A good moment in history
By Laura Friel
Everyone agreed it was historic, but whether it was good, bad or
indifferent depended largely on your perspective. Emerging from
No 10 Downing Street after an hour long meeting with Tony Blair,
Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams described it as ``a good moment in
history''.
The fact that the meeting was taking place at all was
sufficiently bad news for Unionists. For Ian Paisley it was the
``triumph of terror.'' For UUP MP Jeffrey Donaldson it was
``sickening''. Orange Order Grand Secretary John McCrea described
the meeting as ``despicable''.
Publicly, Tony Blair was hedging his bets. For the British PM
Sinn Féin's visit to No 10 was a sort of necessary evil. ``I know
it's difficult for people when they see Sinn Féin coming into No
10 Downing Street'', said Tony, ``but they have signed up to the
Mitchell Principles. They are part of the process. They have got
to be treated like other parties.''
For the begrudgers in the media it was all doom and gloom,
Michael Collins went to Downing Street and he was shot dead.
Gerry Adams was not only facing Tony Blair, he was also ``facing
facts''. And according to the media they were decidedly British
facts too. ``One key is that Irish unity is not to be found in the
foreseeable future,'' said the London Independent.
Sinn Féin's Richard McAuley had the inside story. ``Sinn Féin sees
the meeting with Tony Blair as part of a process,'' he said, ``as
we went into the meeting Gerry's opening remarks made the point
that we were not there simply to put up our stock positions and
we hoped that the British government would adopt a similar
approach.''
``A leap of imagination'', is what Adams said was needed on the
part of the British. He asked Blair to look at Ireland and the
relationship between Ireland and Britain and ask what it would be
like in five, ten, fifteen years' time. The portraits of three
former British Prime Ministers decorate the Cabinet room. It's a
quaint English custom, commented Adams, displaying their failures
up on the wall.
``The point was made,'' McAuley said, Balfour, Gladstone and Lloyd
George all thought they had resolved what they called the Irish
Question and we call our British problem, but they hadn't.''
A hundred years later, Sinn Féin was there to address that
``unfinished business''. Two issues really had to be resolved,
Adams told the British PM, if a peace settlement was to be
achieved. Those two issues are British policy and the Unionist
veto.
Martin McGuinness stressed the need for the British government to
encourage the unionists to engage in the peace process.
Commenting on the role of the `securocrats' McGuinness said the
British government needed to ensure politics, and not the old
security agenda, dictated British policy.
The delegation raised a number of specific issues which included,
political prisoners, spy posts and Bloody Sunday. ``The meeting
could be described as cordial and constructive'', McAuley said.
Emerging onto the steps of Downing Street, Adams said he had
found a Prime Minister who ``engaged and listened''. ``I think for
the first time in my lifetime a British prime minister was able
to hear from an Irish republican that the relationship between
our two islands, which has meant so much suffering and death and
pain and agony, can be put to one side, can become part of our
history and that Mr Blair is significantly placed to be the
British Prime Minister who brings about a new relationship
between the people of these islands.'' The hurt and grief and
division, said Adams, which as come from British involvement in
our affairs must end.
![[An Phoblacht]](http://republican-news.org/graphics/title_gifs/aprn.gif)