Healing

How should people remember the events connected with the conflict in and about Northern Ireland and in so doing, individually and collectively contribute to the healing of the wounds of society? The welcome movement in regards to the restoration of the political institutions, demilitarisation and prisoner releases, all leads to an assumption that the 'conflict' is over. Unfortunately this is not the case. The conflict is very much intact - it is just in a different format. There are the physical manifestations currently, with the events in Ardoyne and Glenbryn, the pipe-bombings and the punishment assaults.

People will remember in different ways - their memories shaped and formed by their political and cultural perspective; how they act upon their memories is also shaped by the opportunities afforded to them, employing the recognised means of the community that they most identify with. This may be in a negative way, nay-saying, hampering and hindering progress, resolutely staying in one-place, unmoved. It could also be acted upon in a positive way, using the events to campaign and promote change in our society, to develop and enrich the entire community of Northern Ireland.

It is felt that the latter is more healing; if one remains stuck in the past with the old certainties, there may be an intrinsic sense of safety in that negative outlook, but ultimately the pain and hurt remain intact, unchallenged and have become festered with age. All the people who have experienced loss in the conflict, will feel cheated, if we don't learn from our shared experiences, if we don't put in place the systems, structures and people which will create a different society.

We are uncomfortable with the use of the term 'victim', it implies defeat and surrender; no-one has been defeated, no-one has surrendered. There are also people who become so comfortable with the clothes of victim-hood, that they cannot move on from that state of being; they may be suffering, but they are comfortable in their suffering, because of the elevated status of the 'victim' in this society. There are also groups who seek to milk and exploit the victim production line, for self-congratulatory and their own self-improvement, usually financial.

There is a danger of a hierarchy of 'victims', people who are deemed to have suffered more; others should be excluded because they were also actors in the conflict. Thus for there to be healing, we have to accept that all have suffered; be it directly to themselves, to their families and other loved ones; indirectly, their lives have been blighted by living in a conflict-ridden society.

What should be remembered?

The tragedy of the conflict is foremost in our minds, but if we concentrate on the dead, that how much time should we allow for the living? What should be remembered is that the whole society suffered, in many different ways, and are still suffering, through grief, ill-health and disability, social and economic disadvantage through loss of opportunity.

A monument needs to mark the loss and the suffering, but it does not need to be made of stone, like many hearts still are. The monument should be the construction of a new society; fairer, where equality and human rights are foremost, this living, organic monument is a fitting form of remembrance we feel.

What form could the remembering take?

We propose that a Memorial Fund be set up, to be employed for the purpose of funding innovative community and voluntary initiatives, which assist in the healing process. This may through community education programs, community health projects, projects which embrace the shared cultural heritage of Northern Ireland.

The Remembrance can provide further impetus to establishing a strong human rights and equality agenda to educate, inform and influence the new nascent society. Let the lessons of history teach us to re-create the place that is Northern Ireland, whether it future lies with the Republic or the British Isles, so that the region becomes one of the leading lights of Europe. A beacon society.

What could be the hurdles to such process?

There are people in this society, who draw unconscious comfort and succour from the status quo; people who afraid to move on to a new future, to a new society. There are institutions which are rigid and inflexible, but hold much sway and influence, who fear that their status would be lost or diminished in this new society, thus cling like limpets to the old.

The schools here are rigid in their demarcation between two identities, they are fierce in wanting to maintain their differences; thus cementing in the walls that divide our people. We have a housing 'policy', which only serves to reinforce to rigid division of the people's; how is their going to be mutual understanding and reconciliation if people never meet? There are people who grow up in one area, they never encounter a person from the 'other side' until they reach adulthood.

What could be the implications and consequences of such processes?

The process of reconciliation and healing is a tortuous and painful one; people will be dissatisfied and will want instant solutions, resolutions and their demanded restitutions. There will be a lack of patience, a lack of will to see the process through, there will be the mutterers and the meddlers on the sidelines, who drip their poison trying to stymie and halt the processes of healing.

The institutions will hold out valiantly and pathetically, in the manner of General Custer, to hold out for their territory, their piece of turf, they will not go quietly.

However, if we are to have a lasting resolution to this conflict, to have a coming together of the peoples of this land, to have reconciliation, then the process has to be entered into, engaged and followed along its natural course.