In
the only photograph of Jean McConville, taken in 1965, she stands
beside a row of her children. She’s pregnant, her arms folded,
hands hidden, wearing an apron. Her head is tilted, dark wavy hair
pulled back and eyes scrunched up against the light.
Recent events
involving the arrest of Gerry Adams TD bring the ghost of Jean
McConville before us. She and all the other ghosts of the conflict in
Ireland remain with us. As a woman, she was 'disappeared'. As a
ghost, she remains with us forever.
She
was a witty woman and she liked a laugh.
The
laughter of the ghost of Jean McConville resounds with the grim
laughter of all the dead.
The
dead abound, the dead abound.
How
do we keep them in the ground?
The
past remains, the past remains.
How
do we satisfy its claims?
The
truth cries out, the truth cries out.
How
do we still that urgent shout?
That urgent shout is
now a clamour. Every day ghosts appear among us, manifesting their
own pain and triggering pain among the living who anguish, then
berate themselves for failing to satisfy the claims of the past in a
way that would give rest to the ghosts.
The
needs of victims and survivors are complex and multi-faceted.
Four
areas have been identified that need to be addressed, namely:
Acknowledgement;
Truth; Justice, and Reparation.
Addressing these
fours areas is both a personal and a public matter. The personal
grief of the injured survivor and of the loved one left behind can be
told in small occasions of sharing, in acts of silent witnessing, in
gestures of solidarity and kindness and in the endeavours of citizens
of good will to re-create a civil world.
The public address
to these four matters is more complex. It occurs in a contested arena
of politics. It is a locale of war continuing by means other than
military, involving state and non-state actors.
A
narrative needs to be constructed and that a collection of existing
narratives should be made out of which, with additional material, the
contours of a narrative can be constructed, without conflicting
narratives being adjudicated. This will inform the process of moving
into a future in which the past will not repeat itself.
Who
will write this narrative? Who will collect these existing
narratives? Who will not adjudicate the conflicting narratives?
The ghosts will not
write it, though their stories are the core of it.
She
said no, she had done nothing wrong, and she was not running from
anybody. We talked that night. She asked me what I wanted from my
life. She told me she missed Arthur and she said she hoped I would
find a good man. She gave me a cigarette.
The living are
writing it, many of them victims and survivors themselves.
It
shouldn’t have happened.
And
in the writing of it, they can give rest to the ghosts and succour to
themselves, the living, by asserting that it never will happen again.
It
was my mother’s first place of her own. Four rooms with an outside
toilet, but it was her wee palace. I remember her buying material to
make curtains, and going down to Smithfield Market to get junk.
AH 6905; stage-play; Dave Duggan from Plays in a Peace Process; Guildhall Press; Derry; 2008
Advice
on Dealing with the Past: A Victim Centred Approach;
Commission for Victims and Survivors; Belfast;
2014
Diary;
London Review of Books; Volume 35 No. 24; Susan McKay; London;
19.12.2013 http://www.lrb.co.uk/v35/n24/susan-mckay/diary
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