ANOTHER VOICE
The Guardian has taken a risk for peace. Gerry
and Martin must not let it down
BORIS JOHNSON
My relative scanned me closely. 'Are you all right, darling?' she asked. I can't be sure, but I think my eyes may have prickled with tears, and there was perhaps a lump in my throat; and she knew. She reads the Guardian, you see, always has done, and she knew that they had been — choke horrid to her boy and his chums.
For the benefit of the handful who do not read the Guardian editorials, they had a go at us the other day. It seems that someone at the Guardian was furious at a recent piece, of characteristic brilliance, by Stephen Glover. The gist of his column was that the paper could be pretty 'green' — if not green — in its editorial line on Ulster. Without causing Alan Rusbridger to throw his toys out of the pram, let me summarise Glover's detailed article by saying that he identified pro-Republican trends in the Guardian, and linked them to various high- ups on that paper, some of whom have interesting relations with the sympathisers of Sinn Fein/IRA. To judge by the reaction from Farringdon Road, this article was like the little bomblet that falls down the tall spindly chimney in the middle of the Dreadnought, plink plink plink, until it reaches the engine room, and boom.
Now, if the last few years teach us any- thing, it is that those whom the gods wish to destroy, they first encourage to attack the Guardian. The political world is full of the gibbering wraiths of right-wingers who thought they could beat Mr Preston or Mr Rusbridger; and I am not at all keen to join them. No, my hope is that by the time Alan reaches the end of this article, he will be so poleaxed by a sense of peace, wisdom, calm and common sense, that hostilities will cease between our two great titles, and the lantern eye of the Guardian editorial page can turn away from us, and back to those causes which cry for Justice! Such as Third World debt, the continuing existence of male-only clubs, and the difficulties of breast-feeding on Connex South Central.
So let me say first that if we got anything significantly wrong (and I don't think we did), then I apologise unreservedly, and reaffirm that our letters page is open for corrections. In that respect, incidentally, we differ from the Guardian, which constantly preens itself about free speech and free debate, and yet which has unaccountably declined to publish my own letter (which is why I am driven to writing this article). I'm sorry, too, if members of the Guardian's staff feel traduced; because the reality is that the Guardian, on the question of Ulster, has been little short of heroic.
It has looked deeply at the question; it has gauged the passionate desire for peace in all communities; and it has decided, after much meditation, to take a risk with its readers. The newspaper has decided to see goodness in Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness. The leaders of Sinn Fein/IRA (and, as everyone from the Prime Minister down- wards has assured us, there is no important distinction, no moral distinction, between the two organisations) are regularly present- ed as men who deserve our quiet under- standing. We must give them time, the news- paper has urged. They deserve our sympa- thy. Leaders have spoken cluckingly of the strain in Gerry Adams's voice, and portrayed him as a man hemmed in by unreason: Republican diehards; primitive, obscurantist Unionists; an immobile British government.
You and I might think that this was a flat- tering portrait of the Sinn Fein leadership, and that Adams and McGuinness are still spokesmen for an organisation which has bombed and killed until the government, exhausted, has capitulated and offered to reform the UK constitution to their satisfac- tion. But it is a measure of the Guardian's bravery that it ignores this hackneyed analy- sis. Making use of their excellent contacts with Sinn Fein/IRA — detailed by Glover — senior figures in the newspaper have been to Londonderry and returned with long and reverent interviews; they have even invited Danny Morrison, inventor of the slo- gan about the 'Armalite and the ballot box', to their summer party. More than any other broadsheet newspaper, the Guardian is sym- pathetic to the aims and present methods of Sinn Fein/IRA, in so far as they are trying to bring peace.
All of which makes it utterly baffling that the editor of that newspaper should be so wounded by Glover's article. If, as they freely declare, the top echelons of the Now Blair can take Frank Dobson on holiday.' Guardian admire Gerry Adams, how can it be a 'smear' to say so? If they like the new, supposedly cuddly Sinn Fein, how can it be `offensive' to point that out? It strikes me that Alan Rusbridger needs to get his ducks in order. He has steered his paper towards an exceedingly progressive view of the Republican cause, with the help, as Glover points out, of a cell of like-minded people. How can it be 'ugly' to point that out?
It may be that the Guardian is suffering from an unexamined inconsistency in its attitudes. The newspaper may have swal- lowed its disgust at terrorism, and persuad- ed itself that it is essential to give Adams and McGuinness the fairest possible hear- ing, while still shuddering at the immanent associations of being linked with Sinn Fein/IRA. But if you say that the world has changed, that Adams and McGuinness are shining hopes (though at least one of them is thought still to sit on the IRA army coun- cil), then you must realise that, in-your lexi- con, Sinn Fein/IRA are no longer bad words. You cannot be affronted at the sug- gestion that you are sympathetic towards their representatives.
Mainly, though, this spat between the Guardian and The Spectator is a question of timing. We are at one of those sticky moments in the so-called peace process, where we seem to have run up against Sinn Fein/IRA's refusal to acknowledge that Republican terrorism should be visibly renounced. Sensible, middle-of-the-road types — some of them Guardian readers are starting to wonder whether the IRA really will hand over its weapons, and prove that it is committed to peace. No wonder there is a certain tension and irritability in Farringdon Road. It would be embarrassing if Gerry and Martin let them down, and all the Guardian's entreaties for patience and understanding are made to seem foolish.
No one could conceivably want such an outcome. It may not happen that way; it need not. Perhaps in a few months' time there will be a great molten pyre of Kalash- nikovs, and all the investment of trust and patience that the Guardian has made, and urged upon its readers, will be vindicated. All the dyspeptic Unionists, and the Daily Telegraphs of this world, will have been proved wrong. Let us hope so. So come on, Gerry; come on, Martin: think what the Guardian has staked on you; and get the boys to hand them over.
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