Ian Paisley: an Unexpected Peace-maker?

I did not know Ian Paisley personally so I know nothing about him as a friend or relation. I knew only the public figure: the politician and preacher.

In that context, I did not like him and I did not like either his politics or his religion. He was a demagogue who sneered at other people, denigrating their beliefs, trying to impose his ideologies on others.

There is nothing to suggest that Ian Paisley was directly involved in paramilitary activity; he kept on the right side of the law in spite of occasional sallies up mountains with men waving their fire-arm certificates in not-so-veiled threats at what they might do if ‘Ulster’ was sold down the river by Westminster. At the same time, the Paisley brand of religion and politics helped to stoke passions that others used in the recruitment of young men into paramilitary gangs, resulting in the deaths of many Catholics.

It is difficult, therefore, for me to acknowledge that Ian Paisley played a crucial part in bringing peace to Northern Ireland. Without him, it is certain that ‘the Troubles’ would still have happened, but it is unlikely that they would have been as ‘contained’  as they were or that they would have ended as early as they did.

Ian Paisley acted as an unwitting lightning rod for the bigotry of many people who found that he expressed their fears and feelings and having done so, they were prepared to leave it at that. In the absence of Paisley’s rhetoric, obnoxious as I believe it to have been, more people would have made they way directly into the arms of the paramilitaries. That is one reason why paramilitary leaders were always suspicious and critical of him.

In his eventual decision to talk to Sinn Fein and to enter into partnership government with them, he truly took a courageous step.  He suffered for this departure from his previous path at the hands of both his political and religious peers, but had he not acted as he did we might still be witnessing weekly bloodshed on our streets. In truth, (and I find this very hard to admit) had he tried to effect an agreement earlier than he did, there would have been no chance of it being accepted by those he led.

The unpalatable truth of this is that, in the final analysis, it is not peace-loving people who make peace, but rather those who are fighting and for whatever reason change their minds. I hate to say it, but Ian Paisley was able to make peace because he first was an integral part of the conflict. What that says about the processes involved in peace-making has to be embraced, however offensive it might be to those of us who want to have no part in conflict.