REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE OPENING OF THE CONFERENCE ON CROSS BORDER CO-OPERATION
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE OPENING OF THE CONFERENCE ON CROSS BORDER CO-OPERATION: “LESSONS FOR AND FROM IRELAND”
Let me begin by congratulating the organisers: the timing of this Conference couldn’t have been better. On Tuesday of this week, Ministerial colleagues from North and South gathered in Dublin Castle for the second Plenary meeting of the North/South Ministerial Council. This meeting was remarkable, not just because it was the second Plenary meeting of the NSMC, not just because it was the latest in a series of fifteen NSMC meeting involving Ministers, North and South, since the institutions were established on 2 December last year, but also because, like all of the other meetings, it took place without controversy or fuss and in a wholly positive, friendly and non-controversial manner.
As you will recall, the inaugural Plenary of the NSMC was held in Armagh on 13 December. Indeed the historic ecclesiastical capital of Armagh is fast becoming the natural geographical focal point for North/South co-operation. It accommodates not just the Ministerial Council Joint Secretariat but also Andy Pollak’s mould-breaking Centre for Cross Border Studies, which has of course brought us all here today for this timely Conference on “Cross Border Co-Operation, Lessons for and from Ireland”.
Back on 13 December, with so many apparent obstacles ahead, there were many who continued to harbour grave doubts and indeed misgivings, about the future course of North/South co-operation, the NSMC and even the very Agreement under which it was established. Those who expected difficulties were right. But those expected failure were profoundly wrong. Serious obstacles were faced and overcome. While, regrettably, progress was stalled for a time, it is now firmly back on track.
That is not to say that there are not and will not be further difficulties ahead. No one who has worked in the field of cross border and cross community co-operation or in an evolving post-conflict culture could expect otherwise. But the difference is that those difficulties are now being dealt with in a new context, the context of the Good Friday Agreement, with all of the checks and balances, the respect for both traditions, the parity of esteem and the primacy of human rights, which that contains.
For those who may have seen North/South co-operation as a stalking horse, the Agreement is testament to the fact that this is clearly not the case. Co-operation can and will only be taken forward by agreement and for mutual benefit. There are no hidden agendas here. But there is a very open agenda, to foster and promote peace, prosperity and reconciliation on this island and between the communities on this island. It is an agenda of the heart and what drives it is the deep-rooted passion for peace shared by people of very different political ambitions, people of no mean courage, who are prepared to start to get to know each other better, to understand each other better and to grow in friendship. Cross-border co-operation is an obvious and practical starting point.
No-one in this company needs to be told of the huge importance that attaches to the Constitutional reassurance contained in the Good Friday Agreement and in the changes to Articles 2 and 3 of the Irish Constitution. That reassurance has paved the way for the kind of mutually advantageous cross-border co-operation which is commonplace throughout the European Union and which offers special advantages to those of us who share this island. It offers the prospect of releasing new energies, resources and potential particularly in the increasingly competitive international and high-tech environment in which all of us live regardless of whether in Belfast or Dublin. In that world of Internet and e-business, of wap phones and e-mail, traditional borders and boundaries are being challenged and transcended on a daily basis, freeing up and facilitating a form of global cross-border co-operation unprecedented in our history.
With this new freedom and flexibility come tremendous potential, for learning and understanding, for prosperity and opportunity. But in a world where political borders are not necessarily impermeable barricades, fresh challenges and responsibilities are emerging, some of which we are facing here in Ireland for the first time, as we move towards a multi-cultural environment. There will, I know, be important and valuable lessons for Ireland in this area from the European experience on which we will hear from our many European colleagues here this weekend.
As we all know, the more boundaries are blurred, the more we feel the need to cling to who we are, to reinforce our personal sense of identity in a sea of change. Change can be a profoundly frightening and isolating experience. When nothing else seems certain, it can seem a comfort to hold on, without question, to old convictions and beliefs, to dig in to familiar positions, to resist new possibilities. At such times we can be tempted to wrap our borders around ourselves, like a blanket, comforting but ultimately stifling.
Here on this island, and in this we are not alone, we have more than one border to cross. In addition to politics and geography, we have history and memory. In addition to physical boundaries, we have borders of the heart and of the mind. In addition to external division, there are divisions within and between communities. In fostering greater co-operation across one boundary, it would be fatal to neglect the equally important need forco-operation across all the others.
The NSMC provides a ministerial forum for co-operation. In accordance with the Agreement, it is hoped that complementary fora will be developed at the wider parliamentary and at the civic levels, working in harmony to ensure the broadest possible interface between North and South. But we must not stop there. All of our activity in this sphere should be informed by one over-arching priority, that of reconciliation. We will have solved only half the riddle if we increase cross border trade but retain communities where people will not cross the street to speak to one another.
The two communities of Northern Ireland have always looked outwards for a reaffirmation of their identities and beliefs. The architecture of the Good Friday Agreement, with its North/South and East/West structures, provides the context in which those identities and beliefs can be expressed and guaranteed. In so doing, it may also free up the possibility of a new, shared identity, building on the past but looking to the future, asking not just who we are but who we might become in this new Millennium.
We have, to a large extent on this island, internalised our border. It is for many, a part of who they are. But we are not in the business of erasing history. That would be impossible, even if it were commendable. And it is not. But honouring our divided history should not preclude the possibility of a shared future, shared in the economic, the social, the cultural, the human sense. The political leaders have grappled with the constitutional and political issues. The people of this island have voted overwhelmingly for an Agreement which enshrines the principles and creates the structures in which these issues can be resolved. We are therefore at a pivotal point in our history, when it is truly possible to move forward, without suspicion, without threat, towards a new partnership on this island, a partnership which respects borders but which is also confident enough to widen the focus, to alter the perspective, to see the bigger picture.
In this new partnership, regions which have languished on the periphery of the two jurisdictions suddenly shift to the centre stage. Business find new markets, employees discover more choice. Strategies and policies which appear to break off in mid-air are knitted together, with all of the potential for sharing resources and pooling expertise. Instead of standing with our backs to the border, we turn to look at one another face to face. Instead of wasting energies going toe to toe we harness them going hand in hand.
All of the energy which we have expended in reinforcing our differences can drive a new synergy, the working together which can only serve to increase, not just economic prosperity but the social harmony and stability necessary to underpin the peace which we have worked so hard to achieve. Nothing can be taken for granted.Having built this peace, we need to re-build it through our actions each and every day.
If we are to draw one lesson about cross border co-operation from Ireland, and I believe it is one which we are only beginning to learn, then it is that while barriers to co-operation can be psychological as well as practical, the benefits are equally intertwined. Each time we engage in practical cross-border co-operation, we contribute to the gradual erosion of the more powerful and ultimately destructive psychological border.
All borders need crossing points and ultimately a border becomes itself a sort of crossing point, a bridge to the other side from which a new departure becomes possible. Here in Ireland, as with many of our European neighbours, we are at the beginning of that new departure, away from the barriers built by our history towards a new familiarity, understanding and ultimately, trust.
I came this morning from my home in Dublin to this the city of my birth, a place I love with a pity and a passion almost impossible to articulate. I have some small ideal how history conspired to make these two places misunderstand each other at great cost to all of us. I also know perhaps in a special way what enormous good will there is North and South of the Border for this historic and humanly edifying journey in friendship that began with the Good Friday Agreement. I know the courage of many who have joined the journey. I also know how bruised the hearts are, how hurt, how hard it has been to piece together the strands of hope. Precisely because we know the awesome cost of this peace, of this remarkable chance to shape a decent future, we know each one of us can make it happen, must make it happen. We can start by building the simplest bridge of all, when two strangers reach out their hands to each other. With that handshake comes the beginning of the end of fear, the start of hope, crossing the border from past to future.