REMARKS BY PRESIDENT MCALEESE AT THE INAUGURAL SUMMIT OF THE TRANSATLANTIC NETWORK CONFERENCE
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT MCALEESE AT THE INAUGURAL SUMMIT OF THE TRANSATLANTIC NETWORK CONFERENCE FRIDAY, 3 OCTOBER, 2008
Good morning everyone. You’re all very welcome here today.
I was delighted to accept the invitation of the British Council to attend this Inaugural Summit of the Transatlantic Network 2020 conference. It takes you to my two favourite cities - my adopted home city of Dublin and the city of my birth Belfast. I hope those of you visiting for the first time will feel welcomed in both cities and will leave them encouraged by the human warmth, the capacity for friendship which is the life blood of all human networks. I thank in particular Tony Reilly, not so long ago of this city, for his kind invitation to speak to you today. I hope his new job is treating him well!
The central theme of this week’s Summit - “Conflict and cooperation in the modern world” – could not be more appropriate. That great Dubliner George Bernard Shaw once claimed that England and America were two countries divided by a common language. He might well have said the same about the relationship between the country of his birth, Ireland and that of his adopted home, England. The forces of history shaped us very differently, one the colonised, the other the coloniser. They left us a centuries old history of conflict, bitterness and contempt that has only been transcended in this generation. Dublin and Belfast, two cities only one hundred miles apart on a small island, are only today beginning to enjoy a comfortable, collegial, neighbourly relationship. The Peace Process has helped end a daily deluge of intercommunal violence and created the conditions for a much better future. It has not yet resolved all the problems of sectarianism and mistrust but it has created a vehicle for their resolution. So on this island we know more than a little about the damaging consequences of conflict and the benefits of cooperation. We know it is possible to live side by side, to be neighbours to one another and yet to live in abysmal and dangerous ignorance of one another. Consider how more complex matters become when we look at global relationships, between nations with different languages, cultures, political perspectives, faiths and histories. The blood soaked history of twentieth century Europe alone is a horrific litany of conflicts between neighbours, of millions of young men sacrificed in battles, of a holocaust that consumed Europe’s Jews, a Wall that separated the families of Berlin, an Iron Curtain, a Cold War, Velvet and Singing revolutions. And yet out of these monstrous hurts the children of winners and losers share a common European homeland within the European Union and in their day to day politics show what is possible when nations talk to one another with respect and listen to one another with care.
But still we live in a very wobbly world where relationships are eternally fragile and ever in need of careful nurturing, where apparent stability can disappear in the blink of an eye. The Romanian poet Ana Blandiana’s beautiful poem “The Country we come from” captures the fragility of our existence and our civilisation in the face of the forces of history:
‘I am from summer,
A homeland so frail
The fall of a leaf
Could crush it to nothing’
Among the antidotes to that fragility is international solidarity, partnerships, Networks, deep knowledge of one another instead of festering ignorance or resentment.
The links between Europe and North America stretch back several centuries. They are ties of the deepest kinship and shared values. But as with any close relationship, there have been periods when these links have come under some strain as divergent economic, political, cultural and historical perspectives contributed to an atmosphere of mutual incomprehension, a sure sign of the need to talk to one another more and to listen to one another more. Transatlantic Network 2020 hopes to avoid and transcend such difficulties by building fresh new connections across the Atlantic among young leaders, drawing them into each others orbit in a network of endeavour sustained by friendship and by trust in one another. This network takes us beyond our local or national sense of ourselves and reminds us of our place in the international community - a community that like any other needs to be stitched together painstakingly, handshake to handshake if we are not to remain strangers to one another.
This is important and timely work. The virtual world of instant communications makes it much easier for us to stay in touch but still we need to start with the meeting, the human observation of one another, the growing to like and to learn from one another. Each link in the network opens us up to another perspective, another version of lived life. The network connects us to truths we did not know, helps us reroute away from myths and misconceptions we learnt in ignorance. Networking helps us explore commonalities with joy and differences without fear. These are the basic building blocks of peace and of prosperity for across these human bridges, commerce flows both ways alongside culture.
Many of the global challenges facing us can only be effectively overcome with solid and sustained international cooperation, things like climate change, energy supply and food security, chronic poverty, Aids, respond best to focussed multi-lateral endeavour - to networks of shared responsibility. One such network is finding its feet in Northern Ireland a place I know you visited earlier this week. After centuries of unresolved conflict, of seeking outcomes based on winners and losers, there is now in place a complex structure that makes winners of all, for it involves the sharing of power and of equality by all.
The Peace Process which underpins this exciting new dispensation was only possible because of effective networking between the Irish and British governments along with their EU Partners, massive political and moral input from successive American administrations, crucial Canadian expertise and the financial support of the International Fund for Ireland. Their efforts helped transform the will of the people for peace into a step by step reality.
In many ways the mobilising of that network was made easier if not indeed possible because of the formidably close relations between Ireland and the United States and Canada, forged over centuries by our emigrants, who while they loved their new homelands and committed to them with enthusiasm never lost their love of Ireland but kept it alive from generation to generation.
In this generation we have seen that relationship contribute not just to the successful Peace Process but to Ireland’s growing prosperity as American investors made this country their European base. Today Irish investors return the compliment creating considerable employment in the United States, those ancient networks still working the magic that makes for cultural compatibility and ease in each others company. The forthcoming American election makes the point well for each of the four Presidential and Vice Presidential candidates has a strong Irish heritage.
When we look to Europe, Ireland’s commitment to the European Union is second to none and our contribution to Europe’s heritage stretches back 1500 years to a time when it was Ireland that brought Christianity and literacy to swathes of the European mainland, leaving a lasting imprint on modern Europe.
Positioned by geography and history as a bridge between Europe and North America, Ireland has always been a keen and shrewd interpreter of both and a loyal friend to both. We see the future of our world, its peace, prosperity and its problem-solving capacity as in part dependent on the robustness of relationships between these two continents. Your investment now in those relationships will pay important dividends in the years ahead. Two heads are still always better than one.
I congratulate the British Council for its initiative in establishing Transatlantic Network 2020 and wish you all every success in the future.