JULY2007
Recipe for
peace
THE
OTHER HALF
By KALPANA SHARMA http://www.hindu.com/mag/2007/06/17/stories/2007061750050300.htm
The Hindu Sunday Magazine ~~ June 17 2007
Northern Ireland is an example of how ordinary women and
men can make a difference to changing entrenched
prejudices.
Starting anew: The first sitting of the new Northern
Ireland Assembly
at Stormont Parliament Building in Belfast on May 8,
2007.
WAR always makes it to the front pages of newspapers.
Peace also does,
when there is a political agreement and warring groups
come together.
But once the fact of peace is established, the story is
over, at least
for the media. Unless, of course, the peace breaks down.
But what
preceded the peace and what is needed to sustain it, is
not the stuff
of which headlines, or even lead stories are made.
Amazing turnaround
On May 8, 2007, newspapers around the world carried an
amazing
photograph, that of two men who led the decades old
conflict between
Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland sitting
together and
smiling. Leaders of the Sinn Fein and the Unionists Party
are now in
government, together. This has happened less than a
decade after the
Good Friday agreement of 1998 for power sharing that went
through many hiccups and often appeared on the verge of
breaking down. Yet, a
political solution for the virtually intractable problem
of Northern
Ireland has been found. It is the result not just of
political
negotiations at the top but because of pressure from
below, a demand
for peace from civil society groups on both sides of the
sectarian
divide led by very ordinary women. The agreement, and the
run-up to
it, sets out an encouraging precedent and example for
dozens of other
such conflicts around the world, not least on our
subcontinent.
In 2003, on a brief visit to Northern Ireland I saw
first-hand how the
memory of history works against efforts to build peace.
In Belfast,
high walls, ironically called “peace” lines,
still separate Catholics
and Protestants. During “the Troubles”, as the
years of bloody
sectarian wars are called, these walls were a challenge
to youth on
either side to hurl fire bombs at their
“enemy”. Yet even as the first
tentative steps towards peace were being taken, these
walls remained,
as did the suspicion and hatred nurtured over decades of
conflict. It
will take some time before real “peace” lines
substitute these brick
and mortar walls. But an important step has been taken in
that direction.
This build up leading to the May 8 agreement in Northern
Ireland was
one of the subjects discussed at a remarkable gathering
at Galway in
the Republic of Ireland from May 29-31. The conference
was organised
by the Nobel Women’s Initiative, a group of women
who have received
the Nobel Peace Prize, women like Shirin Ebadi from Iran,
Wangari
Mathai from Kenya and Betty Williams and Mairead Corrigan
Maguire from
Northern Ireland. Over 80 women from all over the world
met to share
experiences of peace building and to explore what more
could be done
in a world where war remains an abiding motif for
conflict settlement.
Coalition of women
One of the women from Northern Ireland who has been
instrumental in
the peace-building process is Anne Carr. As a Protestant
teenager
growing up in the deeply divided Northern Ireland capital
of Belfast
in the 1970s, she did the unthinkable by marrying a
Catholic. If you
married into the “other side”, you were
virtually an outcaste. But she
and other women, part of a larger coalition of peace
builders called
Women Together, worked to create mixed educational
institutions and
provided many opportunities for dialogue between ordinary
people from
the two warring sides. Around five years ago, several of
these women
formed a Women’s Coalition and contested the
elections. They were
successful in attracting the vote of thousands of men and
women who
did not want to vote “tribally”, as a member of
the Coalition told me
in Northern Ireland in 2003. They were able to provide an
alternative
agenda centred on human rights. Anne Carr was one of
those elected.
Emotional speech
Speaking at the conference, Ms. Carr spoke about peace in
Northern
Ireland. She said:
“On May 8, 2007 our Northern Ireland devolved
assembly met, inclusive
of all our elected representatives, from the Democratic
Unionist Party
to Sinn Féin, to inaugurate a new political era. The 108
assembly
members elected on March 8 sat down together, agreeing to
share power
and to work together for the good of all our people.
“And I for one had to pinch myself to see if I was
really witnessing
this with my own eyes.
“This was because what I was witnessing was not
begrudging,
dismissive, demonising behaviour and body language from
previous
arch-enemies in the staunch Unionist and Republican
camps, but eye
contact, smiles, laughter and good-humoured banter.
“For me the for-so-long-impossible had happened
and tears trickled
down my cheeks.
“After the death of over 3,600 people and injuries
to tens of
thousands more, after all the pain and all the false
dawns something
new and special was emerging. A seemingly unsolvable
centuries-old
conflict in Ireland was coming to an end and an
acknowledgement that
whatever our different and just aspirations, politics
rather than
violence was the way forward and compromises had to be
made. Even the reporters present admitted that this
‘good news story’ left them
almost unable to believe their eyes.”
Important lessons
Northern Ireland holds out several important lessons for
conflict
resolution. The principal one is the importance of
building a
constituency of peace. After the Good Friday agreement,
despite the
problems of arriving at a final settlement, it is this
constituency
that pushed for a lasting peace. Second, it illustrates
how very
ordinary people, without special qualifications, can play
a crucial
role in nurturing this constituency of peace. The women
who were part
of Women Together, including the two Nobel laureates,
exemplified
this. And thirdly, that the political establishment must
be willing to
demonstrate innovation and flexibility in face of such
grassroots
demands for peace. It is a combination of these elements
that makes
for an endurable recipe for peace.
http://www.global-sisterhood-network.org/content/view/1811/59/
www.jenniferesperanza.com/.