John Hume's mixed legacy

It’s difficult, as a unionist, to write about John Hume’s life with complete equanimity. The former SDLP leader, who was buried last week in a modest ceremony, was respected widely for his steadfast opposition to violence during the Troubles. But he could be cruelly dismissive of the British tradition in Ireland.

Hume also became the most persuasive voice insisting that violent republicans should be involved in Northern Ireland’s political settlement. The legacy of that decision is disputed hotly, because it entrenched former terrorists’ influence and authority in Irish society, without requiring any contrition for their crimes, or even a repudiation of their tactics.

Hume came to prominence in the late 1960s, as a key figure in a civil rights movement in Northern Ireland that alleged the Catholic, nationalist community was subject to discrimination. He was a founding member of the Social Democratic and Labour Party, taking it in a more nationalist direction after he became leader in 1979. And, as the SDLP’s figurehead, he famously drove a political process that eventually resulted in the negotiation of the Belfast (or Good Friday) Agreement. As a result, he became known throughout the world as a statesman and an advocate for peace.

That was certainly part of his make-up, and he spoke fluently the language of reconciliation. Then again, unionists remember how, after the Anglo-Irish Agreement, he recommended lancing “the Protestant boil” in Ireland. He spoke about his fellow countrymen as a “petty people” who were “one of the most rightwing forces in Europe, no-one else would stand for them, anywhere.”

In 1997, just a year before the agreement was signed, he likened unionists to Afrikaaners in the Irish Times. He claimed they were “holding all power in their own hands” and hoped “that a unionist De Klerk will emerge.” He must have known that this comparison, just like his previous assertion that Ulster Protestants were like “whites” from “Mississippi”, was deeply insulting to the people with whom he apparently wanted to reconcile.

This rhetoric was difficult to square with his more pious declarations that we (in Northern Ireland) have more in common than divides us. But the truth was that Hume wanted reconciliation on his terms — a failing common to most of us. He viewed unionism not as a defensible political project based on genuine allegiance to the UK, but as a tradition, an identity, or a culture within the Irish nation, which he thought self-evidently should cover the entire island.

His decision to talk to Gerry Adams, first in 1985, and, more successfully, in 1993, is easily put in context when you consider that he said unionists, rather than the IRA, were responsible for “the present state of things in the North” during the Troubles. He and Adams were working toward the same ends, even if they had chosen different methods.

Many of Hume’s obituaries have repeated the assumption that he persuaded the IRA to give up violence. This account holds that his talks with Adams in the late 80s and early 90s, and his ability to persuade the British and Irish governments to accept broadly his template for “peace”, were responsible for republicans’ ceasefire and their subsequent decision to pursue their objectives (largely) through politics. A more complicated explanation pays attention to the fact that the security forces had so thoroughly infiltrated the IRA, and the republican movement was so completely demoralised and riven with splits, that by that time it was looking desperately for a way to avoid capitulation.

By legitimising Sinn Fein and giving it political credibility, Hume contributed to the downfall of his own party, the SDLP. He also undermined the message that had underpinned his career, which was that violence was wrong, unnecessary and unjustifiable.

In Northern Ireland now, Sinn Fein is the biggest nationalist party and the idea that the IRA’s campaign was justified seems more widespread than it was during the Troubles. The UUP has been sidelined by the DUP, which has its roots in hardline Protestant Ulster nationalism, rather than the more secular, UK-focussed form of Ulster unionism. The Hume-Adams talks, and the SDLP leader’s attempts to build a “pan-nationalist front” spanning constitutional nationalism, republicanism and the Dublin government, played a significant role in creating this regrettable status-quo.

Yet, it would be wrong not to acknowledge that Hume, like many other figures in the SDLP, was always forthright in his condemnation of IRA violence and unequivocal in his rejection of it. He maintained that position consistently, even though it meant that his life was at times under threat. And he brought the majority of nationalists along with him, so that a constitutional party, rather than a proxy for the IRA, represented their interests at Westminster and sometimes at Stormont.

That was not an inconsiderable achievement, and, in death, as in his life, Hume at least shows that there is another way for those who want Northern Ireland’s constitutional future to lie with the Republic of Ireland rather than the rest of the UK.

While Sinn Fein and the IRA used the death of one of their leading figures, Bobby Storey, to stage a show of strength in West Belfast, with thousands, including most of the party leadership, flouting social distancing rules during a pandemic, Hume’s family appealed to mourners to stay at home and light a candle for peace.