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Issue No.12 Spring 2003
Third
Culture and Peace
By Peter Walker
It should be a generally
accepted measure in conflict resolution that people who want peace must
do the things that make for peace. This should apply to ordinary people
no less than to the full-time practitioners of the noble art of politics.
And, it follows also that ordinary, every-day people, in whose name the
project is undertaken, must have the capacity and the encouragement to
partake in the building and keeping of peace. Yet, at a time when the
whole process is inhibited and put in jeopardy by lack of agreement, the
people have no access to it. Indeed, it is the people who are reduced
to the status of mere observers to the success or failure of the peace
process.
Thus it is as observers that many depart to be preferred as members of
a third culture. In other words a group of people from mixed backgrounds
indicating a preference to ignore the infantile and futile tribalism which
exists and which is reinforced and perpetuated throughout Northern Irish
society. It is a group of people expressing a legitimate aspiration for
a homogeneous and peaceful lifestyle in preference for a society currently
under demolition.
Segmental autonomy, that is, (high fences make for good neighbours), is
definitely not the answer to all the social, economic and political ills
of Northern Irish society. Respect for diversity is probably the greatest
contribution that one can make towards peace. Also, the agreement is designed
to protect the welfare of the people. So why are they then excluded from
the implementation process, while a handful of political party-enthusiasts
enthral to their own agendas in the midst of a peace which has assumed
the appearance of a contract between political parties with the electorate
on the periphery? If that is all the Good Friday Agreement can deliver
by way of peace, then we must seriously question what progress has been
made. And now that we are well into the Millennium the much-awaited peace
appears to be slipping through our fingers. If peace in its fullness fails,
then, one of the things that may be questioned, post-mortem, is was it
a process which in reality merely excluded the expressed wishes of the
people?
The less we think of peace as being something men in suits create the
better. It might be worth rejecting the widely diffused hypothesis that
peace is only created by a privileged elite who would have their peace
trickled down on the grateful but disempowered general public.
Real peace needs people based initiatives designed to promote peace. This
is how the people move beyond being passive spectators to either their
doom or deliverance from the “troubles” and become active participants
in the creation of their own destiny. Having been formally assigned the
most minimum of roles in the process the public unsurprisingly doesn’t
experience any great sense of ownership of it, and seem resigned to accepting
their position as observers. If the Northern Ireland experiment with peace
does succeed it will only be with the general public being pro-actively
incorporated into the process of peace-building.
The Agreement at John Hume’s suggestion refers to the sovereignty
of the people of this Island. It is simply not enough to pay lip-service
to popular opinion; full and continuous work should be on-going and full
also must be the participation of the masses in empowering themselves
in the shaping of their destiny. It would be monumentally tragic if this
peace process faded to the realms of failure without the full participation
of the public.
Co-existence may be the way forward, but again, it can only be realised
if ‘diversity’ is respected. In addition, localised problem-solving
efforts involving ordinary people are more likely to lead to genuine improvements
in cross-community relations than imposed solutions coming top-down from
an outside elite. Where people participate in the making of peace the
more substance, longevity and authenticity is to be expected from it.
And, while we’re on the matter, if public apathy has set in, that
would in part explain the reluctance of the people to take issue with
their outsider-status in the building of their own future. The dispirited
and now seemingly helpless wonder why they ever located their hopes for
the future in the palms of the hands of the power-grabbing political elite;
an elite whom it might appear are incapable of accomplishing the task
of peace-building on their own.
Northern Ireland may now be entering the café for the ‘peace
of the elite’ on this island. However, a ‘people-centred’
peace is really what Northern Ireland is crying out for and those democratically
elected and entrusted by the people don’t always deliver on the people’s
behalf. Now the process is in the throes of further setbacks, participation
of ordinary people is obviously what is lacking from the elitist fiasco
that had meandered the corridors of power.
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