Fortnight Publications Ltd.

A Strategy for PeaceAuthor(s): Ciaran McKeownSource: Fortnight, No. 140 (Jan. 14, 1977), p. 16Published by: Fortnight Publications Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25546127 .

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16/Fortnight

A STRATEGY FOR

PEACE in which Ciaran McKeown

makes an "objective" assessment.

Since it has only recently been

published, the proposed strategy of the Peace People has not yet been

widely studied and therefore its

implications for present and future institutions have not yet been

seriously considered. Those who have been involved in

community development and other

peace-making groups gave it a

generally enthusiastic reception at the recent "Waging Peace" conference

jointly organised by Corrymeela and Peace Point ?once they understood that the strategy proposed co-opera tion with and not take-over of the

existing groups. The Belfast Telegraph and the Irish

Times both gave favourable editorial to it, the Telly describing it as a bold

and imaginative idea. The leader writers had a distinct advantage over

the politicians, since copies of the

strategy were available to them. Only the Alliance Party resisted the

temptation to comment without first

seeing what it was commenting on, and thus avoided the simple-minded reactions of the other parties which did so.

The reaction was therefore

interesting only insofar as it gave another proof of the level of political debate ?negative, superficial and

even hysterical. It also raised the deep

question of what is meant by "politics".

Most of the anxiety aroused by the

document was based on the belief that the peace movement was "going political" and on the corresponding understanding of politics as "party

politics". Of course, the peace movement

could not suddenly "go political" since it has been extremely political in

the best sense of the word since the

very beginning. From August, the call

has been for citizens to dedicate themselves to working with their

neighbours to build a just and

peaceful society?a totally political aim. It has also called for the

individual and mass rejection of the

techniques of terror in the pursuit of this political aim.

The greatest single difficulty facing the proponents of the strategy is to

get people to understand the

difference between politics and party politica: and upon the success of the

peace leaders in getting this distinction across depends the difference between creating an ideal

democracy which would be an

example to the world, and forcing a second-best arranged solution be tween the parties.

The drive to build community democracy based on the involvement of the citizen from home, through street, area and regional levels may force the parties who have hitherto failed to agree into some kind of a

solution which they would find

preferable to seeing people govern themselves without parties; and, as I

would think, unfortunately, those who see political parties as

"democracy", might opt for the devil

they don't know. The readiness to believe that the

ideal is possible varies widely within

the peace movement itself, from those who are totally dedicated to it, to those who still think that merely

crying "peace" and marching about will end the violence.

As the alternatives become clearer, two things will happen: an increasing number of people will choose to back the strategy completely, and this

group will include former paramili tarists who see violence as

increasingly futile and counterpro ductive from their point of view and

go on to reject it; and those who cannot get out of the party-political

way of thinking and go all out for a

party political solution. In short, a race has begun and it will be a tough

one.

On the side of the parties is the fact that people are used to them, while the developed peace thinking is novel. The party men will therefore find it wasy to smear as "communist" or "anarchist" and some will

unwittingly attack it as being "political".

On the side of the peace drive is the fact that it is new and fresh and comes at a time when the stale

arguments of the parties have bored the population?and failed to

produce a solution. It carries the

prestige of international goodwill and the promise of international support.

And the sheer dedication of its

proponents, many of whom share a

spiritual belief in its Tightness, is also a

potent factor?although this could be

counter-productive if it began to stink of fanaticism or self-righteous exclu-siveness.

The lowest level of achievement that peace workers could agree on is that the Northern Irish people would be reconciled into a self-respecting community. Whether the ideals of the

leadership are attained in some

degree or not, the Strategy's drive will go a long way towards this fundamental reconcilation.

A little analogy from nature might help to illustrate this: it is impossible, normally to get two swarms of bees to stay in the same hive: if however, something, like a newspaper, is

interposed between them, the bees will eat their way through the paper, and by the time they have done so, the swarms become one swarm.

Thus, if the political parties eat their

way through the peace movement, they would find by the time they had absorbed it, that there

' was one

political community! Thus, win or lose overall, the

strategy should achieve one of its fundamental aims. The danger inherent in the party-political result

however is that institutions vulnerable to demagoguery and primitive division would survive. Therefore, those committed to the ideal solution,

while they would ultimately accept the democratic will of the overwhelm

ing majority of the Northern Irish

people, seek a solution which does not leave behind the seeds of possible future division of a violent nature.

The ideal strategy, moreover, would reflect advanced political thinking which sees "neighbourhood politics" as the only way to restrain urban violence by minimising alienation. A world wide development of such "neighbourhood politics", growing contagiously even as

continental organisations like the EEC are strengthened in such a way as to serve even peripheral interests, would be a key factor in demilitarising a very

dangerous world: already, the ideas and techniques of the Peace People are being studied in Rhodesia and South Africa.

This sense of international signifi cance would be an added incentive to

the Peace People, since the Northern Irish people would presumably much

preferred to be regarded positively in

the world rather than continue with the image of primitive seventeenth

century antagonists.

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