Editorial Nobel prize crowns Northern Ireland peace
process
In the middle of Northern
Irelands pain the sun shone briefly in 1976 when Mairead Corrigan and
Betty Williams, a Catholic and a Protestant, were awarded the Nobel Peace
Prize. Years passed, many more died and now the clouds have lifted again as
another Protestant and Catholic were awarded the coveted prize that ironically
is won only out of the ruins of war.
This international endorsement of the peace process will encourage
the doubters on both sides to accept and support the will of the great majority
of the electors both of Northern Ireland and the Republic, as confirmed in
recent plebiscites.
Many people share the credit for the Good Friday Agreement which
gives the 1.7 million people of Northern Ireland serious hope of a friendly
resolution of the conflict that has split them for nearly 400 years: Sinn Fein
leader Gerry Adams, former U.S. Senator George Mitchell, Prime Ministers Tony
Blair of Britain and Bertie Ahern of Ireland, President Clinton, and Mo Mowlam,
the British Secretary for Northern Ireland.
Nevertheless, the decision of the Oslo Committee to single out
David Trimble, Protestant leader of the Ulster Unionist Party and First
Minister of the new Northern Ireland Assembly, and John Hume, head of the
mostly Catholic Social Democratic and Labor Party, was both astute and
logical.
The citation noted Trimbles great political
courage. The self-identification of Ulster Loyalists is that of
conquerors who must constantly reassert -- as they have done for centuries in
their annual parades through Nationalist enclaves -- their seventeenth century
conquest. Trimble has repudiated this tribal prejudice by recognizing
Nationalists as full citizens with equal rights in what Lord Craigavon had
brazenly declared in the 1920s a Protestant state for a Protestant people.
Hume, praised in the citation as the clearest and most
consistent searcher for a peaceful solution, has been similarly
courageous in his patient -- and politically risky but ultimately successful --
insistence on Sinn Fein participation, first in negotiations, now in the
Assembly. As Adams commented when the award was announced last week,
There would be no peace process but for his courage and vision.
Much effort must still be exerted before Northern Irelands
two cultures achieve a stable equilibrium. The emotional sense of superiority
of the Loyalists is as profound as is racism in the United States psyche. It is
nearly half a century since Rosa Parks brought about a legal repudiation of
racism by refusing to go the back of the bus. How far are we still from purging
the monster fully from our national soul?
The Nationalist community also has to change. Reforms in the
Republic of Ireland in the past 20 years have done much to mitigate Loyalist
fears that any association with the South would impose on them a Catholic
culture that most of them abhor. The Republic, for better or worse, has
emphatically rejected the efforts of some Catholic church leaders to impose a
culture of neo-Christendom.
The Catholic church in the North, for its part, has still to find
a way to integrate the two education systems that continue to perpetuate the
ancient animosities and distortions. Power and control concerns, disguised as
theological justifications, must not be allowed to block this essential
reform.
The present agreement falls short of the goal of the Nationalist
community, namely, the reunification of the entire island. But it does give the
government of the Republic a voice in the affairs of the North. And additional
factors favor further movement, provided the changes listed above are effected.
In the past, reunion would have involved a significant reduction
of social benefits for the Ulster people. Today living standards in the
Republic are higher than those of the United Kingdom. In addition, both parts
of Ireland are inescapably drawn closer together by their continuing
integration into the European Community. There is much reason for optimism.
National Catholic Reporter, October 30,
1998
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