Firemen Hain drives his shiny big engine up and down the street and expects everyone to be impressed with his decisions and his deadlines. "Jump to it, people. Get yourselves a functioning democracy or you will be overwhelmed by the flames of educational reform, water charges, North-South co-operation."

He expected to see an overheated and anxious populace, sweltering with horror at the prospect of bad children in good schools, and sewage, sewage everywhere, throwing up their arms in gratitude for a final settlement and devolution.

If only the people could see Martin McGuinness and Ian Paisley walk hand in hand up the steps of Stormont, the fever would pass. But there is no fever. The mood of the people is different. They know they should be worrying.

They know that they should be enjoying the security of having a strongman Secretary of State imposing order and responsibility on those who are not ready for it. But they are saying: what's the rush, Peter? "Where's the fire?"

If You Ask Me Archive