(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . A belated look at the Good Friday Peace Accords; The Village, 5/10/23 [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.', 'Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags'] Date: 2023-05-10 Former prime minister Sir Tony Blair and then taoiseach Bertie Ahern sign the Good Friday agreement 25 years ago. This is another one of my diaries where the inspiration came from an interesting place. I’d been following the stories of the 25th anniversary this year. I’ve been genuinely moved knowing that the peace was successfully brokered despited decades of violence that was so deeply rooted in an us/them worldview. I was proud of the huge role the US played in brokering the peace as well...diplomacy is a beautiful art sometimes. However, it was this past Saturday night when I realized it would be a good topic for this week’s diary. We just finished watching the series finale of Derry Girls on Netflix. I’ll try to avoid spoilers, but because we were watching just a couple of weeks after the commemoration of the peace agreement, and the show’s finale included the agreement, I was crying. I think I’ve mentioned before that since Covid my emotions around life and death have been heightened so much that I can be moved to tears more easily in those topics. In short, the Good Friday Peace Agreement, signed April 10, 1998, was actually two agreements. One internal to Northern Ireland political parties, and the other between Northern Ireland and Britain. It formally ended The Troubles as the decades long war was called. The Guardian has a good story on the background to the agreement and the enormous challenge of crafting it. I’ve included a couple of highlights below. Getting Sinn Féin and unionists in the same building was a feat in itself. “The level of hatred was a shock to me,” Ahern recently told Oireachtas TV. “I mean these people had never dealt with each other; they refused to share TV studios, radio studios, that they had no knowledge of each other.” It was a masterclass in constructive ambiguity, allowing all sides to agree to disagree and maintain their opposing goals, albeit through peaceful means. It also set up the process for the later decommissioning of arms and the controversial release of prisoners, including killers of police officers, from prisons as a means of persuading the IRA to swap the Armalite for the ballot box. It was seen as a huge diplomatic feat and the culmination of a week of knife-edge negotiations led by Blair, Ahern and US senator George Mitchell, with Lord Trimble representing the unionists. President Bill Clinton recently wrote an op-ed for The Washington Post about the peace process, the challenges then and what the future looks like. The link I’ve shared above is a gift link, so you can read it regardless of whether you subscribe to WaPo or not. Why has peace in Northern Ireland endured, when other efforts around the world remain stubbornly far from a resolution? I believe the answer lies in the way the peace was made. First, the process was driven by the people. They’d grown weary of the killing and the arbitrary tragedies of nonlethal political violence, and weary of the economic deprivation born of the divisions. Second, the political leaders on all sides showed real courage in making sacrifices and compromises with their adversaries and committing to inclusivity, knowing perfectly well that they were putting their own political futures at risk. Trust was built slowly but surely through years of confidence-building measures, such as prisoner releases and cease-fires. Third, the peace process was successful because the United States was deeply involved in a way that both sides came to see as positive. I believed America could and should play a role in the Northern Ireland peace process — not in spite of, but because of our “special relationship” with the United Kingdom, and because of the large Irish American community that cared deeply about their ancestral homeland. Finally, the peace has held because the framework of the Good Friday Agreement has proved to be fair to all sides and better than any other deal that’s out there. The details, hammered out under the brilliant, patient but determined watch of special envoy George Mitchell, reflected the complex views of both communities, enabling them to trust the agreement to protect their myriad interests. Celebrating peace agreements, in my view, is really important, especially with the state of the world now. The Troubles were an awful way to live for all the peoples of Northern Ireland; and not only because far too many innocent victims were killed and injured during those years. Currently, any divisions in democracies are being amplified by bad actors within democratic states, and foreign bad actors. Because of the risk of division any commemoration or celebration of peace and democracies is vitally important. As Pres. Clinton states in his op-ed, despite that there is no sitting legislative branch right now in Northern Ireland, (thanks a lot Brexit/snark), it’s a question of when, not if, the Stormont will convene again. The celebrations the past few weeks in Northern Ireland were a reassuring reminder that diplomacy can work and violence doesn’t need to be considered as an option. If you’d like to enjoy more on this subject I recommend The Clinton Foundation's page on the subject. His Presidential library also has a large, online section devoted to the agreement as well. I also highly recommend Derry Girls! It’s such a funny show, and although it takes place during The Troubles, that’s not it focus. If you want to go a little deeper, I also highly recommend the book, Say Nothing by Patrick Radden Keefe. It completely changed how I viewed those years. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/5/10/2168196/-A-belated-look-at-the-Good-Friday-Peace-Accords-The-Village-5-10-23 Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/