ADDRESS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE ‘WAY OF PEACE’ SEMINAR ORGANISED BY THE WORLD COMMUNITY
ADDRESS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE ‘WAY OF PEACE’ SEMINAR ORGANISED BY THE WORLD COMMUNITY FOR CHRISTIAN MEDITATION
Your Holiness, Ladies and Gentlemen
In his book “War as a Way of Life” written in 1988, the American John Conroy describes how on a visit to Belfast he was astounded and more than a little frightened to be asked what is a regrettably routine question here: “Are you a Catholic or a Protestant?” He says this: “I lied. I claimed I was a Jew. It was probably one of the few times in the recent history of Europe that someone has claimed to be a Jew in order to avoid religious persecution”. I hope, Your Holiness, that during these three days in Belfast you have not been required to consider whether you are a Protestant Buddhist or a Catholic Buddhist.
Like the poet Louis McNiece I am able to say I was born in Belfast and so I am particularly grateful to the World Community for Christian Meditation, and especially to Fr Laurence Freeman for inviting me to share in this unique event.
Your Holiness, you come to Belfast with a formidable reputation throughout the world as a man of prayer and of peace. Belfast’s reputation throughout the world has been, until recently, as a place of conflict. You are a renowned spiritual leader in the Buddhist tradition, a faith tradition which is not well known here, but you have for many years been in respectful dialogue with other faith traditions. Ireland, North and South, is dominated by the Christian tradition and many of the people who live here are prayerful and churchgoing. Yet their commitment to the great Christian commandment to love one another has so often been grimly overshadowed by sectarianism, hatred and distrust. Here Christians have killed Christians and at times they have all but killed hope.
Importantly, though, you come at a time when hope has been rekindled and is growing more robust daily. It is a remarkable hope crafted painstakingly out of outrageous suffering and considerable courage. I am sure your visit will have brought encouragement to the legion of peacemakers who, in the bits and pieces of their daily lives and despite their woundedness, are daring to imagine a fresh new future for themselves and their children.
There have been many Jeremiads who did not believe it was possible to bridge the gulfs and chasms which have been history’s bitter legacy and there is no doubt the task was and remains difficult. But that is all it is - difficult, not impossible, just difficult. The divisions between Catholic and Protestant, Unionist and Nationalist, North and South, between Ireland and Britain, have all been problematic. Yet in this generation we have watched as the focus has shifted inexorably from enmity to partnership, driven by the will of the people, by the good heart for peace.
The transition we are living through was made possible by the peacemakers so rightly described as Blessed in St. Francis of Assisi’s oft-quoted prayer. The effects of that transition from conflict to consensus are visible all around us in the hearts and minds, words and deeds, of men and women who have very different views of history, very different political ambitions, very different faith perspectives but who have nonetheless committed themselves to building a shared future with space for all, respect for all, equality for all and justice for all. Yes, the darker side is still there and its brooding shadow is a stark reminder of the bleak landscape which failure would bring upon us. We simply cannot allow failure. What encourages us and entitles the peacemakers to take righteous pride, are the considerable accomplishments of and since the Good Friday Agreement. Much has changed for the better. A new government, a new relationship between North and South, a new relationship between Britain and Ireland, a radical new empowerment which gives to the people of Northern Ireland alone control over their destiny, above all a dwindling away of the culture of violence, the growing from seed of a culture of consensus. We celebrate those changes as proof of how far we have come on this way of peace, and as a rich source of encouragement on the journey ahead particularly to those who continue to experience sectarianism or who live still in fear.
The theme of ‘Inner Peace – Outer Action’ which this Seminar explores, strikes a powerful chord in Northern Ireland. So many of the milestones that have made the current peace possible, have been achieved because people had the courage of their convictions. They took risks in the most unpromising of circumstances, not because they were sure of success, but because they were sure it was the right thing to do. They are men and women who rejected the mentality of division and distrust they had been born into, whose tragic effects they had witnessed all around them. But they knew also, that it was not enough to rid their own hearts of hatred. The fragile seed of love, of belief in the possibility of change that they had nurtured within themselves, they also extended to others, drawing them in by the sheer force of its integrity.
Theirs was an uphill, often thankless job, for old certainties sometimes seemed to offer more comfort than the self-stretching compromises which peace requires. But they remained committed to the path of peace, sticking to it no matter how provoked, no matter how difficult.
- Theirs is an example of how inner belief, translated into outer action, has the power to change the tide of history. Their work laid the foundations on which the Good Friday Agreement has been built. For it, too, is an example of an inner leap of faith made flesh in an outward statement of conviction. Until then, history had distanced each side from the other. We did not know each other though, God forgive us, we dared to believe we did. Not knowing each other how could we intuit each other’s innermost thoughts and hopes? All conflicts have their underlying myths and beliefs. Each side holds its own view of history, its own analysis of the problems and issues. In a divided society, where people live apart, are educated apart and frequently work apart, it is extremely difficult to develop a true appreciation of the other side’s analysis, perspective, culture and identity. And it is all too easy to seek to promote your own culture through denying respect and legitimacy to any other.
- As Your Holiness has observed, too many conflicts arise because we lose sight of the basic humanity that binds us together as a human family. Now, however, thanks to the Referendum which followed the Good Friday Agreement, we have seen into each other’s hearts. We know that a huge majority of people are saying “Yes” to a new landscape, a new dispensation which is only possible if both sides are willing to give each other enough space to begin the journey towards mutual trust, a journey which leads to what Seamus Heaney has so memorably described as that ‘great sea-change on the far-side of revenge’ (from ‘The Cure at Troy’)
- In saying ‘yes’ to the Good Friday Agreement, people created a different context for dealing with each other. It changed not only the political landscape, but also the landscape of personal relationships. It has started to subtly recalibrate so many aspects of identity, subverting the ‘either/or’ mentality which enabled two traditions, unionist and nationalist to live cheek by jowl for generations, largely in ignorance or wilful misunderstanding of each other’s heritage and aspirations. Now people are starting to breach the carefully constructed barricades and borders which each side policed so jealously in the past. They are rediscovering our suppressed shared heritage and taking tangible steps to accept and appreciate the very real differences which make each tradition unique and special. New collaborations, new avenues for creativity, new opportunities for friendships, are made possible in places where history conspired tragically to render them stillborn. How much we have missed, how impoverished we have been by our ignorance of each other, how much we have to look forward to as we begin, no matter how tentatively, no matter how sceptically, to look at each other through less hostile, more joyfully curious eyes.
- There has been a conscious back-turning on the narrow bigotry of the past, which preached that only those who think like us, act like us, look like us, share our religion, language, culture and ethnic background, deserve our respect. The challenge and opportunity now open to us, is to establish a new web of relationships based on trust, grounded in respect for diversity, capable of peacefully accommodating different traditions and points of view. The challenge is to make this island a byword for love in action
- Those values may seem hopelessly distant from reality in many parts of our world today where lives are cruelly twisted and skewed by violence, oppression, contempt for human rights and the international rule of law. The people of Northern Ireland know only too well what happens when hatred runs amok; they have the scars to prove it. But they have also shown that no matter how often the seed of hope is trampled on, it can never be fully destroyed. It survives in the hearts of men and women who believe in the rallying cry to love one another, who believe passionately that we can transcend anger and hurt and vengeance and hatred and who believe even more passionately that to live humanly, to live decently, we must, if we are not to remain prisoners of our unhappy history.
- I hope, Your Holiness, that during your time here, you have been moved by the will for peace in the hearts of the people you have met. In the search for peace we have been greatly helped by the prayers and assistance of many friends throughout the globe. We have been humbled by the interest and compassion shown by so many strangers whose ready generosity has helped us to believe in our own power to transcend our bitterness, to dig deep inside ourselves and find the energy to start again. I know, Your Holiness, that you too have prayed for us and I believe your prayers and all the prayers offered here and around the world have been the wind at the backs of the peacemakers. Your presence here gives us a chance to say ‘Thank you’. It will strengthen us in our search for lasting peace and full acceptance of the very “otherness” of each other. Thanks to the peacemakers, we have much to look forward to in this first century of the new Millennium. And I pray that the success we have achieved to date will inspire our brothers and sisters in other parts of the world, to persist in their own difficult struggles for peace. May they too feel the good that comes from the prayers of friends and may they accept them as welcome gifts regardless of creed. They are the cry of the human family which shares this earth, the sound of Rachael weeping for her children, whoever and wherever they are.
- There has been too much weeping here and for some the tears will never end. But, Your Holiness, you have come to a good people, a kindly people, a much-misunderstood people. They are trying their best to make things better. I have no doubt at all they will, with each other’s help, the help of friends and with God’s help, succeed.