>>Good morning an welcome to Global Perspectives.

I'm David Dumke.

The Troubles in Northern Ireland ended in 1998, officially with the signing of the Good Friday Agreement.

During the course of this conflict in Northern Ireland, 3,500 people were killed and many times that were wounded.

Today we are joined by Debbie Watters, who is the founder and co-director of Northern Ireland Alternatives, which works on restorative justice issues in Belfast.

Thank you for joining us, Debbie.

Tell us a little about restorative justice.

>>Well, David, restorative justice is really a different way of looking at crime and conflict and community.

So rather than seeing an event as rule breaking or breaking rules, it really sees what happened through the lens of hurt and harm.

So who have I hurt?

Who have I harmed?

What is my responsibility to the victim and how can I make things as right as possible?

So through a peacebuilding lens that really is about healing broken relationship and holding people accountable for the hurt and harm that they've caused.

>>Now, Debbie, you you I want to ask you to explain to the audience a little about your own background, and we should also explain a little about the Northern Ireland conflict.

>>Yeah.

>>You had a loyalist tradition, which is primarily Protestant Christians who preferred to stay in the United Kingdom battling the Republican side, which is primarily Catholic, Irish who want to rejoin, wan to join the Republic of Irish.

So you have identity, you have religion, and you have land in dispute.

So tell us a little about your own backgroun and how you got in the sector.

>>Well, I, come from a Protestant tradition.

I would call myself British and Northern Irish.

I grew up in a small village which was 100% Protestant.

So in Northern Ireland to stay safe, people, moved into their own spaces.

And so I grew up in a village that was totally Protestant.

And probably one of the turning points in my life was I went to an integrated school when I was 12.

Integrated in our spac means Catholic and Protestant.

And that reall was quite transformative for me because I was able to put myself in the shoes of the other and begin to see the world through a different lens.

And I suppose that's partly why I'm in this work.

Another reason why I'm i this work was in the early 90s.

I lived just south of Chicago for about five years and actually ended up working in the very first restorative justice program in North America.

And I just knew, David, tha I would have something to offer back in the peacebuilding space in Belfast.

So when I moved home in 1997 I helped to find this charity.

And we've been doing restorative justice in Northern Ireland ever since.

I've visited Northern Ireland Alternatives on a couple of occasions and you get yo gave me very detailed briefings.

I think it's importan for the audience to understand when you talk about loyalist and nationalist, Catholic and Protestant, how you went to a school with Catholics as well as Protestants, and that that was unusual.

Talk a little about how the neighborhoods were, because I know this kind of plays into your work because the neighborhoods kind of police themselves.

>>Yeah.

So I work predominantly in working class Protestant and Loyalist communities, and most of them are in areas that have suffered the most during the conflict and seen a lot of violenc and experienced a lot of trauma.

But what happened during the conflict was the police service was so busy policing the violent conflict that ordinary crime went unaddressed, and so many armed groups or paramilitary organizations bega to police their own communities and the system of informal justice emerged during the 30 years of the conflict.

That goes something like this.

If a young man is involved in anti-social behavior, the local paramilitary group will issue him a warning.

If that doesn't change his behavior, they will beat him.

And if that doesn't change his behavior, they will either shoot him and or expel him from his local community.

And so it's quite archaic, punitive, violent way of controlling people and community.

But most communities began to accept it.

So once the armed groups went on ceasefire in the early 90s, they began to ask themselves, if we're no longer using violence on our enemy, why are we using violenc internally in our own community?

And so in 1997, while the peace talks were ongoing, I began to ask some ex-prisoners, some former combatants, would you not look at restorative justice as a different way of dealing with hurt and harm in your community?

And we began to work together in 1997.

We stepped into that space between the young offender and the armed group, and we began to mediat in that space and take people on a restorative justice journey.

>>How do you how do you measure success of these initiatives and restorative justice?

>>One way of measuring success is statistics.

So the year before Northern Ireland Alternative started, there were 20 punishment beatings in the Shankill community, the first year that we were in existence, there was only one.

So there was a dramatic decreas in violence in that community.

Also, we look at recidivism rates.

So a lot of the young people that we work with, and we take them through a journey of looking at how their actions have hurt their victims, their community and themselves.

That process takes a year.

So we work with the during that year very intensely, and then we monitor their progress six months onwards, 12 months, 18 months.

And so what we know is we have a recidivism rate of about 8 or 9%.

That is incredibly low for these type of young man.

And if a young man goes through our justice system, they are 80% likely to re-offend within a one year period.

So restorative justice, David really turns things on its head because it's asking people to take human accountability.

>>How much is forgiveness an acceptance part of this process?

Because you're talkin about a year of conversations.

We're not talking necessarily about physical injuries we're talking about psychological impact and scars that that remain there.

>>Yeah.

Yeah.

We don't really talk a lot about forgiveness in restorative justice, because we don't want people to feel they have to forgive.

And it's transactiona and we really want to do that.

We want people to feel this in their heart and soul.

So we talk about making things right.

And how can you make things as right as possible with the people that you've hurt?

And also when we're working with the armed groups, we don't talk about forgiveness.

We talk about what is your responsibility to the victim or the victim's family that you've hurt.

And I suppose for some peopl that ends up with forgiveness.

For others it doesn't.

So this isn't something that we want to be transactional.

It's very much about a journey.

And if people want to offer forgiveness at the end of that, then I think that's okay.

But we don't focus on that.

>>So I want to ask a little.

The Troubles ended formally in 1998 with the signing of the Good Friday Agreement, which which was then passed by referendum, both the Republic and then Northern Ireland.

So the people supported it.

So.

So it came into effect after that.

So you're talking about 25 years, more than 25 years beyond.

But you're dealing with a lot of legacy issues still.

Explain some of the legacy issues that you deal with.

>>So I think you've raised a really good point, because once you sign a peace accord, it doesn' mean change happens overnight.

And we know that in Northern Ireland, the legacy of violence the legacy of legacy of trauma, we'll be dealing with it for years to come.

So some of the issues we're dealing with is that the armed groups called ceasefires, they decommissioned their weapons, but they never fully went away.

So one of the legacy issues is that armed groups still have a level of control within their own communities.

Yeah, that's one issue of violence that we're trying to address.

So we're trying to tal to the armed groups about what it would mean if they go through a transition process and no longer exist within their community.

The other legacy issue we're dealing with is trauma, and that's probably one that we didn't think enough about or plan enough for.

Many people now are only beginning to realize that they're traumatized and that they're actuall handing that generational trauma down to their kids and their grandkids.

And that is spilling out in our society particularly, in their most vulnerable and their most socially disadvantaged communities.

So we're trying to work with people and community, number one, to even accept that they have trauma.

And then how do they address that while they still live in the midst of communities that are still experiencing some violence.

Yeah.

And then the other bit of legacy, David, that we we didn't do well on the Good Friday Agreement, none of the politicians could deal with.

How do we address the historic crimes and offenses that have happened?

And so we wrapped it in constructive ambiguity, some grayness to get it over the line and the peace talks.

And now we're still tryin to deal with historical crimes.

A number of years ago, the British government introduced a New Legacy Bill, and we're working that one through.

But we still haven't found a way to deal with historical crimes through the criminal justice system, through a community lens and through a storytelling lens.

And that's probably the biggest piece of wor that we still need to work on.

>>I want to talk a little about the trauma you were just mentioning, because when I mentioned in the introduction, we're talking about, you know, 3,500 were killed and many times that were wounded, of course, in the number of bombings and all these statistics could throw out.

But those are statistics.

You'r dealing with individual stories.

Are there any story?

I'm sure there are plenty of stories you have, but or any stories that stand out to you of, of of individuals that you've worked with that have been more or less success storie and how they dealt with trauma?

>>Yeah.

Well, there's different ways to talk about this.

But, a young man in East Belfast that we worked with, who had been involved in antisocial behavior and criminality.

He had been beaten eight times by a local paramilitary organization and not only suffered the physical scars, as you say, but the emotional and the psychological scars.

And we worked with him for eight years, until he really could begin to accept that he neede to get therapeutic intervention for the first number of years, he wanted revenge on that loyalist paramilitary organization, and he tried to take vengeance into his own hands.

And that did not work well for him.

But we worked with him, and he di get a therapeutic intervention.

And he now volunteers fo Northern Ireland Alternatives.

He's on the volunteer team.

So we were able to work with him over about a period of ten years and help him address the physical scars.

But the emotional and psychological scars.

I have worked with another ex-prisoner, who spent 15 years inside for murder.

When he got out, he found life very, very difficult.

And often the trauma doesn't appear initially.

You get out of prison, you're on a high.

Your family are so happy to have you back, and you don't realize the scars.

That not only-- >>Is the tendency to want to just forget?

>>Forget?

Yeah.

Or some people tend to behave at the age at which they went in.

This young man went in at 17.

So when he got out, he was still quite emotionally immature and just wants to draw a line under it.

Probably after about 5 to 10 years you began to notice the trauma.

And Northern Ireland David is the highest medicated area in Western Europe and that's because of trauma.

So people either self-medicate, through prescription medication or they use alcohol.

And more recently they're using illegal drugs to medicate.

So it's a huge issue for us.

So I would say and looking at other areas of conflict around the world, you need to pay attention to legacy.

You need to pay attention to trauma.

And the other thing you need to pay attention to are the people that feel left behind.

>>You also mentioned, of course, how you deal with some of these crimes in the past, and the victims have to deal with the crimes, but also the perpetrators of those crimes.

What are ways, some of the ways that have been effective in dealing with that and some of that have been ineffective?

>>So for us, restorative justice has been very effective, bringing people into a face to face meeting, using mediation, restorative circles.

Restorative conferencing has been incredibly effective because it tap into the human side of people.

I can remember one young man, before he went in his fac to face meeting with his victim.

He said to me, Debbie, I would have been easier to take the beating because when you're physically hurt, you heal.

When you're entering into face to face meeting with your victim, you're going to have to ask yourself some very hard questions.

You're going to have to take responsibility for the hurt and har that you caused to your victim.

And they get a voice and hey you're going to make it right.

And that isn't easy.

So I think the face to face meeting with the victim is probably the most transformative experience I've seen in the restorative justice journey.

>>Those must be very difficult meetings, though to observe and on both-- >>And facilitate.

>>Yes.

>>Yeah, they can be differen and they're not always low key.

It's okay for people to get emotional.

It's okay for people to be triggered, but hopefully the pre-work that we've done with both the victim and the offender when they come together, they're both in quite a good place.

But we have had people ask to stop.

This is too emotional, and I need to take some time out.

And so they're not easy meetings from that point of view.

And often peopl who often find it very difficult to look their victim in the eye because they feel shame and that doesn't mak them feel good about themselves.

But the one thing, David, that happens, most people who have caused the hurt and harm at the end of the meeting feel very good about themselves because they would say it's the first time in their lives that they ever taken responsibility for the hurt and harm that they've caused.

>>Now, some of these folk that you've you've worked with were young people when they were actually actively engaged in fighting or the victims of these, these crimes.

But but for those who are fighting the battles.

>>Yeah.

>>With malitias.

How do they look at their service today?

Now that you have an agreement in place and things are, at least on the surface, calm, you're still dealing with a lot of issues, but it's a different, different ages.

That conflict in many people's mind is in the past.

>>Yes.

>But it's still lives with these people.

>>Yeah.

>>Do they look at their services as I fought nobly or this is something I regret or how or is it somewhere in between?

>>For a life sentence prisoner who has given up 15 years of their life for a cause.

It's very difficult for them to accept this didn't need to happen.

That's very difficul in their psyche to accept that.

So for many man, they have to believ their service was not in vain.

And for many of them, their service, depending on the lens through which you look at it, got us to a point where we had a Good Friday Agreement and a peace accord.

So it wasn't in vain.

But actually moving forward, we don't need to use violence anymore.

And I think that's the line that the men need to think about.

Draw a line.

And what has gone before.

But moving forward, we need to move forward in a very nonviolent way, and they can be part of that solution.

So part of what we do working with armed groups is we say to them, if you still want to have a purpose in your community, we can give you that.

We can train you in restorative justice.

You can become a youth worker.

There are ways to give back and your previous service was not in vain, but in the peace process.

There are many people that want to shame former paramilitaries.

And I fin we need to let them off the hook in a way that they don't feel shame, and a way that they fee that their actions have not been in vain, and where they hav a positive way to move forward.

That means they're not going to become a splinter group, and we don't need splinter groups.

>>When I ask you because, you know, I know you've also worked with younger people and we're talking about this, an agreement that was made in 1998.

>>Yeah.

>>So you have a generation, if not two generations, that have now grown up since this agreement was actually made.

Do they have a different world view than their parents and their grandparents?

>>I grew up during the troubles.

Yeah.

And, lived through all of that pain and trauma.

My son is 22 years old, and I watched him on a panel a number of weeks ago.

Describe his identity.

And it was the first time I'd ever heard it.

And I actually found it quite emotional because he described himself as an Ulster man.

Northern Irish, British and Irish.

He had four identities.

And growing up, I never felt that privilege was provided for me.

In the midst of the Troubles, your identity was very one dimensional.

My hope and prayer in doing this work is that we can allow those young peopl to be whoever they want to be, that they can defin their identity for themselves.

And so, I find that very touching that a young man of 22 years old who still lives in one of these neighborhoods feels that he has the right and the privilege and the opportunity to define himself through many different lenses.

So one of the things, David, we need to learn is that identity isn't one dimensional.

>>These these, these this generation that includes includes your son, who I've actually seen on a panel and then and did did a wonderful job.

And I know you're a proud mother as well, but I'm talking more about those who are his peers, who also have participated in young leaders programs and these kinds of things.

These will be the folks running for office, presumably for for public office in Northern Ireland soon.

Are you optimistic that they'll be able to find different solutions because of this new outlook, because their identit isn't one dimensional, like like you had to have growing up in The Troubles?

>>Yeah, yeah.

No, I'm very optimisti for the future because I think we have a new generation of young people that really do not want to go back to the bad old days that we were in and they want to find solutions.

They want to work across the divide with nationalist parties, Republican parties, and find a way to build a better Northern Ireland and give people a better quality of life.

My only reservation around that is that we haven't been able to sort, legacy.

And so with legacy, it feels like five steps forward, three steps back.

And that issue keeps pulling us back, keeps pulling our politicians back.

We keep talking about commemorations.

We keep talking about sacrifices.

And those things are not wrong.

But we need to find a way to move forward and not always to be looking backwards.

And so I think the one issue that we continue to nee to pay attention to is, legacy, because it is the one thing that will hold the new generation of politicians back.

>>Dealing with all these issues though, and of course, this is this is a process.

So again, it's as we've already discussed, the peace doesn't end with the signature.

It continues.

But this has been on the whole from the outside looking in a success story.

Have you worked with others to share some of the lessons that you have learned in the course of your work working with with victims, working with people who have been scarred by this, this terrible conflict?

>>Yeah I do think, David, you're right.

The Northern Ireland peace process hasn't been perfect, but it's definitely an imperfect peace.

And it's probably one of the most successful peace agreements across the world ever.

And so we have, lessons to share.

So I've been doing some work on the Middle East.

I've been doing some work around policing and difficult conversations here in the US, and working in other jurisdictions like Colombia, where we can learn from them and they can learn from us.

I suppose some of the key lesson I think that can be learned from our space isn't only what we did right, but also learn from what we did wrong, because that is really good, I think for other spaces and for the Middle East at the moment.

I suppose working with Doctor Gary Mason and Rethinking Conflict, some of the messages that we would send is you can't build a peace proces unless everyone's at the table or everyone has a voice, the people who are left out and the people who are left behind will always come back to destabilize.

So it's much better to have them at the table.

The other issue is pay attention to trauma.

Don't brush it under the carpet, because when you're dealing with traumatized people, they need to address that trauma because before they can make really good decisions.

Yeah.

>>We're running out of time.

But one one final question, based on what you just said.

You know, you don't negotiate with people you trust who are your friends.

You generally go to people you you don't trust.

Who have you been in conflict with.

How do you get the element of hope, though?

>>For us we didn't start out with hope.

As you say, when we were in the darkened rooms, having the difficult conversations.

It was with people that you didn't trust.

But you start small.

You give each other a test, and you wait to see if they've kept their word on that one small thing.

And then you move to the next one, and you move to the next one.

And you gradually begin to build trust.

But you definitely don't start out with trust.

And along the way, I think we had to accept we would get some things wrong.

But as you build a relationship and I think this is where hope comes from, you build relationships with people that you didn't like, people that you didn't agree with.

And when the going gets tough, the relationship stays steadfast.

So my message to others is just very gradually build relationship with your perceived enemy or with the other.

And out of that hope will come.

>>Debbie Watters, thank you so much for joining us today and sharing this.

Really your incredible work.

>>Thank you for having me, David.

>>Keep it up.

>>Thank you.

>>And thank you for joining us.

We'll see you again next week on another episode of Global Perspectives.