1 00:00:00,360 --> 00:00:07,830 Well, good afternoon, everyone, and thanks for this opportunity to share some thoughts are on my paper's topic Christianity, 2 00:00:07,830 --> 00:00:18,570 peace and conflict in Northern Ireland. And I've subtitled it some lessons from the Irish peace process as the title of today's conference indicates. 3 00:00:18,570 --> 00:00:24,930 And as we heard this morning, peace is a subject worthy of serious academic study. 4 00:00:24,930 --> 00:00:30,960 And this afternoon's panel indicates but it is also appropriate for the serious study of peace 5 00:00:30,960 --> 00:00:37,680 to include a serious study of how religious traditions can shape both peace and conflict. 6 00:00:37,680 --> 00:00:43,680 And this serious study will need to include detailed engagement with religious scriptures, 7 00:00:43,680 --> 00:00:50,220 faith traditions and ethical values that bear directly on conflict, violence and peace. 8 00:00:50,220 --> 00:00:57,600 And, of course, a great deal of important work has been done in this area already and should continue. 9 00:00:57,600 --> 00:01:04,230 However, one of the things that I will be suggesting is that if a study of religion's role 10 00:01:04,230 --> 00:01:10,470 in conflict and peace building is to rise to the full challenge that is being set, 11 00:01:10,470 --> 00:01:17,220 it will need to go beyond these directly relevant question areas and research 12 00:01:17,220 --> 00:01:23,370 and to explore ways that religions can help to generate conflict or support 13 00:01:23,370 --> 00:01:35,760 peacebuilding and reconciliation by means that at first may not be obvious and may require a different set of less direct research questions as well. 14 00:01:35,760 --> 00:01:44,940 What I hope to do in the short presentation is to look at a sequence of three questions that might arise in the state serious study of Christianity, 15 00:01:44,940 --> 00:01:51,120 peace and conflicts in Northern Ireland and which typically do arise in the programme in reconciliation 16 00:01:51,120 --> 00:01:56,670 studies that I teach in Belfast as part of the work of the Irish School of that Chromatics, 17 00:01:56,670 --> 00:02:03,690 Trinity College, Dublin. And I'll be raising these questions primarily in the context of the so-called troubles, 18 00:02:03,690 --> 00:02:13,680 which can be dated differently but would typically be dated something like 1969 to 1998 and their ongoing political and social legacies. 19 00:02:13,680 --> 00:02:23,670 Since the Belfast or Good Friday Agreement of 98. And as any serious studies of this question show, there is, of course, 20 00:02:23,670 --> 00:02:29,070 a much longer historical context to all the issues that I would be talking about. 21 00:02:29,070 --> 00:02:34,500 And these longer historical issues should not be forgotten, though, in a short paper like this. 22 00:02:34,500 --> 00:02:38,820 There's little time to go in, too many of them here. 23 00:02:38,820 --> 00:02:46,590 What I hope to conclude with is just pointing to a couple of lessons that might be taken from the serious study of Christianity, 24 00:02:46,590 --> 00:02:51,390 conflict and peace in Northern Ireland, which might also be relevant to the study of religion, 25 00:02:51,390 --> 00:02:59,280 conflict and peace elsewhere whilst taking on board the warnings to to readily reach out from one conflict. 26 00:02:59,280 --> 00:03:02,400 We have lessons that apply elsewhere. 27 00:03:02,400 --> 00:03:10,080 I should just by way of further introduction, mentioned that in terms of discipline, I come at this with a background in theology. 28 00:03:10,080 --> 00:03:15,810 And as you may well be able to tell from my accent, I come originally from England. 29 00:03:15,810 --> 00:03:25,890 I moved to live and work in Northern Ireland. Eight years ago, my first question, a direct question on this topic might be something like this. 30 00:03:25,890 --> 00:03:32,580 What stance did the churches take on conflict and violence during the troubles? 31 00:03:32,580 --> 00:03:39,650 A reasonable starting point for considering the role of Christianity with regard to the conflict in and about Northern Ireland, 32 00:03:39,650 --> 00:03:41,940 as it sometimes said to be, 33 00:03:41,940 --> 00:03:50,850 might be to look at what Christianity says about violence and conflict more generally, or perhaps more concretely, more empirically. 34 00:03:50,850 --> 00:03:57,480 What stance did the Christian churches take towards and within the conflict? 35 00:03:57,480 --> 00:04:04,250 Questions related to this might include what did the churches say in their teaching and preaching? 36 00:04:04,250 --> 00:04:10,350 What scriptural passages and other faith resources did they draw on and promote? 37 00:04:10,350 --> 00:04:17,550 How did they convey their message that the means and the mechanisms as well as the message itself? 38 00:04:17,550 --> 00:04:24,870 Who did they address it to? What difference does it make to the people they thought they were speaking to? 39 00:04:24,870 --> 00:04:30,990 And what else might be added to this from a wider consideration of Christian views and values? 40 00:04:30,990 --> 00:04:38,460 These are all, it seems to me, very directly relevant questions on the topic and would invariably, 41 00:04:38,460 --> 00:04:42,810 very quickly, when you start exploring them with reference to Northern Ireland, 42 00:04:42,810 --> 00:04:51,210 highlight the complexity of the issues involved and apparent contradictions that arise when looking at Christianity in conflict. 43 00:04:51,210 --> 00:04:54,630 For example, in Northern Ireland, on the one hand, 44 00:04:54,630 --> 00:05:01,890 the churches preached a united and consistent message of non-violence and peace throughout the troubles, 45 00:05:01,890 --> 00:05:09,270 whilst also insisting that the conflict, the armed conflict, was not a religious conflict. 46 00:05:09,270 --> 00:05:15,180 However, despite the church's emphasis on peace and despite a wealth of data pointing to the 47 00:05:15,180 --> 00:05:19,710 relatively high levels of religiosity and church attendance in Northern Ireland, 48 00:05:19,710 --> 00:05:29,490 at least compared to other Western European societies, the violent conflict continued, seemingly unresponsive to the church's voice. 49 00:05:29,490 --> 00:05:38,250 For some observers, this demonstrates the insignificance of religion, or at least the insignificance of the churches in the troubles. 50 00:05:38,250 --> 00:05:46,410 Others might suggest that despite the apparent concern for peace in Christianity and the church's pleas for peace during the troubles. 51 00:05:46,410 --> 00:05:52,170 Christianity also has an unavoidable undercurrent of latent violence. 52 00:05:52,170 --> 00:05:53,310 And in this view, 53 00:05:53,310 --> 00:06:02,720 the eruption of political violence is to be understood as basically consistent with Christian values rather than in opposition to them. 54 00:06:02,720 --> 00:06:09,320 In reply, some more sympathetic to the churches or within the churches have pointed out that dismissing the 55 00:06:09,320 --> 00:06:16,250 church's contributions to peace may underestimate the full effectiveness of the church's teaching. 56 00:06:16,250 --> 00:06:21,410 In this view, whilst church teaching and preaching could not bring the violence to an end, 57 00:06:21,410 --> 00:06:25,760 Christian values and work by the churches played an important role in keeping the 58 00:06:25,760 --> 00:06:31,970 conflict essentially in cheque and helping the communities to step back from the brink. 59 00:06:31,970 --> 00:06:37,520 When political violence could have exploded completely out of control. 60 00:06:37,520 --> 00:06:44,120 Now, whatever might be decided on the effectiveness of the church's response to the conflict, 61 00:06:44,120 --> 00:06:49,460 if the starting point for the study of religion and peace is this type of direct question 62 00:06:49,460 --> 00:06:56,630 or questions related to it about the relationship of religion to conflict and peace, 63 00:06:56,630 --> 00:07:03,500 it's going to be necessary to go on to look at the assumptions that this type of question might make 64 00:07:03,500 --> 00:07:10,370 about the nature of the conflict and the relevance of religion to it in our own work in Belfast. 65 00:07:10,370 --> 00:07:18,110 Assumptions about the religious character of the conflict are often voiced by Christian visitors from other parts of the world. 66 00:07:18,110 --> 00:07:24,770 For example, I remember a Christian student from India who was baffled that two Christian communities, 67 00:07:24,770 --> 00:07:32,990 Catholic and Protestant, should be caught up in such a longstanding and bitter conflict despite a shared Christian faith. 68 00:07:32,990 --> 00:07:41,000 Some European visitors have pointed out at home nobody cares whether I'm Catholic or Protestant. 69 00:07:41,000 --> 00:07:47,420 Others are puzzled by the practical logistics of telling people apart, at least when they are not in church. 70 00:07:47,420 --> 00:07:52,910 As one visitor said, how does anyone know who is who? 71 00:07:52,910 --> 00:07:53,720 In Northern Ireland, 72 00:07:53,720 --> 00:08:03,440 similar issues come up in the church's insistence similar issues about underlying assumptions that the conflict was not a religious conflict, 73 00:08:03,440 --> 00:08:08,270 an insistence that highlights the need to ask other questions as well. 74 00:08:08,270 --> 00:08:17,030 So pushing this on the second question, to what extent were the troubles a religious conflict? 75 00:08:17,030 --> 00:08:23,900 A prominent Republican once remarked to me, this is not a conflict about how we pray. 76 00:08:23,900 --> 00:08:31,670 He was, of course, absolutely right. The troubles were not a religious conflict in any straightforward or causal sense. 77 00:08:31,670 --> 00:08:38,270 Attempts to understand the troubles in terms of religion without primary reference to the economic, political, 78 00:08:38,270 --> 00:08:46,010 colonial, social, historical, national and ethnic dimensions to the violence of Fazli, flawed and incomplete. 79 00:08:46,010 --> 00:08:53,300 However, it would be equally misguided to ignore the historical role of religion as a direct factor in the 80 00:08:53,300 --> 00:09:01,790 conflict or to underestimate its much reduced but still residual role in the recent troubles. 81 00:09:01,790 --> 00:09:08,810 Nonetheless, I am going to be leaving these direct religious aspects of the conflict aside here and simply 82 00:09:08,810 --> 00:09:14,030 note that religion was a much more powerful force in the 16th century than it is now, 83 00:09:14,030 --> 00:09:22,130 and that during the troubles, religion remained a more powerful force in Northern Ireland than in other Western European societies. 84 00:09:22,130 --> 00:09:30,050 Instead, what I want to do is to point to the longstanding an ongoing role of religion, of Christianity in this case, 85 00:09:30,050 --> 00:09:37,160 in maintaining the social divisions that sustained the conflict rather than generated it. 86 00:09:37,160 --> 00:09:45,970 Now, this is a less direct influence of religion on conflict and probably a less obvious question to ask about Christianity and conflict. 87 00:09:45,970 --> 00:09:53,060 But it is an important area to consider for a fuller understanding of the role of religion in the troubles in 88 00:09:53,060 --> 00:10:00,170 Northern Ireland is a deeply divided society in which religious divisions have played a central role in sustaining, 89 00:10:00,170 --> 00:10:05,570 shaping and expressing oppositional identities across society. 90 00:10:05,570 --> 00:10:09,860 Any adequate understanding of its recent conflicts and the prospects of peace 91 00:10:09,860 --> 00:10:13,820 will therefore need to address religious divisions that have proved deep, 92 00:10:13,820 --> 00:10:21,930 powerful and durable over centuries. Whilst the troubles were not primarily about religious divisions between Catholic and Protestant, 93 00:10:21,930 --> 00:10:32,150 the extraordinary social power that these divisions sustained the violence of the troubles and continues to provide a foundation for conflict. 94 00:10:32,150 --> 00:10:39,380 In contrast to other Western societies where Christianity is usually seen as a largely private matter of personal faith. 95 00:10:39,380 --> 00:10:45,830 In Northern Ireland, a person's identity as Catholic or Protestant is not just a personal matter of faith, 96 00:10:45,830 --> 00:10:52,340 but is readily understood as a form of community identity with social and political dimensions. 97 00:10:52,340 --> 00:11:01,790 Northern Ireland is a place where people can say without any conscious irony that they are quote, Protestant, but not Christian. 98 00:11:01,790 --> 00:11:08,690 Or Catholic, but not religious. Which is perhaps more recognisable in other places as well. 99 00:11:08,690 --> 00:11:12,980 The terms Catholic and Protestant are typically understood as shorthand for the wider 100 00:11:12,980 --> 00:11:18,200 social and political divisions between Northern Ireland's main two communities. 101 00:11:18,200 --> 00:11:23,000 The previously dominant Protestant union's majority, which is now in decline, 102 00:11:23,000 --> 00:11:28,460 and the previously subjugated Catholic nationalist minority, which is now on the rise. 103 00:11:28,460 --> 00:11:36,410 And they live uneasily alongside each other on a contested ethnic frontier with a long history of conflict. 104 00:11:36,410 --> 00:11:44,900 For over four centuries, historical forces have welded religious identities to political beliefs and community identities. 105 00:11:44,900 --> 00:11:50,570 And oppositional relationships between Catholics and Protestants remain important. 106 00:11:50,570 --> 00:11:55,670 Even though religious disputes as such are now largely marginal, 107 00:11:55,670 --> 00:12:02,060 Catholics are likely to identify themselves as Irish and support for the nationalist politics of the United Ireland. 108 00:12:02,060 --> 00:12:06,020 Whereas Protestants are likely to identify themselves as British and support for 109 00:12:06,020 --> 00:12:12,230 unionist politics of Northern Ireland's continuing to be part of the United Kingdom. 110 00:12:12,230 --> 00:12:22,790 Referring to these two groups as Protestant and Catholic is therefore both appropriate and inappropriate in terms of the religious connotation. 111 00:12:22,790 --> 00:12:27,320 Whilst it may be misleading in what it suggests about religious identity, 112 00:12:27,320 --> 00:12:33,920 it does indicate something important about communal identity and the role of religion in this. 113 00:12:33,920 --> 00:12:39,560 Religious differences are not merely an epiphenomenal consequence of other, 114 00:12:39,560 --> 00:12:44,900 more important divisions serving as the displaced expression of the real conflict, 115 00:12:44,900 --> 00:12:51,350 so-called real conflict, or simply as ethnic markers for oppositional communities. 116 00:12:51,350 --> 00:12:55,880 Religion just not just mark the boundaries between the two communities. 117 00:12:55,880 --> 00:13:02,960 It is a powerful force in its own right in sustaining the division and enforcing the boundaries. 118 00:13:02,960 --> 00:13:14,390 Now, much more could be said, and I won't be saying it here on exactly how it is that that religion continues to mark these boundaries. 119 00:13:14,390 --> 00:13:24,260 Suffice to say that one's social identity as Catholic or Protestant remains crucially important in everyday life experience. 120 00:13:24,260 --> 00:13:31,700 Whatever one's personal religious beliefs might be, segregation and employment is now much reduced. 121 00:13:31,700 --> 00:13:36,900 But Northern Ireland is deeply divided in terms of housing, in terms of education. 122 00:13:36,900 --> 00:13:47,810 Ninety five percent of schooling is effectively segregated and perhaps most decisively in meaningful social interactions with family and friends. 123 00:13:47,810 --> 00:13:51,920 These remain highly segregated in society. 124 00:13:51,920 --> 00:13:59,780 Even those who wish to avoid for sectarianism that flourishes within these divisions and from these divisions, 125 00:13:59,780 --> 00:14:10,160 it's very hard to escape the social processes by which one is affected by these divisions. 126 00:14:10,160 --> 00:14:13,640 This therefore brings me to my third question. 127 00:14:13,640 --> 00:14:23,000 What positive contribution can the churches and faith based initiatives make to conflict, transformation and peacebuilding? 128 00:14:23,000 --> 00:14:28,220 And here I'm going to try and push on the issues from the more direct questions about 129 00:14:28,220 --> 00:14:38,200 religion and the role it can have to more indirect but still important questions. 130 00:14:38,200 --> 00:14:44,050 Christianity and conflict in Northern Ireland reflects an ambivalence. 131 00:14:44,050 --> 00:14:50,830 It is not just one thing. It it can be different things in different ways. 132 00:14:50,830 --> 00:15:00,340 And what I think is important is to look not just at the way religion contributes to conflicts, 133 00:15:00,340 --> 00:15:07,510 but how it can also contribute to conflict transformation, to reconciliation, to peace building. 134 00:15:07,510 --> 00:15:14,470 But just as I was suggesting not to only focus on the direct relationship between religion and conflicts, 135 00:15:14,470 --> 00:15:18,490 but to look at less direct relationships with things like division. 136 00:15:18,490 --> 00:15:23,320 So when looking at the other side of the process to reconciliation and peace building, 137 00:15:23,320 --> 00:15:30,910 not just to focus on those terms, but to look at the things which might contribute towards them or underpinned them, 138 00:15:30,910 --> 00:15:40,330 and from our own work, I think I would pick out three, which certainly echoes some of what was being said this morning in terms of other contexts. 139 00:15:40,330 --> 00:15:48,430 And the three I would pick out in terms of overcoming the social divisions that underlie conflict would be trust, 140 00:15:48,430 --> 00:15:56,050 vision and a delicate balance between patience and impatience. 141 00:15:56,050 --> 00:16:07,510 Now, none of these three challenges assumes directly religious values, trust, vision and the balance between patience and impatience. 142 00:16:07,510 --> 00:16:12,540 Nor am I suggesting that we should privilege a Christian perspective on the Moorfield. 143 00:16:12,540 --> 00:16:17,950 The Christian faith for the churches have a monopoly of wisdom on these. 144 00:16:17,950 --> 00:16:24,940 But I do think Christian faith, values and theology can offer important contributions on each of them. 145 00:16:24,940 --> 00:16:29,620 And if this task is approached in an imaginative and constructive way, 146 00:16:29,620 --> 00:16:35,410 then there is a real contribution to be made to the serious study of peace here. 147 00:16:35,410 --> 00:16:42,880 The churches should be well-placed to develop and promote new ways of thinking that might shape communal identities 148 00:16:42,880 --> 00:16:52,150 and social lives and help society embrace a new shared future rather than remain locked in a painful past. 149 00:16:52,150 --> 00:17:01,270 Judging by recent events in Northern Ireland, there is still a very long way to go on this, and the churches still have much that they need to do. 150 00:17:01,270 --> 00:17:08,050 I'm thinking here for those of you who saw that, the news coverage of the Eames Bradley report on dealing of the past, 151 00:17:08,050 --> 00:17:13,000 which I think exposed the strong underlying divisions within society, 152 00:17:13,000 --> 00:17:20,470 that that would be an illustration of how far the reconciliation process in Northern Ireland still has to go. 153 00:17:20,470 --> 00:17:30,550 Let me conclude. Typically, the role of religion in conflict and peace is a neglected area in both theology and the social sciences. 154 00:17:30,550 --> 00:17:36,760 One of the important lessons from the conflict in Northern Ireland is the need to take religion seriously 155 00:17:36,760 --> 00:17:44,890 as a factor in conflicts and in strategies to resolve and transform such conflicts within this lesson. 156 00:17:44,890 --> 00:17:54,880 There is another lesson. The range of questions should not be limited to what religion directly teaches on conflict or peace, 157 00:17:54,880 --> 00:18:03,850 or the stance that the churches take directly in relation to conflict or peace or other similarly direct questions like this. 158 00:18:03,850 --> 00:18:08,800 This direct research certainly needs to be done. It's absolutely essential. 159 00:18:08,800 --> 00:18:16,900 But it's also important to look at less obvious areas such as the role of religion in the divisions that underlie conflict 160 00:18:16,900 --> 00:18:25,930 or the role it has or might have in the strengthening of foundations on which a full and lasting peace might be built. 161 00:18:25,930 --> 00:18:27,983 Thank you.