Peace building tasks

by The Other View staff

Three very impressive speakers- Baroness May Blood, Dr Brandon Hamber and Senator Martin Mansergh - addressed a conference on the 6th November 2003 organised by ADM/CPA in order to examine the tasks of Peace building. Held in Malone House Belfast the conference drew a large crowd from North and South.

Introducing the speakers, Helen Johnson of CPA said that they represented three important stratus in any political process- the grass roots, middle range opinion formers and political decision makers.
The first to speak was grass roots activist Baroness May Blood and she pointed out that one of the difficulties being faced by the Peace process is that the benefits have not been felt in financial terms by many people in working class, marginalised areas of the country. She pointed out that there still remains considerable levels of unemployment in these areas and that much of the work that is now coming to Northern Ireland is of the low pay variety. The Baroness also said that many people in working class areas feel very little sense of ownership of the current process or of their economic future.

She criticised the policy of short-term funding of the community sector and the absence of adequate support for social economy measures. Before ending her address, she warned that Northern Ireland may be faced with a prolonged period of direct rule and that this is unlikely to improve the difficulties she outlined above.

The next speaker was South African academic Brandon Hamber who has written extensively about conflict and its resolution in different regions. He stated very firmly that peace building is a protracted process rather than a short term project.. Mr Hamber said that many of those interested in building peace in other countries adopt a very short term view encapsulated in the slogan ‘Health, wealth, nothing’. By this he said these people mean that physical conflict must first be ended and political structures put in place, followed by an expansion of the wealth creating capacity of the local economy and finally - nothing. He said that this policy is fraught with risk and may well hinder success.

A major difficulty he sees in Northern Ireland (and in many other countries) is the lack of broad participation in the political process. This he views as a structural defect undermining the consensus that is essential for normal democratic parliamentary processes to work effectively. Overall, he said, that it might be better if we were to view the principal requirement in a peace process as being one of transformation rather than reconstruction. There is a view held by many that it is only necessary to return to the status quo ante and the real problem with this type of thinking is that it overlooks the obvious fact that the pre conflict conditions were very likely what gave rise to the situation in the first place.

The last guest speaker was Senator Martin Mansergh who has acted as political advisor to three Taoisaigh over the past decades. The Senator is widely recognised as being one of the most influential thinkers in Irish Government circles and has had a significant impact on Dublin’s attitude to the North.

After reminding his audience that although reared in England, his family has long established roots in Tipperary, Mr Mansergh then went on to say that it is much too early to grow unduly pessimistic about the future of Northern Ireland and that it is important to keep a sense of perspective. He pointed to the great reduction in physical conflict and its replacement by political debate. He did, however, criticise what he sees as the wide spread belief in Northern Irish politics that ‘diplomatic hard-balling’ is a more effective option than deal making and agreement brokering. He contrasted this attitude to that of partnership making in the South.

Helen Johnson, Director of Combat Poverty, then made a summation of the three speakers contributions to the conference. Ms Johnson said that the speakers indicated there is a need for a vision of the type of society required, that peace building may be a long process, that economic and social inequalities prevent progress, that civil society needs to be cultivated and expanded and that lessons from the past must be learned if we are to develop a healthy community.

The views expressed by our contributors are their own and do not necessarily reflect that of the editorial committee.

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