The Belfast Agreement put forward the ideals of equality, diversity and interdependence, which could provide the framework for a multi-ethnic society, a conference in Dublin has been told.
The whole experience leading to it showed that things could move quickly once people began to think the unthinkable, Prof Mari Fitzduff of the Institute for Conflict Resolution and Ethnicity in Derry, told the conference, "Expanding Nation: towards a multiethnic Ireland" in Trinity College Dublin yesterday.
Globalisation meant power was moving away more and more from the nation-state, and into the hands both of international corporations and international bodies. At the same time there was local fragmentation, with people identifying with smaller nations and local groups.
This was reflected in the growth in Scottish nationalism, for example, which had been very helpful in the Northern Ireland context, she said. These developments raised the whole question of citizenship, what the rights and responsibilities of citizens were, and who could become citizens.
The Belfast Agreement represented a move away from simple definitions of identity. The North's First Minister, Mr David Trimble, had stressed that he wanted "a pluralist Assembly for a pluralist people". That raised questions of practicalities. "How do you validate traditions born out of inequality?" she asked.
However, she said, she was worried about the sectarianism in the Belfast Agreement. "Who will define us? What about those who refuse to be Catholic, Protestant or Other?" she asked.
Referring to the arrival of refugees in Ireland, she said: "Aren't we lucky to live in a country that people want to come to? I remember living in a country that people wanted to leave." We were inevitably moving towards the free flow of people as well as that of goods and of labour. But there was a need to plan for it.
Mr Paul Gillespie, foreign editor of The Irish Times, said that structural changes in international society made it easier to discuss questions of multi-ethnicity and nationhood.
Prof Tariq Modood of the University of Bristol said a major difference had been found between the attitudes of different minority groups in Britain to religion. It was an important part of the self-definition of South Asians, while for Afro-Caribbeans, skin colour was dominant.
A recent survey of aspects of minority cultures and identities there found that an attachment to an ethnic identity did not necessarily conflict with a sense of Britishness. Nor did a strong attachment to ethnic, cultural, family and religious values mean people felt less British, he said. "The survey showed that ethnicity was coming to mean new things. There was a decline in distinctive cultural practices across the generations. The younger people were less likely to speak a South Asian language, attend a place of worship or have an arranged marriage."
Nonetheless, they had a strong association with an ethnic identity, which for some was associated with a Muslim identity, even if they did not practise the religion. "The Muslim religion has become ethnicised."
The general trend in Britain was away from cultural distinctness and towards cultural mixture and intermarriage. Half of all Caribbean men, one-third of Caribbean women and one-fifth of South Asian men had white partners, while only very few South Asian women had white partners. One parent of 40 per cent of Caribbean children living with two parents was white.
This has changed the whole definition of Britishness. "While Pakistanis in Bradford have come to see themselves as British, it is the Irish and Scottish who have difficulty with it. There is a desire for hyphenated Britishness among immigrants and their descendants, while there is a growing multicultural notion of Britishness from the white majority."
Dr Robbie McVeigh of the West Belfast Economic Forum, said that much more academic attention was given to discrimination and literary criticism than to violence. Yet the experience and threat of violence was a fundamental part of the experience of racism.