9: Dr. Larrry Hufford: The 20th Anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement

Welcome to the One CA Podcast.

Today, we have Dr. Larry Hufford from St. Mary's University of San Antonio, TX, who discusses the current situation in Northern Ireland, why lasting peace is so difficult, and what effect Brexit might have.

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Recorded and edited by Sarah Kelly.  Music "Kowloon Park Singers" by Robert Gilks

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Transcript:

00:00:00    SPEAKER_00
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00:00:29    SPEAKER_02
Ladies and gentlemen, this is Sarah Kelly from the Civil Affairs 450th out of Riverdale, Maryland. Today I would like to introduce to you Dr. Larry Hufford. He is a professor down at St. Mary's University in San Antonio, Texas. Would you like to say hi, Dr. Hufford? Well,

00:00:34    SPEAKER_00
Maryland.

00:00:46    SPEAKER_01
hello to everyone. Would you like to give a little background on just kind of some of the projects that you've been working on?

00:00:47    SPEAKER_02
Would you like to give a little background on just kind of some of the projects that you've been working on? Yeah,

00:00:52    SPEAKER_01
I, of course, got my doctorate from the London School of Economics. years ago during the Cold War. And so what I was studying was pretty much standard classical realist balance of power politics. How the Soviet Union and United States were vis -a -vis one another. My focus has changed in the late 70s and 80s, early 90s. I was very focused in Latin America, specifically Central America, in causes of war and conflict, resolution, reconciliation, and also looking at development in countries like Bangladesh and Haiti and the Altiplano region. in the last 10 to 15 years, I've been involved in looking at citizenship, how one teaches citizenship, how you write curricula for citizenship in post -conflict societies. For example, Bosnia -Herzegovina, where you have three ethnic groups.

00:04:05    SPEAKER_02
I say that's one of the reasons why this podcast today is going to be about Northern Ireland. They are celebrating the 20 -year anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement, and it's an area where the situation still is kind of ongoing. It's not as violent as during the Troubles, but with the dissolution of the government in Belfast about a year ago and with Brexit, this podcast is about what the recovery can be done, because there are still scars that the people have, as well as the future for it, and if true and lasting peace. can be achieved within this generation or perhaps the next? Well,

00:04:10    SPEAKER_01
the 20

00:04:37    SPEAKER_01
that's one of the things we teach in, you know, the graduate program in international relations, that there is conflict management, conflict resolution, conflict reconciliation, and conflict transformation. Conflict management that you saw in Northern Ireland back in 1998. So any party that gets 325 members of parliament has a majority. Theresa May does not have 325 members of parliament. She came up short. She got 300. The Tories got 318 members of parliament. So what they did was form an agreement with the Northern... You know, I want to say that immediately the conservatives in Great Britain are not in a coalition with the DUP. A coalition means that you have different parties agreeing on a joint program, and the cabinet would have ministers from both parties. The DUP did not agree. new elections being called. And what's in it for the DUP? Well, the Tories agreed to give Northern Ireland a billion pounds over the next two years, spend more on state pensions, and maintain defense spending. But the interesting thing, as you pointed out, there's no functioning government in Stormont. You know, it's not functioning. And that broke up. It's been, you know, well over a year that there's been no functioning government in Northern Ireland. And one of the things that has to do is with the Irish language. There were DUP on two occasions changed Irish language to English, and that greatly upset. And the Republicans in, you know, who are Irish and call themselves Irish. And, you know, this gets to another issue. You think, well, language, why is that causing a government not to function? Well, it has to do with identity politics. And, you know, identity is very much a part. What are you? I'm Irish. Irish. You know, in other words, I'm saying, how can you teach? That is actually one of the changes, too,

00:08:38    SPEAKER_02
is actually one of the changes, too, in recent years. Recent polls have noticed that now it seems to be there's a rise in Catholic numbers as opposed to the Protestants, with Catholics making up about 45 % of the population and Protestants at 48. So with those numbers changing, it does really affect on that whole peace process and does come back with that self -identification.

00:09:01    SPEAKER_01
When you have a conflict that has been managed, brought to an end, the fighting brought to an end through conflict management, you have balance of power agreement. And there was a balance of power agreement within Northern Ireland. And one of the problems is that the major Protestant political party, major Catholic political party, have been part of this. government and want to maintain their position. They want to maintain that balance of power. The population shifts. Economic reality shifts. As you pointed out, the Catholic population is growing, but also in former years when there was a real working class, especially shipbuilding and those kinds of manufacturing industries, they were in Protestantism. And the Protestants knew that they had those jobs. They were good jobs. They were union jobs. They had benefits. They had retirement plans. So college wasn't that important to a lot of Protestant youth. Well, those factories are pretty much gone. They've closed. They've left Northern Ireland. And what's coming in are high -tech companies. And they're moving into Catholic areas because the Catholic schools. young people are going to college and universities. And so they have that labor pool. So the economics is shifting. Well, wherever you have economic downturn, you have growing fear in that segment of the population. Now you're finding more and more young Protestants who feel they are the ones who are oppressed. They're the ones who are not getting jobs.

00:11:03    SPEAKER_02
Kind of going with that, you were saying the fear of losing out, essentially, that does kind of tie in a little bit with the past, with what to do with the violence of the past and the trauma with it. Because you have the newer and the younger generations now, and with the children who had grown up through that, there was a come up with a question of what to do to kind of approach the violence, because it seems like the government's there, nobody does want to talk about that. So do you think the victims of violence, because some of them, they just want to know what happened to some of the... family members that had gotten kidnapped or murdered. Do you think that will ever be approached to kind of start the healing process on the violent wounds?

00:11:40    SPEAKER_01
lives from the other side who took innocent lives sometimes they meet and they engage in really hard dialogue and this doesn't happen in an hour it doesn't happen in in one day it's an ongoing process but it does lead to a reconciliation It doesn't happen quickly. And so there has to be incredible patience. Another problem with trying to achieve reconciliation in Northern Ireland is you still have neighborhoods that are over 80%, either Catholic or Protestant. Many are over 90%, either Catholic or Protestant. These are residential neighborhoods. So the schools... homogeneous with regard to Catholicism and Protestantism. They have what's called integrated schools, and they have tried to promote integrated schools. This is where Protestants and Catholic children go to school together. There's perhaps only 20 ,000, 25 ,000 children in Northern Ireland that attend integrated schools. So how do you bring people together? How do you have a

00:13:58    SPEAKER_02
I know one of the things that seems to be coming out is with Brexit, with Northern Ireland, because that was one of the big disputes right now is what to do with the border between Ireland and Northern Ireland there. Many folks don't want any walls coming up, and it seems like the ones in London are kind of saying that they're not going to put up a hard border. How do you think Brexit will play into maybe a greater sense of citizenship within Northern Ireland? Do you think they would want to kind of lean more with the rest of England or maybe more towards Ireland, which is staying within the EU? Once again,

00:14:33    SPEAKER_01
again, that comes down to Protestant, Catholic. The European Union, of course, does not want any change in the current situation. Ireland, the Republic of Ireland, doesn't want any change. The Irish in Northern Ireland would like to preserve the status quo. And Protestants, the DUP, that is saving May's government at the present time, are saying we want no special treatment. We are part of the UK. We are part of our Britishness. And we don't want any special treatment. That would mean a hard border, 300 miles of a hard border. That could lead to renewed violence. There are about 30 ,000 people that cross that seamless border today, every day. And, you know, you don't really recognize you're going from the Republic of Ireland into British -controlled Northern Ireland. You don't really realize that. But a hard border, once again, you go back to the... years of the troubles. And would violence break out? Some of the old IRA people say it probably would break out. So here you have a 300 -mile land border that is perhaps the most problematic issue in Britain leaving the European Union in Brexit. It gives it a future questioning of how that will affect things, and Brexit is going to have a major impact, I think,

00:16:14    SPEAKER_02
gives it a future questioning of how that will affect things, and Brexit is going to have a major impact, I think, on the rest of Europe as well. Most people don't realize... It will have a very major impact.

00:16:22    SPEAKER_01
realize... It will have a very major impact.

00:16:25    SPEAKER_02
They were still talking about how there will need two different currencies now, going from one place to the other with the exit of it, and how it used to be as in the past.

00:16:33    SPEAKER_01
Well, you know, England has maintained its currency. It's still the pound, so it never really went for the euro. So that currency would remain, the pound would remain.

00:16:48    SPEAKER_02
Yeah, definitely. Well, most people don't realize even going across the border there, Northern Ireland has many dairy companies, including Bailey's Irish Coffee. They do about 5 ,000 trips across the borders back and forth every year with their Irish cream, whiskey, milk, and paper products. Most people also don't realize Game of Thrones also is filmed in Northern Ireland. Maybe the answer is to say,

00:16:57    SPEAKER_00
about 5

00:17:06    SPEAKER_01
realize Game

00:17:09    SPEAKER_01
Maybe the answer is to say, look, we've tried politically, economically to bring Protestants and Catholics together. Maybe we should just focus on Irish whiskey. That might be the answer.

00:17:25    SPEAKER_02
It does. It does. Well, is there anything else you can maybe add just for further insight upon the Northern Ireland conflict issue?

00:17:41    SPEAKER_01
formulaic in many senses. Peace building is an art.

00:18:05    SPEAKER_02
I know they were, for some of the conflicts in the world, they were trying to model after the Good Friday Agreement in places like Iraq and other. Well, it does stop the killing.

00:18:13    SPEAKER_01
Well, it does stop the killing. It stops the killing, and it leads to a balance of power. The problem is you're kind of stuck in that balance of power framework for a long time. The Balkans are an example of that. I mean, Bosnia -Herzegovina. is an example of that the dayton accords were conflict management brought an end of the killing balance of power it hasn't resolved the violence is just under the surface could break out at any time in northern ireland hopefully the violence will not break out again but it is not leading to reconciliation in the minds of

00:18:58    SPEAKER_02
Well, thank you very much, Dr. Hufford. Your insight is very valuable, especially in the study of this and with civil affairs and what we do. Conflict resolution is a key part of it and just trying to slow the violence and trying to calm things down a little bit. Thank you.

00:19:01    SPEAKER_01
is very

00:19:14    SPEAKER_01
And how you move from management to resolution to reconciliation. To transformation. Exactly. Huge challenges.

00:19:23    SPEAKER_02
Exactly. Well, thank you very much, Dr. Hufford. Thank you very much. Thank you. Bye.

00:19:26    SPEAKER_01
very much. Thank you. Bye. Bye.

00:19:55    SPEAKER_03
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