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AN IRISH PEACE?
Will the new peace deal hold? April 17, 1998 |
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Questions asked
in this forum:
So who won in the peace talks? Will this improve relations between Catholic and Protestants? Will the deal really stop the violence? Will the different structures in the peace deal really work together? How will the release of political prisoners impact the stability in the region? How institutionalized have the "Troubles" become? 
A question from William E. Clague of Orlando, FL: Is it true, as I have read, that the focus on the issue of partition is somewhat misplaced, and that the root of the conflict in Northern Ireland is the institutional division between Catholics and Protestants? If so, what are the real obstacles to improving this? Are the Protestants really opposed to treating Catholics as equals under the law? Do they really wish to maintain a "Protestant Apartheid?" Or is this just the position of a few extremists? Conversely, is it possible to carry out reforms that would engender a willingness among Catholics to look to the government of Northern Ireland (regardless of its connections to Ireland or Britain) as a legitimate and representative government? What does the peace agreement do to get things moving in this direction?
Dr. John Darby, of the University of Ulster, responds:
The agreement has been framed to deal with three sets of relationship:
a. Relationships between Catholics and Protestants within Northern Ireland;
b. Relationships between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic (North-South);
c. Relationships between Ireland and Britain (East-West).
All three need to be settled before there can be a stable settlement, but certainly the relationships between Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland presents the most difficult obstacles.
There have in fact been significant improvements in the position of some Catholics in Northern Ireland over the last thirty years. For middle-class Catholics, all of the legal restrictions which they suffered have been removed, and there has been a distinct improvement in their economic condition in relation to Protestants. The improvement in their condition helps to explain why a substantial minority (around 30% according to most polls) of middle class Catholics are content to remain in the United Kingdom. The same cannot be said of working-class Catholics, who are much more likely to be unemployed than their Protestant counterparts. This is potentially a destabilising factor, and most agree that it must be addressed urgently. The question of a representative police force is also important to win Catholic support for the agreement.
Regarding Protestant willingness to accept Catholics as equals, there is ample evidence that the great majority are so willing. The results of the referendum in Northern Ireland are likely to confirm this.
Dr. Joseph Thompson, former State Department Scholar-Diplomat for Irish Affairs, responds:
The focus and roots of the Northern Ireland Conflict since 1967 are not entirely religious. If they were, the communities would send their institutional theologians as negotiators to work out the question of transubstantiation (changing the substance of bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ while the visible signs remain the same). Rather, religion became an all too easy symbol of identity for the different groups, i.e., unionists were tagged as Protestants (a vague term, when in fact the majority are actually Presbyterians) and the nationalists were tagged as Catholics.
In the rush to report the early struggles of the province, American reporters accepted Britain's superficial and simplistic religious explanations to a very complex problem. The public readership was ill-served by the media's passive journalism. The real problems revolved around political, economic and human rights issues. For example, unionists are not opposed to treating nationalists as equals under the law, providing nationalists accept the law of the land. But unionists see nationalists as supporting the law of the Republic of Ireland rather than that of Northern Ireland. Nationalists, on the other hand, are willing to accept the legal system of the province provided they are given equal opportunity for employment. The human rights of every community needs to be addressed more honestly and forcefully. The political agreement of April 1998 does address these issues.
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