“All conflict is about difference, whether the difference is race, religion or nationality. The European visionaries decided that difference is not a threat, difference is natural. Difference is of the essence of humanity. Difference is an accident of birth and it should therefore never be the source of hatred or conflict. The answer to difference is to respect it. Therein lies a most fundamental principle of peace - respect for diversity.”—Northern Ireland politician John Hume, Nobel Peace Prize lecture, December 10, 1998
The first death in “The Troubles” in Northern Ireland is generally cited as Francis McCloskey, a 67-year-old Catholic civilian who died on this date in 1969, as a result of head injuries incurred at the hands of a member of the Royal Ulster Constabulary during civil-rights demonstrations in Derry. Nearly 3,500 people had died and 30 years elapsed before the Good Friday Agreement—the peace plan agreed to by John Hume, David Trimble, Gerry Adams, and an astonishingly wide array of other Ulster figures—finally brought the hope, as Adams put it, of taking “the gun out of Irish politics.”
As an Irish-American, I long found it a source of anguish that Ulster became one of the world’s most constantly cited sources of sectarian violence. I now find it a source of pride that this same region now serves as a laboratory for conflict resolution to be studied all around the globe.
My greatest hope is that somehow, this same conflict-resolution model can be duplicated in the Mideast.
A huge difference between Northern Ireland and Palestine is the attitude of insurgents toward the government they blamed for injustice. No matter how much the Irish Republican Army pointed to the British government as the source of iniquity in the province, no serious element in the movement sought to destroy Britain itself as a nation—the IRA simply wanted it out of Ulster.
That same condition does not obtain in Palestine, where Israel’s right to exist is questioned by terrorists and their foreign enablers.
Additionally, the British Parliament, despite its shortcomings, provided a model for communication, give-and-take and compromise even for its Irish adversaries. Such governments are in short supply in the Mideast. In fact, the one country that practices democracy most strenuously—Israel—is the very one whose physical survival is at stake.
Germany and Japan after World War II are often cited as examples of successful democracy-building in countries where they had not previously existed. But planting the seeds for such reform is tenuous, as Iraq is proving right now.
Respect for diversity, as Hume’s lecture implies, runs both ways. Let’s pray that both sides in the Mideast come to accept this.
The first death in “The Troubles” in Northern Ireland is generally cited as Francis McCloskey, a 67-year-old Catholic civilian who died on this date in 1969, as a result of head injuries incurred at the hands of a member of the Royal Ulster Constabulary during civil-rights demonstrations in Derry. Nearly 3,500 people had died and 30 years elapsed before the Good Friday Agreement—the peace plan agreed to by John Hume, David Trimble, Gerry Adams, and an astonishingly wide array of other Ulster figures—finally brought the hope, as Adams put it, of taking “the gun out of Irish politics.”
As an Irish-American, I long found it a source of anguish that Ulster became one of the world’s most constantly cited sources of sectarian violence. I now find it a source of pride that this same region now serves as a laboratory for conflict resolution to be studied all around the globe.
My greatest hope is that somehow, this same conflict-resolution model can be duplicated in the Mideast.
A huge difference between Northern Ireland and Palestine is the attitude of insurgents toward the government they blamed for injustice. No matter how much the Irish Republican Army pointed to the British government as the source of iniquity in the province, no serious element in the movement sought to destroy Britain itself as a nation—the IRA simply wanted it out of Ulster.
That same condition does not obtain in Palestine, where Israel’s right to exist is questioned by terrorists and their foreign enablers.
Additionally, the British Parliament, despite its shortcomings, provided a model for communication, give-and-take and compromise even for its Irish adversaries. Such governments are in short supply in the Mideast. In fact, the one country that practices democracy most strenuously—Israel—is the very one whose physical survival is at stake.
Germany and Japan after World War II are often cited as examples of successful democracy-building in countries where they had not previously existed. But planting the seeds for such reform is tenuous, as Iraq is proving right now.
Respect for diversity, as Hume’s lecture implies, runs both ways. Let’s pray that both sides in the Mideast come to accept this.
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