Speakers: Duncan Morrow, Esmond Birnie, Caroline Wilson and Jeremy Gardiner
St Columban’s College, Dalgan Park, Navan, Co. Meath. Monday 13th November 2006

“The overall aim of this policy is to establish, over time, a shared society defined by a culture of tolerance: a normal, civic society in which all individuals are considered as equals, where differences are resolved through dialogue in the public sphere and where all individuals are treated impartially. A society where there is equity, respect for diversity and recognition of our interdependence” [From: A Shared Future: Policy and strategic framework for good relations in Northern Ireland, Office of the First Minister and Deputy First Minister, March 2005]
Summary of main points of discussion

1. Duncan Morrow (CEO, NI Community Relations Council): “A truth about Northern Ireland is that we have lived in a politics where the goals historically were expansion and/or expulsion. What the war being over means is that the policy of expansion and expulsion are replaced… and it’s the one thing that the political traditions of this island find extremely difficult to both acknowledge that that’s at their heart and that that’s the problem, but also to row back from. We have to find a different answer altogether if we are to move past it, and a shared future at the end of the day is actually about saying something new has to happen here. The task is can we make sharing plausible? And to make it plausible it has to be serious, and I don’t know if we are still at the point where we really really buy in that we have a shared future. Because fundamentally it is a decision - not for strategic purposes, for tactical purposes - it’s an actual understanding that one way or another the British-Irish question can’t be solved by expansion and expulsion any more in the North”, said Duncan Morrow, Chief Executive of the NI Community Relations Council in his address to the Meath Peace Group public talk ‘Towards a Shared Future’ held at Dalgan Park on 13th November. The talk, which focused on the policy document ‘A Shared Future’ published in March 2005, was chaired by Dr Colin Coulter, of the Sociology Dept, NUI Maynooth, and was also addressed by Dr Esmond Birnie, MLA (UUP south Belfast), Caroline Wilson (Good Relations Officer, Belfast City Council) and Jeremy Gardiner of Youthlink (who previously worked as a Presbyterian youth pastor in Ballymena).

The speakers and audience were welcomed by Anne Nolan (Slane) and the vote of thanks was given by Canon John Clarke (Rector of Navan), both members of the Meath Peace Group committee. Two of the speakers – Jeremy Gardiner and Caroline Wilson – visited Dunshaughlin Community College earlier in the day to talk to three groups of transition year students in the school as part of the Meath Peace Group peace education programme conducted by Julitta Clancy and Judith Hamill.

Dr Morrow continued: “If you believe – as most of our communities appear to believe – that we only did what we did because of what they did to us first, in other words, we agree on who the problem in Northern Ireland is and it’s nearly always ‘them’, then they have to do the changing because they’re responsible. So if we are the abused community, if we are more sinned against than sinning, then the logic, the imperative of it is that actually we the sinned against are being asked to make a deal with the sinners on the basis of equality and that’s not an appropriate equality. And so it is fundamentally unjust to be asked, even to be asked, to deliver anything in this context. So I suppose the fact that it has taken 12 years to get from ceasefires to now is hardly surprising. ….And we have a problem about what it is that is going to bring us together in this shared future. What is our point of social cohesion? What is the thing that joins us together? Trying to make policy for this is not soft – it is asking people to do what we don’t know how to do, it’s asking us to learn what we don’t know how to learn, which is: how do we trust people who it is rational for us to fear?

“Northern Ireland is one of the best examples of conflict management anywhere in the world. … In 1920 when partition happened, anti-Britishness, anti-Irishness, was rampant across both of these islands and in some sense or other it got wrapped up and reduced and managed in the 6 Counties. The rest of Britain and the rest of Ireland moved away. But Northern Ireland continued internally to have the same discussion, rolling round and round in a circle. In 1969, when Britain and Ireland re-engaged in Northern Ireland, the British Government had lost India, the Irish Government thought about stopping standing idly by and then generally did stand idly by. In the end of the day, Northern Ireland was ‘The North’, it was a place apart. But even since then we have had an incredibly successful conflict management strategy. After 1975, 95% of the people who were killed in Northern Ireland were killed in 3 measurable groups: they were the poor in urban Belfast, particularly north and west, they were the people who lived in contested rural districts, mostly the border areas and mid-Ulster, and the security forces who by nature of their work went into those zones. After that the rest of us managed to live past it. Now the result of that is that unpacking this means that it is very discomfiting for people who were quite comfortable with the conflict.

“The truth is that the conflict, as it was, was expensive, financially, but it was only difficult at a once-removed way for Britain and Ireland, and then for the middle classes in Northern Ireland or those who were not directly affected. And so to be asked to change, if we’re asking everybody to change, it may be more uncomfortable than living the conflict with some other people paying.

“How do we begin to build things now from a different point? This is about a direction, about turning a tanker, about beginning to take policy choices across the room all of which over time begin to add up to a different direction for Northern Ireland, on the basis of one thing: on the basis that as we take these steps there may be another history begins to emerge, the history that trust is credible. Because the critical issue in moving from conflict management to conflict transformation is to make trust credible.”

2. Dr Esmond Birnie, MLA (UUP, south Belfast): Representing an Ulster Unionist viewpoint, Esmond Birnie, MLA, said that a shared future would need to include the following elements: 1) “A Northern Ireland that works politically, socially, and economically”. 2) A Northern Ireland ‘at ease with itself’, and part of being at ease is a decisive end to terrorism, both criminal and political. 3) “Some shared loyalty to Northern Ireland as a region or province which we have in common”. 4) “Some working assumption that the constitutional status quo is what we will work with as long as a majority so wish”, and 5) “All the above has to be allied to the recognition that it would neither be realistic or right to attempt to create some sort of bland ‘neutral homogenous identity’ within Northern Ireland.”

Regarding the role of government he said that we need to be very careful. “World history in the 20th century demonstrates limits of social engineering and how attempts to build heaven on earth often lead to in practice the other place being attained. In any case a particular identity is very much part and parcel of who each of us are so it may well be that it’s simply morally wrong for governments to attempt to re-engineer individuals in such a radical manner. The 20th century historical record in various European countries also shows that increases in social integration between, for example, ethnic and religious groups are no guarantee that communal violence will not subsequently erupt.”

While there was much in the Shared Future document with which he and his party would be in agreement, he warned that “the notion of a shared future only works if there is a party political consensus that the future to be shared is within Northern Ireland as it is. If however one section of the electorate - the 40% plus represented by Sinn Fein and indeed the SDLP - believes that the future is to be shared within a Northern Ireland which is being nudged out of the United Kingdom and into a so-called ‘united Ireland’, then the logic underpinning ‘A Shared Future’ strategy will unfortunately prove to be very dodgy indeed. Put bluntly, you cannot have a shared future against a background in which the political parties continue to squabble over the constitutional status of Northern Ireland. …..My fear is that the Shared Future strategy in practice may represent on the part of Government a deliberate and long-term exercise in social and political engineering. It may be that the Government – or I should say the two governments, London and Dublin - are actually trying to create an environment in which an all-Ireland constitutional and economic framework is given preference over Northern Ireland which is unambiguously recognised as an integral part of the United Kingdom until such time as a majority of people freely express otherwise. If that is the case, then it may transpire that the Shared Future strategy - for all its good intentions - will create rather than resolve problems.”

3. Caroline Wilson (Good Relations Officer, Belfast City Council): Practical examples of what is being done in Belfast were given by Caroline Wilson of the Belfast City Council Good Relations Unit set up in 2001. One of the projects that the unit supports is at Suffolk and Lenadoon which involves a small Protestant/unionist enclave of about 600 families (Suffolk) and a large Catholic/nationalist community across the road (Lenadoon). “Between them they have managed through very difficult times to negotiate a shared space at the interface. They have interface workers on both sides, in both communities, trying to develop a sense of citizenship within the communities but also a sense of shared citizenship. They have a building now that has a number of shops in it, a café which both communities use, they also have entrances into both communities so neither community has to walk into what they consider to be not their territory, and it is a meeting place which is really very important in a city where there are few meeting places.”

Another project is the North Belfast Conflict Transformation Forum involving a group of community activists from both sides of the interfaces in the north of the city, an area disproportionately affected by the Troubles. “These are people who have contact particularly at times of tension to work across the interface and to communicate with one another and to look at ways of trying to reduce levels of tension and reduce incidents at the interface. They are now looking at a more pro-active role: rather than just managing conflict and fire-fighting conflict they are looking at how do we start preventing conflict in the first place? “

On the prospects for a shared future, Caroline said that “we have to learn how to share. We don’t know what sharing feels like but it will be a progress over time. And it’s about kind of keeping the faith, and knowing that it is about safety. As City Council we can’t suddenly say ‘right, there’s going to be one leisure centre and everybody’s got to share it.’ It’s about developing a dialogue around how do you make it safe enough for people to share, how do you take into account people’s very real lived experiences in the city, and what we hope to be a new shared future for the city. So it’s kind of bringing it to the surface and talking about it. The key message of a shared future is that separation is not sustainable. And whether that is in terms of the new Europe or whether that is economically, Belfast City cannot survive as a segregated city. But the challenge is how do we learn to share? And enabling that process requires political leadership, it also requires community support. It is a kind of collective task for the city of Belfast.

She had hope for the future: “This summer was the most peaceful summer for many years and that did not happen on its own. That happened with an extraordinary amount of work, with people going out on the streets and making sure the summer was peaceful. And my hope is that the City Council takes that on board and together we can build a shared future for the city of Belfast.”

4. Jeremy Gardiner (Youthlink): A Ballymena perspective was given by Jeremy Gardiner of Youthlink who formerly worked as a youth pastor with a Presbyterian Church in the town and is a member of the Ballymena group, Community Voice. “Ballymena is predominantly Protestant: the split is roughly about 70:30. In the past few years it has largely been unaffected by the Troubles which has actually made it a town which has never had to ask the questions in regard to community relations work. The loyalist community within Ballymena don’t even recognise that it is a shared space. They see it as Protestant, and when you have to work in that that’s quite difficult for moving forward. Ballymena has been comfortable in the conflict because it has never had to ask the questions. The Catholic community, the 30% of the population, really has been a community without a voice”. One of the parishioners from a Catholic church there said to him: ‘when it comes to July what we do is we put our heads down and don’t even say anything’. Jeremy recounted an incident that happened in relation to Harryville chapel in 2005 which sparked a discussion about sectarianism in the town: “In the summer of 2005, in July, there was some graffitti written on the Harryville chapel, a Catholic church within a loyalist estate, and myself and a few other people out of our church decided to go down and clean the doors of the church. That was a Protestant church reaching out to a Catholic church within Ballymena. It became a very contentious issue and it sparked a whole discussion particularly within the church-going community. They asked questions specifically around the issue of sectarianism. And one of the things that came out was that within Ballymena sectarianism is not just rooted within the loyalist, working-class communities. We have a mindset that it is. But within Ballymena, it’s in the middle class upper communities. Sectarianism can be dressed in suits. And that’s what we really found from this. I had a number of people come to me who go to church and they said to me ‘we will never forget you for what you have done’. When you are working with that in that community, it’s quite unique. How do you say something like that and hold Christianity hand in hand? I don’t know. But that’s the real community in which we live, and that’s what Ballymena is.”

In regard to the Shared Future policy Jeremy said that it is a strategy that is going to need to “find local solutions to local problems, it’s going to need to find community leaders coming together, church leaders coming together, the police and Council members coming together and trying to find solutions to the problems within the local community. That’s how this is going to play out. Everyone has to buy into it. It’s not just one person, we are all going to have to buy into it. Some people say to me: ‘you must be really devastated working within that community and having to go through those types of things, and those types of comments that are made about you’. And I have to say that I’m not, I am actually quite positive about it because at the end of the day we have an opportunity. Northern Ireland is changing whether you like it or not, and people are going to have to change, and the demographic change in Northern Ireland, the way it is happening, is forcing people to mentally change. And I think that’s a good thing. So right now there’s an opportunity for that to happen. And I think that how this is going to actually physically play out is that for everybody to engage with it and not just use the words ‘tolerance’ and ‘mutual respect’ as buzzwords at conferences like this, but actually that they become words that describe the communities and towns in which we live. I think that’s what we are aiming for when it comes to a shared future.”

Chairing the discussion, Dr Colin Coulter of the Sociology Dept., NUI Maynooth, (a native of Belfast) said: “When the original ceasefires were declared in late summer/early autumn of 1994, and certainly when the Good Friday Agreement was signed back in 1998, a lot of people were very hopeful for the future of the North of Ireland, particularly the future for community relations. And certainly there are signs of progress in the North but unfortunately there are also signs that things are moving in some context in the opposite direction. Some people are optimistic about the future and others are not. What perhaps I think is particularly depressing is that certain forms of ethno-nationalist sectarian feeling in the North seem to persist in certain areas, some people would say they have hardened.

“But what has happened of course more recently and this has got rather lurid headlines that possibly over-stated the problem - but it is I think unfortunately a problem - is that pre-existing traditional long-established forms of prejudice have been complemented by other forms of perhaps slightly newer prejudice in the form of racial intolerance.” ENDS

[Summary compiled by Julitta Clancy. Full transcript to follow, including questions and answers session. Discussion taped by Judith Hamill and Jim Kealy]

Biographical notes (speakers and guest chair):

Esmond Birnie has been an MLA since 1998 (representing South Belfast for the UUP). He is currently Party spokesperson for Finance, Family and Children, North-South, British-Irish Council and Community Relations. During 1999-2002 he was chairman of the Assembly Committee for Employment and Learning. Prior to membership of the Assembly he was a Lecturer (later Senior Lecturer) in Economics at Queen’s Belfast. Educated at Ballymena Academy, Cambridge University and Queen’s Belfast. Married with 3 children. Esmond previously addressed a Meath Peace Group talk on April 10, 2000 when he appeared with the former Taoiseach, John Bruton, and others.

Colin Coulter is senior lecturer in the Department of Sociology, NUI Maynooth. Originally from Belfast, Colin has published on various issues including Northern Irish society, social change in the Irish Republic, political conflict, social theory and popular culture. His publications include Contemporary Northern Irish Society: An Introduction (1999, Pluto) and The End of Irish History? Critical Reflections on the Celtic Tiger (2003, Manchester University Press). His forthcoming book Northern Ireland after the Troubles? A Society in Transition was co-edited with Michael Murray (Manchester University Press 2007). Colin has appeared regularly on television and radio and has been a contributor to various media debates on the Iraq war. He has also written on the issues surrounding the war in Iraq in a major report entitled ‘The Irish Republic, the United States and the Iraq War: A Critical Appraisal’. He is the former secretary of the Sociological Association of Ireland.

Jeremy Gardiner is Community Relations Development Officer for Youthlink, an umbrella body representing and serving the four main churches (Catholic, Presbyterian, Methodist and the Church of Ireland). He is currently living and working in Ballymena where formerly he was a Youth Pastor for High Kirk Presbyterian. Jeremy is also a committee member of Community Voice in Ballymena. ‘My work in Ballymena was focused on the young people within the church itself. However to effectively do this you had to understand the environment in which they grew up in. This lead to work in the local community and essentially stand up against issues such as sectarianism. My work now involves educating young people for youth work and community relations work.’

Duncan Morrow is the CEO of the NI Community Relations Council (CRC), the body with primary responsibility for funding and development of inter-community relations practice and policy in Northern Ireland. In recent years, the CRC has taken a leading role in promoting dialogue to underpin ‘A Shared Future’, the government’s long running strategy to promote improved relations in Northern Ireland. Previously, Duncan was active in many areas of community relations work as a member of Understanding Conflict and as Co-Director of Future Ways, a unique active learning agency within the University of Ulster. His interests included political education, organisational development work with public agencies and voluntary groups, community development, mediation and the facilitation of difficult conversations between people and groups in conflict. At the University of Ulster he was also a lecturer in politics with a particular interest in ethnic conflict, religion and violence. He has written numerous reports, books and articles including ‘A worthwhile Venture?’ (with Karin Eyben and Derick Wilson),’ Northern Ireland Politics’ (with Arthur Aughey) and ’Churches and Inter-community relationships.’ In 1998, he was appointed as a Northern Ireland Sentence Review Commissioner, the body responsible for implementing the early release of paramilitary prisoners agreed as part of the Good Friday Agreement. A native of Belfast, Duncan is married to Susie. They have three children.

Caroline Wilson is a Good Relations Officer with Belfast City Council. She is responsible for the implementation of the Good Relations Strategy which aims to co-ordinate the Council’s work in the promotion of good community relations and the celebration of cultural diversity. Prior to this post, she worked with the Student Movement in Northern Ireland and a number of other youth organisations. Caroline is a Council Member of the Community Relations Council (CRC) and sits on their Victims and Survivors Core Funding Programme Committee.