{"id":36354,"date":"2013-11-11T12:00:25","date_gmt":"2013-11-11T12:00:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=36354"},"modified":"2015-05-05T22:21:13","modified_gmt":"2015-05-05T21:21:13","slug":"i-believe-there-will-not-be-a-united-ireland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2013\/11\/i-believe-there-will-not-be-a-united-ireland\/","title":{"rendered":"I Believe There Will Not Be a United Ireland"},"content":{"rendered":"

We were all reminded by the BBC TV programme of Nov 4, 2013<\/a> of the costs of the \u2018troubles\u2019 in Northern Ireland. The families of the \u2018disappeared\u2019 appealed to anyone with information on them to come forward as to the whereabouts of their remains. Families remain in limbo and pain, still praying for a miracle that their families\u2019 remains will be found to bury them. I hope they will have their prayers answered \u00a0and the Irish Republican Army, some of whose members carried out the \u2018disappearances\u2019, \u00a0have a special responsibility to help in these cases.<\/p>\n

The \u2018troubles\u2019 held Northern Ireland in captivity for almost 40 years and although many people had the courage to cut the bonds of division, sectarianism and hatred, there are others who remain in darkness and would drag us all back into the captivity of divisions and ethnic violence.\u00a0 These divisions take the form of physical intimidation for all to see in our cities.\u00a0 A few weeks ago I walked up the Newtownards Road, East Belfast, and up the Falls Road, West Belfast. It was, in both cases, like walking 30 years into the past.\u00a0\u00a0 Nothing much has changed as these communities appear to be trapped in the past with flags, paramilitary murals, painted kerbstones, and street gravestones engraved with names of paramilitary dead.\u00a0 These areas, be they republican\/nationalist\/Catholic\u00a0\u00a0 or loyalist\/unionist\/Protestant, are still living in fear and intimidated by the extremists on both sides.\u00a0 There are some courageous residents, and more are needed, who dare challenge the paramilitary gable murals or flags \u2013 Irish or British \u2013 put up on the walls of their business premises, homes, and streets.<\/p>\n

Although these two communities are different and have yet to learn how to celebrate their diversity, they have more in common that should unite them.\u00a0 Their common humanity, their need for jobs, their need for equality and human security, not austerity cuts, which are punishing the vulnerable and poor in areas such as those living near the heart of \u00a0Belfast \u00a0and other cities.<\/p>\n

Another thing they share is a peace agreement and an elected power-sharing executive at Stormont Parliament.\u00a0 Stormont, we can all agree, is not perfect; but as long as we have peace we can work on that.\u00a0 However, this peace is being seriously challenged by violence from several areas, and I believe we need to refuse to remain silent and demand that those intent on taking us back to \u2018the bad old days\u2019 are challenged against doing so\u2019.\u00a0 The violent republican \u2018dissidents\u2019 who continue to plant bombs, etc. and try to kill\u00a0 people, are wrong in doing so. Violence, be it paramilitary or state, is always wrong.\u00a0 They have no mandate from the people of Ireland \u2013 both North and South, to use violence.\u00a0 At the heart of their actions is the mistaken belief in a United Ireland and that violence will bring it about.\u00a0 They refuse to accept there will not be a united Ireland and that violence is never acceptable.\u00a0 The people have spoken with the Good Friday Agreement and their democratic wishes are paramount.\u00a0 The Republican movement need also to be honest with their constituents and stop using the myth of a \u2018United Ireland\u2019 for electoral politics and power.<\/p>\n

Loyalist paramilitaries who continue to use violence and intimidate their own, and other communities, need to stop the violence and take responsibility for their actions.\u00a0 Waving flags, chanting the rhetoric of hate and bigotry, and refusing to enter into dialogue to solve problems and disputes over parades, flags, etc., they run the risk of awakening the sleeping giant of ethnic hatred and communal violence. The unwinding of the peace process that many Northern Irish people and others worked so hard to achieve.<\/p>\n

At the heart of loyalists\u2019 sense of alienation is their need to be acknowledged and recognized, their fear of losing their British identity, fear of ethnic annihilation, the deepest fear of all. Yet, it does not have to be like this.\u00a0\u00a0 In this small place we can share and live together for the sake of ourselves and our children, we don\u2019t have to be afraid of ourselves, or each other, or losing identities that are all the time changing.<\/p>\n

In l976 hundreds of thousands of people marched for an end to violence and for peace.\u00a0 We called for a nonviolent solution, we called for a shared Northern Irish identity.\u00a0 We called for forgiveness and reconciliation.<\/p>\n

This call is as fresh and necessary today as it was in l976, and it behoves us all to be honest and face the realities that there will never be a united<\/p>\n

Ireland and we can together build a Northern Irish identity.<\/p>\n

This reality will be painful for those whose dreams of unity were not fulfilled. But situations, solutions, change; what was called for 70 years ago is not the answer for today\u2019s generation.\u00a0 We are in a new Europe and in a new, united, interconnected, interdependent world calling for new structures and new institutions that will link us all together as a human family.<\/p>\n

Forgiveness will be necessary to move us on so we don\u2019t get trapped in the past. There is not going to be a peace process and the ability to forgive and move beyond our own pain, \u00a0that demonstration of\u00a0 imagination to see the larger vision of what could be possible in human relations, outside the limitations of \u2018tribal politics\u2019 and \u2018enemy\u2019 mentality.<\/p>\n

Our peace process will be only as strong and safe as long as we all, particularly our political leaders, refuse to play politics with our volatile emotions, and use rhetoric that can move others to kill, and as long as we together continue to build a nonviolent\u00a0 truly democratic Northern Irish society for every one of us and our children.<\/p>\n

10 Nov 2013<\/p>\n

____________________________<\/p>\n

Mairead Corrigan Maguire is a member of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace, Development and Environment. She won the 1976 Nobel Peace Prize for her work for peace in Northern Ireland. Her book <\/i>The Vision of Peace (edited by John Dear, with a foreword by Desmond Tutu and a preface by the Dalai Lama) is available from www.wipfandstock.com<\/a>. She lives in Belfast, Northern Ireland. See: www.peacepeople.com<\/a>.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Our peace process will be only as strong and safe as long as we all, particularly our political leaders, refuse to play politics with our volatile emotions, and use rhetoric that can move others to kill, and as long as we together continue to build a nonviolent truly democratic Northern Irish society for every one of us and our children.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[105],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36354","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nobel-laureates"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36354","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36354"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36354\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36354"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36354"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36354"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}