Peace – mirror image of war – deadlock

An important and challenging response from one of Northern Ireland’s best informed and dispassionate political analysts.  A timely challenge to all parties to our conflict.  As Brian Rowan reminds us, an opportunity which must not be dismissed lightly or otherwise by any party or sector which claims to be serious about reconcilliation and the healing of hurt, however ‘uncomfortable’ they fear this conversation may be initially.   Is there an alternative route to the next stage of the journey that deep within us we all want to take ?  To pick up on Rowan’s athletic analogy, the stakes in this marathon are too high to leave it to a lone runner !  Maybe we should think of a team in a relay race in which everyone is a potential winner, at whatever stage they played their distinctive part. 

I agree Barney – keeping an open mind creates the possibility that someone will drop a useful thought in it!

The Godfathers- 10K PER WEEK DRINKS BILL LAVISH STORMONT-YOUR TAXES – YOUR THE MUG WHO VOTES THEM IN.Listen to Nolans show this morning dup=ps/f could not run a raffle- but ye all get what you vote for -no health-no education-no jobs-no justice- no truth!

As an ex-combatant and ex-UDA Prisoner now deeply involved with the Prison to Peace Project I can understand how individuals on either side of the divide have difficulty accepting that the perpetrators of the violence,murder and mayhem during the conflict might be capable of showing any remorse or regret for their actions. Through Prison To Peace and my experience working with Republicans on interfaces I have come to know many ex-combatants whom I would have seen as my enemies in the past but now I see them very much as an essential part of the Peace Process.
Many people will find that strange and many people don’t and won’t accept that ex-loyalist combatants-ex -prisoners are an essential part of the Process but I firmly believe there couldnt be or wouldn’t be peace without the interaction between,UDA-UVF/RHC-PIRA-ORM and INLA ex-combatants.i believe it takes those who made war to make peace,or at least create the environment for negotations towards peace.i have visited schools and Youth Clubs,met teachers and Youth Leaders and tallked to and listened to many young people With members of the aforementioned groups,with the intention of de-glamourising paramilitary ism.Every member of our panel at these get togethers has at one time or other agreed that much of our violent past could have been avoided and all have agreed that their respective organisations had done wrong. None condemned the actual conflict because of the circumstances that brought each organisation into being,who could have predicted how things would evolve from the violence we witnessed on the streets of Londonderry in 69 to Bloody Sunday,Bloody Friday,Warrenpoint or countless other atrocities,or how men and women, especially young men and women would adapt to it. We all agree we must not allow things ever to get that bad again,that in itself is admitting the past was wrong,and that no organisation can see themselves as blameless Freedom Fighters for one cause or another,nor can the
British Government or the Security Forces under their control deny they could and maybe should have done things differently. Mistakes were bound to happen and everyone involved in the conflict made them,the question is what do we do to ensure there are no more mistakes,no more perpetrators,no more victims. How we move on or if we move on is surely what must be the greatest concern for every right minded person in our society,it will take much debate and soul searching,trust and compromise. When we talk about peace some cynics NOT peace at any price,I ask what price is war,too many families unfortunately know the answer to that question!

The more I think about ongoing debate over Declan Kearneys article,the more I feel the need to defend the Loyalist/Unionist view on what has been said. As a member of the UPRG I will discuss this in depth with my colleagues at the first opportunity,what I’m about to write is only my own opinion. The question of trust is an obvious one when you consider the past,and whilst I’m one of those people hoping for a better future which can only come about if its a shared future,Nationilists and Republicans,in particular ex-combatants must surely understand why the P.U.L community have such difficulty with the issue of trust.What Declan says makes sense as does a lot of what Sinn Fein has said since they became part of the Government. The problem is what has gone before and how P.I.R.A/Sinn Fein got to where they are today and it will take a lot of hard work to convince the P.U.L that Republicans are genuine. Through Prison to Peace I find myself in the position to speak to and listen to all the Republican ex-paramilitary groups,or at least representatives of them and I have,hopefully a better insight and understanding of the overall picture. I now realise that those groups had different views and opinions of how the conflict should or should not be fought,they still have different opinions today.Loyalists had the same differing opinions on tactics and ALL the paramilitaries not only fought the ENEMY they also had their internal feuds,and they too have different views today. I think it’s important that everyone realises this,and I say to me colleagues Until our people know as much as we know they won’t understand why we do what we do. I think it can only help if we share the conversations that we have,let as many people as possible be part of the conversation and dialogue,young people from both sides of the divide would hopefully benefit from being brought into the discussions,they are part of our future and they should be made feel important and that their contribution is essential and vital. I began by defending the doubts and reservations of my own community and I will always do so,but I also realise how important it is to move on because standing still is so dangerous,in fact there is no standing still,the danger is we go backwards. Everyone has their reasons for doubt and they cannot be criticised for that,many have personal reasons why they Cannot complete the journey to peace and I have always tried to understand just how difficult it must be for them,what I do hope though is that somehow,maybe through being made more aware of how we got to where we were and how we became the people we became more people in both communities can at least begin to think of a better future.Nobody can tell anyone how they should feel,surely the responsibility for changing minds,addressing the doubts and fears of those deeply affected by the conflict,lies in the main with the perpetrators and the decision makers at the time. This is a difficult time for us all,there is no simple answer,therein lies the danger to all of our future.

The ‘conversations’ whatever form or shape need to happen and be supported – the possibilities need to be explored. Outreach, exploratory dialogue, active listening and engagement if Sinn Fein are genuinely serious would involve challenging engagement with ‘hard to reach’ groups, which is about building new connections, the extension of assistance or services to persons or groups not previously served through the Peace programmes and the provision of information or services to groups in society who might otherwise be neglected for whatever reason. This initiative could extend and embed reconciliation within and between communities by creating avenues and space to deliver a wide range of activities.
Pertinent community and indeed personal issues need to be addressed and as a party they would have to be prepared to offer and facilitate a safe space for crucial and frank conversations, which can lead to further, agreed and progressive approaches for transformation and change. These approaches and efforts should reflect the totality of relationships at different levels within a community and should also be dynamic, pragmatic, and risky – the format should just not be the ‘same old same old’, work with exclusive or familiar groups or even about regurgitating old methods with favoured individuals or existing groups but something tangible and potentially transformative that impacts locally.
A locally informed programme of intervention or community capacity building should be responsive, not a quick solution and reflective of needs. It should also be concerned with ensuring and creating a safe space for exchange and dialogue. An integral element for SF I would imagine should not only be based on equality, fairness, and genuine inclusion but about building a better future for everyone that underpins and influences what we can all do in shaping a better society.
Seeking, constructing and sustaining peace is one of the most complex, intriguing and outright frustrating challenges we face across our global community. Long-standing and bitter conflicts between identity groups continue to frustrate the quest for peace in the world. In the North of Ireland whilst there appears to be a general desire for true transformation there must also exist a desire and collective willingness to build a new future involving the ‘hard to reach’ regardless of who or what they are or represent. People whether as individuals or within their communities have and will continue to reach out across their divides – these efforts are sincere and appear to be persistent. I feel that there is a realisation that by combining energies, creative responses, adopting risky approaches and sitting down together we can finally confront and transcend our differences, extend horizons, explore new political spaces and get on with the task of reconstruction. Grassroots peace building, local activism, participatory methods and honest dialogue can offer alternatives and also strengthen and enhance the search for peace.
Peace is one thing nearly everyone in Northern Ireland wants. There is a genuine opportunity for further change, and also in attempting to bring to fruition a more open and tolerant future. This doesn’t mean that our many difficulties, and problems will go away. There are always problems. This is partly because every person is different – learning more about each other, being able to identify and understand one’s emotions, values and individual needs are important aspects of building, making and keeping personal local and national peace. Perhaps Sinn Fein’s suggestion to ‘talk’ and to move us towards working for more and deeper intercultural and inter-communal understanding with unionists, and for better communications and improved abilities to address and resolve our differences without violence has to be taken for what it is – this is a shift in terms of their engagement strategy and should be welcomed. There has to be room for other views too particularly within the wider republican family.
We must all not only try to work to end sectarianism, bigotry, discrimination, prejudice and violence but also to contribute to designing structures that are capable of creating, and maintaining peace within and between communities. We all can do our part – and uncomfortable conversations are key to furthering the possibilities of change

On March 16th I  blogged the following and after reading all that is here I thought I’d add it in to the discussion which is robust and challenging and with good shades of reality to it – just the way I like it.
On Saturday 3rd March Brian Rowan reported in the Belfast Telegraph on the  challenge Sinn Fein’s national chairman, Declan Kearney, brought to the IRA to say ‘sorry’ not for the war but for the hurt caused by all its armed actions. Sorry, it has been said, is among the hardest of all words to say but it is also said that sorry is one of those words that has transformative power. Even the British government knows that sorry can change things these days. Kearney said:“Regardless to the stance of others, we should recognise the healing influence of being able to say sorry for the human effects of all actions during the armed struggle,… All sensible people would wish it had been otherwise; that these events had never happened, that other conditions had prevailed. The political reality is those actions cannot be undone, or disowned. A deep suspicion remains within unionist communities towards republicans due to the legacy of the armed struggle. This is a time for republicans to free up our thinking, to carefully explore the potential for taking new and considered initiatives in the interests of reconciliation.”Kearney’s challenge has yet to be publicly responded to by the leadership of the Republican Movement in the sense that we have not yet heard how, or even if, they will move to such an apology –  a ‘sorry.’ But Kearney’s article in An Phoblacht has engendered much conversation. Rowan, rightly I think, situates this article and the idea it transmits into the public domain as part of the Republican Movements process to engage beyond ceasefire with political realities and with the process of reconciliation.I cannot yet let go of my belief that there are Republicans who believe that this process of reconciliation will lead to everyone joining ‘their side’. But that is in no way to suggest that they are disingenuous. The truth about us all is that we hope, in the inner recesses of our being, that reconciliation will mean that everyone comes to see it ‘my’ way. That’s why it takes a big heart and a sturdy character to  become involved in reconciliation. The deepest human fears have to be faced in that process – the fear that you might have been wrong all along, that your view of the world might have been compromised by your own prejudices and that it is you that will have to do the changing. But what the process of reconciliation offers is, in the short-term, companions with the same worries about the process and, in the longer term, a more robust view of the world developed through engagement and shared across a broader base of people. That means a developing society which is more likely to cohere even when under stress. So suspicion of Republican engagement in a process of reconciliation is natural. In that sense none of us is above suspicion when it comes to what we want out of the process.Ironically a willingness to say sorry is at least to credit enemies with a humanity that isn’t always attributed to them. It is to look someone in the eye whom you were once prepared to dehumanize and injure at best and at worst murder.It would be churlish to look to the Republican political agenda as evidence of a devious game in play. That political agenda is made clear by Kearney elsewhere:Our political strength in the North remains solid; it has provided the momentum for our national project in recent years. But there is still untapped electoral and party-build potential.
The objective in the North must be to maximise our electoral performance. However, in learning from our experience of the last four years, a step change is needed as to how Sinn Féin uses our political authority and power in the institutions.
The party’s strategic position in the North has grown out of national and democratic struggle. Our political strength now needs refocused upon the growing primacy of economic and social issues. Beyond the Northern elections we need to bring forward a coherent political strategy for delivering change in government and ensuring maximum effectiveness in local councils. What next for Sinn Fein? By Declan Kearney March 4th 2012So the attempt at ‘sorry’ is not to be snubbed. But it is also true that sorry is not enough and for some people it will never be enough and can never be enough. Sorry doesn’t repair the world. Sorry doesn’t bring back that which has been lost. Sorry doesn’t right the wrongs and rebuild the broken. The limitations of ‘sorry’ have to be acknowledged, even if it is the hardest word. Yet it holds transformative power at political and social levels for it allows people to begin to look each other in the eye and to acknowledge a shared humanity which had to be denied to keep the war going and which is often still denied in what are less deathly but neverhtheless sectarian circumstances. When we debase each other using words like ‘scum’ then we dehumanise. Sorry is a humanising word and that is a good place to start.Unlike Harold Good I don’t believe that what Kearney said has to be responded to without suspicion. I believe that suspicion is crucial in the process of saying sorry and it is crucial that the sorry sayers face the suspicion that others have. Otherwise the sorry doesn’t mean very much and its healing power is decreased. What is important, though, is that suspicion doesn’t dull anyone to the intention for something new and to the possibility of a new hope, however fragile it might be, of a reconciling society.We should not forget all that sorry acknowledges- that there was one offended against- that hurt has been caused- that there is recognition of harm done- that there is repair needed and this is an offer for that repair to begin.Sometimes, in mediation practices for example, reparation is offered along with the sorry but always with the recogntion that things can never go back to the way they were. My personal belief is that this is a crucial thing to be said, over and over again – that things cannot be made right, that the past cannot be restored, that nothing can fill the gap left by one who has gone. Sometimes people are held back from responding to an offer of repair because they know things can’t be made right and they don’t want to be part of a pretence – so sorry should never be viewed as an attempt to make right or put back. Rather sorry is an attempt to begin repair work which will take people to somewhere new.Equally it is true to say that sometimes people resist responding to sorry because they cannot let go of sorrow, grief and mourning because it so strongly attaches them to their lost loved one. It is a complex picture but without the clear acknowledgement that sorry does not, cannot and is not intended to be an attempt to gloss over what happened then the possibilities that saying sorry open up can always be resisted. The chink of light can be shut out and the transformative power of sorry can be lost. For some people in this society we must respect that choice.For others there has to be liberty and courage to respond.