The drama re-enacted at the Saville Inquiry, acted out on
stage and screen, written about voluminously and a continuous
topic of conversation, is the Bloody Sunday of Londonderry,
30 years ago. We may be indifferent to what happened away
then for we have no experiential knowledge of it whether by
ourselves or our families and friends. We can not be ignorant
of it. We may be bored by the constant repetition, concerned
about the spiralling and apparently endless costs of the inquiry,
but we can not be surprised that people should want to know
what really happened on that terrible day; that blame for
its horrors should be recognised and accepted when the truth
of it has been established. But a verdict acceptable to all
immediately involved is not likely for the questions posed
from the days after that day will not be answered to satisfy
everybody. Doubts will remain, however conclusive the evidence
appears to be, so that the most the inquiry will do will be
to allow all the voices to be heard, a judicial decision to
be taken and the people to retain their views of what happened
on that fearful and fateful day. Meanwhile, we sympathise
with all those innocent people who suffer because their loved
ones lost their lives in the 30 years of these present "Troubles"
and feel with so very many of them that the concentration
on Bloody Sunday leaves them angry that their losses in many
places and by I.R.A. terrorism has not been treated with the
same determination and that the perpetrators of the most horrific
crimes have not been captured and brought to justice. One
thing has been emphasised again, the nationalist/republican
strengths in communication, presentation and manipulation
of the media to serve their own purposes. They have successfully
tapped into available resources with the use of opportunities
and facilities available to them to present their thinking
with a skill which leaves their opponents far behind them.
We have said it before - a bad case argued with skill can
beat a good case argued without it. What the nationalists/republicans
do so successfully is a persuasion on unionists and others
to do very much better than which needs to be done to plead
their good, and often better, case so that it is heard clearly
here and everywhere in a world to which there is easy access.
The one thing needful must be a greater awareness of the need
to avoid the verbal clashes which divide us to make us so
unlike the opposition which speaks with one voice and acts
together on those matters of real importance to them. Recently
shown were the films on UTV which depicted in fact and fiction
the events of Bloody Sunday. The first one featured the Ulster
film actor, James Nesbitt, as Ivan Cooper, former SDLP, MP,
as the leader in the civil rights march which was the occasion
of what happened on that day. It received the better press
for accuracy and balance. The second had as co-producer, a
former Sinn Fein activist, Stephen Gargan; as a researcher,
Tony Doherty, a former I.R.A. prisoner, whose father was shot
by paratroopers on Bloody Sunday. They, with the executive
producer, Jim Keys, of their Gaslight Productions, invited
Jimmy McGovern, the British screenwriter of such programmes
as Cracker and Brookside, to make a film about Bloody Sunday.
And "Big Bill" McGuinness, brother of Martin, was
responsible for security during filming and he engaged some
of the extras for the production. Liam Clarke, and The Sunday
Times who published this information, also pointed out that
Lord Saville had distanced himself from the film in spite
of McGovern's claim that it had his implicit blessing. With
such a team, balance was not to be expected. Speakers in the
debates on whether the films should have been shown while
the inquiry is in progress were expectantly negative and positive.
Whether they had any effect on what was such a well published
event remains to be seen.
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