For those Londoners bereaved or injured by the bomb, life will never be quite the same. Fear or guilt may well haunt some survivors; while others will experience rage and hatred towards those responsible. The rest of us will have to endure, once again, the frequent 'security alerts', intrusive policing and air of unease that we were so glad, 17 short months ago, to consign to the past.
There can now be little point in continuing to woo the duplicitous Gerry Adams, Sinn Fein frontman and apologist for terrorism. Let us hope that the impotence of Adams in trying to curb the wilder elements in the republican movement is at last acknowledged in the slow-moving brain of Mr. William Clinton, who has done more than anyone to elevate Gerry from bearded Belfast barman to supposed world statesman. Adams's grip on power seems to be slipping by the day and it would be no surprise to learn for a fact that he was not told about Friday's 'spectacular' by the Thames. If so, his diminishing influence leaves an extremely dangerous vacuum.
We have learnt from 'sources' close to the IRA that the 'Army Council', the grandiose name under which the most senior butchers meet to decide strategy, have been split 4-3 on the issue of the ceasefire since the idea was first proposed. If the anti's have replaced the pro's, the return to violence will be swift, with many trigger fingers itching to resume their sick craft. It may be, however, that the main object of the exercise was a crude and misguided attempt to wring more concessions from a British Government that has already performed more about-turns than the Grand Old Duke of York's ten thousand men. John Major, for all his faults (and they are legion), has on this matter proved that he is willing to sacrifice political advantage for the cause of lasting peace. The republicans, for their part, have surrendered nothing, offered nothing and promised nothing.
The catalyst for the ending of the ceasefire has undoubtedly been the promise made by Major to hold representative elections in Northern Ireland as soon as is practicable. This is anathema to the IRA, whose support in previous elections has been small even in fiercely nationalistic areas. Democracy seems a strangely alien concept to these supposed 'freedom-fighters'. They are happy to accept handouts from their trans-Atlantic sponsors on the strength of ludicrous myths about their undemocratic treatment by the UK; yet run screaming the moment a real electoral process is mooted. I can remember vividly being scolded by a student type in a tricoloured Boston bar, who 'informed' me that Catholics in Ireland were not allowed the vote; when I insisted that this was propagandist nonsense, she hissed "Of course you'd deny it - you're a Brit!". Irish America is blind to the facts, in part due to the nauseating behaviour of the Kennedy family, which, for some unfathomable reason, still exerts considerable influence over US policy on Ulster.
It was in America in 1866 that the first appearance of an armed group calling itself the 'IRA' was recorded. Drawn largely from an organisation called the 'Fenian Brotherhood', the expatriate Irishmen fought a short and bloody battle with Canadian militiamen on the border. The name flickered and faded with the Fenian movement until it was resurrected in Dublin around the time of the Easter Uprising. The 'Provisional' IRA, as it is known today, came into existence as a result of the vicious split between northern and southern brigades over their response to events in Belfast and Londonderry during 1969. In Belfast, the marching season had culminated in widespread disorder and the 'burning-out' of Catholics living near the Shankhill Road, apparently with the collusion of the hated 'B' Specials, the part-time anti-republican auxiliary force of the RUC. Catholic families were forced to flee for their lives with whatever possessions they could carry, and the first gunshots of the present 'Troubles' were fired at the RUC by IRA men with rusty pistols.
Meanwhile, Catholic youths in the Bogside had declared their area 'Free Derry', erecting barricades and arming themselves with petrol bombs, sticks and stones to defend themselves from possible Protestant attack. Again, there was sustained and vicious rioting, with Protestant mobs rushing in behind advancing RUC units into the Bogside, where shops and houses were set ablaze. The Army was called in as it became clear that the RUC had insufficient manpower or resources to maintain the peace and, much to the disgust of republicans, received a warm welcome from local residents.
At this point, the northern command realised that the Dublin leadership of Cathal Goulding, out of touch with events over the border and opposed to any military campaign, could no longer be expected to defend Catholics in Ulster. Accordingly, the movement split, bitterly and painfully, with the Belfast traditionalists forming the nucleus of the 'Provisionals'. The bombing campaigns on the mainland began at the start of the '70s and have continued sporadically until the ceasefire in 1994.
In line with the development of the 'Provisionals' has been the growing connection with Sinn Fein ('Ourselves Alone'). It was formed in 1905 by one Arthur Griffith, a printer who published his own newspaper entitled 'United Irishman'. Griffith was not a committed republican and initially belived that England and Ireland could co-exist with a dual monarchy based on the Austro-Hungarian model. However, it soon became a point of focus for the republican movement and was considered such a threat that it was banned by the Government in 1964, along with 'United Irishman'. Although a legal organisation once more, Margaret Thatcher took steps as PM to prevent "the oxygen of publicity" feeding the flames of discord by introducing the infamous broadcasting ban on Sinn Fein members' real voices.
The suggestion that Sinn Fein has no direct connection to the IRA is one that nobody,with the possible exception of the student in Boston, treats seriously. Dual membership is common. Whether one would struggle to survive without the other, however, is open to question. While money continues to cross the pond via organisations such as 'Noraid', and the collection tins are still filled in Kilburn, the IRA can operate without constraint from any other group.
If the IRA can be prevented from damaging irrevocably the 'peace process', whether by forcing retaliatory action from loyalist groups such as the UVF or UFF, or simply by continuing to perpetrate acts of violence themselves, the Catholics and Protestants in the Province will rejoice. Should the peaceful majority decide once and for all that violence will never solve the underlying problem (i.e. the republicans' demands for an end to partition against the loyalists' demands to retain the Six Counties), they can do their bit by shopping the men of terror and revealing the location of their arms caches. But behind every twist and turn of this tragically protracted saga lurk the ghosts of those who have sacrificed their lives for either cause; and no-one can ever entirely forget the myths and legends of the long struggle: from the Battle of the Boyne to the Black and Tans; from the 'B' Specials to the 'Shankhill Butchers'; from Wolfe Tone to Gerry Adams; and from the Bogside to Brighton... and now South Quays.
The IRA have taken the peace, but can they be made to give it back?
The unfortunate case of the American housewife who is being divorced by her husband after he found illicit love e-mails to a character known only as 'The Weasel' has been followed by another cyber-scandal!
A jilted Lothario, out for revenge, has posted nude photographs of his former girlfriend, Ms. Stephany Wildman of New Jersey, across the Internet. Ms. Wildman, irritated further by the fact the pictures had been doctored to feature bondage, is quoted as saying "I feel so violated! But no-one can stop him". As with so many technological developments, every silver lining has a cloud, and cyber-crime may be the next.
One dreads opening one's e-mail in the morning to find rude words or massive junk files among the usual messages (cyber-graffiti?); while ladies with risque addresses such as foxy@home... may find anonymous malcontents pursuing them around the world (cyber-stalking?). Imagine the horror should a gang of vicious 'Net-Heads target you for sustained viral attack (cyber-GBH). Consider the embarrassment should a work colleague use your PC to send debauched messages to the dragon in the accounts department or sabotage your salary details (cyber-fraud).
The Information Superhighway may soon be littered with the victims of cyber-road rage, cyber-drunkenness and cyber-plain bad driving.
...are Messrs. Howe, Hurd and Garel-Jones, who have been squealing like stuck pigs about the legitimacy of the just-published Scott Report.
It is unbecoming and patronising of them to try to diminish the report's findings by insinuating that Sir Richard Scott cannot arrive at a balanced conclusion because he is not sufficiently well-versed in the machinations of government or the workings of Parliament. Even the fact that he rides a bicycle to work was used as an example of his apparent eccentricity and thus, by implication, unreliability. In WASP's opinion, the less time someone has spent in the House of Commons, the better!
Now that the report has been published and most commentators have come to the conclusion that it was something of an anti-climax (especially for the Labour Party, who had hoped for dynamite and found only fireworks), the almost hysterical twitterings of the above-mentioned seem even more unnecessary. Geoffrey Howe's opinion is frankly an irrelevance; Hurd is the most over-rated politician ever to have strode centre stage; and Tristan Garel-Jones, a.k.a. 'The Prince of Darkness' and 'The Member for Madrid Central', was revealed by a BBC documentary entitled 'Westminster's Secret Police' as an odious little shit of the first order.
Only Dear John's shambles of a government could order an inquiry and then feel compelled to rubbish its conclusions for fear of yet more charges of sleaze and incompetence. It is clear that ministers, even if they did not deliberately mislead or deceive the House of Commons, are appallingly ignorant of policy within their own departments, which in some ways is even worse! The culture of secrecy within the Civil Service must be broken.
It is high time the smug Sir Humphreys of Whitehall faced an investigation into their whole modus operandi>.