20 September 2001 Edition
SDLP in crisis as Hume bows out
BY FERN LANE
There has been a sense of inevitability regarding John Hume's resignation since the election. Not only were there the faintest of rumblings within his own party regarding the viability of his continuing as party leader, but years of ill-health have finally forced his hand. As a result, the party which he founded and which is so closely identified with him personally, is left significantly weakened and more unsure than ever of its political identity.
John Hume's vision, like almost everybody else's, was of peace, and he pursued that vision relentlessly. There is no doubt whatsoever that he was willing at times to take great personal and political risks; never more so than when he responded to Gerry Adams' initiative to engage in what became known as the Hume Adams talks and so laying the foundations for the Good Friday Agreement. Although undoubtedly dedicated to the Agreement, his failure since then - despite his often visible frustration and anger at the sneering arrogance of many of unionists he has to deal with - has been to turn on Sinn Féin whenever those same unionists erected another barrier for republicans (and by extension, the people they represent) to try and clamber over.
For republicans, and increasing numbers of young nationalists, the fault with Hume's vision of peace lay in how he believed it could be achieved. For most of his political life and certainly in his later years, his philosophy, and thus that of his party, was one of lowering the horizons of northern nationalists, of reigning in expectations of what could be achieved, whether through armed struggle or through political engagement. His approach - apart from that brief period after Bloody Sunday when he argued that it was ``a united Ireland or nothing'' - was to implicitly encourage nationalists to appease unionists and to accept British rule so long as they were conceded, however reluctantly, civil rights in return. His view remained that unity was a desirable by-product, but no more than that. His endlessly repeated mantra that the division of Ireland was in the minds of the people and not a line on a map was suggestive - particularly to republicans - of a wilful misrepresentation. He seemed to ignore, or try and discredit, the view that division of country and people are deeply interconnected; that one had led to the other and that in the end a resolution of this conflict will depend on both being addressed. Reconciliation is important, but it is not the whole story.
Hume's view of republicanism as a kind of psychological disorder, rather than a coherent political analysis, is one that has surfaced every time he and his colleagues have insisted on blaming the voters for the SDLP's poor showing in elections. Both during the most recent campaign and in the aftermath Hume, by now fatally out of touch with street politics, habitually characterised Sinn Féin voters as tribal, emotional and brainwashed; possibly even bullied.
Neither he personally, nor many of those with whom he worked, could quite comprehend that most voters are perfectly capable of making rational, intellectual choices; on the whole they considered the options before them, judged which party could best represent them and further their own ambitions and made their choice on the basis of the political analyses and arguments which were put before them. Put simply, the SLDP lost most of the arguments most of the time.
Hume has also continued to insist that the SLDP sacrificed its own interests for the sake of the greater good, bringing Sinn Féin in from political isolation, conferring respectability upon it and so making it a more attractive election proposition. Such an interpretation, like the view of Sinn Féin supporters as dysfunctional, may provide some comfort to the leadership as it struggles to understand how it was overtaken at the polls, but to continue to cling to that analysis will only damage the party further as it neglects to pay proper attention to the more likely reasons for its decline.
Years ago, many nationalists might well have decided that their best option was not to antagonise their unionist masters - with good reason, when one considers the dangers of being a republican - but that is no longer the case. Young and old alike are gaining confidence in both their identity and their political expression, and are increasingly unconcerned about whether they appear as respectable or `good' Catholics to unionists. They will not, for example, settle for a police force which is merely the old RUC dressed in new clothes.
The party's instinctive lean towards the middle class and its attendant reluctance to get involved in street politics has resulted in its alienation from vast swathes of working class people, some of whose most important political and human rights battles have, as we have seen in recent weeks, been fought from outside the safety of institutions.
All of this, however, is not the total of the party's problems. With the SDLP's political identity so closely intertwined with the personality of its leader, the job of Hume's successor is made all the more difficult, even without the electoral problems he or she will face. And the remaining obvious candidates, Brid Rogers, Mark Durkan and Alban Maginness, all have serious deficiencies.
Seamus Mallon (who as Deputy First Minister always reserved his most bilious language for republicans, no matter how badly unionists behaved) even before he ruled himself out, was never going to attract the youth membership or votes the party desperately needs. Brid Rodgers is also in her 60s and no more likely than Mallon to appeal to the crucial 18-35 age group. In addition, she did not do her putative leadership campaign any favours, even within the party itself, with the debacle in West Tyrone, when she was parachuted in to the constituency only to lose badly to Pat Doherty. Alban Maginness is also indirectly associated with that failure. Mark Durkan, although the youngest of the prospective candidates, is somewhat short on charisma and at present lies firmly in the shadow of his outgoing leader.
Whoever the party chooses, the new leader is less likely than Hume, for both personal and political reasons, to garner the kind of favourable attention from the British government than was lavished on him. Hume's national and international standing ensured that he could not be overlooked Perhaps more importantly, the SDLP - the good Catholics - had their uses as the British attempted to marginalise and defeat republicanism; they were central to the colonial ploy of drawing in moderates with minor concessions in order to isolate the radicals. Now that the political landscape of the Six Counties has changed, there is a distinct possibility the new leader could find himself or herself, at this most difficult of times in the peace process, looking on from the sidelines.
There has been a sense of inevitability regarding John Hume's resignation since the election. Not only were there the faintest of rumblings within his own party regarding the viability of his continuing as party leader, but years of ill-health have finally forced his hand. As a result, the party which he founded and which is so closely identified with him personally, is left significantly weakened and more unsure than ever of its political identity.
John Hume's vision, like almost everybody else's, was of peace, and he pursued that vision relentlessly. There is no doubt whatsoever that he was willing at times to take great personal and political risks; never more so than when he responded to Gerry Adams' initiative to engage in what became known as the Hume Adams talks and so laying the foundations for the Good Friday Agreement. Although undoubtedly dedicated to the Agreement, his failure since then - despite his often visible frustration and anger at the sneering arrogance of many of unionists he has to deal with - has been to turn on Sinn Féin whenever those same unionists erected another barrier for republicans (and by extension, the people they represent) to try and clamber over.
For republicans, and increasing numbers of young nationalists, the fault with Hume's vision of peace lay in how he believed it could be achieved. For most of his political life and certainly in his later years, his philosophy, and thus that of his party, was one of lowering the horizons of northern nationalists, of reigning in expectations of what could be achieved, whether through armed struggle or through political engagement. His approach - apart from that brief period after Bloody Sunday when he argued that it was ``a united Ireland or nothing'' - was to implicitly encourage nationalists to appease unionists and to accept British rule so long as they were conceded, however reluctantly, civil rights in return. His view remained that unity was a desirable by-product, but no more than that. His endlessly repeated mantra that the division of Ireland was in the minds of the people and not a line on a map was suggestive - particularly to republicans - of a wilful misrepresentation. He seemed to ignore, or try and discredit, the view that division of country and people are deeply interconnected; that one had led to the other and that in the end a resolution of this conflict will depend on both being addressed. Reconciliation is important, but it is not the whole story.
Hume's view of republicanism as a kind of psychological disorder, rather than a coherent political analysis, is one that has surfaced every time he and his colleagues have insisted on blaming the voters for the SDLP's poor showing in elections. Both during the most recent campaign and in the aftermath Hume, by now fatally out of touch with street politics, habitually characterised Sinn Féin voters as tribal, emotional and brainwashed; possibly even bullied.
Neither he personally, nor many of those with whom he worked, could quite comprehend that most voters are perfectly capable of making rational, intellectual choices; on the whole they considered the options before them, judged which party could best represent them and further their own ambitions and made their choice on the basis of the political analyses and arguments which were put before them. Put simply, the SLDP lost most of the arguments most of the time.
Hume has also continued to insist that the SLDP sacrificed its own interests for the sake of the greater good, bringing Sinn Féin in from political isolation, conferring respectability upon it and so making it a more attractive election proposition. Such an interpretation, like the view of Sinn Féin supporters as dysfunctional, may provide some comfort to the leadership as it struggles to understand how it was overtaken at the polls, but to continue to cling to that analysis will only damage the party further as it neglects to pay proper attention to the more likely reasons for its decline.
Years ago, many nationalists might well have decided that their best option was not to antagonise their unionist masters - with good reason, when one considers the dangers of being a republican - but that is no longer the case. Young and old alike are gaining confidence in both their identity and their political expression, and are increasingly unconcerned about whether they appear as respectable or `good' Catholics to unionists. They will not, for example, settle for a police force which is merely the old RUC dressed in new clothes.
The party's instinctive lean towards the middle class and its attendant reluctance to get involved in street politics has resulted in its alienation from vast swathes of working class people, some of whose most important political and human rights battles have, as we have seen in recent weeks, been fought from outside the safety of institutions.
All of this, however, is not the total of the party's problems. With the SDLP's political identity so closely intertwined with the personality of its leader, the job of Hume's successor is made all the more difficult, even without the electoral problems he or she will face. And the remaining obvious candidates, Brid Rogers, Mark Durkan and Alban Maginness, all have serious deficiencies.
Seamus Mallon (who as Deputy First Minister always reserved his most bilious language for republicans, no matter how badly unionists behaved) even before he ruled himself out, was never going to attract the youth membership or votes the party desperately needs. Brid Rodgers is also in her 60s and no more likely than Mallon to appeal to the crucial 18-35 age group. In addition, she did not do her putative leadership campaign any favours, even within the party itself, with the debacle in West Tyrone, when she was parachuted in to the constituency only to lose badly to Pat Doherty. Alban Maginness is also indirectly associated with that failure. Mark Durkan, although the youngest of the prospective candidates, is somewhat short on charisma and at present lies firmly in the shadow of his outgoing leader.
Whoever the party chooses, the new leader is less likely than Hume, for both personal and political reasons, to garner the kind of favourable attention from the British government than was lavished on him. Hume's national and international standing ensured that he could not be overlooked Perhaps more importantly, the SDLP - the good Catholics - had their uses as the British attempted to marginalise and defeat republicanism; they were central to the colonial ploy of drawing in moderates with minor concessions in order to isolate the radicals. Now that the political landscape of the Six Counties has changed, there is a distinct possibility the new leader could find himself or herself, at this most difficult of times in the peace process, looking on from the sidelines.