ADDRESS BY THE PRESIDENT OF IRELAND, MARY McALEESE TO THE WOMEN FOR PEACE CONFERENCE
‘Sharing the Peace’
When Suzanne Mubarak invited me to come to Sharm-El-Sheikh for the Women for Peace Conference, I was delighted to accept. I thank you Suzanne for the honour you have done me and my country.
Your initiative in seeking to harness a new global effort by women to promote and work for peace is surely timely and needed. We gather here at yet another critical moment in the history of our world, a time that demands articulate, insistent, champions of peace.
In many parts of our common global homeland, our brothers and sisters live lives of terrifying violence and fear, victims of history, victims of hatred, victims of unresolved conflicts which overshadow and often overwhelm their lives. I am reminded of the words at the start of the last century of Dr. Douglas Hyde who was to become the first President of Ireland and who said:
“Hatred is a negative passion; it is a powerful,
very powerful destroyer, but it is useless for
building up. Love on the other hand can remove mountains…”
The last century was hardly one that could be acclaimed for its love. Indeed it would be hard to find in the annals of history, a period of time which has provided such horrific, such breathtaking proof of mankind’s capacity for hatred and destruction. These past hundred years have been scarred by the lethal combination of human hatred, human greed, allied to an unprecedented capacity to inflict harm through modern technology and munitions. That unholy alliance has brought us two massive world wars, a nightmare of vicious regional conflicts, to the brink of world destruction and deep into the abyss where we have seen with ugly clarity where hatred brings us when it is left unbridled.
No matter what the cause and nature of the conflict, no matter where it is, there is one ever-present characteristic: men, women and children suffer.
No one conflict or act of terrorism has primacy over another in terms of the depth of human suffering involved, but the power of television has ensured the particular global impact of the horrific events in the United States last year. The fact that the first anniversary of that event was only days ago adds a further dimension of timeliness to our Conference and to our reflections on how we address the huge issues involved and their implications.
The recent Earth Summit in Johannesburg recognised the need for a global response to the problems of the environment and poverty. It is my strong personal belief that there is also a requirement for a global response to conflict. Women, as half the citizens of our planet, have an undeniable stake in its future and a right to insist on having a central role in such a global response. I applaud Suzanne Mubarak’s initiative in bringing us here today in search of lasting, sustainable solutions towards building a global culture of peace and respectful partnership.
Northern Ireland Peace Process
I was born and raised in Belfast in Northern Ireland, a place which you well know has been deeply troubled for generations by a toxic mix of festering political and sectarian tensions. Ireland is a divided country. Once a British colony with a centuries old history of resistance by the native Irish, a large part of the island gained its independence in the 1920’s while the north-eastern part, known as Northern Ireland remained under British control. Within Northern Ireland there was a Protestant majority which regarded itself as British, identified strongly with Great Britain and was fearful of the independent Irish Republic to the south, with its large Catholic majority and its ambition for a united Ireland independent of Britain. There was too in Northern Ireland, a large Catholic minority which saw itself as Irish and was resentful of being cut off from its natural hinterland on the rest of the island. The Protestant majority ruled the Catholic minority ungenerously and oppressively for years seed-bedding a culture of discontent with a strong leit-motif of violence. We lived inside a web of badly twisted and skewed relationships. Inside Northern Ireland relationships between Protestants and Catholic were bad. Between North and South relationships were bad and between the two islands of Great Britain and Ireland, relationships were also fraught. The peacemakers had to address all those interlocking relationships and conflicting ambitions in order to straighten out the mess that was history’s legacy and which in the most recent phase of the conflict between 1969 and 1994, resulted in over 3,500 deaths.
In terms of my own contribution to this Conference and to what we are seeking to build together, I thought that it might be valuable to share with you some of our own experiences in Ireland of our still-ongoing process of peace-making and the important role that women have played in that process.
In 1994 the main paramilitary groups representing both sides of the conflict were persuaded to go on ceasefire in order to create a space in which the possibility of a negotiated solution to the problems could be explored. Working out the terms on which such negotiations could take place was in itself a complex process and took a number of years. Eventually fully inclusive talks got underway between the Irish and British Governments and eight political parties representing the main traditions in Northern Ireland.
Main Provisions of the Good Friday Agreement
After several months of intensive negotiations, agreement was reached between the participants on Good Friday, 10 April 1998. The six main terms of the Agreement were:
Firstly, an historic accommodation on constitutional and sovereignty issues. For decades, the Northern Ireland situation had been dogged by the issue of the status of the North - was it Irish, or was it British? Under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement, an accommodation was reached whereby Northern Ireland would remain part of the United Kingdom for as long as that was the wish of a majority. The option of becoming part of a United Ireland would be put to the people from time to time but it could only be brought about with the consent of a majority of the people of Northern Ireland. In a major step by the Irish Government, the Constitution of the South was changed to reflect this new reality.
Second, new institutions were to be established to recalibrate and stabilise the core relations at the heart of the conflict - those within Northern Ireland, between North and South on the island of Ireland and between Ireland and Britain;
Third, a programme of measures was to be put in place promoting human rights, safeguards and equality of opportunity;
A fourth element was a new beginning in terms of policing and the administration of justice in Northern Ireland;
Also included were measures relating to what I would describe as the transition from conflict to a peaceful society - the decommissioning of illegal arms, the release of prisoners associated with the conflict and the normalisation of security arrangements;
Finally, provision was made for the validation of the Agreement by polling the views of the people of the island, North and South in referenda and for the Implementation and Review of its provisions.
In very summary form, these were the main elements of the Good Friday Agreement. They constituted an honourable attempt at creating a culture of winners and winners instead of the tired old failed model of winners and losers. It made partners in peace of former enemies in war. In simultaneous referenda on 22 May 1998 the people of both North and South gave their overwhelming endorsement to the agreement, revealing an enormous groundswell of support not just for peace but for compromise and for a new era of consensus.
Role of Women in Good Friday Agreement Negotiations
I want to focus now on the role of women in the negotiation of the Good Friday Agreement and the lessons to be drawn from that involvement. On the face of it women are poorly represented in political life in Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland and in Great Britain. The number of elected public representatives who are women remains modest and it would be true to say that at national level political discourse is largely dominated by men. Yet there is another side to that story, a side in which women have played crucial roles of the greatest significance to peace building. The Irish Government Delegation was led by the Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern. Much of the detailed work of the negotiations was undertaken by a very fine young politician and former lawyer Ms Liz O’Donnell, at the time Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs, working in close collaboration with the Minister for Foreign Affairs, David Andrews.
On the British Government side, day-to-day oversight of the negotiations was in the hands of Dr. Mo Mowlam, the British Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. Anybody who knows Mo Mowlam knows that she is a formidable woman, full of courage and spirit. She and Liz O’Donnell made a major contribution to the successful outcome achieved on Good Friday 1998.
Among the eight Northern Ireland political parties participating in the negotiations, the number of women involved was relatively small, but this was more than made up for in terms of quality and contribution. One party in particular is worth a mention and that is the then newly formed Women’s Coalition. In many ways it represented a rejection of traditional partisan and, dare I say, male-dominated, politics. Its founders were themselves drawn from both of the main opposing traditions but they sought to work together transcending the old tribal divides focussing on creating a common, a shared future.
As senior members of the Delegations of the two Governments, a particular responsibility fell on Mo Mowlam and Liz O’Donnell. Undoubtedly, they were able to bring a particular added value as women politicians. In particular, they insisted on the importance of listening respectfully to the other side and trying to understand their fears. In a divided society such as that in Northern Ireland, the focus of political leaderships has regrettably tended to be centred on articulating one’s own needs and perspectives and not the other’s. Each side believed itself to be the victim. Each came with an agenda of changes it demanded of the other side. Mo Mowlam and Liz O’Donnell argued strongly that simply setting out one’s own maximalist position would achieve nothing except perpetual breakdown. They insisted that what was needed was the creation of a space big enough to accommodate the needs of all sides. If everyone gave a little there was a chance they could all walk away with ninety-five percent of something worthwhile instead of holding out for one hundred per cent of nothing.
Mo Mowlan, Liz O’Donnell and the other women negotiators were also able to place and keep an emphasis on the importance of the shared humanity that years of mutually contemptuous tribal stereotyping and blame-gaming had blinded us to. It would be profoundly unfair to many of the men involved in the negotiations to create an impression that the women alone monopolised the ability to see all sides of an argument and the need for compromise. Thankfully that is not the case. We only have to think of John Hume and his legendary leadership to remember how many good men dug the well of peace but I do believe that we have female champions who have those peace-making qualities in disproportionate abundance! What is more, many of our peace-building women are to be found far away from the headline news, working quietly for peace in their homes, their communities, in the small-scale projects and local organisations through which peace grows from the ground up. Year by year, they have chipped away at the old language of bitterness and bigotry introducing a fresh new language of dialogue and respect for difference.
The Journey of Implementation
Implementation of the Good Friday Agreement was always going to be a journey on which we could expect to encounter difficulties and obstacles. But there has been enormous, some might say even miraculous progress as well. There is a new Executive Government in Northern Ireland in which ministers from both traditions work in a coalition on behalf of all the people. There is a newly elected Assembly which is working well, a newly structured police service anxious to attract members from both communities; there are new institutions through which the North and South work together in areas where partnership makes sense; and there are new formal bodies linking the two islands to ensure they work collaboratively and fluently together on a regular and ongoing basis.
The principle underlying the work of the Executive and the Assembly is parallel consent - in effect that no major decision can be taken without the consent of both the Unionist and Nationalist traditions. It is an exciting, innovative journey into partnership politics - and it is working! In the two and half years or so since the institutions actually came into being, there has been widespread praise for the way Nationalist and Unionist Ministers have worked together on the day-to-day issues of normal democracy. I should add that three of the 12 Ministers in the Executive are women and they are making an important and effective contribution to its work.
The value in terms of deepening mutual understanding and trust is, of course, huge. John Hume, the former leader of the Social Democratic and Labour Party and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, has long argued that it is in working together on the day-to-day social and economic issues of common concern that the real healing process takes place. He is already being proved right.
These past few years of conscientious peace building have saved many lives and brought a new era of hope but we are still only started on this journey and there is still a mammoth task ahead. Changing rigid mindsets takes a very long time. How long is hard to say. I am sure many of you saw the images last year as very frightened young Catholic children at Holy Cross School tried to make their way to school through a dreadfully abusive protest conducted by their adult Protestant neighbours. The protests were rightly condemned at the time as utterly wrong and unacceptable by any civilised standards. For their part, the Protestant protestors claimed that their problems had been long ignored. Some progress has been made in addressing the issues which resulted in this situation and, one year on, it was gratifying to see the Holy Cross children return safely to school earlier this month with smiles instead of tears. That episode among many others characterised by sectarian hatred, reminds us that we still have quite a way to go before the new culture of consensus triumphs over the old culture of conflict. It reminds us that there is no rest for the peacemakers, for those who believe in violence are also working right around the clock to do their worst. And yet I believe having seen and felt it in my own birthplace that the greatest human impulse is the impulse for peace and I have no doubt that if the Good Friday agreement can prevail, and I am sure it will, the strong ties to a past poisoned by supremacy, suspicion, vengeance, distrust and inequality will be severed and a new future will dawn based on acceptance of diversity, equality, justice and partnership.
I am proud that women have been at the heart of bringing about this new dispensation at every level and that they have seen how powerful they can be even though regrettably small in number in the places where political power is exercised. But there is a place where we have huge access and huge opportunity world-wide. The home is still, when all is said and done, the single most important crucible of peace. It is there we teach our children their first lessons in either love or hate and sometimes both simultaneously. It is probably the most important place to start recruiting and training tomorrow’s peacemakers.
Importance of International Support
At this global gathering, can I take a moment to say how enormously important the support from our friends in the international community has been in helping us achieve the progress that has been made. The goodwill that I have been receiving at this Conference has served as a further example of that support and I want to say how much we in Ireland appreciate it. Just as we have benefited from the support and encouragement of our friends in the international community, we are open to sharing our experience of a conflict resolution process with others if it would be considered helpful. No two conflicts are the same I know, but in their resolution there are many pockets of distilled wisdom about the human condition, about its capacity to change and about the ways we can empower ourselves and each other to break loose from the prison of history and create our own peaceful destiny. If we can be of help in Ireland, we would be only too glad to do so. Out of the debris of the first half of the twentieth century came a salutary and reassuring story. The most bitter of enemies, the winners and the losers, are all now colleagues and partners in a Union designed to make the pursuit of peace and prosperity a shared journey not a winner takes all competition. That model is working and working well. Out of the debris of Irish history another story is being written of old enemies who are learning to become friends and partners. Talk to us again thirty, fifty years from now and we will, please God, have a story to tell as edifying as the story of the European Union which we are proud to belong to.
Lessons: Respecting Difference/Role of Institutions
In inviting us to Sharm-El-Sheikh, Suzanne Mubarak made clear that, true to our gender, we should be focussed on practical and tangible outcomes - as she put it very eloquently herself, “If you want things to be different, do them differently”. In closing, therefore, I wanted to focus on two specific lessons that I feel we have learned from our process in Ireland which can perhaps be drawn on in seeking to resolve other conflicts.
Firstly, we came to understand that if the future in Northern Ireland was to be different from the past, a key requirement was to respect and accommodate difference. That willingness to respect and accommodate difference is, without question, an essential requirement of all conflict resolution.
The second lesson that I want to offer for your reflection is related to the first and is: the critical role of new institutions which reflect the differences and diversities involved in the conflict. I described for you earlier how the Good Friday Agreement has a complex tapestry of new institutions within which representatives of all sides work together on the day-to-day issues of public policy. These new institutions are constructed in such a way as to respect the realities of differing traditions, while at the same time enabling people to work together in common cause. No one side dominates and the whole thing works only when all sides pull together. I believe that, while every conflict situation has its own characteristics, there are elements within the institutional architecture of the Good Friday Agreement which could have wider application and would be worth closer examination in terms of conflict resolution elsewhere.
Closing Remarks
The goal that Suzanne Mubarak has set for us at this Conference is a hugely challenging one. For my part, I pledge my full support and will work with her and all of you in every way that I can. I passionately share Suzanne’s commitment to a peaceful future for our world. I do so because I have seen and lived through the alternative and it is not a humanly decent way to live. Suzanne’s belief in the central role that women can play in the process of creating and sustaining that peace is one I also share. Violence wastes lives. Wars throw away the time and resources we need to build strong civic societies where children have food, shelter, education and medicine. We have nothing left to learn about hatred’s ways, nothing left to understand about its legacy. There is no mystery here – we need no more lessons in hatred.
The great Irish poet, WB Yeats, once said that “too long a sacrifice can make a stone of the heart”. It is time to dissolve the hearts of stone, to make them feel a pity beyond self-pity, to open them up to the healing power of love translated into tolerance, forgiveness and friendship.
As the saying goes “we do not inherit the world from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children” May our children and grandchildren one day reflect with pride on the mothers and grandmothers and all the women of vision and courage who turned the 21st century into a remarkable era of maturity and generosity in human relationships and who gave to their children the perfect accompaniment to the gift of life itself, the gift of deep, lasting and universal peace.
Thank you.