The Peace Walls and Peace Process of Northern Ireland

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Positive peace and religion

Positive peace is not an end goal. It is not something that can be attained and then ‘life goes on’. Positive peace is an on going process that needs to be worked on through peacebuilding for an indefinite period of time. Tearing down the walls and hoping for the best is not going to work. Here peacebuilding comes in; Peacebuilding involves a full range of approaches (like conflict resolution, negotiation, mediation, peacemaking and peacekeeping), processes, and stages needed for transformation toward more sustainable, peaceful relationships and governance modes and structures. Peacebuilding includes building legal and human rights institutions as well as fair and effective governance and dispute resolution processes and systems. A new peace process to attempt positive peace by moving forward from the “Good Friday” Agreement has started in 2013. It talked about inequality in housing, education, and employment that has persisted. The Northern Ireland Assembly, deadlocked on contentious issues, has not been able to reach compromises that address these concerns through legislation, according to the 2013 Northern Ireland Peace Monitoring Project. According to Sergie, writer of the article ‘The Northern Ireland Peace Process’, the process is slow and hardly moving forward due to the quarrels among the five parties involved (the DUP, Sinn Féin, Ulster Unionist Party, Social Democratic and Labour Party, and Alliance Party). Flags and emblems proved the most difficult topic; the final text of the assembly called only for continued discussions on that issue. All five parties did not, however, endorse the final text, so no agreement was reached on how to proceed in any of these areas (also referring to the inequality problems). Party leaders have pledged to continue their discussions to try to reach accord on outstanding issues and move toward implementation.

Peacebuilding has been the target for criticism for five main reasons, its called state centric, under-theorised, has a large emphasis on neoliberalism, is Western/Eurocentric and for this paper most importantly; it ignores the role of faith, spirituality and religion in both conflict and peace. This is well illustrated by The Peace Monitoring Report of 2013. This is an extensive report on Northern Ireland. It includes a broad sketched context, topics on safety, equality, cohesion and sharing and political progress. The report does not however mention the role of religion in the conflict or in the peace process anywhere. According to Patrick Grant in his article ‘Northern Ireland: religion and peace process’ already in 1970 several parties tried to remove religion as a reason for the conflict from the debate. The church wanted make sure that religion wasn’t used as an explanation or a justification for violence because religion was ‘too important’ whereas secular liberal academics want to say that religion is merely a mode of false consciousness distracting us from the real political issues. Both parties come to the same conclusion, religion is not involved in the NI-troubles, but both do so for different reasons. Also in the Policy Brief from Bryne et al do their ‘evidence informed policy making’ suggestions not refer to religion, religious education or religious actors in the policy making once.

Another important factor that could explain why religion does not play as big of a role in in the peace process in NI as it probably should be is that the opposed terms ‘Republican’ and ‘Loyalist’ describe those who believe that their ends can be attained by physical force. The main Republican organization is the Provisional Irish Army (PIRA or IRA or Provos); the main Loyalist groups are the Ulster Defense Association (UDA) and the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF). The Provisional IRA took its name after a split in the IRA in 1970, when the Provos split off from the parent body led by Cahal Goulding. The split occurred partly because Goulding wanted to take the IRA in a Marxist direction, and to remove the religious baggage from Republicanism. Traditionalists within the IRA resisted the prospect of a godless communism and insisted on maintaining the values of 1916. Also the Loyalist broke off from their religious parent body. The main parties ‘fighting’ now, the ones that are always in the news, are the active violent parties that have split up from the parent party and are merely political instead of religious. It does not come as a surprise then that religion is left out during the peace process debates, since for most of the attendees; religion is not part of the problem. In his article Grant suggests that these parties are in fact, religious, they use a lot of religious symbols, iconography, ideas and norms, but as Grant concludes: “[…], there is a distinct religious element in Republicanism, which often bears, in turn, a considerable freight of latent sectarianism that Republicans have not been keen (or able) to acknowledge.”

In short, walls are a good temporarily solution to stop violence, unsafety and to attain negative peace. On the long haul however, they raise several other problems that only can be solved by taking down the peace walls. Unlike what PM Cameron might suggest, the fact that McGuinness is toasting with the British Queen is not the start sign for just taking down the peace walls. A peace process in order to obtain positive peace will have to come before any wall is taken down. Policies need to be written and agreements made. A lot more can be written on the peace process and on all the parties and all the problems involved with the process, but one thing is clear; merely dealing with the conflict in NI as a political difference of opinion, is not sufficient. The Troubles started as both a political and a religious quarrel and only later turned merely political for some violent parties. It is key to not neglect the role religious agents could play in the continuation of the peace process in Northern Ireland.

Bibliography

Black, R. (2014, April 12). David Cameron: Let\'s take down Northern Ireland peace walls and build shared future. Retrieved from http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/david-cameron-lets-take-down-northern-ireland-peace-walls-and-build-shared-future-30178844.html

Black, R. (2014, April 14). DUP \'committed to change after youth opinion poll\'. Retrieved from http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/dup-committed-to-change-after-youth-opinion-poll-30178968.html

Byrne, J., Gormley-Heenan, C., & Robinson, G. (2012, November). Peace walls, public attitudes and impact on policy [Policy Brief]. Retrieved from http://www.niassembly.gov.uk/globalassets/Documents/RaISe/knowledge_exchange/briefing_papers/byrne291112.pdf