Community Relations Council

The new common sense?  Implementing policy for sharing over separation.

Duncan Morrow, Chief Executive, Community Relations Council

CRC Policy Conference, Grosvenor House, Belfast, 27 April 2006.

During the consultation on A Shared Future, the absence of any questionmark in the title was a useful way to force attention on the importance of interdependence and social cohesion to a political version of reconciliation.  If the problem is that we share this space, but we do so in polarisation, hostility and antagonism which leads directly to (and is then deepened by) violence, then peace-building is finding new democratic ways to share the space into the future. 

The difficulty is that there are alternatives to a shared future, and we have lived in the foothills of them for decades.  But be in no doubt about what they involve; killing, expulsion from homes and property, massive economic destruction, random violence- particularly to the most vulnerable – the old, the young and the unarmed (often women), and (overwhelmingly) the poor – and no certainty about outcome.  Did Serb nationalists in Kosovo really understand that the outcome would be the destruction of centuries of settlement and civilisation, their restriction to Nato guarded 'reservations' and the death of their economy?    Did Greek Cypriots who took over Cyprus in 1974 expect to be expelled from their homes and communities for thirty years?  And did the Turks who invaded understand that it would exclude Northern Cyprus from integration into the western economy as a result? Did the Germans of Czechoslovakia in 1938 understand that by rallying to Hitler they were laying the seeds of their own destruction within a decade?

The point is not to be unnecessarily alarmist or to pretend that Northern Ireland in 2006 is absolutely like any of these places.  But any belief that an alternative to sharing here is consequence-free is not only naïve but dangerous.  Because be in no doubt, we have been protected, or at least many of us have been protected, from the consequences of our antagonism by the intervention of massive social engineering - possibly the greatest social engineering project in Europe since World War II.  So when anyone tells you that  A Shared Future is social engineering, laugh and offer a few observations.  At a physical level, communities which were ready to drive or burn or shoot each other out have been 'stabilised' by the building of peace walls, CCTV and clear notions of territory – ask the residents of Clonard Street in 1969 or Upper and Lower Ardoyne for thirty years or Cluan and Clandeboye Place in 2002.  The best we can do, is establish projects for local discussion, mediation and negotiation and arrangements for agreeing to de-escalate tension.  CRC has been privileged to support some of the best examples of these over the years.  We have supported youth diversionary schemes, inter-community projects, mobile phone networks, single identity projects, work with and without people with paramilitary links.  The enormous efforts which individuals and communities put into these should be saluted and recognised, but it cannot be a blueprint for what we do in the future.  We have ensured a minimum degree of public services through duplication,at huge cost to the public purse, or a service that is measurably worse if you find yourself in the wrong community and the swimming pool has a paramilitary grim reaper painted at the gate. 

At a more subtle level, those with economic wherewithal have subtly withdrawn ourselves and our children from the line of fire, retreating into televised 'curtain-twitching' where we watch, are fascinated by and judge events through the TV but spare ourselves the consequences or change.  We collude in the notion that ruthless segregation of the poor is choice, that we have no role in the problem while living in an economy that remains wealthy if you have public sector employment. 

And when I said that we have lived in the foothills of polarisation, the social engineering never really got to resolving anything.  So side by side with a liveable life, most of the time, for many, others paid a quite appalling price.  If you were poor or lived on an interface in Belfast, lived in a disputed rural area, often in Armagh, Fermanagh or Tyrone or were a member of the security forces the chances of being killed, injured or intimidated were exponentially higher.  If you lived as a minority in an area in which most of the others were of 'the other sort' you kept your head down, changed your behaviour and hoped against hope.  Some of the most poignant stories I have read in recent years have been in Marie Crawley's work on minorities in rural areas; people scared to hang out the washing in case it drew attention to the fact that their children played the wrong sport or people who never went in to the village for 25 years for fear of the consequences.  It is has not been a picnic being a protestant in parts of border Fermanagh or South Armagh or a catholic in parts of north or east Antrim. 

The security answers may have dampened down the problem, but they did so by putting whole areas under de facto occupation, destroying the notion of proper policing for many and throwing whole communities and families into complex and compromised relationships with paramilitaries – who were, by turns, defenders and destroyers, community advocates and community controllers.  The old Cultural Diversity question of what Britishness or Irishness means to me, may depend in some places on which side of a rifle you were looking at it from. 

None of this is to say that things have not got better in the last decade.  Nor that we should not be grateful for social engineering in maintaining possibilities in Northern Ireland that would not be possible elsewhere.  But it is to say that the issue is not just stopping the violence, it is actually changing the fundamental relationships which produce violence and that requires a choice, or choices, for a future with the others not against them. 

The work after stopping is all about sharing.  And it is hard work.  But given that the Agreement was struck without one major party being present, no real agreement about policing, parades, paramilitaries, prisoners, decommissioning and demilitarisation being made and members of two other parties not having spoken personally during negotiations it is perhaps unsurprising that we were unprepared for the real work.

Secondly, it is to say that A Shared Future is not about unwanted and heavy-handed social engineering, but getting to a place where all of the social engineering of the past is unnecessary and what social engineering remains is openly directed at supporting the emergence of a peaceful, inclusive and shared community where disputes are resolved through dialogue and political means.  Success looks like people able to live where a house becomes free without thought that they are at risk of their house being burned, their children attacked or their lives prematurely ended.  It looks like Protestant people in Torrens not feeling that they have to move out because Catholic others move in, and Catholics or anyone who needs a house feeling free to safely consider any offer.  It looks like no discussions about territorial markers, because we all share the space.  It looks like schools, whether internally integrated or not, who work naturally and normally together to provide education for a diverse and shared society.  It looks like people arriving in Northern Ireland without fear that their background makes them 'legitimate targets' for attack or bullying.  And finally, it looks like community development which does not try to protect and project an old single identity, but supports communities as they grow and change, able to integrate the diverse people who live in their area into unique expressions of human variety.  That is the capacity which we should be supporting, not spurious competitive measures of you got more than me.  

The rhetoric around A Shared Future talks about putting it into the DNA of Northern Ireland, or of it becoming the new common sense.  We in CRC agree with this, which is why we have championed this policy so vigorously.  But a vision is words without a  pathway to implement it, and cynicism is deepened  rather than change generated. 

The first requirement is leadership.  It is imperative that we end the ambivalence that is hanging around, that A Shared Future is just rhetoric, cucumber sandwiches for the twenty first century.  This means some real decisions by political leader to embrace the notion that sharing is not a short term tactic but a practical and moral necessity.  That will mean a willingness to take on vested interests who define progress only in terms of relative benefits for one part of the community.  One of the fears around the restoration of devolution is that local politicians are not yet willing to make these challenges, as the flak they will take will be from their own voters and interests.   But, until we are able to meet these challenges, A Shared Future will be hobbled by being seen as a top-down policy.  On the other hand, it is imperative that the British and Irish governments, and all of the international supporters who have invested so much in peace-building here emphasise that the long-term sustainability of peace depends on just such a commitment, whether devolution is established in the short run or not.

A commitment to a shared future will demand a lot from leaders.  First, it demands an end to all ambivalence about the use of violence for political or social ends from whatever quarter.  Secondly, it will involve an acknowledgement that 'their' view of 'our side' as a threat are not the result of fantasy but often of lived experience.  Alec Reid and Willie Frazer speak from more widely held starting points than we may wish to acknowledge.  Things have been done here in the past which make trust in partnership with us into the future very difficult to sell in their community.  Thirdly, there is still work to be done about nationality and statehood which is often subliminated in peace talk.  Is peace still secretly sought on Brits out- which cannot be translated to Unionists as anything other than an existential threat -  or on no fenians about the place – which cannot be translated to Nationalists as a ruthless commitment to segregation, subordination, anti-Irishness and keeping Catholics out of power.   Or can we make peace with the complexity of the six counties, whatever the constitutional settlement?  Fourthly, we have hard work to do in acknowledging the antagonistic edge of our cultural traditions.  For those inside them, they have often appeared healthy, nourishing and warm.  But they have often ruthlessly promoted internal bonding and set it against all bridging, in the jargon of social capital, and it is surely unsurprising that those who need to be bridged to have got the message of enmity.  This will be the work of a generation, but it cannot be dodged.   Finally, and perhaps most importantly, we need to plan and act our way into a shared future.

Which takes me to the next requirement: resources.  A Shared Future will not be plausible without clear and measurable policy commitments and the resources to back them.  There remains a strong suspicion that this is where mainstreaming fails.  Because it means saying overtly that the priority in Titanic quarter or the Crumlin Road is a shared and open space.  That educational reform must be driven by the imperative of ending antagonism and that success in housing policy means evolving a clear working model of what safe and integrated housing is.  DCAL needs a clear policy on cultural diversity for a shared future and a plan to enact it.  And when policies are directed to one community or another, such as the recent policies on protestant areas, we need to see far greater transparency about how this contributes to a shared future.  DFP has a critical role in the plausibility of A Shared Future.  All of this means standing up to vested interests in segregation or antagonism, or finding ways to bring them along.  Of course it is turning a tanker in the north of Ireland, but turning needs a decision and a direction, and energy.

The third requirement is a clear implantation plan.  This conference will consider ideas and recommendations about areas of action, and we will hear from OFMDFM later about their ideas for the Triennial Action Plan.  But in education it should a stated purpose of education to prepare children for a future in a diverse and changing society.  The RPA should encompass clear rules for governance, emblems and community planning to ensure an open civic culture.  Planning should specifically ensure that developments are proofed against open access.  And progress in housing should include measures of safety together.

Finally, we need to bury the idea that A Shared Future or good relations is an alternative to or threat to equality or human rights.  A society which acknowledges the full membership of every person is the definition and measure of good relations.  CRC's slogan of equity, diversity and interdependence is not a watering down of equality, but an attempt to reach for a deeper and more profound notion of fairness and justice, which allows for permanent engagement rather than mathematical measurement, and possibly, for short term inequalities where there is an argument of redress or agreed specific difficulties.  Community relations was never about avoidance or measured in harmony, but should be measured by the degree to which hard questions are now addressed and properly resolved through dialogue.  What it means is that some of our discussions will become tougher and more contentious, as we finally meet and talk about policing and flags and victims.  But what it also means is that we do so with far fewer people dead and injured.

What is the role of the CRC in all of this?  On Monday, I was introduced as 'responsible for implementing A Shared Future in Northern Ireland. Not quite.  We have specific jobs to do, as set down in the document and a more generic purpose of championing dialogue and sharing wherever it emerges across Northern Ireland.  There are of course difficulties in straddling the task of championing a direction and monitoring policy progress.  We are and remain an independent body with public tasks to undertake.  What we will be is an active partner, through funding, partnership and development, to those groups and bodies wishing to take steps towards sharing over separation, a permanent irritant to those who would rather push the issue of interdependence off the table of public discourse and an active generator of ideas and information on all matters pertaining to better relationships.  And we will stick around for the long haul until there really is no question mark in a shared future.