NortheRn Ireland
Twenty-One Lessons from Northern Ireland By Bonnie Price Lofton
In researching and writing this package on Northern Ireland, I saw recurring themes, which I have summarized as 21 lessons.
1. Relatively few people can have a huge ripple effect in enabling
a society to solve its conflicts non-violently. In the early 1980s, Northern Ireland probably contained no more than 50 people wholly dedicated to peace work. Each person touched by those people in turn rallied others, resulting in tens of thousands by the early 2000s working at all levels of society to consolidate peace in Northern Ireland.
intergroup contacts away from one’s home setting.
4. Informal contacts
are key! Find ways to enhance
socializing – over food and drink, while sightseeing or fishing, sharing photos of one’s children, or even singing a song together. It almost doesn’t matter the nature of the joint activity, as long as the parties in conflict have a chance to get to know each other as humans. For Terry Shevlin, formerly in the Royal Ulster Constabulary – where being a Catholic policeman made him an assassination target – the highlight of a 1999 educational trip to Atlanta under “Policing Our Divided Society”
2. Raise awareness of
5. Recognize and
address people’s deepest needs, including
their fears, their sense of being besieged and treated unjustly, and of having less access to power and resources. Understand the impact of trauma on them. Unaddressed injustices and trauma fuel cyclical violence.
6. Small changes matter. For many years, the Belfast City Council, controlled by Unionists in Northern Ireland, displayed a banner on city hall that read, “Belfast Says No.” For Christmas 1994, the banner was changed to “Belfast Says Noel.” With a tiny change of wording, city residents were nudged toward a more positive attitude.
the humanness of “The Other” and of the
existence of alternatives to violence. Einstein is credited with saying, “Problems cannot be solved at the same level of consciousness that created them.” Increasing empathy and awareness must be an early goal of peacebuilders.
7. All players are
3. Head to neutral soil,
if possible. In highly charged situations – where any contact with “The Other” might be viewed as betrayal by one’s own group – it can work nicely to arrange for quiet,
was when he and others in his highly diverse group from Northern Ireland responded to an invitation by a black Baptist preacher, a scarred veteran of the Civil Rights movement, to interlock arms and sing “We Shall Overcome”!
needed: courageous, visionary
SPI director Sue Williams
leaders who say “enough” and seek solutions; international assistance from the European Union, UN, United States and others; and civic society activities, such as religious
peacebuilder ■ 21 emu.edu/cjp