THERE IS A lot of learning in 25 years; the meaning of compromise, and, with that, the understanding that political agreement is not shaped by one set of demands.
Then, for those who were part of the talks, I suppose there is the soul-searching – the sleepless nights thinking and rethinking decisions, and the doubts that play into and trouble the mind.
In the poisoned politics of our place, some are still learning, and some will never learn.
No side got all it wanted from that tortuous negotiation at Castle Buildings in Belfast in 1998 – the talking that gave us the Good Friday Agreement.
Not David Trimble. Not Gerry Adams. Not John Hume. Not the Governments – British and Irish. Not the loyalists. Not the others.
There is always something missing in agreements. It is how they come to be made.
But each got something – being part of that moment that created a new beginning; what we might describe as a long road away from the ‘wars’ of this place.
We have also learned that peace is not surrender.
In 2023, there is much that still needs to be done.
Twenty-five years after Good Friday there is yet another crisis in northern politics.
Those who walked away in ’98, are still walking away; this time from the Windsor Framework; a renegotiated and complex post-Brexit trading arrangement between GB and Northern Ireland, that unionists argue damages the Union.
And those who are shouting loudest now shouted loudest for Brexit.
We watched as they ran down its blind alleys.
The learning, if only they would listen to someone other than themselves, is that politics is not just about what you want, but what comes with it.
We know those who have overplayed their hand. They do it time and time again.
So, in the waiting, we once again watch the pathetic, pantomime, pedestrian plays of Stormont.
At a recent event in west Belfast, a former Sinn Féin Lord Mayor of Belfast, Tom Hartley, spoke of my pessimism, and I responded by saying I was more pissed off; for this reason, that politicians – the leaders we had in ’98 – did the hard work, and, today, there are still those who stumble over the small bits – tripping themselves up; falling over their own feet, not knowing where they are going or why.
In this important anniversary year for the Good Friday Agreement, there is a serious question that almost everyone is avoiding: Is Stormont worth saving?
If it is, then it needs to prove that soon; save itself from the sham and the shame of that place.
Perhaps we need a new agreement; one that looks further than the vision of ’98.
We are still telling the war stories, the ghost stories; talking about the ugly truths.
None of that has been left behind.
The agreement was silent – there was no process, no way to address all those things we still talk about – truth, healing, reconciliation, sharing.
It avoided the Past, but it is always with us.
And, so, we are still trying to build new on that old swamp – those ‘war’ years that can still pull us down.
I believe strongly that the next 25 years are more important than the last 25 years – more challenging, potentially more difficult. Maybe dangerous.
In too many places, you can still walk along those high walls that stand between communities.
They are the internal borders in our peace – big structures that are a constant reminder of division. The peace lines can still become front lines.
None of this will change unless politics changes. Until minds open and change.
Stormont has failed the Past and failed the Peace – failed the Agreement.
It is not good enough. And we should not be afraid to say so.
So, this anniversary year should be a moment to reflect, not just on what was achieved in ’98, but what still needs to be done.
I was a non-believer in 1998; not able to see an agreement.
It is a story I am telling in a travelling exhibition – ’25 Pieces’; in scribbled notes and letters and statements drawn from my extensive archive.
On an old jotter page, the forgotten dead of 1998 – the names few of us remember.
The big battles that followed the agreement – about prisoners, policing and guns.
A story well beyond Good Friday of codewords, the words that continued to be used by paramilitary organisations to authenticate their communications with the media.
The intelligence wars that spoke of little or no trust.
The statements and briefings on the so-called ‘disappeared’ – those ‘executed’ and secretly buried by the IRA; the remains of some still not found.
Peace is a process – a long road, not knowing the bends. It is why, at times, it crashes.
But we know this. That words change when people talk.
That is the story of 1998 and of the peace process – How ‘no’ became ‘yes’.
Since then, there are those who have taken the ‘peace’ for granted – forgotten the horrors of the conflict period and who still play with the Past.
Those who throw bricks in the political glasshouses.
This process, which we call peace, needs saving, needs energy, needs momentum – needs the British and Irish Governments again. Needs international help. Needs leaders.
David Trimble believed he had a good deal in 1998 – on political and constitutional matters – a good deal for Northern Ireland and for the Union.
Sinn Féin had to find its way to Stormont; take a road we thought it had no intention of travelling.
A road to a place and into a political arrangement that is not fit for purpose.
The brokenness of our politics and the Brexit fallout are what have made the ‘New Ireland’ conversation louder.
That’s the damage to the Union. Self damage – political harm. No strategy. Blind politics.
And, so, at some point, there will be a border poll.
We don’t know when.
But we do know this. That the Good Friday Agreement was not a full stop.
That question of Union or Unity is always there in our conversation.
Politics, even when it is stuck, is always moving.
Brian Rowan is a former BBC correspondent in Belfast and an author on the peace process. His latest book Living with Ghosts was recently published by Merrion Press.
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