Photo credit: Ronald Eikelenboom

Their achievement is impressive for a region which has barely any history of successful sportsmen. Rory McIlroy, who had snatched the US Open from the Americans just one year after his fellow-countryman Graeme McDowell had pulled the same trick, made particularly good copy, being a fresh faced, curly-headed Irish lad with a natural easy charm.

This sort of violence was supposed to be over. The peace settlement was signed in 1998, already thirteen years ago. Tellingly, this accord is known by two names: Catholics tend to call it the Good Friday Agreement while Protestants choose to shed its religious connotation and call it simply the Belfast Agreement. The process of implementing the Agreement (the simplest label) over the past 13 years has been zigzag and unsteady, but a new beginning came in May 2007 with the restoration of the devolved powers that had been suspended because of the years of political wrangling. When that parliament completed its mandate in May 2011 it was the first NI parliament to stay the course for 40 years.

“The week when Britain and Ireland grew up”

The elections which followed were conducted in reasonable good humour and with the confidence that this parliament will also serve it its full term. It was in the light of such success that the British monarch, Queen Elizabeth, chose to make her first ever visit to Dublin. The visit, seen to be of huge symbolic importance, was an unqualified success. In the briefings before it began the Department of Foreign Affairs said that 1,200 journalists and 120 photographers had been given accreditation. Towards the end of the four day stay, they were asking historians to bring the additional depth of perspective the occasion seemed to demand. The visit was seen not just as the ceremonial moment could act as the full stop to mark the end of the Northern Ireland peace process, but as the symbolic end of 800 years of enmity between Britain and Ireland. The respected Irish Times columnist Fintan O’Toole headed an article on 22 May ‘The Week When Britain and Ireland grew up‘.

Why then were they rioting on the streets of Belfast one month later?  And which image presents the more significant reality – the Queen shaking hands for the first time with the President of Ireland, or the rioters hurling the petrol bombs? The Northern Ireland peace process in its current phase can be difficult to read. At times it appears to be moving forward, at other times it seems to be going backwards. Most confusingly it can sometimes appear to be doing both at once, like those optical illusion drawings by Escher where the people who are ascending the staircase appear, mysteriously, to be descending at the same time.

Riot police - still a familiar sight in Belfast. Photo credit: Rusty Stewart

In order to get a better fix on the movements of the peace process a new project has been launched, under the title of the Northern Ireland Peace Monitoring Survey. The sponsors of the project are the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, an English charity with a strong tradition of social research, its sister organisation, the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust, which has invested heavily in peacebuilding in Northern Ireland, and thirdly, the Community Relations Council which since 1990 has been the key agency in cross-community work in Northern Ireland. The aim of the project is to issue an annual state-of-the-nation style report on the peace process. This will involve creating an indicator framework that will not only track political violence but also social cohesion, equality, and political progress. This type of deep analysis may help provide an understanding of whether the Agreement has delivered a permanent peace, or simply a generational truce in a centuries-old conflict. The first report will be issued in early 2012.

All enquiries to: pnolan@nicrc.org.uk

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The current events in the Middle East and North Africa, in which popular uprisings are toppling, or at least trying to topple, long-standing regimes, are welcome. Yet there are no guarantees that a seamless shift to democracy will inexorably follow. Sadly, there is a real risk that new inter-community disputes will arise in those areas in the months and years ahead.

Image taken by Lochinvar1, published under a creative commons license

My experience as a minister involved in the successful peace process in Northern Ireland has led me to two conclusions. First, there is no ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach to what are, in effect, difficult problems based on long-standing mistrust and deep-seated differences, which can be based on ethnic and territorial rivalry (eg Cyprus), religious divisions (eg Northern Ireland) or national aspirations (eg the Basque region).

Secondly, those working to bring about peace and reconciliation need to be able to identify the pre-conditions necessary in each case which would allow dialogue to commence, and also the principles on which peace processes can be developed.

Without pre-conditions, there will not in many cases be enough common ground to enable progress to get underway.

Crucially, there has to be a clear recognition on both sides of the conflict that the status quo is not a tenable option. Usually this occurs, as in Northern Ireland, when the respective communities and the combatants have reached a point at which the prospect of continued conflict is too distressing and exhausting to contemplate.

An important way of identifying what preconditions have to be met on both sides, is to set up back-channels as a means of informally but authoritatively scoping out the barriers to immediate progress. This was hugely important in Northern Ireland for both John Major and Tony Blair. Of course, the most important precondition was that of a ceasefire.

It is important to establish as soon as possible some common principles. The first and most important is parity of esteem. That is to say that each side has to recognise that their opponents have a legitimate stake and equal status in the process.

Secondly, there is an important place for confidence-building measures. These can prove to be very difficult barriers in many ways. In Northern Ireland for the Unionist community, it was understandably important that the IRA engage in a process of decommissioning their weapons. However, for Republicans this proved to be very difficult to deliver, because it could easily be held to be a symbol of defeat and, in consequence, could be portrayed as showing disrespect to those who had been engaged in the previous armed conflict.

Ultimately, the key to unlocking the path to peace in Northern Ireland, in the form of the Good Friday agreement, was in finding a political settlement which would enable both sides to retain some dignity and distinct political identity.

The devolved institutions in Northern Ireland, which managed – just – to bring all of the main strands of political identity into an agreement were at the core of the process. This was constructively ambiguous, in that it left Nationalists and Republicans the space to accept a settlement short of full unification with the Republic of Ireland, on the basis that they were able to retain the aspiration as attainable but only with public consent.

Similarly, for Unionists, and Loyalists, Northern Ireland remained within the UK, without the ongoing trauma of violent terrorism.

Other aspects of the process were both painful to contemplate for some sections of the community and, at the same time, raised question marks with right-thinking people about the rule of law and the independence of the criminal justice system. The most obvious manifestation was the prisoner release scheme, which in some cases led to the release under licence of terrorists who had been convicted of appalling atrocities. Although I would argue that this was necessary, in terms of the greater good, it was a scheme with which very few people felt comfortable, myself included.

Image by rdiggle, published under a Creative Commons License

One final point, tangential to the peace process in Northern Ireland, but which I feel is important in such circumstances, is that of personal identity.

Being a terrorist – having aims and values outside of the mainstream of society and the state and being prepared to use extreme violence and criminality to pursue them – confers a distinctive identity, a purpose in life and a broader connection of solidarity with comrades in arms. The paramilitary apparatus and ethic involved is not coincidental; it serves to foster a sense of being a disciplined, interdependent fighting force.

In many ways, the persistence of dissident groups such as the ‘Real’ IRA, serve as an illustration of this phenomenon. Although rejectionist, in the sense of not buying into the peace process, they also provide a home for those who cannot psychologically adjust from that outsider status to becoming part of a political settlement based on constructive ambiguity. Similar situations will undoubtedly arise in other peace processes.

The important thing to bear in mind is that there is no single blueprint. However, with the best possible and achievable preconditions (hopefully as few as possible) and the right principles – difficult though they may seem at the time – it is possible to achieve lasting peace.

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• Evaluation in Conflict Prone Settings
• Interpersonal Reconciliation after Violent Political Conflict
• Peacemaking and Peacebuilding: Exploring the Lessons Learned from Northern Ireland

For further information and to apply: www.incore.ulst.ac.uk/courses/ss/

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The decommissioning comes over a decade since the signing of the Good Friday Agreement, and 15 years since the UDA’s ceasefire, which gives some indication of the difficulty in ending a conflict once parties become armed. We can hope that this will provide a boost to the ongoing peace process, particularly at a time when both leading political parties are facing internal problems.

Posted by Ruairi Nolan, Insight on Conflict, 6 January 2010

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A new publication promises some interesting new perspectives on these issues. The Interreligious Dialogue website is host to the Journal of Inter-religious Dialogue, a new electronic publication with peer-reviewed articles that looks at social issues affecting religious communities around the world. Of particular interest to Insight on Conflict readers, the scheduled forth edition of the Journal will be entitled In Face of Conflict: Multi-Religious Cooperation for Peace. They have announced a Call from Submissions, looking for articles that ‘seek to examine where and why religious conflicts take place – and how conflicts carried out in the name of religion can be mitigated or transformed.’ The deadline for submission is January 2010, and the journal will no doubt be well worth reading for those interested in peacebuilding by religious groups.

Aside from the in-depth peer reviewed articles in the Journal, the Interreligious Dialogue website also includes some shorter, more accessible articles in their interViews section, with some good video interviews.

Posted by Ruairi Nolan, Insight on Conflict, 30 November 2009

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YouthLink Logo

9 November 2009: John Peacock of YouthLink explains how a group of Northern Irish young people marked the fall of the Berlin Wall at a Belfast Peace Wall

Following on from the discussion paper ‘A Process for Removing Interface Barriers‘ by Tony Macaulay last year, a group of youth workers working in interface communities in Belfast have been meeting together to discuss the issue of Peace Walls, and to explore how to ensure that children and young people are fully involved in any process. The meetings have been co-ordinated by Youth Link NI, the inter-church youth work training organisation.

The initiative, called ‘Up Against The Wall’, so far has included a consultation with children and young people and a series of workshops leading up to 9th November 2009 to mark the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Activities

We have organised three main activities between March and November 2009:

• Consultations with children and young people in interface communities;
• Ideas and planning workshops;
• Youth-led activities for 9th November 2009.

Consultations

During March and April the group carried out a consultation with children and young people in interface communities.  The group devised a series of questions to explore the issues with young people on the streets and in youth clubs and schools.  The findings were collated and fed into the ideas and planning workshops.

Ideas and Planning Workshops

The first ‘Up Against the Wall’ event took place on Saturday 9th May in the Indian Community Centre and the Hopelink Centre at the Carlisle Circus interface of Belfast. The workshop included music, IT, arts, basketball and ideas workshops. 50 young people aged 14-17 years old attended the workshop from different interface areas and were facilitated to explore their ideas for the future in their areas. Some of the ideas which the young people suggested, are listed below:

• I would like a cross community park to replace the wall!
• Everybody come together from both communities and help knock down the wall to show their dedication and how much they want to come together.
• Put gate up.
• Everyone come together and say their own ideas to plan a party for everyone.
• Cross community camp everyone involved.
• More transparency!!
• Basketball nets on both sides of the wall.
• Cross Community Centre to replace the wall.
• Lower instead of higher!!!
• Leisure Centre.
• Concerts.
• People from different backgrounds coming together!
• Cross community activities i.e. football, dance, etc.
• Somewhere we can chill out….
• I would like a cross community football pitch!
• Bring people across without fear. Enjoy life safely! Stop the fights. Teach the children different from we were taught! Show people we are not that different we are all human!

Event to mark the fall of the Berlin Wall: 9 November 2009

Close to 100 young people from interface areas across Belfast gathered at the gates in the peace wall on Lanark Way in West Belfast on Monday 9th November to mark the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

YouthLink Peace Event

They wore t-shirts which read: ‘Berlin 1961-1989, Belfast 1969-????. Thinking Seriously about Peace? Walls’. The t-shirts were funded by the Youth Council for NI as part of the Youth Service month.

The young people came together from both sides of the interfaces where they live in North, East, South and West Belfast. They played basketball with ‘the PeacePlayers’ against the peace wall and then they participated in a drumming workshop with the ‘Gathering Drum’ at the Lanark Way gate.

The Lord Mayor, Naomi Long, Northern Ireland Commissioner for Children and Young People, Patricia Lewsley and visiting representatives from the US Congress attended the event to listen to the views of young people.

The young people were then invited to the City Hall to meet and discuss the issue of ‘peace walls’ with the Lord Mayor and to explain what they have been doing over the past six months as part of their ‘Up Against the Wall’ initiative.

Lord Mayor of Belfast, Councillor Naomi Long, said this project was a wonderful example of her vision of ‘a Belfast without barriers’.

“I value the input and views of young people and in particular those involved in this particular initiative,” she said.

“They are making a positive statement about how we can all work towards the removal of divisions that sadly still exist in our own city. Their commitment fills me with pride and a determination to work with people like them to create solutions to our problems.

“Twenty years on from the world changing events in Berlin, we are reminded that change IS possible. Together we can build a vibrant, diverse and shared city that we can all be proud of,” she added.

Looking to the future, we at YouthLink hope that the relationships formed through these conversations will continue to develop and give these young people the opportunity to participate in building a better future in their areas.

For more information please visit the YouthLink website.

The event received media coverage in the BBC, as well as Belfast Telegraph (the largest daily newspaper in Northern Ireland) and UTV (the local TV channel).

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Key measures of success have been a reduction in call outs for both the PSNI & the Fire Service to sites involved in the programme compared to non-involved sites, a reduction in collection periods, less dumping at the targeted sites and effective efforts to tackle anti-social behaviour & tensions with neighbouring communities.

A particularly successful element of the programme this year was a series of discussion events between bonfire builders and panels comprised of Unionist politicians, representatives of the Nationalist community, Queen’s University researchers, artists & statutory bodies.

Case study: Beacons

2009 has seen the demand for beacons as an alternative to traditional bonfires grow exponentially from last year’s pilot burn in Woodvale, with beacons replacing bonfires at six sites in Belfast as well as at Tullygarley in Larne and in Ballyhalbert.

The beacon design was developed by Groundwork NI, following consultation with the community in Woodvale, and a growing recognition within Loyalist communities that bonfires need to evolve to reflect changing times.

In Tigers Bay, Groundwork NI’s engagement with the local community has seen the replacement of a large bonfire on the interface with the New Lodge by a beacon within a play park at the centre of the area, leading to a dramatic reduction in the number of incidents associated with young people clashing around the interface site.

In Sunningdale, the decision of the community to replace their bonfire with a beacon has drastically reduced the fly-tipping and anti-social behaviour issues associated with the previous bonfire site over the past number of years.

In Roden Street off the Donegall Road, the use of a beacon has helped address the problem of the loss of traditional sites through housing development & played a key role in ongoing efforts to reduce interface tensions along the Westlink.

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